Martian Terror

A Novelet of Revolution Among the Venusians
Lolan, the Martian Sub-Commander, had no choice. He sorrowed for Princess Mora's beaten, X-ray starved subjects. But when the desperate Venusians raised their empty fists, duty commanded him to cut loose his force-bolts.
Lolan's pen made the only sound in the stuffy barracks room. The words took shape reluctantly beneath the official army letterhead, even as his mind had fought against framing them. He sat alone at his desk, the open window behind him crowding in the dank heat of a Venusian summer night. The collar of his ornate, iridite-crusted uniform was open, but a dark ring of perspiration stained its top.
Lolan laid the pen down and looked at what he had written. His violet-gray eyes became stony. This letter might mean demotion to the ranks, or even court-martial, but the things in him had festered there too long.
Herewith I tender my resignation as Sub-Commander of the Martian Army of Occupation on the planet Venus, he read. If it is the wish of the Council-Royal, I desire immediate transfer to some post on Mars. I can no longer blind my conscience to the brutal treatment Venusians are receiving at the hands of us, their conquerors.
When I accepted this post two years ago, I understood that, under Commander Arzt, I would be endeavoring to control a savage, half-wild people scarcely more intelligent than beasts. I found them gentle, intelligent, cheerful, demanding only the treatment we accord our slaves at home. But do they receive it? No! We dole them food not fit for swine. We work them fifteen hours a day in their own iridite mines, in the sulphur holes, at whatever other work is beneath a Martian soldier. Their population has been reduced twenty percent during the twenty years since Mars conquered them. Disease is prevalent in their poorer quarters—little better than the 'improved' sections—to such an extent that few officers ever venture into these pestilential streets except to put down an occasional uprising.