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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32317-h.zip b/32317-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..342516f --- /dev/null +++ b/32317-h.zip diff --git a/32317-h/32317-h.htm b/32317-h/32317-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8f6f8a --- /dev/null +++ b/32317-h/32317-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2807 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The World with a Thousand Moons, by Edmond Hamilton + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 25%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; font-size:smaller;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft1 { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; + margin-top: 0.2em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The World with a Thousand Moons, by Edmond Hamilton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The World with a Thousand Moons + +Author: Edmond Hamilton + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32317] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="574" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS</h1> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 800px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="800" height="532" alt="The forest was a hell of vicious brutes" title="" /> +<span class="caption">The forest was a hell of vicious brutes</span> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<h2>by EDMOND HAMILTON</h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Grim death was the only romance to be found on this world<br /> +that boasted a thousand moons</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER 1</h2> +<h3>Thrill Cruise</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_l1.jpg" alt="L" width="42" height="50" /></div> +<p>ance Kenniston felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of +the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a +moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling +moons.</p> + +<p>He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one, +for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked +light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac—a +big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other +small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were +ruined!</p> + +<p>A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston's +side. It was Holk Or, the Jovian who had been waiting for him.</p> + +<p>"What luck?" asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper.</p> + +<p>"It's hopeless," Kenniston answered heavily. "There isn't a small +cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small +ships here."</p> + +<p>"The devil!" muttered Holk Or, dismayed. "What are we going to do? Go +on to Earth and get a cruiser there?"</p> + +<p>"We can't do that," Kenniston answered. "You know we've got to get +back to that asteroid within two weeks. We've got to get a ship here."</p> + +<p>Desperation made Kenniston's voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak +with knowledge of disastrous failure.</p> + +<p>The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonslight his +battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across +the busy spaceport.</p> + +<p>"That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing," Holk Or +muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. "It +would hold all the stuff we've got to take; and with robot controls we +two could run it."</p> + +<p>"We haven't a chance to get that craft," Kenniston told him. "I found +out that it's under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who +came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring, +heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party."</p> + +<p>The Jovian swore. "Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids +are using it for thrill-hunting!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston had an idea. "It might be," he said slowly, "that they're +tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think +I'll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl."</p> + +<p>"Sure, let's try it anyway," Holk Or agreed.</p> + +<p>The Earthman looked at him anxiously. "Oughtn't you to keep under +cover, Holk? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long +time. If you happened to be recognized—"</p> + +<p>"Bah, they think I'm dead, don't they?" scoffed the Jovian. "There's +no danger of us getting picked up."</p> + +<p>Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to +waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he +made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city.</p> + +<p>The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a +nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness, +even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only +their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded.</p> + +<p>Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet. +Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough +meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists +gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a +krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol +stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he +and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>he Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the +moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block, +especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was +Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity +were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort +of its patrons.</p> + +<p>Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the +resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth +that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder +atmospheres.</p> + +<p>"Miss Gloria Loring?" repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind +the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston's shabby +space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. "I am afraid—"</p> + +<p>"I'm here to see her on important business, by appointment," Kenniston +snapped.</p> + +<p>The clerk melted at once. "Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring's +party is now in The Bridge. That's our cocktail room—top floor."</p> + +<p>Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with +Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the +shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and +the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance.</p> + +<p>The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than +he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he +had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer +planets.</p> + +<p>It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place +had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of +the navigating bridge of a space-ship. The orchestra played behind a phony +control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts +hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious +sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists.</p> + +<p>"Some crowd!" muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly +dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. "What a place to +loot!"</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the +Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner.</p> + +<p>There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young +Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine, +except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky.</p> + +<p>One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently +uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely.</p> + +<p>"I'm Gloria Loring," she drawled. "What did you want to see me about?"</p> + +<p>She was dark and slim, and surprisingly young. There were almost +childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown. +Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the +bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of +her mouth.</p> + +<p>The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and +terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his +glass with a theatrical gesture of horror.</p> + +<p>"This Martian liquor has got me!" he exclaimed. "I can see a little +green man!"</p> + +<p>Holk Or started wrathfully forward. "Why, that young pup—"</p> + +<p>Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the +table. Some of the girls were giggling.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, Robbie," Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young +comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer +of that small cruiser, the <i>Sunsprite</i>," Kenniston explained. "I need +a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I'd be glad +to pay almost any price for your charter."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>he girl looked at him in astonishment. "Why in the world should I let +you have our cruiser?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston said earnestly, "Your party could travel just as well and a +lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a +life-or-death business for me right now."</p> + +<p>"I'm not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston," drawled Gloria +Loring. "And I certainly don't propose to alter our plans just to help +a stranger out of his difficulties."</p> + +<p>Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly +feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them.</p> + +<p>"Beside that," the girl continued, "we chose the cruiser for this trip +because we wanted to get off the beaten track of liner routes, and see +something new. We're going from here out to Jupiter's moons."</p> + +<p>Kenniston perceived that these bored, spoiled youngsters were out here +hunting for new thrills on the interplanetary frontier. His dislike of +them increased.</p> + +<p>A clean-cut, sober-faced young man who seemed older and more serious +than the rest of the party, was speaking to the heiress.</p> + +<p>"Unhardened space-travellers like us are likely to get hit by +gravitation paralysis out in the outer planets, Gloria," he was saying +to the heiress. "I don't think we ought to go farther out than Mars."</p> + +<p>Gloria looked at him mockingly. "If you're scared, Hugh, why did you +leave your nice safe office on Earth and come along with us?"</p> + +<p>The chubby youth called Robbie laughed loudly. "We all know why Hugh +Murdock came along. It's not thrills he wants—it's you, Gloria."</p> + +<p>They were all ignoring Kenniston now. He felt that he had been +dismissed but he was desperately reluctant to lose his last hope of +getting a ship. Somehow he <i>must</i> get that cruiser!</p> + +<p>A stratagem occurred to him. If these spoiled scions wouldn't give up +their ship, at least he might induce them to go where he wanted.</p> + +<p>Kenniston hesitated. It would mean leading them all into the deadliest +kind of peril. But a man's life depended on it. A man who was worth +all these rich young wastrels put together. He decided to try it.</p> + +<p>"Miss Loring, if it's thrills you're after, maybe I can furnish them," +Kenniston said. "Maybe we can team up on this. How would you like to +go on a voyage after the biggest treasure in the System?"</p> + +<p>"Treasure?" exclaimed the heiress surprisedly. "Where is it?"</p> + +<p>They were all leaning forward, with quick interest. Kenniston saw that +his bait had caught them.</p> + +<p>"You've heard of John Dark, the notorious space-pirate?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Gloria nodded. "Of course. The telenews was full of his exploits until +the Patrol caught and destroyed his ship a few weeks ago."</p> + +<p>Kenniston corrected her. "The Patrol caught up to John Dark's ship in +the asteroid, but didn't completely destroy it. They gunned the pirate +craft to a wreck in a running fight. But Dark's wrecked ship drifted +into a dangerous zone of meteor swarms where they couldn't follow."</p> + +<p>"I remember now—that's what the telenews said," conceded the heiress. +"But Dark and his crew were undoubtedly killed, they said."</p> + +<p>"John Dark," Kenniston went on, "looted scores of ships during his +career. He amassed a hoard of jewels and precious metals. And he kept +it right with him in his ship. That treasure's still in that lost +wreck."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" asked Hugh Murdock bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Because I found the lost wreck of Dark's ship myself," Kenniston +answered. He hated to lie like this, but knew that he had no choice.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>e plunged on. "I'm a meteor-miner by profession. Two weeks ago my +Jovian partner and I were prospecting in the outer asteroid zone in +our little rocket. Our air-tanks got low and to replenish them, we +landed on the asteroid Vesta. That's the big asteroid they call the +World with a Thousand Moons, because it's circled by a swarm of +hundreds of meteors.</p> + +<p>"It's a weird, jungled little world, inhabited by some very queer +forms of life. In landing, my partner and I noticed where some great +object had crashed down into the jungle. We discovered it was the +wreck of John Dark's ship. The wreck had drifted until it crashed on +Vesta, almost completely burying itself in the ground. No one was +alive on it, of course."</p> + +<p>Kenniston concluded. "We knew Dark's treasure must still be in the +buried wreck. But it would take machinery and equipment to dig out the +wreck. So we came here to Mars, intending to get a small cruiser, load +it with the necessary equipment, and go back to Vesta and lift the +treasure. Only we haven't been able to get a ship of any kind."</p> + +<p>He leaned toward the girl. "Here's my proposition, Miss Loring. You +take us and our equipment to Vesta in your cruiser, and we'll share +the treasure with you fifty-fifty. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>The blonde girl beside Gloria uttered a squeal of excitement. "Pirate +treasure! Gloria, let's do it—what a thrill it would be!"</p> + +<p>The others showed equal excitement. The romance of a treasure hunt in +the wild asteroids lured them, rather than the possible rewards.</p> + +<p>"We'd certainly be able to take back a wonderful story to Earth if we +found John Dark's treasure," admitted Gloria, with quick, eager +interest.</p> + +<p>Hugh Murdock was an exception to the general enthusiasm. He asked +Kenniston, "How do you know the treasure's still in the buried wreck?"</p> + +<p>"Because the wreck was still undisturbed," Kenniston answered. "And +because we found these jewels on the body of one of John Dark's crew, +who had been flung clear somehow when the wreck crashed."</p> + +<p>He held out a half-dozen gems he took from his pocket. They were +Saturnian moon-stones, softly shining white jewels whose brilliance +waxed and waned in perfect periodic rhythm.</p> + +<p>"These jewels," Kenniston said, "must have been that pirate's share of +the loot. You can imagine how rich John Dark's own hoard must be."</p> + +<p>The jewels, worth many thousands, swept away the lingering incredulity +of the others as Kenniston had known they would.</p> + +<p>"You're sure no one else knows the wreck is there?" Gloria asked +breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"We kept our find absolutely secret," Kenniston told her. "But since I +can't get a ship any other way, I'm willing to share the hoard with +you. If I wait too long, someone else may find the wreck."</p> + +<p>"I accept your proposition, Mr. Kenniston!" Gloria declared. "We'll +start for Vesta just as soon as you can get the equipment you'll need +loaded on the <i>Sunsprite</i>."</p> + +<p>"Gloria, you're being too hasty," protested Hugh Murdock. "I've heard +of this world with a Thousand Moons. There're stories of queer, +unhuman creatures they call Vestans, who infest that asteroid. The +danger—"</p> + +<p>Gloria impatiently dismissed his objections. "Hugh, if you are going +to start worrying about dangers again, you'd better go back to Earth +and safety."</p> + +<p>Murdock flushed and was silent. Kenniston felt a certain sympathy for +the young businessman. He knew, if these others did not, just how real +was the alien menace of those strange creatures, the Vestans.</p> + +<p>"I'll go right down to the spaceport and see about loading the +equipment aboard your cruiser," Kenniston told the heiress. "You'd +better give me a note to your captain. We ought to be able to start +tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Pirate treasure on an unexplored asteroid!" exulted the enthusiastic +Robbie. "Ho for the World with a Thousand Moons!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston felt guilty when he and Holk Or left the big hotel. These +youngsters, he thought, hadn't the faintest idea of the peril into +which he was leading them. They were as ignorant as babies of the dark +evil and unearthly danger of the interplanetary frontier.</p> + +<p>He hardened himself against the qualms of conscience. There was that +at stake, he told himself fiercely, against which the safety of a lot +of spoiled, rich young people was absolutely nothing.</p> + +<p>Holk Or was chuckling as they emerged into the chill Martian night. He +told Kenniston admiringly, "That was one of the smoothest jobs of +lying I ever heard, that story about finding John Dark's treasure. +Take it from me, it was slick!"</p> + +<p>The Jovian guffawed loudly as he added, "What would their faces be +like if they knew that John Dark and his crew are still living? That +it was John Dark himself who sent us here?"</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, you idiot!" ordered Kenniston hastily. "Do you want the +whole Patrol to hear you?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>Discovered</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>he <i>Sunsprite</i> throbbed steadily through the vast, dangerous +wilderness of the asteroidal zone. To the eye, the cruiser moved in a +black void starred by creeping crumbs of light. In reality those +bright, crawling specks were booming asteroids or whirling +meteor-swarms rushing in complicated, unchartable orbits and +constantly threatening destruction.</p> + +<p>For three days now, the cruiser had cautiously groped deeper into this +most perilous region of the System. Now a bright, tiny disk of white +light was shining far ahead like a beckoning beacon. It was the +asteroid Vesta—their goal.</p> + +<p>Kenniston, leaning against the glassite deck-wall, somberly eyed the +distant asteroid.</p> + +<p>"We'll reach it by tomorrow," he thought. "Then what? I suppose John +Dark will hold these rich youngsters for ransom."</p> + +<p>Kenniston knew that the pirate leader would instantly see the chance +of extorting vast sums by holding this group of wealthy young people +as captives.</p> + +<p>"I wish to God I hadn't had to bring them into this," Kenniston +sweated. "But what else could I do? It was the only way I could get +back to Vesta with the materials."</p> + +<p>His mind was going back over the disastrous events since the day three +weeks before, when the Patrol had caught up to John Dark at last.</p> + +<p>Dark's pirate ship, the <i>Falcon</i>, had been gunned to a helpless wreck. +It had, fortunately for the pirates, drifted off into a region of +perilous meteor-swarms where the Patrol cruisers dared not follow. The +Patrol thought everybody on the pirate ship dead anyway, Kenniston +knew.</p> + +<p>But John Dark and most of his crew were still alive in the drifting +wreck. They had fought the battle wearing space-suits, and that had +saved them. They had clung grimly to the wreck as it drifted on and on +until it finally fell into the feeble gravitational pull of Vesta.</p> + +<p>Kenniston could still remember those tense hours when the wreck had +fallen through the satellite swarm of meteors onto the World with a +Thousand Moons. They had managed to cushion their crash. John Dark, +always the most resourceful of men, had managed to jury-rig makeshift +rocket-tubes that had softened the impact of their fall.</p> + +<p>But the wrecked <i>Falcon</i> had been marooned there in the weird +asteroidal jungle, with the alien, menacing Vestans already gathering +around it. The ship would never fly space again until major repairs +were made. And they could not be made until quantities of material and +equipment were brought. Someone must go for those materials to Mars, +the nearest planet.</p> + +<p>John Dark had superintended construction of a little two-man rocket +from parts of the ship. Kenniston and Holk Or were to go in it.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> be back with that list of equipment and materials within +two weeks, Kenniston," Dark had emphasized. "If we stay castaway here +longer than that, either the Vestans will get us or the Patrol +discover us."</p> + +<p>The pirate leader had added, "The moon-jewels I've given you will more +than pay for a small cruiser, if you can buy one at Mars. If you can't +buy one, get one any way you can—but get back here quickly!"</p> + +<p>Well, Kenniston thought grimly, he had got a cruiser in the only way +he could. Down in its hold were the berylloy plates and spare +rocket-tubes and new cyclotrons he had had loaded aboard at Syrtis.</p> + +<p>But he was also bringing back to Vesta with him a bunch of +thrill-seeking, rich, young people who believed they were going on a +romantic treasure-hunt. What would they think of him when they +discovered how he had betrayed them?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft1"><img src="images/image_t1.jpg" alt="T" width="45" height="40" /></div> + +<p>hat's Vesta, isn't it?" spoke a girl's eager voice behind him, +interrupting his dark thoughts.</p> + +<p>Kenniston turned quickly. It was Gloria Loring, boyish in silken +space-slacks, her hands thrust into the pockets.</p> + +<p>There was a naive eagerness in her clear, lovely face as she looked +toward the distant asteroid, that made her look more like an excited +small girl than like the bored, jewelled heiress of that night at +Syrtis.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's the World with a Thousand Moons," Kenniston nodded. +"We'll reach it by tomorrow. I've just been up on the bridge, telling +your Captain Walls the safest route through the meteor swarms."</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes studied him curiously. "You've been out here on the +frontier a long time, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Twelve years," he told her. "That's a long time in the outer planets. +Most space-men don't last that long out here—wrecks, accidents or +gravitation-paralysis gets them."</p> + +<p>"Gravitation-paralysis?" she repeated. "I've heard of that as a +terrible danger to space-travelers. But I don't really know what it +is."</p> + +<p>"It's the most dreaded danger of all out here," Kenniston answered. "A +paralysis that hits you when you change from very weak to very strong +gravities or vice versa, too often. It locks all your muscles rigid by +numbing the motor-nerves."</p> + +<p>Gloria shivered. "That sounds ghastly."</p> + +<p>"It is," Kenniston said somberly. "I've seen scores of my friends +stricken down by it, in the years I've sailed the outer System."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you'd been a space-sailor all that time," the heiress +said wonderingly. "I thought you said you were a meteor-miner."</p> + +<p>Kenniston woke up to the fact that he had made a bad slip. He hastily +covered up. "You have to be a good bit of a space-sailor to be a +meteor-miner, Miss Loring. You have to cover a lot of territory."</p> + +<p>He was thankful that they were interrupted at that moment by some of +the others who came along the deck in a lively, chattering group.</p> + +<p>Robbie Boone was the center of the group. That chubby, clownish young +man, heir to the Atomic Power Corporation millions, had garbed himself +in what he fondly believed to be a typical space-man's outfit. His +jacket and slacks were of black synthesilk, and he wore a big +atom-pistol.</p> + +<p>"Hiya, pal!" he grinned cherubically at Kenniston. "When does this +here crate of ours jet down at Vesta?"</p> + +<p>"If you knew how silly you looked, Robbie," said Gloria devastatingly, +"trying to dress and talk like an old space-man."</p> + +<p>"You're just jealous," Robbie defied. "I look all right, don't I, +Kenniston?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston's lips twitched. "You'd certainly create a sensation if you +walked into the Spaceman's Rendezvous in Jovopolis."</p> + +<p>Alice Krim, a featherheaded little blonde, eyed Kenniston admiringly. +"You've been to an awful lot of planets, haven't you?" she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Turn it off, Alice," said Gloria dryly. "Mr. Kenniston doesn't +flirt."</p> + +<p>Arthur Lanning, the sulky, handsome youngster who always had a drink +in his hand, drawled. "Then you've tried him out, Gloria?"</p> + +<p>The heiress' dark eyes snapped, but she was spared a reply by the +appearance of Mrs. Milsom. That dumpy, fluttery woman, the nominal +chaperone of the group, immediately seized upon Kenniston as usual.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Kenniston, are you sure this asteroid we're going to is safe?" +she asked him for the hundredth time. "Is there a good hotel there?"</p> + +<p>"A good hotel there?" Kenniston was too astounded to answer, for a +moment.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div> +<p>nto his mind had risen memory of the savage, choking green jungles of +the World with a Thousand Moons; of the slithering creatures slipping +through the fronds, of the rustling presence of the dreaded Vestans +who could never quite be seen; of the pirate wreck around which John +Dark and half a hundred of the System's most hardened outlaws waited.</p> + +<p>"Of course there's no hotel there, Aunty," Gloria said disgustedly. +"Can't you understand that this asteroid's almost unexplored?"</p> + +<p>Holk Or had come up, and the big Jovian had heard. He broke into a +booming laugh. "A hotel on Vesta! That's a good one!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston flashed the big green pirate a warning glance. Robbie Boone +was asking him, "Will there be any good hunting there?"</p> + +<p>"Sure there will," Holk Or declared. His small eyes gleamed with +secret humor. "You're going to find lots of adventure there, my lad."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Milsom had dragged the others away for the usual afternoon +game of "dimension bridge," the Jovian looked after them, chuckling.</p> + +<p>"This crowd of idiots hadn't ought to have ever left Earth. What a +surprise they're going to get on Vesta!"</p> + +<p>"They're not such a bad bunch, at bottom," Kenniston said +halfheartedly. "Just a lot of ignorant kids looking for adventure."</p> + +<p>"Bah, you're falling for the Loring girl," scoffed Holk Or. "You'd +better keep your mind on John Dark's orders."</p> + +<p>Kenniston made a warning gesture. "Cut it! Here comes Murdock."</p> + +<p>Hugh Murdock came straight along the deck toward them, and his sober, +clean-cut young face wore a puzzled look as he halted before them.</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, there's something about this I can't understand," he +declared.</p> + +<p>"Yes? What's that?" returned Kenniston guardedly.</p> + +<p>He was very much on the alert. Murdock was not a heedless, gullible +youngster like the others. He was, Kenniston had learned, an already +important official in the Loring Radium company.</p> + +<p>From the chaffing the others gave Murdock, it was evident that the +young business man had joined the party only because he was in love +with Gloria. There was something likeable about the dogged devotion of +the sober young man. His very obvious determination to protect +Gloria's safety, and his intelligence, made him dangerous in +Kenniston's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was down in the hold looking over the equipment you loaded," Hugh +Murdock was saying. "You know, the stuff we're to use to dig out the +wreck of Dark's ship. And I can't understand it—there's no digging +machinery, but simply a lot of cyclotrons, rocket-tubes and spare +plates."</p> + +<p>Kenniston smiled to cover the alarm he felt. "Don't worry, Murdock, I +loaded just the equipment we'll need. You'll see when we reach Vesta."</p> + +<p>Murdock persisted. "But I still don't see how that stuff is going to +help. It's more like ship-repair stores than anything else."</p> + +<p>Kenniston lied hastily. "The cycs are for power-supply, and the +rocket-tubes and plates are to build a heavy duty power-hoist to jack +the wreck out of the mud. Holk Or and I have got that all figured +out."</p> + +<p>Murdock frowned as though still unconvinced, but dropped the subject. +When he had gone off to join the others, Holk Or glared after him.</p> + +<p>"That fellow's too smart for his own good," muttered the Jovian. "He's +suspicious. Maybe I'd better see that he meets with an accident."</p> + +<p>"No, let him alone," warned Kenniston. "If anything happened to him +now, the others would want to turn back. And we're almost to Vesta +now."</p> + +<p>But worry remained as a shadow in the back of Kenniston's own mind. It +still oppressed him hours later when the arbitrary ship's-time had +brought the 'night.' Sitting down in the luxurious passenger-cabin +over highballs with the others, he wondered where Hugh Murdock was.</p> + +<p>The rest of Gloria's party were all here, listening with fascinated +interest to Holk Or's colorful yarns of adventures on the wild +asteroids. But Murdock was missing. Kenniston wondered worriedly if +the fellow was looking over that equipment in the hold again.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p> young Earth space-man—one of the <i>Sunsprite's</i> small crew—came +into the cabin and approached Kenniston.</p> + +<p>"Captain Walls' compliments, sir, and would you come up to the bridge? +He'd like your advice about the course again."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you," Gloria said as Kenniston rose. "I like it up in +the bridge best of any place on the ship."</p> + +<p>As they climbed past the little telaudio transmitter-room, they saw +Hugh Murdock standing in there by the operator. He smiled at Gloria.</p> + +<p>"I've been trying to get some messages through to Earth, but it seems +we're almost out of range," he said ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Can't you ever forget business, Hugh?" the girl said exasperatedly. +"You're about as adventurous as a fat radium-broker of fifty."</p> + +<p>Kenniston, however, felt relieved that Murdock had apparently +forgotten about the oddness of the equipment below. His spirits were +lighter when they entered the glassite-enclosed bridge.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls turned from where he stood beside Bray, the chief pilot. +The plump, cheerful master touched his cap to Gloria Loring.</p> + +<p>"Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Kenniston," he apologized. "But we're +getting pretty near Vesta, and you know this devilish region of space +better than I do. The charts are so vague they're useless."</p> + +<p>Kenniston glanced at the instrument-panel with a practiced eye and +then squinted at the void ahead. The <i>Sunsprite</i> was now throbbing +steadily through a starry immensity whose hosts of glittering points +of light would have made a bewildering panorama to laymen's eyes.</p> + +<p>They seemed near none of those blazing sparks. Yet every few minutes, +red lights blinked and buzzers sounded on the instrument panel. At +each such warning of the meteorometers, the pilot glanced quickly at +their direction-dials and then touched the rocket-throttles to change +course slightly. The cruiser was threading a way through unseen but +highly perilous swarms of rushing meteors and scores of thundering +asteroids.</p> + +<p>Vesta was now a bright, pale-green disk like a little moon. It was not +directly ahead, but lay well to the left. The cruiser was following an +indirect course that had been laid to detour it well around one of the +bigger meteor-swarms that was spinning rapidly toward Mars.</p> + +<p>"What about it, Mr. Kenniston—is it safe to turn toward Vesta now?" +Captain Walls asked anxiously. "The chart doesn't show any more swarms +that should be in this region now, by my calculations."</p> + +<p>Kenniston snorted. "Charts are all made by planet-lubbers. There's a +small swarm that tags after that big No. 480 mess we just detoured +around. Let me have the 'scopes and I'll try to locate it."</p> + +<p>Using the meteorscopes whose sensitive electromagnetic beams could +probe far out through space, to be reflected by any matter, Kenniston +searched carefully. He finally straightened from the task.</p> + +<p>"It's all right—the tag-swarm is on the far side of No. 480," he +reported. "It should be safe to blast straight toward Vesta now."</p> + +<p>The captain's anxiety was only partly assuaged. "But when we reach the +asteroid, what then? How do we get through the satellite-swarm around +it?"</p> + +<p>"I can pilot you through that," Kenniston assured him. "There's a +periodic break in that swarm, due to gravitational perturbations of +the spinning meteor-moons. I know how to find it."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll wake you up early tomorrow 'morning' before we reach +Vesta," vowed Captain Walls. "I've no hankering to run that swarm +myself."</p> + +<p>"We'll be there in the morning?" exclaimed Gloria with eager delight. +"How long then will it take us to find the pirate wreck?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston uncomfortably evaded the question. "I don't know—it +shouldn't take long. We can land in the jungle near the wreck."</p> + +<p>His feeling of guilt was increased by her enthusiastic excitement. If +she and the others only knew what the morrow was to bring them!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>e did not feel like facing the rest of them now, and lingered on the +dark deck when they went back down from the bridge. Gloria remained +beside him instead of going on to the cabin.</p> + +<p>She stood, with the starlight from the transparent deck-wall falling +upon her youthful face as she looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> a moody creature, you know," she told Kenniston lightly. +"Sometimes you're almost human—then you get all dark and grim again."</p> + +<p>Kenniston grinned despite himself. Her voice came in mock surprise. +"Why, it can actually smile! I can't believe my eyes."</p> + +<p>Her clear young face was provocatively close, the faint perfume of her +dark hair in his nostrils. He knew that she was deliberately flirting +with him, perhaps mostly out of curiosity.</p> + +<p>She expected him to kiss her, he knew. Damn it, he <i>would</i> kiss her! +He did so, half ironically. But the ironic amusement faded out of his +mind somehow at the oddly shy contact of her soft lips.</p> + +<p>"Why, you're just a kid," he muttered. "A little kid masquerading as a +bored, sophisticated young lady."</p> + +<p>Gloria stiffened with anger. "Don't be silly! I've kissed men before. +I just wanted to find out what you were really like."</p> + +<p>"Well, what did you find out?"</p> + +<p>Her voice softened. "I found out that you're not as grim as you look. +I think you're just lonely."</p> + +<p>The truth of that made Kenniston wince. Yes, he was lonely enough, he +thought somberly. All his old space-mates, passing one by one—</p> + +<p>"Don't you have anyone?" Gloria was asking him wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"No family, except my kid brother Ricky," he answered heavily. "And +most of my old space-partners are either dead or else worse—lying in +the grip of gravitation-paralysis."</p> + +<p>Memory of those old partners re-established Kenniston's wavering +resolution. He mustn't let them down! He must go through with +delivering this cruiser's cargo to John Dark, no matter what the +consequences.</p> + +<p>He thrust the girl almost roughly from him. "It's getting late. You'd +better turn in like the others."</p> + +<p>But later, in his bunk in the little cabin he shared with Holk Or, +Kenniston found memory of Gloria a barrier to sleep. The shy touch of +her lips refused to be forgotten. What would she think of him by +tomorrow?</p> + +<p>He slept, finally. When he awakened, it was to realization that +someone had just sharply spoken his name. He knew drowsily it was +'morning' and thought at first that Captain Walls had sent someone to +awaken him.</p> + +<p>Then he stiffened as he saw who had awakened him. It was Hugh Murdock. +The young businessman's sober face was grim now, and he stood in the +doorway of the cabin with a heavy atom-pistol in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Get up and dress, Kenniston," Murdock said sternly. "And wake up your +fellow-pirate, too. If you make a wrong move I'll kill you both."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>Through the Meteor-Moons</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston went cold with dismay. He told himself numbly that it was +impossible Hugh Murdock could have discovered the truth. But the grim +expression on Murdock's face and the naked hate in his eyes were +explainable on no other grounds.</p> + +<p>The young businessman's finger was tense on the trigger of the +atom-pistol. Resistance would be senseless. Mechanically, Kenniston +slipped from his bunk and threw on his slacks and space-jacket. Holk +Or was doing the same, the big Jovian's battered green face almost +ludicrous in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Now perhaps you'll tell us what this means," Kenniston said harshly, +his mind racing. "Have you lost your senses?"</p> + +<p>"I've just come to them, Kenniston," rapped Murdock. "What fools we +all were, not to guess that you two belong to Dark's pirates!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston's lips tightened. It was clear now that Murdock had actually +discovered something. From Holk Or came an angry roar.</p> + +<p>"Devils of Pluto, I'm no pirate!" the big Jovian lied magnificently. +"Whatever gave you this crazy idea?"</p> + +<p>Murdock's hard face did not relax. He waved the atom-pistol. "Go into +the main cabin," he ordered. "Walk ahead of me."</p> + +<p>Helplessly, Kenniston and Holk Or obeyed. His mind was desperate as he +shouldered down the corridor. The throbbing of the rockets told him +the <i>Sunsprite</i> was still forging through the void. They must be very +near Vesta by now—and now this had to happen!</p> + +<p>The others had been awakened by the uproar and streamed into the main +cabin after Murdock and his two prisoners. Kenniston glimpsed Gloria, +slim in a silken negligee, her dark eyes round with amazement.</p> + +<p>"Hugh, have you gone crazy?" she exclaimed stupefiedly.</p> + +<p>Murdock answered without looking toward her. "I've found out the +truth, Gloria. These men belong to John Dark's crew. They were taking +us into a trap."</p> + +<p>"Holy smoke!" gasped Robbie Boone, his jaw sagging as the chubby youth +stared at Kenniston and Holk Or. "They're pirates?"</p> + +<p>"I think you must be losing your mind!" Gloria stormed at Hugh +Murdock. "This is ridiculous."</p> + +<p>Holk Or yawned elaborately. "Space-sickness hits people in queer ways, +Miss Loring," the Jovian told Gloria confidentially. "Some it just +makes sick, but others it makes delirious."</p> + +<p>"I'm not delirious, and you two know it," Murdock retorted grimly. He +spoke to Gloria and the others, without taking his eyes or the muzzle +of his pistol off his two captives.</p> + +<p>"I thought from the first that this Kenniston's story of finding the +wreck of Dark's ship on Vesta was a thin one," Murdock declared. "And +yesterday my suspicions were increased when I went down and looked +over the cargo of equipment they brought. It's not equipment to dig +out a buried wreck. It's equipment to <i>repair</i> a damaged ship—John +Dark's ship!</p> + +<p>"Suspecting that, last 'night' I sent a telaudiogram to Patrol +headquarters at Earth. I gave full descriptions of Kenniston and this +Jovian and inquired if they had criminal records. An answer came +through an hour ago. This fellow Holk Or has a record of criminal +piracy as long as your arm, and was definitely known to be one of John +Dark's crew!"</p> + +<p>There was an incredulous gasp from the others. Murdock still grimly +watched Kenniston and the Jovian as he concluded.</p> + +<p>"The Patrol hasn't yet sent through Kenniston's record, but it's +obvious enough that he's one of Dark's men too, and that his story +that he and the Jovian are meteor-miners is a flat lie."</p> + +<p>"I can't understand this," muttered young Arthur Lanning, staring. "If +they're Dark's men, why should they induce us to go to Vesta?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you see?" said Hugh Murdock. "John Dark's ship did crash on +Vesta after being wrecked—that must be true enough. But Dark and his +pirates weren't dead as the Patrol thought. They had to have machines +and material to repair their ship. So Dark sent these two men to Mars +for the materials. The two couldn't get a ship there any other way, so +they made use of our cruiser by selling us that treasure yarn!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston winced. He knew now that he had underestimated Murdock, who +had put together the evidence quickly when his suspicions were roused.</p> + +<p>Gloria Loring, looking at Kenniston with wide dark eyes, saw the +change in his expression. Into her white face came an incredulous +loathing.</p> + +<p>"Then it's true," she whispered. "You did that—you deliberately +planned to lead us all into capture?"</p> + +<p>"Aw, you're all space-struck," growled Holk Or, bluffing to the last.</p> + +<p>Murdock spoke over his shoulder. "Call Captain Walls, Robbie."</p> + +<p>"No need to—here he comes now!" yelped the excited youth.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls, entering the cabin in urgent haste, had eyes only for +Kenniston in the first moment.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there you are, Mr. Kenniston!" the captain exclaimed relievedly. +"I was just coming for you. We've reached Vesta! I've ordered the +pilot to slow down, for I want you to pilot us through the swarm—"</p> + +<p>The captain's voice trailed off. His eyes bulged as for the first time +he perceived that Murdock was covering the two men with a gun.</p> + +<p>"We're not going in to Vesta, captain," rapped Murdock. "John Dark and +his pirates are on the asteroid—<i>alive</i>!"</p> + +<p>Captain Walls' plump face went waxy as he heard the name of the most +dreaded corsair of the System.</p> + +<p>"Dark—living?" he stuttered. "Good God, you must be joking!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Milsom, her dumpy figure shivering and her teeth chattering with +terror, pointed a finger at Kenniston and the Jovian.</p> + +<p>"They're two of the pirates!" she shrilled. "They might have murdered +us all in our beds! I knew this would happen when we left Earth—"</p> + +<p>Kenniston's mind was seething with despair as he stood there with +hands upraised. His whole desperate plan was ruined at this last +moment.</p> + +<p>He wouldn't <i>let</i> it be ruined! He would get this cargo of machines +and materials to John Dark if it meant his life!</p> + +<p>"Turn back at once toward Mars, captain," Gloria was saying quietly to +the stunned officer. Her face was still very pale.</p> + +<p>Kenniston, standing tense, had had an idea. A desperate chance to make +a break, in the face of Murdock's atom-gun.</p> + +<p>The captain had said that he had just ordered the pilot to slow down +the <i>Sunsprite</i>. In a moment would come the shock of the braking +rocket-tubes firing from the bows—</p> + +<p>That shock came an instant after the wild expedient flashed across +Kenniston's mind. It was only a jarring vibration through the fabric +of the ship, for the pilot knew his business.</p> + +<p>It staggered them all on their feet, for just a moment. But Kenniston +had been waiting for that moment. As Hugh Murdock moved his gun-arm +involuntarily to balance himself, Kenniston lunged forward.</p> + +<p>"The bridge, Holk!" he yelled as he hurled himself.</p> + +<p>Kenniston's shoulder hit the captain and sent him caroming into +Murdock. The two men sprawled on the floor.</p> + +<p>Holk Or, with instant understanding, already had the door of the cabin +open. They plunged out into the corridor together.</p> + +<p>"Our only chance is to make the bridge and grab the controls!" +Kenniston cried as they raced down the corridor. "We can keep them +long enough to land on Vesta—"</p> + +<p>Hiss—<i>flash!</i> The crackling blast of the atom-gun tore into the lower +steps of the ladder up which he and the Jovian frantically climbed. +Murdock was running after them as he fired, and there were shouts of +alarm.</p> + +<p>Kenniston and Holk Or burst into the glassite-walled bridge. Bray, the +pilot, turned for a startled moment from his rocket-throttles.</p> + +<p>Beyond the pilot, the transparent front wall framed a square of black +space in which bulked the monstrous sphere of the nearby asteroid.</p> + +<p>The World with a Thousand Moons! It loomed up only a few hundred miles +away, a big, pale-green sphere encircled by the vast globular swarm of +hundreds on hundreds of gleaming little meteor-satellites.</p> + +<p>"Why—what—" stammered the pilot, bewildered.</p> + +<p>Kenniston's fist caught his chin, and the man sagged to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Bar the door, Holk!" yelled Kenniston as he leaped toward the +rocket-throttles.</p> + +<p>"Hell, there's only a catch!" swore the Jovian. He braced his brawny +shoulders against the metal door. "I can hold it a little while."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston's hands were flashing over the throttles. The <i>Sunsprite</i> +was moving at reduced speed toward the meteor-enclosed asteroid.</p> + +<p>The cruiser shook to the bursting roar of power, as he opened up all +the tail rockets. It plunged visibly faster toward the deadly swarm +around Vesta, picking up speed by the minute.</p> + +<p>Rocking, creaking, quivering to the dangerous rate of acceleration +Kenniston was maintaining, the little ship rushed ahead. But now there +was loud hammering at the bridge-room door.</p> + +<p>"Open up or we'll burn that door down!" came Captain Walls' yell.</p> + +<p>Kenniston didn't turn. Hunched over the throttles, peering tensely +ahead, he was tautly estimating speed and direction. His eyes searched +frantically for the periodic break in the outer meteors.</p> + +<p>There was a muffled crackling and the smell of scorched metal flooded +the bridge-room. A hoarse exclamation of pain came from Holk Or.</p> + +<p>"They got my arm through the door, damn them!" cursed the Jovian. +"Hurry, Kenniston!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston was driving the <i>Sunsprite</i> full speed toward the whirling +cloud of meteors around the asteroid. He had spotted the break in the +cloud, the periodic opening caused by the gravitational influence of +another nearby asteroid.</p> + +<p>It was not a real opening. It was merely a small area in the swarm +where the rushing meteors were not so thick, and where a ship had a +chance to worm through by careful piloting.</p> + +<p>Kenniston only remotely heard the struggle that Holk Or was putting up +to hold the door against the hammering crowd outside. His mind was +wholly intent on the desperately ticklish piloting at hand.</p> + +<p>He cut speed and eased the <i>Sunsprite</i> down into that thinner area of +the meteor-swarm. Space around them now seemed buzzing with rushing, +brilliant little moons.</p> + +<p>The meteorometers had gone crazy, blinking and buzzing unceasing +warning, their needles bobbing all over the direction-dials. +Instruments were useless here—he had to work by sight alone. He eased +the cruiser lower through the swarm, his fingers flashing over the +throttles, using quick bursts of the rockets to veer aside from the +bright, rushing meteors.</p> + +<p>"Hurry!" yelled Holk Or hoarsely again, over the tumult. "I +can't—hold them out much longer—"</p> + +<p>Down and down went the <i>Sunsprite</i> through the maze of meteor-moons, +twisting, turning, dropping ever lower toward the green asteroid.</p> + +<p>A last gasping shout from Holk Or, and the door crashed off its +burned-through hinges. Kenniston, unable to turn from the +life-or-death business of threading the swarm, heard the Jovian +fighting furiously.</p> + +<p>Next moment a hand gripped Kenniston's shoulder and tore him away from +the controls. It was Murdock, his eyes blazing, his gun raised.</p> + +<p>"Raise your hands or I'll kill you, Kenniston!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Let me go!" yelled Kenniston, struggling to get back to the +throttles. "You <i>fool</i>!"</p> + +<p>He had just glimpsed the jagged moonlet rushing obliquely toward them +from the left, bulking suddenly big and monstrous.</p> + +<p><i>Crash!</i> The shock flung them from their feet, and the <i>Sunsprite</i> +gyrated crazily in space. There was a blood-chilling shriek of +outrushing air from the fore part of the ship, and the slam-slam-slam +of the automatic air-doors closing, down there.</p> + +<p>The cruiser's whole bows had been crushed in by the glancing blow of +the meteor. Now, ironically, the ship was falling clear of the +meteor-swarm for Kenniston's piloting had almost won through it before +the impact. But the <i>Sunsprite</i> was falling helplessly, turning over +and over as it plunged down toward the green surface of the jungled +asteroid.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft1"><img src="images/image_m1.jpg" alt="M" width="55" height="40" /></div> + +<p>y God, we're struck!" came Captain Walls' thin yell.</p> + +<p>"This is your fault!" Murdock blazed at Kenniston. "You damned pirates +will die for this!"</p> + +<p>"Let me at those controls or we'll all die together in five minutes!" +Kenniston cried. "We'll crash to smithereens unless I can make a +tail-tube landing—"</p> + +<p>Heedless of Murdock's gun, he jumped to the controls. His hands flew +over the throttles, firing desperate quick bursts of the tail +rocket-tubes to bring them out of the spin in which they were falling.</p> + +<p>The brake-rockets in the bow were gone. The ship was crippled, almost +impossible to handle. And the dark green jungles of Vesta's surface +were rushing upward with appalling speed.</p> + +<p>Kenniston's frantic efforts brought the <i>Sunsprite</i> out of the spin. +By firing the lateral rockets, he kept it falling tail-downward.</p> + +<p>"We're goners!" yelled someone in the stricken ship. "We're going to +crash!"</p> + +<p>Air was screaming outside the plummeting ship. Kenniston, his hands +superhumanly tense on the throttles, mechanically estimated their +distance from the uprushing green jungles.</p> + +<p>He glimpsed a little black lake in the jungle, and near it the big +circle of an electrified stockade. He recognized it—John Dark's +camp!</p> + +<p>Then, a thousand feet above the jungle, Kenniston's hands jerked open +the throttles. The tail rockets spouted fire downward.</p> + +<p>Sickening shock of the sudden check almost hurled him away from the +controls. His hands jabbed the throttles in and out with lightning +rapidity, checking their further fall with one quick burst after +another.</p> + +<p>A sound of rending branches—a staggering sidewise shock that flung +him from his feet. A jarring thump, then silence. They had landed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>The Vestans</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston picked himself up groggily. The others in the bridge had +been thrown against walls or floor by the shock, but seemed no more +than bruised. Holk Or was nursing his burned arm. But Hugh Murdock, +staggering in a corner, still held his atom-pistol trained on +Kenniston and the Jovian.</p> + +<p>"My God, what a landing!" exclaimed Captain Walls, his plump face +still white. "I thought we were done for."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we still are," Murdock said grimly. He said savagely to +Kenniston, "You think you've won, don't you? Because you've managed to +crash us on this asteroid where your pirate boss is waiting?"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Murdock—," Kenniston began desperately.</p> + +<p>"Keep your hands up or I'll kill you both!" blazed Murdock. "March +down to the main cabin."</p> + +<p>Kenniston and the Jovian obeyed. The <i>Sunsprite</i> was lying sharply +canted on its side, and it was difficult to scramble down through the +tilted passageways and decks to the big main cabin.</p> + +<p>The cabin was a scene of confusion, for it was impossible to stand +upright on its tilted floor. Young Arthur Lanning had been stunned, +and Gloria Loring and the scared blonde girl, Alice Krim, were bathing +his bruised forehead. Robbie Boone was peering wildly through a +porthole at the sunlit tangle of green jungle outside. From Mrs. +Milsom came a shrill, steady wail of terror.</p> + +<p>"Stop that screeching," Murdock told the dumpy dowager brutally. +"You're not hurt. Gloria, are you others all right?"</p> + +<p>Gloria raised her white face from her task. "Only bruised, Hugh."</p> + +<p>She did not look at Kenniston or the big Jovian as she spoke.</p> + +<p>Robbie Boone's teeth were chattering. "Murdock, what are we going to +do? We're wrecked, on this hellish jungle asteroid—"</p> + +<p>Murdock paid the frightened, chubby youth no attention. Captain Walls, +Bray, and four of the crew were entering the cabin. The captain and +pilot had belted on atom-pistols.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls' plump face was paler. "Two of the crew were killed and +our telaudio wrecked by that meteor," he reported. He glared at +Kenniston. "You damned pirate! You're responsible for this!"</p> + +<p>"If you hadn't dragged me away from the controls, the cruiser wouldn't +have been struck," Kenniston denied. "And I'm not a pirate—"</p> + +<p>Murdock interrupted. "We'll settle with those two later," he told the +enraged captain. "Right now, we'll have to get out of the ship. We +can't stay in here until we get it righted on an even keel."</p> + +<p>Holk Or rumbled a warning. "Better be careful about going outside. +Those cursed Vestans are thick in these jungles."</p> + +<p>"I'll have no advice from you two pirates!" flamed the captain. "Bray, +you and Thorpe keep your guns on them every minute."</p> + +<p>The heavy main space-door was opened. Pale sunlight and warm, steamy +air laden with rank scents of strange vegetation drifted in. Outside +lay a raw clearing the falling ship had crushed out of the jungle.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls supervised as they all donned lead-soled weight-shoes to +compensate for the weaker gravity. Then they emerged, young Lanning +being supported by Murdock and Robbie. Kenniston and the Jovian were +last to emerge, under the watchful guns of their guards.</p> + +<p>The crew and passengers were looking around with wonder and revulsion. +The silvery bulk of the <i>Sunsprite</i> lay awkwardly heeled on its side. +The symmetrical torpedo shape of the cruiser was now badly marred by +the crumpled condition of its bow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> + +<p>ll around them in the thin sunlight rose slender trees whose enormous +green leaves grew directly from the trunks. This grotesque forest was +made more dense by festoons of writhing "snake-vines," weird rootless +creepers which crawled like plant-serpents from one tree to another. +Each stir of wind brought white spore-dust down in a shower from the +trees.</p> + +<p>The few living creatures of this forbidding landscape were equally +alien. Big white meteor-rats scurried on their eight legs through the +brush. Phosphorescent flame-birds shot through the upper fronds like +streaks of fire. In the pale sky overhead, there were ceaseless gleams +and flashes of light as the spinning meteor-swarm reflected the +sunlight.</p> + +<p>"What a horrible place!" shrilled Mrs. Milsom. "We'll all die +here—we'll never get back to Earth. I knew this would happen!"</p> + +<p>"This is certainly a mean spot to be cast away," muttered Captain +Walls. "God knows what queer creatures inhabit it, not to speak of the +mysterious Vestans everybody talks about. And John Dark and his crew +are somewhere here. And the telaudio wrecked, so we can't call for +help."</p> + +<p>Kenniston realized that none of the others had glimpsed Dark's camp as +they fell. They didn't know the pirate encampment was only a few miles +away in the jungle.</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do, captain?" Gloria was asking, her face still +pale but her voice quite steady. "Can we get away?"</p> + +<p>Captain Walls looked hopeless. "We can't take off with the whole bow +of the <i>Sunsprite</i> crushed in."</p> + +<p>"We can repair it, can't we?" Hugh Murdock suggested. "Remember, in +the hold is the cargo of machinery and repair-materials that Kenniston +was bringing to repair Dark's ship. Can't we use that equipment?"</p> + +<p>The captain looked more hopeful. "Maybe we can. Bray and the crew and +I ought to be able to do an emergency job of patching the bow and +installing new rocket-tubes there. But we'll have to work fast to get +away before Dark's outfit learns we're here."</p> + +<p>He pointed vindicatively at Kenniston. "Better lock up that fellow and +his partner to make sure he doesn't signal somehow to his +fellow-pirates."</p> + +<p>Kenniston tried again to explain. "Will you all listen to me? I tell +you, I'm no pirate!"</p> + +<p>Murdock eyed him sternly. "Do you deny that John Dark sent you to Mars +for repair-equipment, and that you told us that lying treasure-story +to get the equipment here in our ship?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't deny that," Kenniston admitted. "But I'm not one of John +Dark's crew—I never was! I was a prisoner on his ship, captured by +the pirates before they themselves were attacked by the Patrol."</p> + +<p>"Do you expect us to believe that?" Murdock said incredulously.</p> + +<p>"It's true!" Kenniston insisted. "My kid brother Ricky and I were +captured by John Dark's outfit several weeks ago. We were prisoners on +his ship when it was wrecked by the Patrol. After the wreck drifted +onto Vesta here, Dark wanted to send someone to Mars for +repair-equipment. He wouldn't send one of his own men in charge, for +fear the man would double-cross him and never come back.</p> + +<p>"So he sent me, his prisoner, on that errand. Holk Or came along to +help me navigate a ship back. And I had to obey Dark and get the +equipment back here at any cost. For Dark kept my brother Ricky +prisoner here with him, and told me that if I didn't bring back that +equipment, Ricky would be shot!"</p> + +<p>Holk Or spoke up. "It's true, what Kenniston's telling you," rumbled +the Jovian. "Me, I'm one of Dark's pirates and I don't care a curse +who knows it. But Kenniston did this only to save his brother."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Captain Walls flatly. "It's another of the +smooth lies this fellow Kenniston makes up so easily."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_g.jpg" alt="G" width="33" height="40" /></div> +<p>loria spoke to Kenniston, her dark eyes still accusing. "If what you +say is true and you're not a pirate, then you brought all of us into +this danger simply to save your own brother?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston looked at her miserably. "Yes, I did. I was willing to lead +you all into capture to save Ricky. But I had a reason—"</p> + +<p>"Sure, you had a reason," Murdock said bitterly. "What did the safety +of strangers like us mean to you, compared to your precious brother?"</p> + +<p>Captain Walls motioned Kenniston and Holk Or angrily toward the ship. +"Bray, take them in and lock them under guard in a cabin," he said.</p> + +<p>Holk Or suddenly yelled. "Look out! There's a Vestan!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston, his blood chilling with alarm, glanced where the Jovian +pointed. At the west edge of the clearing, a small animal had suddenly +emerged from the dense green jungle.</p> + +<p>It was a six-legged, striped, catlike beast, not unordinary as +interplanetary animals go. But its head looked queer, seeming to have +a bulbous gray mass attached behind its ears.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls uttered a scoffing exclamation. "That's only an ordinary +asteroid-cat."</p> + +<p>"That <i>is</i> a Vestan!" Kenniston cried. "Shoot at its head—"</p> + +<p>His warning was too late. The catlike beast had launched itself in a +spring toward their group.</p> + +<p>As its striped body shot through the air, Walls triggered his +atom-pistol. The crackling blast of force tore into the body of the +charging asteroid-cat, and the beast fell heavily a few yards away.</p> + +<p>But as it fell, the small gray mass upon its neck suddenly detached +itself from the dead animal and scuttled swiftly forward. It moved +with blurring speed toward Bray, the nearest to it of the group.</p> + +<p>The little gray creature was no bigger than a man's clenched fists +together. It was a gray, wrinkled featureless thing, except for +pinpoint eyes and the tiny clawlike legs upon which it scurried. It +reached Bray and ran swiftly up his legs and back as he swore +startledly.</p> + +<p>Kenniston, made reckless of danger by his horror, yelled and lunged +toward the pilot. Bray was swearing and trying to slap at the gray +thing running up his back. But the little creature had now reached his +neck. Clinging there, it swiftly dug two tiny, needle-like antennae +into the base of his neck.</p> + +<p>"Hold him!" Kenniston shouted hoarsely. "The Vestan has got him!"</p> + +<p>Bray had undergone a sudden metamorphosis as the gray creature dug its +antennae into his neck. His face stiffened, became masklike.</p> + +<p>The pilot turned and began to run stiffly toward the jungle. +Kenniston's leap almost caught him, but Bray lashed out a fist that +sent Kenniston sprawling.</p> + +<p>"Don't let him get away!" Kenniston yelled, scrambling up.</p> + +<p>But the others were too stricken by amazement and horror to interfere +in time. Bray had already plunged into the jungle and was gone.</p> + +<p>"My God, what happened?" Captain Walls exclaimed dazedly. "Bray went +clean crazy!"</p> + +<p>His gun was pointing at Kenniston and Holk Or as though he held them +responsible for what had occurred.</p> + +<p>"He didn't go crazy, but he's lost now," Kenniston said heavily. "That +little gray creature was one of the Vestans."</p> + +<p>"But what did it <i>do</i> to him? That thing wasn't big enough to harm +anybody."</p> + +<p>"That's all you know about it," said Holk Or ominously. "Those little +Vestans are the most dangerous creatures in the System."</p> + +<p>"The Vestans," Kenniston added dully, "are semi-intelligent +<i>parasites</i>. The live by attaching themselves to and taking control of +some other creature's body. They do it by jabbing in those tiny, +needle-like antennae to contact the victim's nervous system. +Thereafter, the Vestan controls the victim's body absolutely. When the +victim dies or is hurt, the Vestan simply detaches himself and fastens +upon a new victim."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>orror was on the white faces of the others. Murdock gulped and asked, +"Then Bray—"</p> + +<p>"Bray is beyond saving now," Kenniston said. "The Vestan parasite will +control his body till he dies. The Vestans always like to attach +themselves to human beings—they know that a man's body is more +versatile in its capabilities than an animal's."</p> + +<p>Twilight was beginning to descend upon the little clearing in the +jungle, for the sun had gone down during the last few minutes. In the +gathering dusk, the jungle loomed dark and brooding about them.</p> + +<p>Overhead, the sky of this World with a Thousand Moons was burgeoning +into its full glory. The hundreds of meteor-moons that spun across the +heavens were shining brighter and brighter in the deepening dusk.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls broke the spell of horror and dread. "We'd better get +back inside the ship for tonight," he said nervously. "We can't do +anything about repairs until tomorrow, anyway. By then we'll have +figured out some way to deal with those devilish creatures."</p> + +<p>Murdock said bitterly to Kenniston, "Bray's end is your fault, +Kenniston. You brought him and us and these women into this place, all +for the sake of that brother of yours."</p> + +<p>"He'll stand trial for that when we get back to Mars," the captain +vowed. "Even if he wasn't one of Dark's crew originally, by helping +them he's made himself a space-pirate, liable to execution."</p> + +<p>Kenniston made no attempt to defend himself. He knew they wouldn't +understand why he had sacrificed them for Ricky's sake, even if he +told them.</p> + +<p>He and Holk Or were locked in one of the little cabins, after it had +been carefully searched. The crewman Thorpe was stationed as a guard +outside their bolted door.</p> + +<p>Holk Or, who had bandaged his burned arm, looked around the dark +little cabin disgustedly. "This is a devil of a fix to get into!" +swore the Jovian. "Here we've reached Vesta with the stuff, but can't +let the chief know."</p> + +<p>Kenniston asked him earnestly, "Holk, would John Dark really shoot +Ricky if I didn't deliver the equipment? He said he would, but you +know he needs Ricky."</p> + +<p>Kenniston was clinging to this last shred of hope for his brother. +John Dark and his pirates did need Ricky. For Ricky was a +physician—Doctor Richard Kenniston of the Institute of Planetary +Medicine.</p> + +<p>That was why John Dark had spared the lives of the two brothers when +he had captured them in the freighter in which they were returning to +Earth from Saturn. Ordinarily, the pirate leader would have ruthlessly +killed them as he killed all prisoners who were not rich enough to pay +ransom.</p> + +<p>But the fact that Ricky was a physician had saved them. The pirates +needed a doctor. They had kept the two brothers prisoner on their ship +for that reason. Kenniston and Ricky had still been on the <i>Falcon</i> as +prisoners, when the Patrol had finally caught up to it and wrecked it.</p> + +<p>"Dark knows that Ricky is a fine doctor and he needs a doctor," +Kenniston repeated hopefully, to the Jovian. "Surely he wouldn't be +foolish enough to shoot Ricky, even if I don't deliver the equipment."</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, don't fool yourself," warned Holk Or. "The chief said he'd +shoot him if you weren't back with the stuff in two weeks, and shoot +him he will. John Dark never breaks his word."</p> + +<p>That assurance sank the iron deeper into Kenniston's tormented soul. +If that was true, and he knew in his heart it was, Ricky would die two +days from now unless he'd delivered the repair-equipment to Dark.</p> + +<p>He mustn't <i>let</i> Ricky die! Too much depended on his young brother's +life. He must save Ricky even if it did mean the capture of Gloria and +the others by the pirates. Better that they be held for ransom, than +for Ricky to be killed!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston got to his feet, rigid with decision. "Then we've got to get +out of here," he muttered. "We've got to escape and take word to Dark +that the equipment is here."</p> + +<p>He continued quickly, "Holk, Dark's camp is only a few miles north of +here. I spotted it as the <i>Sunsprite</i> fell."</p> + +<p>Holk Or uttered an exclamation. "Why the devil didn't you tell me so! +I figured it was on the other side of the asteroid, maybe, and that +we'd never find it in the jungle even if we did get away."</p> + +<p>"It still won't be easy for us," Kenniston warned. "The Vestans may +get us in the jungle between here and Dark's camp. And anyway, how can +we get out of this cabin?"</p> + +<p>The big Jovian grinned. "That'll be easy. I'd have been out of here +before now, only I was waiting for the ship to quiet down."</p> + +<p>Kenniston stared. "That door is bolted. And there's no tool or weapon +in the cabin. They didn't forget a thing when they searched it!"</p> + +<p>Holk Or's grin deepened. "They forgot one thing. They forgot how +strong a Jovian is on a little, weak-gravity asteroid like this!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>Night Attack</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston caught desperately at the hope implied by the Jovian's +words.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Holk?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that I'm a hundred times stronger on this little asteroid than +I am on my own world, Jupiter. I can break the bolt of that door any +time I want to."</p> + +<p>"But there's an armed guard stationed outside it."</p> + +<p>"I know, and that's where you come in, Kenniston. When I rip the door +open, you be ready to jump the guard."</p> + +<p>Kenniston considered swiftly. The chance of their getting out of the +ship and safely through the jungles to the pirate camp, even if they +escaped this cabin, seemed a slim one. Yet it presented the only +possibility of delivering the equipment in the hold to John Dark.</p> + +<p>The bitter irony of it struck Kenniston, for the hundredth time. He, +Lance Kenniston, honorable space-man for a dozen years, working +desperately to aid the most notorious pirate in the void! Even drawing +into danger the girl for whom he felt—</p> + +<p>He shut Gloria out of his mind. He mustn't think of her now. He must +think only of Ricky, and of what would be lost if Ricky died. He must +risk everything, sacrifice everything, to prevent that loss.</p> + +<p>"We might as well try it now," he told the Jovian in low tones. "The +ship seems quiet."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best to make as little noise as possible," Holk Or +muttered. "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>The Jovian's big hands grasped the knob of the door. Kenniston +crouched a little behind him, every muscle tense.</p> + +<p>Holk Or suddenly put all his gigantically magnified strength into a +tremendous tug at the door. Its bolt snapped with a crack like that of +a pistolshot, and it swung wide open.</p> + +<p>The man on guard outside turned startledly, his hand darting to the +atom-gun at his belt and his mouth open to yell. But Kenniston had +launched himself like a human projectile as the door was torn open.</p> + +<p>Kenniston's fist smashed the space-sailor's chin and the man sagged +limp and unconscious with no chance to utter the cry on his lips. +Hastily, Kenniston took his atom-pistol and eased him to the floor.</p> + +<p>He and Holk Or listened tensely. The single sharp crack of the +snapping bolt had apparently aroused no one. The ship was silent. All +aboard were sleeping exhaustedly.</p> + +<p>"Come on," Kenniston murmured tensely to the Jovian. "We've got to +hurry to get to Dark's camp before night is over."</p> + +<p>Holk Or chuckled. "The chief will welcome us with open arms when he +learns we've got the equipment here for him."</p> + +<p>Kenniston gripped the atom-pistol as they stole through the dark ship +and out of the space-door. Outside, they paused in the darkness.</p> + +<p>The scene was one of magic, unearthly beauty. The metal bulk of the +cruiser and the towering jungle around the clearing were washed by +brilliant silver light that fell from the wonderful night sky of this +World with a Thousand Moons.</p> + +<p>A thousand moons indeed seemed blazing in the canopied heavens +overhead! The whole dark sky was crowded by the shining moonlets that +rushed ceaselessly across the firmament with the spinning of the +meteor-swarm of which they were part. It was like the glorious vista +of a world seen in dreams.</p> + +<p>But Kenniston was familiar with the unearthly spectacle. He led the +way rapidly toward the northern edge of the jungle.</p> + +<p>"We'll just have to plunge in and head north," he told the Jovian. "If +we reach that little lake, we can soon find Dark's camp."</p> + +<p>They started into the dense jungle, a fairyland of silver beams +sifting through the choking fronds. Something scurried close by.</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, shoot!" cried Holk Or instantly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston had already glimpsed the white beast scurrying toward them +across a little patch of moonslight. It was one of the big +meteor-rats. On its neck bunched one of the little gray masses—a +Vestan.</p> + +<p>The horror inspired by the hideous parasites tightened Kenniston's +finger convulsively on the trigger of the atom-pistol. The crackling +bolt of fire from the weapon ripped into the Vestan on the meteor-rat, +and both parasite and animal victim were instantly a scorched, smoking +heap.</p> + +<p>"Hell, that's torn it!" cried the big Jovian. "We've roused the whole +ship!"</p> + +<p>Men awakened by the blast of the atom-gun were pouring out of the +<i>Sunsprite</i>, rushing after the two escaped men. Kenniston heard +Captain Walls shouting.</p> + +<p>"They're in the jungle here! Spread out and surround them!" the +officer was ordering.</p> + +<p>Kenniston and the Jovian plunged forward, seeking to escape northward. +But they had come up against an impenetrable abatis of brush.</p> + +<p>Before they could find a way around it, they heard men crashing all +around them. They were completely encircled.</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, you and that Jovian walk back into the clearing with your +hands raised or we'll blast every inch of the brush till we get you!" +came the stentorian shout of the captain.</p> + +<p>"The devil—they've got us boxed!" exclaimed Holk Or furiously. "We'll +try to fight our way through."</p> + +<p>"No!" Kenniston declared. "We couldn't make it anyway. And I'm not +going to shoot innocent men."</p> + +<p>Holk Or angrily grabbed for the atom-pistol, but Kenniston promptly +threw it away. Not even in this last extremity could he bring himself +to kill.</p> + +<p>"You're a fool!" gritted the Jovian. "Now there's nothing for it but +surrender."</p> + +<p>With their hands raised, they walked out of the jungle into the +brilliant silvery light of the clearing. Instantly they were +surrounded by Captain Walls, Murdock and the other armed crew-men.</p> + +<p>The girls and their scared chaperon, and young Lanning and Robbie +Boone, were emerging in alarm from the <i>Sunsprite</i>. Kenniston did not +look toward them.</p> + +<p>Captain Walls' face was grim in the moonslight, as he and his men +covered the two captured fugitives. "Kenniston, you and this Jovian +were going to make your way to John Dark and tell him of our presence +here, weren't you? You needn't deny it—it's plain enough."</p> + +<p>"Sure we were!" exclaimed the angry Jovian. "We'd have made it, too, +if a Vestan hadn't jumped us in the jungle."</p> + +<p>"That would have meant capture of us all by Dark's pirates," said the +captain grimly. "You two are a danger to us all, while you live. I'm +going to remove that danger. As master of a space-ship, I have legal +right to order summary execution of any space-pirates I capture. I'm +going to order that now."</p> + +<p>"You're going to kill them?" exclaimed Gloria. "Oh, no—you can't!"</p> + +<p>"It's absolutely necessary, before they betray us to the pirates, Miss +Loring," defended the captain. "They'd be sentenced to death by the +courts if we took them back to Mars, anyway. But we daren't take a +chance on keeping them prisoned that long."</p> + +<p>"But just to shoot them down!" said Gloria horrifiedly. "I won't stand +for that!"</p> + +<p>Murdock took her by the arm. "It's space law, Gloria," he told her +earnestly. "You'd better go back into the ship."</p> + +<p>Kenniston stood silent in the moonslight, for he realized from the +finality of Walls' voice that appeals would be utterly useless. There +was no use trying again to explain why he'd been willing to betray +them all to save Ricky. Even if they listened, they wouldn't +understand.</p> + +<p>He felt tired, crushed, old. He'd gone a long way in the last dozen +years, but every mile of it had only led toward this ending. He was +going to die here under the hurtling meteor-moons of Vesta, and that +meant that Ricky and Ricky's dream were going to die soon too.</p> + +<p>"I <i>told</i> you you were a fool to throw away that gun," Holk Or was +muttering.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft1"><img src="images/image_y1.jpg" alt="Y" width="46" height="40" /></div> +<p>ou two march over there to the edge of the clearing," Captain Walls +ordered grimly, gesturing with his gun. "Anything you want to say +first, Kenniston?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing that you would listen to or understand, you people," +Kenniston answered dully. "No, I've got nothing to say."</p> + +<p>A crackling voice came out of the dark jungle at that moment.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> have something to say! Drop those guns, every man of you, and get +your hands up!"</p> + +<p>Walls spun around with an oath, levelling his atom-pistol. But out of +the jungle crashed a streak of fire that hit the captain's arm and +sent him reeling.</p> + +<p>One of the girls screamed. Another of the <i>Sunsprite's</i> crew had tried +to aim his weapon and had been cut down by a second bolt of atomic +fire that had hit his leg.</p> + +<p>"I <i>don't</i> want to kill you unless you force me to," came that crisp +voice from the darkness. "You have ten seconds to drop the guns."</p> + +<p>"That's the chief, Kenniston!" yelled Holk Or excitedly. "It's John +Dark himself!"</p> + +<p>The dreaded name of the pirate, a synonym for cold ruthlessness, +reinforced the threat from the darkness.</p> + +<p>Murdock let his weapon fall and shouted, "Drop the atom-guns, men! If +we try to fight, the women will be hurt!"</p> + +<p>The <i>Sunsprite's</i> men dropped their atom-pistols. Instantly out into +the brilliant light from the jungle rushed a score of armed pirates. +Martians, Earthmen, Venusians and others—this horde represented the +criminal under-world of every planet in the System.</p> + +<p>In a moment they had those in the clearing completely disarmed and +lined up against the ship. All except Holk Or, who was loudly greeting +his pirate comrades.</p> + +<p>Kenniston saw John Dark coming across the moonslit clearing toward +them. The notorious pirate was a tall, bulky Earthman, but he walked +with the lightfootedness of a cat in his moonshoes. His black hair was +bare, and in the silver light his black-browed, intelligent face was +coldly calm as his eyes searched the row of prisoners.</p> + +<p>"So you finally got here, Kenniston. What about the repair-equipment?" +he asked sharply.</p> + +<p>Kenniston nodded toward the <i>Sunsprite</i>. "It's in the hold. We got +everything you listed."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Dark approved. "We saw your ship crash-landing today, and +started this way at once. We've been beating through the jungle, +fighting off the damned Vestans, until we heard the uproar going on +here. What happened? Who are these people?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston explained briefly how he had induced Gloria Loring's party +to come on a pretended treasure-hunt. He was careful to stress the +wealth of the party, and John Dark reacted as he had expected.</p> + +<p>"If they're that wealthy, their families can pay big ransoms. You've +done very well, Kenniston."</p> + +<p>"What about Ricky?" asked Kenniston tensely. "He's all right?"</p> + +<p>"Sure he's all right—he's up at the camp," Dark answered.</p> + +<p>Gloria said bitterly to Kenniston, "You can congratulate yourself. +You've managed to save your brother."</p> + +<p>John Dark addressed her. "Miss Loring, I presume you and your +companions are willing to pay ransom for your crew also? I never take +prisoners, unless they promise a good profit."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course we'll pay the ransom of the crew!" Gloria agreed +hastily.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said the pirate calmly. "You'll not find your captivity any +more irksome than necessary."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Milsom, the dumpy chaperon, was goggling at the notorious pirate +in an extreme of terror. A sardonic gleam came into Dark's eyes as he +glanced at her.</p> + +<p>"You're a handsome wench," he told the plump dowager with mock +admiration. "I've half a mind to keep you and let the ransom go."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" shrieked the terrified woman.</p> + +<p>Dark burst into a roar of laughter. "All right, my shrinking beauty, +we'll accept ransom for you."</p> + +<p>He turned and shot efficient orders to his subordinates, who by now +had gathered behind him.</p> + +<p>"Get that stuff out of the hold, rig up power-sledges, and start +freighting it up to the camp. You'll have to cut a path through the +jungle—use atom-blasters to burn one out."</p> + +<p>One of the pirates, a hard-faced Martian, said uneasily, "That will +make a racket that'll bring every Vestan on the asteroid down on us."</p> + +<p>"You can keep the Vestans off if you keep your eyes open," Dark +retorted. "Get to work, now! We've got to get the stuff up there and +repair the <i>Falcon</i> at once. I'll take these prisoners up to camp."</p> + +<p>Kenniston was grouped with the other prisoners. With a strong escort +of armed pirates guarding them, and Dark and Holk Or ahead, they +started through the jungle toward the pirate camp.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>Asteroid Horror</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>he pirate encampment was a big clearing hacked from the jungle a mile +west of the little lake. In this space lay the long, looming black +mass of the most dreaded corsair ship ever to sail the void. The +<i>Falcon</i> had been righted to even keel, but its crippled condition +was evident in the fused, wrecked condition of its tail rocket-tubes.</p> + +<p>The whole camp was enclosed and protected by a shimmering blue dome of +electric force. This emanated from a heavy copper cable that +completely encircled the clearing, and which drew its power from +insulated cables that led into the ship to generators driven by the +few cyclotrons still functioning. This protective electric wall had +been set up at John Dark's orders to keep out the dreaded Vestans.</p> + +<p>John Dark raised his voice as he and his men with their prisoners +approached the shimmering wall of the camp.</p> + +<p>"Kin Ibo! Drop the wall for us!"</p> + +<p>They saw the hard-looking Martian who was Dark's second-in-command +dive into the ship to turn off the power of the electric barrier. It +died, and Dark's party entered the clearing. Then the electric wall +sprang into being again behind them.</p> + +<p>Kenniston looked swiftly around. There were a score more of the motley +pirates here in the camp. Also, near the side of the looming black +<i>Falcon</i>, were the small, rough log huts that Dark's men had +constructed.</p> + +<p>Dark's black eyes were triumphant as he told his Martian lieutenant, +"Kenniston and Holk Or brought back the equipment all right, and also +brought some people who'll bring big ransom. Their wrecked ship is a +few miles south. You go down there with half the men here and help the +others bring up the equipment."</p> + +<p>Kin Ibo, looking a little apprehensively out at the jungle, obeyed. +Dark motioned Kenniston and the other captives toward one of the huts +by the big ship.</p> + +<p>"That hut will be your quarters until we get the <i>Falcon</i> repaired," +declared the pirate leader. "Any of you who try to leave it will be +shot at sight. I hope you'll not be foolish enough to attempt escape."</p> + +<p>"That's right, folks, you wouldn't have a chance," Holk Or told them +earnestly. "Even if you could get out through the electric wall, the +Vestans would get you. They're thick in the jungle around here."</p> + +<p>They silently entered the hut. Its broad open windows admitted enough +of the dazzling moonslight to brighten its interior.</p> + +<p>A dark, eager-looking young Earthman sprang up as they entered, and +rushed to pump Kenniston's hand.</p> + +<p>"Lance, you got back safely!" he exclaimed. "Thank the Lord—I've been +worrying myself almost crazy about you."</p> + +<p>"How about you, Ricky?" Kenniston asked his young brother anxiously. +"You're all right?"</p> + +<p>Ricky Kenniston nodded quickly. "Sure, I'm okay. But things haven't +been so good here, Lance. The Vestans have got a half-dozen pirates +who ventured outside the wall in the last few days. These creatures +literally haunt the jungles around here now—I think they've been +drawn here from all over the asteroid."</p> + +<p>Ricky looked wonderingly at Gloria and the others who were entering +the hut. "Lance, who are all these people? Are they prisoners of Dark +too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we're prisoners," Hugh Murdock told him bitterly, with a savage +glance at Kenniston. "We're prisoners because your brother sacrificed +us all to get back here and save <i>your</i> neck."</p> + +<p>"Lance, you didn't do that?" Ricky exclaimed in distress.</p> + +<p>"I had to, Ricky," Kenniston protested. "It meant your life if I +didn't."</p> + +<p>"Of course," Murdock agreed ironically. "What importance are we, +compared to saving your young brother's life?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston spoke slowly, to Murdock and Gloria and the others. "It +wasn't merely Ricky's life at stake that made me sacrifice you all. It +was more than that. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn't +listen."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston went across the hut and brought back the square black +medicine-case of his young physician-brother. He opened it, and out of +the vials and instruments inside he took a square bottle of milky +fluid.</p> + +<p>"This is what I sacrificed everything to save," Kenniston said simply.</p> + +<p>They all stared. "What is it?" Gloria asked, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"It's Ricky's discovery," Kenniston said. "It's a preventative and +cure for gravitation-paralysis."</p> + +<p>Captain Walls, himself an old-time space-man, was first of the group +to appreciate the significance of the statement. The captain gasped.</p> + +<p>"A preventative for gravitation-paralysis? Kenniston, are you <i>sure</i>?"</p> + +<p>Kenniston nodded gravely. "Yes. Ricky had been working on the problem +a long time, back in the Institute of Planetary Medicine. He thought +he'd found a way to prevent gravitation-paralysis, the most awful +scourge of all the outer System, the thing that's doomed so many +space-men. But his formula required rare elements found only in the +outer planets.</p> + +<p>"Ricky and I," he continued, "went out there and secured those elements. +He made up this formula, and tried it on a gravitation-paralysis case—a +space-man who's lain paralyzed for years. The formula was designed to +strengthen the human nervous system against the shock of varying +gravitations, to re-establish an already damaged nerve-web. And it +worked."</p> + +<p>Kenniston's voice was husky as he concluded. "It worked, and that +living log became a man again. The formula was a success. Ricky and I +started back for Earth, where he intended to announce the discovery +and arrange for its manufacture on a big scale. But, on the way back, +Dark's pirates captured us."</p> + +<p>Kenniston flung out his hand in a tortured gesture. "<i>That's</i> why I +went to any lengths to save Ricky's life! It's because Ricky is the +only person who knows the intricate formula of this serum. If he were +to die, the secret of the cure would die with him. And that would mean +that thousands on thousands more of space-men would be stricken into +living death by gravitation-paralysis in the future, just as so many +thousands of old friends and shipmates of mine have been stricken in +the past!"</p> + +<p>Captain Walls was the first to speak. Quietly, the plump master of the +<i>Sunsprite</i> extended his hand.</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, will you shake hands with me? And will you forgive me for +everything? You did absolutely right. I'm an old space-man and I +<i>know</i> what gravitation-paralysis is."</p> + +<p>Gloria's dark eyes were glimmering with tears. "If we'd only known," +she murmured to Kenniston. "No one could blame you for sacrificing a +lot of worthless idlers like us, for a thing like this."</p> + +<p>"But you're going to be all right—all of you," Kenniston assured her. +"John Dark will make you pay a big ransom, but you can afford that and +you'll get back safely to Earth."</p> + +<p>"Thank Heaven for that!" exclaimed Mrs. Milsom. "I can't understand +all this scientific talk of yours, but I do know that that pirate +chief means no good to me. Didn't you see the lustful looks he gave +me?"</p> + +<p>The laugh that greeted this lessened the tension. Kenniston turned as +Ricky plucked at his arm.</p> + +<p>"What about ourselves, Lance?" Ricky asked quietly. "Dark still won't +let us go, you know. He still needs me as a doctor."</p> + +<p>Hugh Murdock stepped forward. "Dark would let you both go, for a big +enough ransom. I'd like to pay it for you."</p> + +<p>The handsomeness of Murdock's gesture moved Kenniston. He was only +able to mutter his thanks.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="51" height="40" /></div> + +<p>hile Ricky was treating Captain Walls' burned arm, the officer kept +looking fascinatedly at that square bottle of milky fluid.</p> + +<p>He said hesitantly, "I've a son—back on Earth. For five years he's +lain in a cot from the gravitation-paralysis that hit him out on +Jupiter. Do you suppose—"</p> + +<p>Ricky nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'm sure that we can cure him, now."</p> + +<p>There was an uproar out in the clearing. Kenniston went to the door +and looked out.</p> + +<p>The electric wall had temporarily been dropped, and Kin Ibo and the +main body of the pirates were hastily entering the camp with their +improvised power-sledges that bore heavy loads of machinery and +materials.</p> + +<p>Kenniston heard Kin Ibo reporting shrilly to John Dark, "We lost two +men to the Vestans on the way here—and nearly lost two more! All this +activity has drawn them from all over the asteroid! Look at that!"</p> + +<p>Outside the electric wall, which had been hastily re-raised, could be +glimpsed the shapes of lurking asteroidal animals. Meteor-rats, big +striped cats, flame-birds—and every one of those lurking animals bore +attached to its neck one of the little gray Vestan parasites.</p> + +<p>John Dark was saying harshly, "We've got to have the rest of those +materials to repair the <i>Falcon</i>."</p> + +<p>"I tell you, it'd be suicide to try another trip through those +jungles!" expostulated the Martian. "Those Vestans are devils!"</p> + +<p>"Bah, you Martians are all alike—no good when your superstitions get +aroused," snorted Dark contemptuously. "I'll take the men down myself. +Come on, men—unload those sledges and we'll go back to the wreck."</p> + +<p>His indomitable personality drove the scared, unwilling pirates into +the task. Again the electric wall was faded out for a moment to let +them out.</p> + +<p>When they returned some time toward morning, Kenniston heard the crash +of atom-guns heralding their approach. And when the wall was +momentarily dropped, John Dark and his men stumbled into the camp with +their loaded sledges in sweating haste.</p> + +<p>"Turn on the wall again—quick!" bellowed Dark's bull voice. "The +jungle's swarming with the gray devils now—they got five of us on the +way back!"</p> + +<p>Ricky, looking over Kenniston's shoulder, spoke appalledly. "Good God, +Lance—look at them! I didn't know there <i>were</i> so many Vestans!"</p> + +<p>Outside the barrier of shimmering electricity, scores of animals and +birds dominated by the dreaded little gray parasitical creatures were +now swarming. And their number seemed growing every minute.</p> + +<p>"All this activity of the night has drawn the Vestans from far and +wide," Kenniston muttered. "I don't like it. If that electric wall +should fail, the creatures would be in on us in a moment."</p> + +<p>Dark himself seemed to feel something of the same apprehension, for +he was shouting urgent orders. "Hook up those atomic welders, and +start putting the new plates into the <i>Falcon's</i> tail. Kin Ibo, have +your gang fit in the new rocket-tubes. I'll see to installing the new +cycs. If we work, we can get the job done by tomorrow night and get +out of here."</p> + +<p>Through the day, the pirates toiled with an energy that showed their +earnest desire to leave the asteroid. That desire was reinforced by +the ever-larger number of Vestans that now swarmed outside the wall.</p> + +<p>There were literally hundreds of the gray parasites now outside the +barrier. To have tried going outside the wall now would have been +sheer suicide. The creatures were apparently driven by unholy +eagerness to possess themselves of human bodies.</p> + +<p>Gloria, looking out with Kenniston, shuddered deeply. "This horrible +world! It's like a nightmare."</p> + +<p>"We'll soon be away from it," Kenniston reassured. "See, they've +almost finished repairing the <i>Falcon</i>."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>he urgent toil of the pirates was showing results. By the time night +came again, and the meteor-moonlets blazed forth with magic beauty in +the dark heavens, the task of repair was almost done.</p> + +<p>Kenniston and his companions had not ventured forth from the hut. +Pirates were everywhere in the clearing, and all had heard John Dark's +strict order to blast down the captives if they left their prison.</p> + +<p>But from the hut, Kenniston and the others could see that the horde of +Vestan-dominated animals around the camp had further increased. With +ghastly avidity, they kept circling the shimmering, electric wall.</p> + +<p>Kenniston turned in alarm at a ripping sound from the back of the log +hut. Two of the logs were being torn out bodily. The battered green +face and giant shoulders of Holk Or came through the opening.</p> + +<p>"Kenniston, I came in this way because I didn't dare let Dark see me +talking to you!" the Jovian exclaimed. His face was urgent in +expression. "I've found out that Dark doesn't mean to let your friends +here get away from Vesta alive."</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed Kenniston. "That's impossible! Dark said he was +going to hold Gloria and the others for ransom."</p> + +<p>Holk Or nodded hastily. "I know, and he meant it, then. But since +then, he's found out something that's changed his plans. He found it +out from me—like a big fool, I told him everything when he questioned +me."</p> + +<p>The Jovian continued rapidly. "I told him that Murdock had sent that +telaudio message back to Patrol headquarters, asking about my record. +Now Dark figures that the Patrol will come out here to find out if +that message meant that some of John Dark's outfit had actually +escaped.</p> + +<p>"Dark wants the Patrol to keep thinking that he and his outfit were +destroyed—so he can slip out to Pluto and prepare a new base. So +Dark, when he leaves here, is going to drop Miss Loring and her +friends by the wrecked <i>Sunsprite</i>, so the Patrol will find 'em dead +by the wreck and will believe their cruiser crashed accidentally. That +way, they won't go on searching as they would if Miss Loring's party +was all missing. And Dark will have a chance to get out to Pluto +without an alarm going out."</p> + +<p>Kenniston was suspicious. "Why do you tell us this, Holk? You're one +of the pirates yourself."</p> + +<p>"I know, but I'm afraid Dark means to drop <i>me</i> with the others by +the <i>Sunsprite</i>!" Holk Or exclaimed. "He didn't say so, but I believe +he figures on doing it so that the telaudio inquiry about me would be +explained when I was found dead with the others by the wreck."</p> + +<p>Murdock said swiftly, "The Jovian's right, Kenniston. All this is just +what Dark <i>would</i> do, to hide his trail, now that he knows my telaudio +message may have aroused the Patrol's suspicion."</p> + +<p>Holk Or said emphatically, "I'm with you if you can figure out any way +to take the <i>Falcon</i>, Kenniston!"</p> + +<p>Kenniston paced to and fro. His whole mind was suddenly in a wild +turmoil of stark fears. This meant death for Gloria and the others, +and the ultimate responsibility for that death would be his.</p> + +<p>"There is one possible chance for us to take the <i>Falcon</i>," he +muttered finally. "But my God, it seems like an insane idea—"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute!" Captain Walls interrupted. "Dark won't drop you and +your brother to die, Kenniston. He still needs your brother as a +physician. You two will be safe even if we are killed."</p> + +<p>"What of that? I can't let Gloria and the rest of you be murdered! I +was willing to sacrifice you when I thought it was only a question of +your being held for ransom, but this changes everything," Kenniston +said wildly.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't change anything," the captain said firmly. "Your duty is +to keep your brother alive at all costs, to save that formula that +means life and hope for thousands of gravitation-paralysis victims +like my son."</p> + +<p>"You mean—I should let you all be killed so Ricky and I can be +saved?" Kenniston cried. "I'm damned if I will!"</p> + +<p>"We'll never do that!" Ricky Kenniston agreed warmly. "No formula in +the world is worth that."</p> + +<p>"<i>This</i> formula is," Gloria said earnestly to Kenniston. "The captain +is right."</p> + +<p>"I won't do it," Kenniston repeated. "I have an idea by which we might +be able to take the <i>Falcon</i>. We're going to try it."</p> + +<p>"Be reasonable, Kenniston," pleaded Hugh Murdock. "None of us except +Holk Or has a weapon. What chance would we have against half a hundred +armed pirates?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_k.jpg" alt="K" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>enniston looked at his brother. "Ricky, your formula strengthens the +nervous system against any form of shock or damage, doesn't it? You +said it did it by sheathing the nerves themselves with an impenetrable +coating."</p> + +<p>Ricky nodded puzzledly. "Yes, that's the principle. But how is that +going to help us?"</p> + +<p>"The Vestans," Kenniston reminded, "seize control of their victims by +inserting those tiny needle antennae of theirs into the victim's +nerve-system to establish contact. Wouldn't your formula insulate the +nerves against such contact? Wouldn't it make a man immune to Vestan +attack?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it would!" Ricky declared wonderingly. "I never thought of it, +yet it's entirely logical."</p> + +<p>"Then," Kenniston said swiftly, "I want you to give every one of us, +including yourself, an injection of the formula right now."</p> + +<p>The driving purpose in his voice brushed aside all their bewildered +questions and objections. Hastily, Ricky prepared his hypodermics and +rapidly made an injection of the milky fluid into the big +nerve-centers in the neck of each of them. Kenniston did the same for +Ricky himself.</p> + +<p>"We <i>should</i> be immune now to Vestan attack," Kenniston said +prayerfully.</p> + +<p>"But what good's that going to do us?" Holk Or demanded. "Are you +figuring to try an escape into the jungle?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm figuring on taking the <i>Falcon</i>—by using the Vestans," +Kenniston replied. "Holk, can you get into the ship and turn off the +power that keeps the electric wall going? Can you drop the wall?"</p> + +<p>The Jovian's jaw dropped. "Why, sure, I could do that, but if I did, +all those hordes of Vestans outside the wall will burst in here—"</p> + +<p>He stopped, his eyes bulging. "Good God, then that's your plan? To let +the Vestans in?"</p> + +<p>"That's it," Kenniston said tightly, his face grim. "To let the +Vestans in on the pirates. That'll give us a chance to take the +ship—if the formula really makes us immune to the Vestans."</p> + +<p>The terrible nature of the proposal stunned them all. But in a moment +a flame of purpose lit in the Jovian's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'll do it!" he swore. "It's better than waiting for Dark to kill me +like he's planning. You be ready!"</p> + +<p>The Jovian slipped out of the opening in the back of the hut. They saw +him presently, casually approaching the door of the <i>Falcon</i>.</p> + +<p>John Dark stood, a tall, dominant figure in the moonslight, barking +orders to the scores of pirates who were bolting in the last of the +new rocket-tubes. Kenniston's eyes swung toward the shimmering +electric wall, and the horde of Vestan-dominated animals outside it.</p> + +<p>The wall suddenly died! And as the electric barrier vanished, into the +clearing came rushing the swarm of asteroidal animals.</p> + +<p>"The wall's down!" John Dark yelled, his atom-gun leaping into his +hand. "Get back into the ship—get back—"</p> + +<p>The crash of his atom-gun drowned his own shout. Other pirates were +firing wildly at the hideous creatures assailing them.</p> + +<p>For the little gray Vestans had detached themselves from their animal +victims and were swarming upon the pirates, clambering with blurring +speed up their legs and backs, sinking into their necks the tiny +antennae.</p> + +<p>Kenniston glimpsed John Dark, with a hideous little gray bunch now +fastened to the back of his neck, drop his gun and stalk stiffly away +toward the jungle. His face was an unhuman, lifeless mask—he was a +human automaton, dominated utterly by the alien creature.</p> + +<p>"Come on!" Kenniston yelled to his friends. "Now's our chance to get +into the ship!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> + +<p>hey plunged out of the hut into the gruesome melee. Screaming pirates +were now running into the jungle in vain effort to escape the hordes +of Vestans. More than half the corsairs were now overcome.</p> + +<p>Kenniston heard a scream from Gloria as they ran, felt a swift +scurrying up his back, then the needle-like stab of antennae sinking +into his neck.</p> + +<p>But the parasitic creature did <i>not</i> overpower his will! He reached +around, grasped and tore loose the hideous little thing, and with +strong revulsion flung it to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Your formula works, Ricky—we're immune to them!" he gasped. "But +hurry!"</p> + +<p>Other Vestans were clambering up on them like ghastly gray spiders as +they ran, but were powerless to overcome them. They tore away the +creatures and plunged on.</p> + +<p>Holk Or appeared in the door of the <i>Falcon</i>, his green face blazing +as his atom-pistol pumped crashing fire into pirates inside the ship.</p> + +<p>"I've got the ship cleared of them!" the Jovian shouted to Kenniston. +"Let's get out of here!"</p> + +<p>It was time they did so. Almost the last of John Dark's pirates had +been possessed by Vestans and had become parasite-dominated robots +stumbling off into the jungle. The remaining swarms of gray creatures +were scurrying toward Kenniston's group.</p> + +<p>They tumbled into the <i>Falcon</i> and slammed shut the space-door. The +ship, completely if roughly repaired, was ready for take-off. Captain +Walls and the men of the <i>Sunsprite</i> crew hastily started the +newly-installed cyclotrons while Kenniston and the others raced up to +the bridge.</p> + +<p>Kenniston took the controls. He sent the big black pirate ship leaping +up into the darkness upon flaming keel and tail-jets, and then it +climbed steeply toward the wonderful sky of countless rushing +moonlets.</p> + +<p>By the time an hour had passed, the <i>Falcon</i> had groped out through +the periodic break in the meteor-swarm around the asteroid. And it was +throbbing at steadily increasing speed out into the vault of space, +away from the World with a Thousand Moons.</p> + +<p>"We'll head for Mars," Kenniston told the others. "We can report there +to the Patrol."</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind," Holk Or put in hastily, "I'd just as soon you +dropped me at some asteroid before then. I've no desire to meet the +Patrol."</p> + +<p>Captain Walls told the Jovian, "Nonsense! After what you've done, +you'll get a full pardon from the Patrol."</p> + +<p>"You can count on it," Hugh Murdock told the doubtful Jovian. "We have +some influence, back at Earth."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess I'll have to go honest, then," sighed Holk Or. "All the +real pirate outfits are gone now, anyway." He shook his head heavily +as he walked away. "The System sure isn't what it used to be."</p> + +<p>Captain Walls was asking Ricky earnestly, "You're quite sure your +formula will cure my son? All these years, I've hoped and prayed—"</p> + +<p>"I'm certain," Ricky smiled. "Within a few weeks after we get back to +Earth, gravitation-paralysis will be a thing of the past."</p> + +<p>They moved off with the others. But Gloria lingered in the bridge with +Kenniston.</p> + +<p>"Where will you be going, after we get back?" she asked him quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, back to space," he answered, a little uncomfortably. "There's +nothing to hold me on Earth now that Ricky's work has succeeded."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to hold you on Earth?" Gloria repeated. "That, I would say, +is about the most ungallant speech on record."</p> + +<p>He flushed. "You don't mean—that night on the <i>Sunsprite</i>—you +weren't in earnest, surely—"</p> + +<p>"Your passionate proposal is accepted," Gloria said calmly.</p> + +<p>Kenniston was aghast. "But I didn't propose! I mean—I do love you, +and you know it, but you're an heiress, and I—"</p> + +<p>"We'll have all the way back to Mars to argue <i>that</i> out," she told +him. "And I have an idea you'll lose."</p> + +<p>Kenniston had the same idea.</p> + +<h3>The End.</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The World with a Thousand Moons, by Edmond Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS *** + +***** This file should be named 32317-h.htm or 32317-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32317/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The World with a Thousand Moons + +Author: Edmond Hamilton + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32317] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1942. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this + publication was renewed. + + + THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS + + + [Illustration: The forest was a hell of vicious brutes] + + + by EDMOND HAMILTON + + + Grim death was the only romance to be found on this world + that boasted a thousand moons + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Thrill Cruise + + +Lance Kenniston felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of +the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a +moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling +moons. + +He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one, +for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked +light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac--a +big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other +small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were +ruined! + +A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston's +side. It was Holk Or, the Jovian who had been waiting for him. + +"What luck?" asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper. + +"It's hopeless," Kenniston answered heavily. "There isn't a small +cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small +ships here." + +"The devil!" muttered Holk Or, dismayed. "What are we going to do? Go +on to Earth and get a cruiser there?" + +"We can't do that," Kenniston answered. "You know we've got to get +back to that asteroid within two weeks. We've got to get a ship here." + +Desperation made Kenniston's voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak +with knowledge of disastrous failure. + +The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonslight his +battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across +the busy spaceport. + +"That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing," Holk Or +muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. "It +would hold all the stuff we've got to take; and with robot controls we +two could run it." + +"We haven't a chance to get that craft," Kenniston told him. "I found +out that it's under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who +came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring, +heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party." + +The Jovian swore. "Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids +are using it for thrill-hunting!" + +Kenniston had an idea. "It might be," he said slowly, "that they're +tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think +I'll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl." + +"Sure, let's try it anyway," Holk Or agreed. + +The Earthman looked at him anxiously. "Oughtn't you to keep under +cover, Holk? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long +time. If you happened to be recognized--" + +"Bah, they think I'm dead, don't they?" scoffed the Jovian. "There's +no danger of us getting picked up." + +Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to +waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he +made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city. + +The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a +nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness, +even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only +their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded. + +Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet. +Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough +meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists +gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a +krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol +stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he +and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge. + + * * * * * + +The Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the +moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block, +especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was +Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity +were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort +of its patrons. + +Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the +resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth +that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder +atmospheres. + +"Miss Gloria Loring?" repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind +the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston's shabby +space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. "I am afraid--" + +"I'm here to see her on important business, by appointment," Kenniston +snapped. + +The clerk melted at once. "Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring's +party is now in The Bridge. That's our cocktail room--top floor." + +Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with +Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the +shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and +the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance. + +The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than +he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he +had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer +planets. + +It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place +had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of +the navigating bridge of a space-ship. The orchestra played behind a phony +control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts +hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious +sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists. + +"Some crowd!" muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly +dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. "What a place to +loot!" + +"Shut up!" Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the +Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner. + +There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young +Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine, +except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky. + +One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently +uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely. + +"I'm Gloria Loring," she drawled. "What did you want to see me about?" + +She was dark and slim, and surprisingly young. There were almost +childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown. +Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the +bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of +her mouth. + +The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and +terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his +glass with a theatrical gesture of horror. + +"This Martian liquor has got me!" he exclaimed. "I can see a little +green man!" + +Holk Or started wrathfully forward. "Why, that young pup--" + +Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the +table. Some of the girls were giggling. + +"Be quiet, Robbie," Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young +comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. "Well?" + +"Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer +of that small cruiser, the _Sunsprite_," Kenniston explained. "I need +a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I'd be glad +to pay almost any price for your charter." + + * * * * * + +The girl looked at him in astonishment. "Why in the world should I let +you have our cruiser?" + +Kenniston said earnestly, "Your party could travel just as well and a +lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a +life-or-death business for me right now." + +"I'm not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston," drawled Gloria +Loring. "And I certainly don't propose to alter our plans just to help +a stranger out of his difficulties." + +Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly +feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them. + +"Beside that," the girl continued, "we chose the cruiser for this trip +because we wanted to get off the beaten track of liner routes, and see +something new. We're going from here out to Jupiter's moons." + +Kenniston perceived that these bored, spoiled youngsters were out here +hunting for new thrills on the interplanetary frontier. His dislike of +them increased. + +A clean-cut, sober-faced young man who seemed older and more serious +than the rest of the party, was speaking to the heiress. + +"Unhardened space-travellers like us are likely to get hit by +gravitation paralysis out in the outer planets, Gloria," he was saying +to the heiress. "I don't think we ought to go farther out than Mars." + +Gloria looked at him mockingly. "If you're scared, Hugh, why did you +leave your nice safe office on Earth and come along with us?" + +The chubby youth called Robbie laughed loudly. "We all know why Hugh +Murdock came along. It's not thrills he wants--it's you, Gloria." + +They were all ignoring Kenniston now. He felt that he had been +dismissed but he was desperately reluctant to lose his last hope of +getting a ship. Somehow he _must_ get that cruiser! + +A stratagem occurred to him. If these spoiled scions wouldn't give up +their ship, at least he might induce them to go where he wanted. + +Kenniston hesitated. It would mean leading them all into the deadliest +kind of peril. But a man's life depended on it. A man who was worth +all these rich young wastrels put together. He decided to try it. + +"Miss Loring, if it's thrills you're after, maybe I can furnish them," +Kenniston said. "Maybe we can team up on this. How would you like to +go on a voyage after the biggest treasure in the System?" + +"Treasure?" exclaimed the heiress surprisedly. "Where is it?" + +They were all leaning forward, with quick interest. Kenniston saw that +his bait had caught them. + +"You've heard of John Dark, the notorious space-pirate?" he asked. + +Gloria nodded. "Of course. The telenews was full of his exploits until +the Patrol caught and destroyed his ship a few weeks ago." + +Kenniston corrected her. "The Patrol caught up to John Dark's ship in +the asteroid, but didn't completely destroy it. They gunned the pirate +craft to a wreck in a running fight. But Dark's wrecked ship drifted +into a dangerous zone of meteor swarms where they couldn't follow." + +"I remember now--that's what the telenews said," conceded the heiress. +"But Dark and his crew were undoubtedly killed, they said." + +"John Dark," Kenniston went on, "looted scores of ships during his +career. He amassed a hoard of jewels and precious metals. And he kept +it right with him in his ship. That treasure's still in that lost +wreck." + +"How do you know?" asked Hugh Murdock bluntly. + +"Because I found the lost wreck of Dark's ship myself," Kenniston +answered. He hated to lie like this, but knew that he had no choice. + + * * * * * + +He plunged on. "I'm a meteor-miner by profession. Two weeks ago my +Jovian partner and I were prospecting in the outer asteroid zone in +our little rocket. Our air-tanks got low and to replenish them, we +landed on the asteroid Vesta. That's the big asteroid they call the +World with a Thousand Moons, because it's circled by a swarm of +hundreds of meteors. + +"It's a weird, jungled little world, inhabited by some very queer +forms of life. In landing, my partner and I noticed where some great +object had crashed down into the jungle. We discovered it was the +wreck of John Dark's ship. The wreck had drifted until it crashed on +Vesta, almost completely burying itself in the ground. No one was +alive on it, of course." + +Kenniston concluded. "We knew Dark's treasure must still be in the +buried wreck. But it would take machinery and equipment to dig out the +wreck. So we came here to Mars, intending to get a small cruiser, load +it with the necessary equipment, and go back to Vesta and lift the +treasure. Only we haven't been able to get a ship of any kind." + +He leaned toward the girl. "Here's my proposition, Miss Loring. You +take us and our equipment to Vesta in your cruiser, and we'll share +the treasure with you fifty-fifty. What do you say?" + +The blonde girl beside Gloria uttered a squeal of excitement. "Pirate +treasure! Gloria, let's do it--what a thrill it would be!" + +The others showed equal excitement. The romance of a treasure hunt in +the wild asteroids lured them, rather than the possible rewards. + +"We'd certainly be able to take back a wonderful story to Earth if we +found John Dark's treasure," admitted Gloria, with quick, eager +interest. + +Hugh Murdock was an exception to the general enthusiasm. He asked +Kenniston, "How do you know the treasure's still in the buried wreck?" + +"Because the wreck was still undisturbed," Kenniston answered. "And +because we found these jewels on the body of one of John Dark's crew, +who had been flung clear somehow when the wreck crashed." + +He held out a half-dozen gems he took from his pocket. They were +Saturnian moon-stones, softly shining white jewels whose brilliance +waxed and waned in perfect periodic rhythm. + +"These jewels," Kenniston said, "must have been that pirate's share of +the loot. You can imagine how rich John Dark's own hoard must be." + +The jewels, worth many thousands, swept away the lingering incredulity +of the others as Kenniston had known they would. + +"You're sure no one else knows the wreck is there?" Gloria asked +breathlessly. + +"We kept our find absolutely secret," Kenniston told her. "But since I +can't get a ship any other way, I'm willing to share the hoard with +you. If I wait too long, someone else may find the wreck." + +"I accept your proposition, Mr. Kenniston!" Gloria declared. "We'll +start for Vesta just as soon as you can get the equipment you'll need +loaded on the _Sunsprite_." + +"Gloria, you're being too hasty," protested Hugh Murdock. "I've heard +of this world with a Thousand Moons. There're stories of queer, +unhuman creatures they call Vestans, who infest that asteroid. The +danger--" + +Gloria impatiently dismissed his objections. "Hugh, if you are going +to start worrying about dangers again, you'd better go back to Earth +and safety." + +Murdock flushed and was silent. Kenniston felt a certain sympathy for +the young businessman. He knew, if these others did not, just how real +was the alien menace of those strange creatures, the Vestans. + +"I'll go right down to the spaceport and see about loading the +equipment aboard your cruiser," Kenniston told the heiress. "You'd +better give me a note to your captain. We ought to be able to start +tomorrow." + +"Pirate treasure on an unexplored asteroid!" exulted the enthusiastic +Robbie. "Ho for the World with a Thousand Moons!" + +Kenniston felt guilty when he and Holk Or left the big hotel. These +youngsters, he thought, hadn't the faintest idea of the peril into +which he was leading them. They were as ignorant as babies of the dark +evil and unearthly danger of the interplanetary frontier. + +He hardened himself against the qualms of conscience. There was that +at stake, he told himself fiercely, against which the safety of a lot +of spoiled, rich young people was absolutely nothing. + +Holk Or was chuckling as they emerged into the chill Martian night. He +told Kenniston admiringly, "That was one of the smoothest jobs of +lying I ever heard, that story about finding John Dark's treasure. +Take it from me, it was slick!" + +The Jovian guffawed loudly as he added, "What would their faces be +like if they knew that John Dark and his crew are still living? That +it was John Dark himself who sent us here?" + +"Be quiet, you idiot!" ordered Kenniston hastily. "Do you want the +whole Patrol to hear you?" + + +CHAPTER II + +Discovered + + +The _Sunsprite_ throbbed steadily through the vast, dangerous +wilderness of the asteroidal zone. To the eye, the cruiser moved in a +black void starred by creeping crumbs of light. In reality those +bright, crawling specks were booming asteroids or whirling +meteor-swarms rushing in complicated, unchartable orbits and +constantly threatening destruction. + +For three days now, the cruiser had cautiously groped deeper into this +most perilous region of the System. Now a bright, tiny disk of white +light was shining far ahead like a beckoning beacon. It was the +asteroid Vesta--their goal. + +Kenniston, leaning against the glassite deck-wall, somberly eyed the +distant asteroid. + +"We'll reach it by tomorrow," he thought. "Then what? I suppose John +Dark will hold these rich youngsters for ransom." + +Kenniston knew that the pirate leader would instantly see the chance +of extorting vast sums by holding this group of wealthy young people +as captives. + +"I wish to God I hadn't had to bring them into this," Kenniston +sweated. "But what else could I do? It was the only way I could get +back to Vesta with the materials." + +His mind was going back over the disastrous events since the day three +weeks before, when the Patrol had caught up to John Dark at last. + +Dark's pirate ship, the _Falcon_, had been gunned to a helpless wreck. +It had, fortunately for the pirates, drifted off into a region of +perilous meteor-swarms where the Patrol cruisers dared not follow. The +Patrol thought everybody on the pirate ship dead anyway, Kenniston +knew. + +But John Dark and most of his crew were still alive in the drifting +wreck. They had fought the battle wearing space-suits, and that had +saved them. They had clung grimly to the wreck as it drifted on and on +until it finally fell into the feeble gravitational pull of Vesta. + +Kenniston could still remember those tense hours when the wreck had +fallen through the satellite swarm of meteors onto the World with a +Thousand Moons. They had managed to cushion their crash. John Dark, +always the most resourceful of men, had managed to jury-rig makeshift +rocket-tubes that had softened the impact of their fall. + +But the wrecked _Falcon_ had been marooned there in the weird +asteroidal jungle, with the alien, menacing Vestans already gathering +around it. The ship would never fly space again until major repairs +were made. And they could not be made until quantities of material and +equipment were brought. Someone must go for those materials to Mars, +the nearest planet. + +John Dark had superintended construction of a little two-man rocket +from parts of the ship. Kenniston and Holk Or were to go in it. + +"You _must_ be back with that list of equipment and materials within +two weeks, Kenniston," Dark had emphasized. "If we stay castaway here +longer than that, either the Vestans will get us or the Patrol +discover us." + +The pirate leader had added, "The moon-jewels I've given you will more +than pay for a small cruiser, if you can buy one at Mars. If you can't +buy one, get one any way you can--but get back here quickly!" + +Well, Kenniston thought grimly, he had got a cruiser in the only way +he could. Down in its hold were the berylloy plates and spare +rocket-tubes and new cyclotrons he had had loaded aboard at Syrtis. + +But he was also bringing back to Vesta with him a bunch of +thrill-seeking, rich, young people who believed they were going on a +romantic treasure-hunt. What would they think of him when they +discovered how he had betrayed them? + + * * * * * + +"That's Vesta, isn't it?" spoke a girl's eager voice behind him, +interrupting his dark thoughts. + +Kenniston turned quickly. It was Gloria Loring, boyish in silken +space-slacks, her hands thrust into the pockets. + +There was a naive eagerness in her clear, lovely face as she looked +toward the distant asteroid, that made her look more like an excited +small girl than like the bored, jewelled heiress of that night at +Syrtis. + +"Yes, that's the World with a Thousand Moons," Kenniston nodded. +"We'll reach it by tomorrow. I've just been up on the bridge, telling +your Captain Walls the safest route through the meteor swarms." + +Her dark eyes studied him curiously. "You've been out here on the +frontier a long time, haven't you?" + +"Twelve years," he told her. "That's a long time in the outer planets. +Most space-men don't last that long out here--wrecks, accidents or +gravitation-paralysis gets them." + +"Gravitation-paralysis?" she repeated. "I've heard of that as a +terrible danger to space-travelers. But I don't really know what it +is." + +"It's the most dreaded danger of all out here," Kenniston answered. "A +paralysis that hits you when you change from very weak to very strong +gravities or vice versa, too often. It locks all your muscles rigid by +numbing the motor-nerves." + +Gloria shivered. "That sounds ghastly." + +"It is," Kenniston said somberly. "I've seen scores of my friends +stricken down by it, in the years I've sailed the outer System." + +"I didn't know you'd been a space-sailor all that time," the heiress +said wonderingly. "I thought you said you were a meteor-miner." + +Kenniston woke up to the fact that he had made a bad slip. He hastily +covered up. "You have to be a good bit of a space-sailor to be a +meteor-miner, Miss Loring. You have to cover a lot of territory." + +He was thankful that they were interrupted at that moment by some of +the others who came along the deck in a lively, chattering group. + +Robbie Boone was the center of the group. That chubby, clownish young +man, heir to the Atomic Power Corporation millions, had garbed himself +in what he fondly believed to be a typical space-man's outfit. His +jacket and slacks were of black synthesilk, and he wore a big +atom-pistol. + +"Hiya, pal!" he grinned cherubically at Kenniston. "When does this +here crate of ours jet down at Vesta?" + +"If you knew how silly you looked, Robbie," said Gloria devastatingly, +"trying to dress and talk like an old space-man." + +"You're just jealous," Robbie defied. "I look all right, don't I, +Kenniston?" + +Kenniston's lips twitched. "You'd certainly create a sensation if you +walked into the Spaceman's Rendezvous in Jovopolis." + +Alice Krim, a featherheaded little blonde, eyed Kenniston admiringly. +"You've been to an awful lot of planets, haven't you?" she sighed. + +"Turn it off, Alice," said Gloria dryly. "Mr. Kenniston doesn't +flirt." + +Arthur Lanning, the sulky, handsome youngster who always had a drink +in his hand, drawled. "Then you've tried him out, Gloria?" + +The heiress' dark eyes snapped, but she was spared a reply by the +appearance of Mrs. Milsom. That dumpy, fluttery woman, the nominal +chaperone of the group, immediately seized upon Kenniston as usual. + +"Mr. Kenniston, are you sure this asteroid we're going to is safe?" +she asked him for the hundredth time. "Is there a good hotel there?" + +"A good hotel there?" Kenniston was too astounded to answer, for a +moment. + + * * * * * + +Into his mind had risen memory of the savage, choking green jungles of +the World with a Thousand Moons; of the slithering creatures slipping +through the fronds, of the rustling presence of the dreaded Vestans +who could never quite be seen; of the pirate wreck around which John +Dark and half a hundred of the System's most hardened outlaws waited. + +"Of course there's no hotel there, Aunty," Gloria said disgustedly. +"Can't you understand that this asteroid's almost unexplored?" + +Holk Or had come up, and the big Jovian had heard. He broke into a +booming laugh. "A hotel on Vesta! That's a good one!" + +Kenniston flashed the big green pirate a warning glance. Robbie Boone +was asking him, "Will there be any good hunting there?" + +"Sure there will," Holk Or declared. His small eyes gleamed with +secret humor. "You're going to find lots of adventure there, my lad." + +When Mrs. Milsom had dragged the others away for the usual afternoon +game of "dimension bridge," the Jovian looked after them, chuckling. + +"This crowd of idiots hadn't ought to have ever left Earth. What a +surprise they're going to get on Vesta!" + +"They're not such a bad bunch, at bottom," Kenniston said +halfheartedly. "Just a lot of ignorant kids looking for adventure." + +"Bah, you're falling for the Loring girl," scoffed Holk Or. "You'd +better keep your mind on John Dark's orders." + +Kenniston made a warning gesture. "Cut it! Here comes Murdock." + +Hugh Murdock came straight along the deck toward them, and his sober, +clean-cut young face wore a puzzled look as he halted before them. + +"Kenniston, there's something about this I can't understand," he +declared. + +"Yes? What's that?" returned Kenniston guardedly. + +He was very much on the alert. Murdock was not a heedless, gullible +youngster like the others. He was, Kenniston had learned, an already +important official in the Loring Radium company. + +From the chaffing the others gave Murdock, it was evident that the +young business man had joined the party only because he was in love +with Gloria. There was something likeable about the dogged devotion of +the sober young man. His very obvious determination to protect +Gloria's safety, and his intelligence, made him dangerous in +Kenniston's eyes. + +"I was down in the hold looking over the equipment you loaded," Hugh +Murdock was saying. "You know, the stuff we're to use to dig out the +wreck of Dark's ship. And I can't understand it--there's no digging +machinery, but simply a lot of cyclotrons, rocket-tubes and spare +plates." + +Kenniston smiled to cover the alarm he felt. "Don't worry, Murdock, I +loaded just the equipment we'll need. You'll see when we reach Vesta." + +Murdock persisted. "But I still don't see how that stuff is going to +help. It's more like ship-repair stores than anything else." + +Kenniston lied hastily. "The cycs are for power-supply, and the +rocket-tubes and plates are to build a heavy duty power-hoist to jack +the wreck out of the mud. Holk Or and I have got that all figured +out." + +Murdock frowned as though still unconvinced, but dropped the subject. +When he had gone off to join the others, Holk Or glared after him. + +"That fellow's too smart for his own good," muttered the Jovian. "He's +suspicious. Maybe I'd better see that he meets with an accident." + +"No, let him alone," warned Kenniston. "If anything happened to him +now, the others would want to turn back. And we're almost to Vesta +now." + +But worry remained as a shadow in the back of Kenniston's own mind. It +still oppressed him hours later when the arbitrary ship's-time had +brought the 'night.' Sitting down in the luxurious passenger-cabin +over highballs with the others, he wondered where Hugh Murdock was. + +The rest of Gloria's party were all here, listening with fascinated +interest to Holk Or's colorful yarns of adventures on the wild +asteroids. But Murdock was missing. Kenniston wondered worriedly if +the fellow was looking over that equipment in the hold again. + + * * * * * + +A young Earth space-man--one of the _Sunsprite's_ small crew--came +into the cabin and approached Kenniston. + +"Captain Walls' compliments, sir, and would you come up to the bridge? +He'd like your advice about the course again." + +"I'll go with you," Gloria said as Kenniston rose. "I like it up in +the bridge best of any place on the ship." + +As they climbed past the little telaudio transmitter-room, they saw +Hugh Murdock standing in there by the operator. He smiled at Gloria. + +"I've been trying to get some messages through to Earth, but it seems +we're almost out of range," he said ruefully. + +"Can't you ever forget business, Hugh?" the girl said exasperatedly. +"You're about as adventurous as a fat radium-broker of fifty." + +Kenniston, however, felt relieved that Murdock had apparently +forgotten about the oddness of the equipment below. His spirits were +lighter when they entered the glassite-enclosed bridge. + +Captain Walls turned from where he stood beside Bray, the chief pilot. +The plump, cheerful master touched his cap to Gloria Loring. + +"Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Kenniston," he apologized. "But we're +getting pretty near Vesta, and you know this devilish region of space +better than I do. The charts are so vague they're useless." + +Kenniston glanced at the instrument-panel with a practiced eye and +then squinted at the void ahead. The _Sunsprite_ was now throbbing +steadily through a starry immensity whose hosts of glittering points +of light would have made a bewildering panorama to laymen's eyes. + +They seemed near none of those blazing sparks. Yet every few minutes, +red lights blinked and buzzers sounded on the instrument panel. At +each such warning of the meteorometers, the pilot glanced quickly at +their direction-dials and then touched the rocket-throttles to change +course slightly. The cruiser was threading a way through unseen but +highly perilous swarms of rushing meteors and scores of thundering +asteroids. + +Vesta was now a bright, pale-green disk like a little moon. It was not +directly ahead, but lay well to the left. The cruiser was following an +indirect course that had been laid to detour it well around one of the +bigger meteor-swarms that was spinning rapidly toward Mars. + +"What about it, Mr. Kenniston--is it safe to turn toward Vesta now?" +Captain Walls asked anxiously. "The chart doesn't show any more swarms +that should be in this region now, by my calculations." + +Kenniston snorted. "Charts are all made by planet-lubbers. There's a +small swarm that tags after that big No. 480 mess we just detoured +around. Let me have the 'scopes and I'll try to locate it." + +Using the meteorscopes whose sensitive electromagnetic beams could +probe far out through space, to be reflected by any matter, Kenniston +searched carefully. He finally straightened from the task. + +"It's all right--the tag-swarm is on the far side of No. 480," he +reported. "It should be safe to blast straight toward Vesta now." + +The captain's anxiety was only partly assuaged. "But when we reach the +asteroid, what then? How do we get through the satellite-swarm around +it?" + +"I can pilot you through that," Kenniston assured him. "There's a +periodic break in that swarm, due to gravitational perturbations of +the spinning meteor-moons. I know how to find it." + +"Then I'll wake you up early tomorrow 'morning' before we reach +Vesta," vowed Captain Walls. "I've no hankering to run that swarm +myself." + +"We'll be there in the morning?" exclaimed Gloria with eager delight. +"How long then will it take us to find the pirate wreck?" + +Kenniston uncomfortably evaded the question. "I don't know--it +shouldn't take long. We can land in the jungle near the wreck." + +His feeling of guilt was increased by her enthusiastic excitement. If +she and the others only knew what the morrow was to bring them! + + * * * * * + +He did not feel like facing the rest of them now, and lingered on the +dark deck when they went back down from the bridge. Gloria remained +beside him instead of going on to the cabin. + +She stood, with the starlight from the transparent deck-wall falling +upon her youthful face as she looked up at him. + +"You _are_ a moody creature, you know," she told Kenniston lightly. +"Sometimes you're almost human--then you get all dark and grim again." + +Kenniston grinned despite himself. Her voice came in mock surprise. +"Why, it can actually smile! I can't believe my eyes." + +Her clear young face was provocatively close, the faint perfume of her +dark hair in his nostrils. He knew that she was deliberately flirting +with him, perhaps mostly out of curiosity. + +She expected him to kiss her, he knew. Damn it, he _would_ kiss her! +He did so, half ironically. But the ironic amusement faded out of his +mind somehow at the oddly shy contact of her soft lips. + +"Why, you're just a kid," he muttered. "A little kid masquerading as a +bored, sophisticated young lady." + +Gloria stiffened with anger. "Don't be silly! I've kissed men before. +I just wanted to find out what you were really like." + +"Well, what did you find out?" + +Her voice softened. "I found out that you're not as grim as you look. +I think you're just lonely." + +The truth of that made Kenniston wince. Yes, he was lonely enough, he +thought somberly. All his old space-mates, passing one by one-- + +"Don't you have anyone?" Gloria was asking him wonderingly. + +"No family, except my kid brother Ricky," he answered heavily. "And +most of my old space-partners are either dead or else worse--lying in +the grip of gravitation-paralysis." + +Memory of those old partners re-established Kenniston's wavering +resolution. He mustn't let them down! He must go through with +delivering this cruiser's cargo to John Dark, no matter what the +consequences. + +He thrust the girl almost roughly from him. "It's getting late. You'd +better turn in like the others." + +But later, in his bunk in the little cabin he shared with Holk Or, +Kenniston found memory of Gloria a barrier to sleep. The shy touch of +her lips refused to be forgotten. What would she think of him by +tomorrow? + +He slept, finally. When he awakened, it was to realization that +someone had just sharply spoken his name. He knew drowsily it was +'morning' and thought at first that Captain Walls had sent someone to +awaken him. + +Then he stiffened as he saw who had awakened him. It was Hugh Murdock. +The young businessman's sober face was grim now, and he stood in the +doorway of the cabin with a heavy atom-pistol in his hand. + +"Get up and dress, Kenniston," Murdock said sternly. "And wake up your +fellow-pirate, too. If you make a wrong move I'll kill you both." + + +CHAPTER III + +Through the Meteor-Moons + + +Kenniston went cold with dismay. He told himself numbly that it was +impossible Hugh Murdock could have discovered the truth. But the grim +expression on Murdock's face and the naked hate in his eyes were +explainable on no other grounds. + +The young businessman's finger was tense on the trigger of the +atom-pistol. Resistance would be senseless. Mechanically, Kenniston +slipped from his bunk and threw on his slacks and space-jacket. Holk +Or was doing the same, the big Jovian's battered green face almost +ludicrous in astonishment. + +"Now perhaps you'll tell us what this means," Kenniston said harshly, +his mind racing. "Have you lost your senses?" + +"I've just come to them, Kenniston," rapped Murdock. "What fools we +all were, not to guess that you two belong to Dark's pirates!" + +Kenniston's lips tightened. It was clear now that Murdock had actually +discovered something. From Holk Or came an angry roar. + +"Devils of Pluto, I'm no pirate!" the big Jovian lied magnificently. +"Whatever gave you this crazy idea?" + +Murdock's hard face did not relax. He waved the atom-pistol. "Go into +the main cabin," he ordered. "Walk ahead of me." + +Helplessly, Kenniston and Holk Or obeyed. His mind was desperate as he +shouldered down the corridor. The throbbing of the rockets told him +the _Sunsprite_ was still forging through the void. They must be very +near Vesta by now--and now this had to happen! + +The others had been awakened by the uproar and streamed into the main +cabin after Murdock and his two prisoners. Kenniston glimpsed Gloria, +slim in a silken negligee, her dark eyes round with amazement. + +"Hugh, have you gone crazy?" she exclaimed stupefiedly. + +Murdock answered without looking toward her. "I've found out the +truth, Gloria. These men belong to John Dark's crew. They were taking +us into a trap." + +"Holy smoke!" gasped Robbie Boone, his jaw sagging as the chubby youth +stared at Kenniston and Holk Or. "They're pirates?" + +"I think you must be losing your mind!" Gloria stormed at Hugh +Murdock. "This is ridiculous." + +Holk Or yawned elaborately. "Space-sickness hits people in queer ways, +Miss Loring," the Jovian told Gloria confidentially. "Some it just +makes sick, but others it makes delirious." + +"I'm not delirious, and you two know it," Murdock retorted grimly. He +spoke to Gloria and the others, without taking his eyes or the muzzle +of his pistol off his two captives. + +"I thought from the first that this Kenniston's story of finding the +wreck of Dark's ship on Vesta was a thin one," Murdock declared. "And +yesterday my suspicions were increased when I went down and looked +over the cargo of equipment they brought. It's not equipment to dig +out a buried wreck. It's equipment to _repair_ a damaged ship--John +Dark's ship! + +"Suspecting that, last 'night' I sent a telaudiogram to Patrol +headquarters at Earth. I gave full descriptions of Kenniston and this +Jovian and inquired if they had criminal records. An answer came +through an hour ago. This fellow Holk Or has a record of criminal +piracy as long as your arm, and was definitely known to be one of John +Dark's crew!" + +There was an incredulous gasp from the others. Murdock still grimly +watched Kenniston and the Jovian as he concluded. + +"The Patrol hasn't yet sent through Kenniston's record, but it's +obvious enough that he's one of Dark's men too, and that his story +that he and the Jovian are meteor-miners is a flat lie." + +"I can't understand this," muttered young Arthur Lanning, staring. "If +they're Dark's men, why should they induce us to go to Vesta?" + +"Can't you see?" said Hugh Murdock. "John Dark's ship did crash on +Vesta after being wrecked--that must be true enough. But Dark and his +pirates weren't dead as the Patrol thought. They had to have machines +and material to repair their ship. So Dark sent these two men to Mars +for the materials. The two couldn't get a ship there any other way, so +they made use of our cruiser by selling us that treasure yarn!" + + * * * * * + +Kenniston winced. He knew now that he had underestimated Murdock, who +had put together the evidence quickly when his suspicions were roused. + +Gloria Loring, looking at Kenniston with wide dark eyes, saw the +change in his expression. Into her white face came an incredulous +loathing. + +"Then it's true," she whispered. "You did that--you deliberately +planned to lead us all into capture?" + +"Aw, you're all space-struck," growled Holk Or, bluffing to the last. + +Murdock spoke over his shoulder. "Call Captain Walls, Robbie." + +"No need to--here he comes now!" yelped the excited youth. + +Captain Walls, entering the cabin in urgent haste, had eyes only for +Kenniston in the first moment. + +"Ah, there you are, Mr. Kenniston!" the captain exclaimed relievedly. +"I was just coming for you. We've reached Vesta! I've ordered the +pilot to slow down, for I want you to pilot us through the swarm--" + +The captain's voice trailed off. His eyes bulged as for the first time +he perceived that Murdock was covering the two men with a gun. + +"We're not going in to Vesta, captain," rapped Murdock. "John Dark and +his pirates are on the asteroid--_alive_!" + +Captain Walls' plump face went waxy as he heard the name of the most +dreaded corsair of the System. + +"Dark--living?" he stuttered. "Good God, you must be joking!" + +Mrs. Milsom, her dumpy figure shivering and her teeth chattering with +terror, pointed a finger at Kenniston and the Jovian. + +"They're two of the pirates!" she shrilled. "They might have murdered +us all in our beds! I knew this would happen when we left Earth--" + +Kenniston's mind was seething with despair as he stood there with +hands upraised. His whole desperate plan was ruined at this last +moment. + +He wouldn't _let_ it be ruined! He would get this cargo of machines +and materials to John Dark if it meant his life! + +"Turn back at once toward Mars, captain," Gloria was saying quietly to +the stunned officer. Her face was still very pale. + +Kenniston, standing tense, had had an idea. A desperate chance to make +a break, in the face of Murdock's atom-gun. + +The captain had said that he had just ordered the pilot to slow down +the _Sunsprite_. In a moment would come the shock of the braking +rocket-tubes firing from the bows-- + +That shock came an instant after the wild expedient flashed across +Kenniston's mind. It was only a jarring vibration through the fabric +of the ship, for the pilot knew his business. + +It staggered them all on their feet, for just a moment. But Kenniston +had been waiting for that moment. As Hugh Murdock moved his gun-arm +involuntarily to balance himself, Kenniston lunged forward. + +"The bridge, Holk!" he yelled as he hurled himself. + +Kenniston's shoulder hit the captain and sent him caroming into +Murdock. The two men sprawled on the floor. + +Holk Or, with instant understanding, already had the door of the cabin +open. They plunged out into the corridor together. + +"Our only chance is to make the bridge and grab the controls!" +Kenniston cried as they raced down the corridor. "We can keep them +long enough to land on Vesta--" + +Hiss--_flash!_ The crackling blast of the atom-gun tore into the lower +steps of the ladder up which he and the Jovian frantically climbed. +Murdock was running after them as he fired, and there were shouts of +alarm. + +Kenniston and Holk Or burst into the glassite-walled bridge. Bray, the +pilot, turned for a startled moment from his rocket-throttles. + +Beyond the pilot, the transparent front wall framed a square of black +space in which bulked the monstrous sphere of the nearby asteroid. + +The World with a Thousand Moons! It loomed up only a few hundred miles +away, a big, pale-green sphere encircled by the vast globular swarm of +hundreds on hundreds of gleaming little meteor-satellites. + +"Why--what--" stammered the pilot, bewildered. + +Kenniston's fist caught his chin, and the man sagged to the floor. + +"Bar the door, Holk!" yelled Kenniston as he leaped toward the +rocket-throttles. + +"Hell, there's only a catch!" swore the Jovian. He braced his brawny +shoulders against the metal door. "I can hold it a little while." + + * * * * * + +Kenniston's hands were flashing over the throttles. The _Sunsprite_ +was moving at reduced speed toward the meteor-enclosed asteroid. + +The cruiser shook to the bursting roar of power, as he opened up all +the tail rockets. It plunged visibly faster toward the deadly swarm +around Vesta, picking up speed by the minute. + +Rocking, creaking, quivering to the dangerous rate of acceleration +Kenniston was maintaining, the little ship rushed ahead. But now there +was loud hammering at the bridge-room door. + +"Open up or we'll burn that door down!" came Captain Walls' yell. + +Kenniston didn't turn. Hunched over the throttles, peering tensely +ahead, he was tautly estimating speed and direction. His eyes searched +frantically for the periodic break in the outer meteors. + +There was a muffled crackling and the smell of scorched metal flooded +the bridge-room. A hoarse exclamation of pain came from Holk Or. + +"They got my arm through the door, damn them!" cursed the Jovian. +"Hurry, Kenniston!" + +Kenniston was driving the _Sunsprite_ full speed toward the whirling +cloud of meteors around the asteroid. He had spotted the break in the +cloud, the periodic opening caused by the gravitational influence of +another nearby asteroid. + +It was not a real opening. It was merely a small area in the swarm +where the rushing meteors were not so thick, and where a ship had a +chance to worm through by careful piloting. + +Kenniston only remotely heard the struggle that Holk Or was putting up +to hold the door against the hammering crowd outside. His mind was +wholly intent on the desperately ticklish piloting at hand. + +He cut speed and eased the _Sunsprite_ down into that thinner area of +the meteor-swarm. Space around them now seemed buzzing with rushing, +brilliant little moons. + +The meteorometers had gone crazy, blinking and buzzing unceasing +warning, their needles bobbing all over the direction-dials. +Instruments were useless here--he had to work by sight alone. He eased +the cruiser lower through the swarm, his fingers flashing over the +throttles, using quick bursts of the rockets to veer aside from the +bright, rushing meteors. + +"Hurry!" yelled Holk Or hoarsely again, over the tumult. "I +can't--hold them out much longer--" + +Down and down went the _Sunsprite_ through the maze of meteor-moons, +twisting, turning, dropping ever lower toward the green asteroid. + +A last gasping shout from Holk Or, and the door crashed off its +burned-through hinges. Kenniston, unable to turn from the +life-or-death business of threading the swarm, heard the Jovian +fighting furiously. + +Next moment a hand gripped Kenniston's shoulder and tore him away from +the controls. It was Murdock, his eyes blazing, his gun raised. + +"Raise your hands or I'll kill you, Kenniston!" he cried. + +"Let me go!" yelled Kenniston, struggling to get back to the +throttles. "You _fool_!" + +He had just glimpsed the jagged moonlet rushing obliquely toward them +from the left, bulking suddenly big and monstrous. + +_Crash!_ The shock flung them from their feet, and the _Sunsprite_ +gyrated crazily in space. There was a blood-chilling shriek of +outrushing air from the fore part of the ship, and the slam-slam-slam +of the automatic air-doors closing, down there. + +The cruiser's whole bows had been crushed in by the glancing blow of +the meteor. Now, ironically, the ship was falling clear of the +meteor-swarm for Kenniston's piloting had almost won through it before +the impact. But the _Sunsprite_ was falling helplessly, turning over +and over as it plunged down toward the green surface of the jungled +asteroid. + + * * * * * + +"My God, we're struck!" came Captain Walls' thin yell. + +"This is your fault!" Murdock blazed at Kenniston. "You damned pirates +will die for this!" + +"Let me at those controls or we'll all die together in five minutes!" +Kenniston cried. "We'll crash to smithereens unless I can make a +tail-tube landing--" + +Heedless of Murdock's gun, he jumped to the controls. His hands flew +over the throttles, firing desperate quick bursts of the tail +rocket-tubes to bring them out of the spin in which they were falling. + +The brake-rockets in the bow were gone. The ship was crippled, almost +impossible to handle. And the dark green jungles of Vesta's surface +were rushing upward with appalling speed. + +Kenniston's frantic efforts brought the _Sunsprite_ out of the spin. +By firing the lateral rockets, he kept it falling tail-downward. + +"We're goners!" yelled someone in the stricken ship. "We're going to +crash!" + +Air was screaming outside the plummeting ship. Kenniston, his hands +superhumanly tense on the throttles, mechanically estimated their +distance from the uprushing green jungles. + +He glimpsed a little black lake in the jungle, and near it the big +circle of an electrified stockade. He recognized it--John Dark's +camp! + +Then, a thousand feet above the jungle, Kenniston's hands jerked open +the throttles. The tail rockets spouted fire downward. + +Sickening shock of the sudden check almost hurled him away from the +controls. His hands jabbed the throttles in and out with lightning +rapidity, checking their further fall with one quick burst after +another. + +A sound of rending branches--a staggering sidewise shock that flung +him from his feet. A jarring thump, then silence. They had landed. + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Vestans + + +Kenniston picked himself up groggily. The others in the bridge had +been thrown against walls or floor by the shock, but seemed no more +than bruised. Holk Or was nursing his burned arm. But Hugh Murdock, +staggering in a corner, still held his atom-pistol trained on +Kenniston and the Jovian. + +"My God, what a landing!" exclaimed Captain Walls, his plump face +still white. "I thought we were done for." + +"Maybe we still are," Murdock said grimly. He said savagely to +Kenniston, "You think you've won, don't you? Because you've managed to +crash us on this asteroid where your pirate boss is waiting?" + +"Listen, Murdock--," Kenniston began desperately. + +"Keep your hands up or I'll kill you both!" blazed Murdock. "March +down to the main cabin." + +Kenniston and the Jovian obeyed. The _Sunsprite_ was lying sharply +canted on its side, and it was difficult to scramble down through the +tilted passageways and decks to the big main cabin. + +The cabin was a scene of confusion, for it was impossible to stand +upright on its tilted floor. Young Arthur Lanning had been stunned, +and Gloria Loring and the scared blonde girl, Alice Krim, were bathing +his bruised forehead. Robbie Boone was peering wildly through a +porthole at the sunlit tangle of green jungle outside. From Mrs. +Milsom came a shrill, steady wail of terror. + +"Stop that screeching," Murdock told the dumpy dowager brutally. +"You're not hurt. Gloria, are you others all right?" + +Gloria raised her white face from her task. "Only bruised, Hugh." + +She did not look at Kenniston or the big Jovian as she spoke. + +Robbie Boone's teeth were chattering. "Murdock, what are we going to +do? We're wrecked, on this hellish jungle asteroid--" + +Murdock paid the frightened, chubby youth no attention. Captain Walls, +Bray, and four of the crew were entering the cabin. The captain and +pilot had belted on atom-pistols. + +Captain Walls' plump face was paler. "Two of the crew were killed and +our telaudio wrecked by that meteor," he reported. He glared at +Kenniston. "You damned pirate! You're responsible for this!" + +"If you hadn't dragged me away from the controls, the cruiser wouldn't +have been struck," Kenniston denied. "And I'm not a pirate--" + +Murdock interrupted. "We'll settle with those two later," he told the +enraged captain. "Right now, we'll have to get out of the ship. We +can't stay in here until we get it righted on an even keel." + +Holk Or rumbled a warning. "Better be careful about going outside. +Those cursed Vestans are thick in these jungles." + +"I'll have no advice from you two pirates!" flamed the captain. "Bray, +you and Thorpe keep your guns on them every minute." + +The heavy main space-door was opened. Pale sunlight and warm, steamy +air laden with rank scents of strange vegetation drifted in. Outside +lay a raw clearing the falling ship had crushed out of the jungle. + +Captain Walls supervised as they all donned lead-soled weight-shoes to +compensate for the weaker gravity. Then they emerged, young Lanning +being supported by Murdock and Robbie. Kenniston and the Jovian were +last to emerge, under the watchful guns of their guards. + +The crew and passengers were looking around with wonder and revulsion. +The silvery bulk of the _Sunsprite_ lay awkwardly heeled on its side. +The symmetrical torpedo shape of the cruiser was now badly marred by +the crumpled condition of its bow. + + * * * * * + +All around them in the thin sunlight rose slender trees whose enormous +green leaves grew directly from the trunks. This grotesque forest was +made more dense by festoons of writhing "snake-vines," weird rootless +creepers which crawled like plant-serpents from one tree to another. +Each stir of wind brought white spore-dust down in a shower from the +trees. + +The few living creatures of this forbidding landscape were equally +alien. Big white meteor-rats scurried on their eight legs through the +brush. Phosphorescent flame-birds shot through the upper fronds like +streaks of fire. In the pale sky overhead, there were ceaseless gleams +and flashes of light as the spinning meteor-swarm reflected the +sunlight. + +"What a horrible place!" shrilled Mrs. Milsom. "We'll all die +here--we'll never get back to Earth. I knew this would happen!" + +"This is certainly a mean spot to be cast away," muttered Captain +Walls. "God knows what queer creatures inhabit it, not to speak of the +mysterious Vestans everybody talks about. And John Dark and his crew +are somewhere here. And the telaudio wrecked, so we can't call for +help." + +Kenniston realized that none of the others had glimpsed Dark's camp as +they fell. They didn't know the pirate encampment was only a few miles +away in the jungle. + +"What are we going to do, captain?" Gloria was asking, her face still +pale but her voice quite steady. "Can we get away?" + +Captain Walls looked hopeless. "We can't take off with the whole bow +of the _Sunsprite_ crushed in." + +"We can repair it, can't we?" Hugh Murdock suggested. "Remember, in +the hold is the cargo of machinery and repair-materials that Kenniston +was bringing to repair Dark's ship. Can't we use that equipment?" + +The captain looked more hopeful. "Maybe we can. Bray and the crew and +I ought to be able to do an emergency job of patching the bow and +installing new rocket-tubes there. But we'll have to work fast to get +away before Dark's outfit learns we're here." + +He pointed vindicatively at Kenniston. "Better lock up that fellow and +his partner to make sure he doesn't signal somehow to his +fellow-pirates." + +Kenniston tried again to explain. "Will you all listen to me? I tell +you, I'm no pirate!" + +Murdock eyed him sternly. "Do you deny that John Dark sent you to Mars +for repair-equipment, and that you told us that lying treasure-story +to get the equipment here in our ship?" + +"No, I don't deny that," Kenniston admitted. "But I'm not one of John +Dark's crew--I never was! I was a prisoner on his ship, captured by +the pirates before they themselves were attacked by the Patrol." + +"Do you expect us to believe that?" Murdock said incredulously. + +"It's true!" Kenniston insisted. "My kid brother Ricky and I were +captured by John Dark's outfit several weeks ago. We were prisoners on +his ship when it was wrecked by the Patrol. After the wreck drifted +onto Vesta here, Dark wanted to send someone to Mars for +repair-equipment. He wouldn't send one of his own men in charge, for +fear the man would double-cross him and never come back. + +"So he sent me, his prisoner, on that errand. Holk Or came along to +help me navigate a ship back. And I had to obey Dark and get the +equipment back here at any cost. For Dark kept my brother Ricky +prisoner here with him, and told me that if I didn't bring back that +equipment, Ricky would be shot!" + +Holk Or spoke up. "It's true, what Kenniston's telling you," rumbled +the Jovian. "Me, I'm one of Dark's pirates and I don't care a curse +who knows it. But Kenniston did this only to save his brother." + +"I don't believe it," said Captain Walls flatly. "It's another of the +smooth lies this fellow Kenniston makes up so easily." + + * * * * * + +Gloria spoke to Kenniston, her dark eyes still accusing. "If what you +say is true and you're not a pirate, then you brought all of us into +this danger simply to save your own brother?" + +Kenniston looked at her miserably. "Yes, I did. I was willing to lead +you all into capture to save Ricky. But I had a reason--" + +"Sure, you had a reason," Murdock said bitterly. "What did the safety +of strangers like us mean to you, compared to your precious brother?" + +Captain Walls motioned Kenniston and Holk Or angrily toward the ship. +"Bray, take them in and lock them under guard in a cabin," he said. + +Holk Or suddenly yelled. "Look out! There's a Vestan!" + +Kenniston, his blood chilling with alarm, glanced where the Jovian +pointed. At the west edge of the clearing, a small animal had suddenly +emerged from the dense green jungle. + +It was a six-legged, striped, catlike beast, not unordinary as +interplanetary animals go. But its head looked queer, seeming to have +a bulbous gray mass attached behind its ears. + +Captain Walls uttered a scoffing exclamation. "That's only an ordinary +asteroid-cat." + +"That _is_ a Vestan!" Kenniston cried. "Shoot at its head--" + +His warning was too late. The catlike beast had launched itself in a +spring toward their group. + +As its striped body shot through the air, Walls triggered his +atom-pistol. The crackling blast of force tore into the body of the +charging asteroid-cat, and the beast fell heavily a few yards away. + +But as it fell, the small gray mass upon its neck suddenly detached +itself from the dead animal and scuttled swiftly forward. It moved +with blurring speed toward Bray, the nearest to it of the group. + +The little gray creature was no bigger than a man's clenched fists +together. It was a gray, wrinkled featureless thing, except for +pinpoint eyes and the tiny clawlike legs upon which it scurried. It +reached Bray and ran swiftly up his legs and back as he swore +startledly. + +Kenniston, made reckless of danger by his horror, yelled and lunged +toward the pilot. Bray was swearing and trying to slap at the gray +thing running up his back. But the little creature had now reached his +neck. Clinging there, it swiftly dug two tiny, needle-like antennae +into the base of his neck. + +"Hold him!" Kenniston shouted hoarsely. "The Vestan has got him!" + +Bray had undergone a sudden metamorphosis as the gray creature dug its +antennae into his neck. His face stiffened, became masklike. + +The pilot turned and began to run stiffly toward the jungle. +Kenniston's leap almost caught him, but Bray lashed out a fist that +sent Kenniston sprawling. + +"Don't let him get away!" Kenniston yelled, scrambling up. + +But the others were too stricken by amazement and horror to interfere +in time. Bray had already plunged into the jungle and was gone. + +"My God, what happened?" Captain Walls exclaimed dazedly. "Bray went +clean crazy!" + +His gun was pointing at Kenniston and Holk Or as though he held them +responsible for what had occurred. + +"He didn't go crazy, but he's lost now," Kenniston said heavily. "That +little gray creature was one of the Vestans." + +"But what did it _do_ to him? That thing wasn't big enough to harm +anybody." + +"That's all you know about it," said Holk Or ominously. "Those little +Vestans are the most dangerous creatures in the System." + +"The Vestans," Kenniston added dully, "are semi-intelligent +_parasites_. The live by attaching themselves to and taking control of +some other creature's body. They do it by jabbing in those tiny, +needle-like antennae to contact the victim's nervous system. +Thereafter, the Vestan controls the victim's body absolutely. When the +victim dies or is hurt, the Vestan simply detaches himself and fastens +upon a new victim." + + * * * * * + +Horror was on the white faces of the others. Murdock gulped and asked, +"Then Bray--" + +"Bray is beyond saving now," Kenniston said. "The Vestan parasite will +control his body till he dies. The Vestans always like to attach +themselves to human beings--they know that a man's body is more +versatile in its capabilities than an animal's." + +Twilight was beginning to descend upon the little clearing in the +jungle, for the sun had gone down during the last few minutes. In the +gathering dusk, the jungle loomed dark and brooding about them. + +Overhead, the sky of this World with a Thousand Moons was burgeoning +into its full glory. The hundreds of meteor-moons that spun across the +heavens were shining brighter and brighter in the deepening dusk. + +Captain Walls broke the spell of horror and dread. "We'd better get +back inside the ship for tonight," he said nervously. "We can't do +anything about repairs until tomorrow, anyway. By then we'll have +figured out some way to deal with those devilish creatures." + +Murdock said bitterly to Kenniston, "Bray's end is your fault, +Kenniston. You brought him and us and these women into this place, all +for the sake of that brother of yours." + +"He'll stand trial for that when we get back to Mars," the captain +vowed. "Even if he wasn't one of Dark's crew originally, by helping +them he's made himself a space-pirate, liable to execution." + +Kenniston made no attempt to defend himself. He knew they wouldn't +understand why he had sacrificed them for Ricky's sake, even if he +told them. + +He and Holk Or were locked in one of the little cabins, after it had +been carefully searched. The crewman Thorpe was stationed as a guard +outside their bolted door. + +Holk Or, who had bandaged his burned arm, looked around the dark +little cabin disgustedly. "This is a devil of a fix to get into!" +swore the Jovian. "Here we've reached Vesta with the stuff, but can't +let the chief know." + +Kenniston asked him earnestly, "Holk, would John Dark really shoot +Ricky if I didn't deliver the equipment? He said he would, but you +know he needs Ricky." + +Kenniston was clinging to this last shred of hope for his brother. +John Dark and his pirates did need Ricky. For Ricky was a +physician--Doctor Richard Kenniston of the Institute of Planetary +Medicine. + +That was why John Dark had spared the lives of the two brothers when +he had captured them in the freighter in which they were returning to +Earth from Saturn. Ordinarily, the pirate leader would have ruthlessly +killed them as he killed all prisoners who were not rich enough to pay +ransom. + +But the fact that Ricky was a physician had saved them. The pirates +needed a doctor. They had kept the two brothers prisoner on their ship +for that reason. Kenniston and Ricky had still been on the _Falcon_ as +prisoners, when the Patrol had finally caught up to it and wrecked it. + +"Dark knows that Ricky is a fine doctor and he needs a doctor," +Kenniston repeated hopefully, to the Jovian. "Surely he wouldn't be +foolish enough to shoot Ricky, even if I don't deliver the equipment." + +"Kenniston, don't fool yourself," warned Holk Or. "The chief said he'd +shoot him if you weren't back with the stuff in two weeks, and shoot +him he will. John Dark never breaks his word." + +That assurance sank the iron deeper into Kenniston's tormented soul. +If that was true, and he knew in his heart it was, Ricky would die two +days from now unless he'd delivered the repair-equipment to Dark. + +He mustn't _let_ Ricky die! Too much depended on his young brother's +life. He must save Ricky even if it did mean the capture of Gloria and +the others by the pirates. Better that they be held for ransom, than +for Ricky to be killed! + + * * * * * + +Kenniston got to his feet, rigid with decision. "Then we've got to get +out of here," he muttered. "We've got to escape and take word to Dark +that the equipment is here." + +He continued quickly, "Holk, Dark's camp is only a few miles north of +here. I spotted it as the _Sunsprite_ fell." + +Holk Or uttered an exclamation. "Why the devil didn't you tell me so! +I figured it was on the other side of the asteroid, maybe, and that +we'd never find it in the jungle even if we did get away." + +"It still won't be easy for us," Kenniston warned. "The Vestans may +get us in the jungle between here and Dark's camp. And anyway, how can +we get out of this cabin?" + +The big Jovian grinned. "That'll be easy. I'd have been out of here +before now, only I was waiting for the ship to quiet down." + +Kenniston stared. "That door is bolted. And there's no tool or weapon +in the cabin. They didn't forget a thing when they searched it!" + +Holk Or's grin deepened. "They forgot one thing. They forgot how +strong a Jovian is on a little, weak-gravity asteroid like this!" + + +CHAPTER V + +Night Attack + + +Kenniston caught desperately at the hope implied by the Jovian's +words. + +"What do you mean, Holk?" + +"I mean that I'm a hundred times stronger on this little asteroid than +I am on my own world, Jupiter. I can break the bolt of that door any +time I want to." + +"But there's an armed guard stationed outside it." + +"I know, and that's where you come in, Kenniston. When I rip the door +open, you be ready to jump the guard." + +Kenniston considered swiftly. The chance of their getting out of the +ship and safely through the jungles to the pirate camp, even if they +escaped this cabin, seemed a slim one. Yet it presented the only +possibility of delivering the equipment in the hold to John Dark. + +The bitter irony of it struck Kenniston, for the hundredth time. He, +Lance Kenniston, honorable space-man for a dozen years, working +desperately to aid the most notorious pirate in the void! Even drawing +into danger the girl for whom he felt-- + +He shut Gloria out of his mind. He mustn't think of her now. He must +think only of Ricky, and of what would be lost if Ricky died. He must +risk everything, sacrifice everything, to prevent that loss. + +"We might as well try it now," he told the Jovian in low tones. "The +ship seems quiet." + +"I'll do my best to make as little noise as possible," Holk Or +muttered. "Are you ready?" + +The Jovian's big hands grasped the knob of the door. Kenniston +crouched a little behind him, every muscle tense. + +Holk Or suddenly put all his gigantically magnified strength into a +tremendous tug at the door. Its bolt snapped with a crack like that of +a pistolshot, and it swung wide open. + +The man on guard outside turned startledly, his hand darting to the +atom-gun at his belt and his mouth open to yell. But Kenniston had +launched himself like a human projectile as the door was torn open. + +Kenniston's fist smashed the space-sailor's chin and the man sagged +limp and unconscious with no chance to utter the cry on his lips. +Hastily, Kenniston took his atom-pistol and eased him to the floor. + +He and Holk Or listened tensely. The single sharp crack of the +snapping bolt had apparently aroused no one. The ship was silent. All +aboard were sleeping exhaustedly. + +"Come on," Kenniston murmured tensely to the Jovian. "We've got to +hurry to get to Dark's camp before night is over." + +Holk Or chuckled. "The chief will welcome us with open arms when he +learns we've got the equipment here for him." + +Kenniston gripped the atom-pistol as they stole through the dark ship +and out of the space-door. Outside, they paused in the darkness. + +The scene was one of magic, unearthly beauty. The metal bulk of the +cruiser and the towering jungle around the clearing were washed by +brilliant silver light that fell from the wonderful night sky of this +World with a Thousand Moons. + +A thousand moons indeed seemed blazing in the canopied heavens +overhead! The whole dark sky was crowded by the shining moonlets that +rushed ceaselessly across the firmament with the spinning of the +meteor-swarm of which they were part. It was like the glorious vista +of a world seen in dreams. + +But Kenniston was familiar with the unearthly spectacle. He led the +way rapidly toward the northern edge of the jungle. + +"We'll just have to plunge in and head north," he told the Jovian. "If +we reach that little lake, we can soon find Dark's camp." + +They started into the dense jungle, a fairyland of silver beams +sifting through the choking fronds. Something scurried close by. + +"Kenniston, shoot!" cried Holk Or instantly. + + * * * * * + +Kenniston had already glimpsed the white beast scurrying toward them +across a little patch of moonslight. It was one of the big +meteor-rats. On its neck bunched one of the little gray masses--a +Vestan. + +The horror inspired by the hideous parasites tightened Kenniston's +finger convulsively on the trigger of the atom-pistol. The crackling +bolt of fire from the weapon ripped into the Vestan on the meteor-rat, +and both parasite and animal victim were instantly a scorched, smoking +heap. + +"Hell, that's torn it!" cried the big Jovian. "We've roused the whole +ship!" + +Men awakened by the blast of the atom-gun were pouring out of the +_Sunsprite_, rushing after the two escaped men. Kenniston heard +Captain Walls shouting. + +"They're in the jungle here! Spread out and surround them!" the +officer was ordering. + +Kenniston and the Jovian plunged forward, seeking to escape northward. +But they had come up against an impenetrable abatis of brush. + +Before they could find a way around it, they heard men crashing all +around them. They were completely encircled. + +"Kenniston, you and that Jovian walk back into the clearing with your +hands raised or we'll blast every inch of the brush till we get you!" +came the stentorian shout of the captain. + +"The devil--they've got us boxed!" exclaimed Holk Or furiously. "We'll +try to fight our way through." + +"No!" Kenniston declared. "We couldn't make it anyway. And I'm not +going to shoot innocent men." + +Holk Or angrily grabbed for the atom-pistol, but Kenniston promptly +threw it away. Not even in this last extremity could he bring himself +to kill. + +"You're a fool!" gritted the Jovian. "Now there's nothing for it but +surrender." + +With their hands raised, they walked out of the jungle into the +brilliant silvery light of the clearing. Instantly they were +surrounded by Captain Walls, Murdock and the other armed crew-men. + +The girls and their scared chaperon, and young Lanning and Robbie +Boone, were emerging in alarm from the _Sunsprite_. Kenniston did not +look toward them. + +Captain Walls' face was grim in the moonslight, as he and his men +covered the two captured fugitives. "Kenniston, you and this Jovian +were going to make your way to John Dark and tell him of our presence +here, weren't you? You needn't deny it--it's plain enough." + +"Sure we were!" exclaimed the angry Jovian. "We'd have made it, too, +if a Vestan hadn't jumped us in the jungle." + +"That would have meant capture of us all by Dark's pirates," said the +captain grimly. "You two are a danger to us all, while you live. I'm +going to remove that danger. As master of a space-ship, I have legal +right to order summary execution of any space-pirates I capture. I'm +going to order that now." + +"You're going to kill them?" exclaimed Gloria. "Oh, no--you can't!" + +"It's absolutely necessary, before they betray us to the pirates, Miss +Loring," defended the captain. "They'd be sentenced to death by the +courts if we took them back to Mars, anyway. But we daren't take a +chance on keeping them prisoned that long." + +"But just to shoot them down!" said Gloria horrifiedly. "I won't stand +for that!" + +Murdock took her by the arm. "It's space law, Gloria," he told her +earnestly. "You'd better go back into the ship." + +Kenniston stood silent in the moonslight, for he realized from the +finality of Walls' voice that appeals would be utterly useless. There +was no use trying again to explain why he'd been willing to betray +them all to save Ricky. Even if they listened, they wouldn't +understand. + +He felt tired, crushed, old. He'd gone a long way in the last dozen +years, but every mile of it had only led toward this ending. He was +going to die here under the hurtling meteor-moons of Vesta, and that +meant that Ricky and Ricky's dream were going to die soon too. + +"I _told_ you you were a fool to throw away that gun," Holk Or was +muttering. + + * * * * * + +"You two march over there to the edge of the clearing," Captain Walls +ordered grimly, gesturing with his gun. "Anything you want to say +first, Kenniston?" + +"Nothing that you would listen to or understand, you people," +Kenniston answered dully. "No, I've got nothing to say." + +A crackling voice came out of the dark jungle at that moment. + +"_I_ have something to say! Drop those guns, every man of you, and get +your hands up!" + +Walls spun around with an oath, levelling his atom-pistol. But out of +the jungle crashed a streak of fire that hit the captain's arm and +sent him reeling. + +One of the girls screamed. Another of the _Sunsprite's_ crew had tried +to aim his weapon and had been cut down by a second bolt of atomic +fire that had hit his leg. + +"I _don't_ want to kill you unless you force me to," came that crisp +voice from the darkness. "You have ten seconds to drop the guns." + +"That's the chief, Kenniston!" yelled Holk Or excitedly. "It's John +Dark himself!" + +The dreaded name of the pirate, a synonym for cold ruthlessness, +reinforced the threat from the darkness. + +Murdock let his weapon fall and shouted, "Drop the atom-guns, men! If +we try to fight, the women will be hurt!" + +The _Sunsprite's_ men dropped their atom-pistols. Instantly out into +the brilliant light from the jungle rushed a score of armed pirates. +Martians, Earthmen, Venusians and others--this horde represented the +criminal under-world of every planet in the System. + +In a moment they had those in the clearing completely disarmed and +lined up against the ship. All except Holk Or, who was loudly greeting +his pirate comrades. + +Kenniston saw John Dark coming across the moonslit clearing toward +them. The notorious pirate was a tall, bulky Earthman, but he walked +with the lightfootedness of a cat in his moonshoes. His black hair was +bare, and in the silver light his black-browed, intelligent face was +coldly calm as his eyes searched the row of prisoners. + +"So you finally got here, Kenniston. What about the repair-equipment?" +he asked sharply. + +Kenniston nodded toward the _Sunsprite_. "It's in the hold. We got +everything you listed." + +"Good!" Dark approved. "We saw your ship crash-landing today, and +started this way at once. We've been beating through the jungle, +fighting off the damned Vestans, until we heard the uproar going on +here. What happened? Who are these people?" + +Kenniston explained briefly how he had induced Gloria Loring's party +to come on a pretended treasure-hunt. He was careful to stress the +wealth of the party, and John Dark reacted as he had expected. + +"If they're that wealthy, their families can pay big ransoms. You've +done very well, Kenniston." + +"What about Ricky?" asked Kenniston tensely. "He's all right?" + +"Sure he's all right--he's up at the camp," Dark answered. + +Gloria said bitterly to Kenniston, "You can congratulate yourself. +You've managed to save your brother." + +John Dark addressed her. "Miss Loring, I presume you and your +companions are willing to pay ransom for your crew also? I never take +prisoners, unless they promise a good profit." + +"Yes, of course we'll pay the ransom of the crew!" Gloria agreed +hastily. + +"Good!" said the pirate calmly. "You'll not find your captivity any +more irksome than necessary." + +Mrs. Milsom, the dumpy chaperon, was goggling at the notorious pirate +in an extreme of terror. A sardonic gleam came into Dark's eyes as he +glanced at her. + +"You're a handsome wench," he told the plump dowager with mock +admiration. "I've half a mind to keep you and let the ransom go." + +"No, no!" shrieked the terrified woman. + +Dark burst into a roar of laughter. "All right, my shrinking beauty, +we'll accept ransom for you." + +He turned and shot efficient orders to his subordinates, who by now +had gathered behind him. + +"Get that stuff out of the hold, rig up power-sledges, and start +freighting it up to the camp. You'll have to cut a path through the +jungle--use atom-blasters to burn one out." + +One of the pirates, a hard-faced Martian, said uneasily, "That will +make a racket that'll bring every Vestan on the asteroid down on us." + +"You can keep the Vestans off if you keep your eyes open," Dark +retorted. "Get to work, now! We've got to get the stuff up there and +repair the _Falcon_ at once. I'll take these prisoners up to camp." + +Kenniston was grouped with the other prisoners. With a strong escort +of armed pirates guarding them, and Dark and Holk Or ahead, they +started through the jungle toward the pirate camp. + + +CHAPTER VI + +Asteroid Horror + + +The pirate encampment was a big clearing hacked from the jungle a mile +west of the little lake. In this space lay the long, looming black +mass of the most dreaded corsair ship ever to sail the void. The +_Falcon_ had been righted to even keel, but its crippled condition +was evident in the fused, wrecked condition of its tail rocket-tubes. + +The whole camp was enclosed and protected by a shimmering blue dome of +electric force. This emanated from a heavy copper cable that +completely encircled the clearing, and which drew its power from +insulated cables that led into the ship to generators driven by the +few cyclotrons still functioning. This protective electric wall had +been set up at John Dark's orders to keep out the dreaded Vestans. + +John Dark raised his voice as he and his men with their prisoners +approached the shimmering wall of the camp. + +"Kin Ibo! Drop the wall for us!" + +They saw the hard-looking Martian who was Dark's second-in-command +dive into the ship to turn off the power of the electric barrier. It +died, and Dark's party entered the clearing. Then the electric wall +sprang into being again behind them. + +Kenniston looked swiftly around. There were a score more of the motley +pirates here in the camp. Also, near the side of the looming black +_Falcon_, were the small, rough log huts that Dark's men had +constructed. + +Dark's black eyes were triumphant as he told his Martian lieutenant, +"Kenniston and Holk Or brought back the equipment all right, and also +brought some people who'll bring big ransom. Their wrecked ship is a +few miles south. You go down there with half the men here and help the +others bring up the equipment." + +Kin Ibo, looking a little apprehensively out at the jungle, obeyed. +Dark motioned Kenniston and the other captives toward one of the huts +by the big ship. + +"That hut will be your quarters until we get the _Falcon_ repaired," +declared the pirate leader. "Any of you who try to leave it will be +shot at sight. I hope you'll not be foolish enough to attempt escape." + +"That's right, folks, you wouldn't have a chance," Holk Or told them +earnestly. "Even if you could get out through the electric wall, the +Vestans would get you. They're thick in the jungle around here." + +They silently entered the hut. Its broad open windows admitted enough +of the dazzling moonslight to brighten its interior. + +A dark, eager-looking young Earthman sprang up as they entered, and +rushed to pump Kenniston's hand. + +"Lance, you got back safely!" he exclaimed. "Thank the Lord--I've been +worrying myself almost crazy about you." + +"How about you, Ricky?" Kenniston asked his young brother anxiously. +"You're all right?" + +Ricky Kenniston nodded quickly. "Sure, I'm okay. But things haven't +been so good here, Lance. The Vestans have got a half-dozen pirates +who ventured outside the wall in the last few days. These creatures +literally haunt the jungles around here now--I think they've been +drawn here from all over the asteroid." + +Ricky looked wonderingly at Gloria and the others who were entering +the hut. "Lance, who are all these people? Are they prisoners of Dark +too?" + +"Yes, we're prisoners," Hugh Murdock told him bitterly, with a savage +glance at Kenniston. "We're prisoners because your brother sacrificed +us all to get back here and save _your_ neck." + +"Lance, you didn't do that?" Ricky exclaimed in distress. + +"I had to, Ricky," Kenniston protested. "It meant your life if I +didn't." + +"Of course," Murdock agreed ironically. "What importance are we, +compared to saving your young brother's life?" + +Kenniston spoke slowly, to Murdock and Gloria and the others. "It +wasn't merely Ricky's life at stake that made me sacrifice you all. It +was more than that. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn't +listen." + + * * * * * + +Kenniston went across the hut and brought back the square black +medicine-case of his young physician-brother. He opened it, and out of +the vials and instruments inside he took a square bottle of milky +fluid. + +"This is what I sacrificed everything to save," Kenniston said simply. + +They all stared. "What is it?" Gloria asked, puzzled. + +"It's Ricky's discovery," Kenniston said. "It's a preventative and +cure for gravitation-paralysis." + +Captain Walls, himself an old-time space-man, was first of the group +to appreciate the significance of the statement. The captain gasped. + +"A preventative for gravitation-paralysis? Kenniston, are you _sure_?" + +Kenniston nodded gravely. "Yes. Ricky had been working on the problem +a long time, back in the Institute of Planetary Medicine. He thought +he'd found a way to prevent gravitation-paralysis, the most awful +scourge of all the outer System, the thing that's doomed so many +space-men. But his formula required rare elements found only in the +outer planets. + +"Ricky and I," he continued, "went out there and secured those elements. +He made up this formula, and tried it on a gravitation-paralysis case--a +space-man who's lain paralyzed for years. The formula was designed to +strengthen the human nervous system against the shock of varying +gravitations, to re-establish an already damaged nerve-web. And it +worked." + +Kenniston's voice was husky as he concluded. "It worked, and that +living log became a man again. The formula was a success. Ricky and I +started back for Earth, where he intended to announce the discovery +and arrange for its manufacture on a big scale. But, on the way back, +Dark's pirates captured us." + +Kenniston flung out his hand in a tortured gesture. "_That's_ why I +went to any lengths to save Ricky's life! It's because Ricky is the +only person who knows the intricate formula of this serum. If he were +to die, the secret of the cure would die with him. And that would mean +that thousands on thousands more of space-men would be stricken into +living death by gravitation-paralysis in the future, just as so many +thousands of old friends and shipmates of mine have been stricken in +the past!" + +Captain Walls was the first to speak. Quietly, the plump master of the +_Sunsprite_ extended his hand. + +"Kenniston, will you shake hands with me? And will you forgive me for +everything? You did absolutely right. I'm an old space-man and I +_know_ what gravitation-paralysis is." + +Gloria's dark eyes were glimmering with tears. "If we'd only known," +she murmured to Kenniston. "No one could blame you for sacrificing a +lot of worthless idlers like us, for a thing like this." + +"But you're going to be all right--all of you," Kenniston assured her. +"John Dark will make you pay a big ransom, but you can afford that and +you'll get back safely to Earth." + +"Thank Heaven for that!" exclaimed Mrs. Milsom. "I can't understand +all this scientific talk of yours, but I do know that that pirate +chief means no good to me. Didn't you see the lustful looks he gave +me?" + +The laugh that greeted this lessened the tension. Kenniston turned as +Ricky plucked at his arm. + +"What about ourselves, Lance?" Ricky asked quietly. "Dark still won't +let us go, you know. He still needs me as a doctor." + +Hugh Murdock stepped forward. "Dark would let you both go, for a big +enough ransom. I'd like to pay it for you." + +The handsomeness of Murdock's gesture moved Kenniston. He was only +able to mutter his thanks. + + * * * * * + +While Ricky was treating Captain Walls' burned arm, the officer kept +looking fascinatedly at that square bottle of milky fluid. + +He said hesitantly, "I've a son--back on Earth. For five years he's +lain in a cot from the gravitation-paralysis that hit him out on +Jupiter. Do you suppose--" + +Ricky nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'm sure that we can cure him, now." + +There was an uproar out in the clearing. Kenniston went to the door +and looked out. + +The electric wall had temporarily been dropped, and Kin Ibo and the +main body of the pirates were hastily entering the camp with their +improvised power-sledges that bore heavy loads of machinery and +materials. + +Kenniston heard Kin Ibo reporting shrilly to John Dark, "We lost two +men to the Vestans on the way here--and nearly lost two more! All this +activity has drawn them from all over the asteroid! Look at that!" + +Outside the electric wall, which had been hastily re-raised, could be +glimpsed the shapes of lurking asteroidal animals. Meteor-rats, big +striped cats, flame-birds--and every one of those lurking animals bore +attached to its neck one of the little gray Vestan parasites. + +John Dark was saying harshly, "We've got to have the rest of those +materials to repair the _Falcon_." + +"I tell you, it'd be suicide to try another trip through those +jungles!" expostulated the Martian. "Those Vestans are devils!" + +"Bah, you Martians are all alike--no good when your superstitions get +aroused," snorted Dark contemptuously. "I'll take the men down myself. +Come on, men--unload those sledges and we'll go back to the wreck." + +His indomitable personality drove the scared, unwilling pirates into +the task. Again the electric wall was faded out for a moment to let +them out. + +When they returned some time toward morning, Kenniston heard the crash +of atom-guns heralding their approach. And when the wall was +momentarily dropped, John Dark and his men stumbled into the camp with +their loaded sledges in sweating haste. + +"Turn on the wall again--quick!" bellowed Dark's bull voice. "The +jungle's swarming with the gray devils now--they got five of us on the +way back!" + +Ricky, looking over Kenniston's shoulder, spoke appalledly. "Good God, +Lance--look at them! I didn't know there _were_ so many Vestans!" + +Outside the barrier of shimmering electricity, scores of animals and +birds dominated by the dreaded little gray parasitical creatures were +now swarming. And their number seemed growing every minute. + +"All this activity of the night has drawn the Vestans from far and +wide," Kenniston muttered. "I don't like it. If that electric wall +should fail, the creatures would be in on us in a moment." + +Dark himself seemed to feel something of the same apprehension, for +he was shouting urgent orders. "Hook up those atomic welders, and +start putting the new plates into the _Falcon's_ tail. Kin Ibo, have +your gang fit in the new rocket-tubes. I'll see to installing the new +cycs. If we work, we can get the job done by tomorrow night and get +out of here." + +Through the day, the pirates toiled with an energy that showed their +earnest desire to leave the asteroid. That desire was reinforced by +the ever-larger number of Vestans that now swarmed outside the wall. + +There were literally hundreds of the gray parasites now outside the +barrier. To have tried going outside the wall now would have been +sheer suicide. The creatures were apparently driven by unholy +eagerness to possess themselves of human bodies. + +Gloria, looking out with Kenniston, shuddered deeply. "This horrible +world! It's like a nightmare." + +"We'll soon be away from it," Kenniston reassured. "See, they've +almost finished repairing the _Falcon_." + + * * * * * + +The urgent toil of the pirates was showing results. By the time night +came again, and the meteor-moonlets blazed forth with magic beauty in +the dark heavens, the task of repair was almost done. + +Kenniston and his companions had not ventured forth from the hut. +Pirates were everywhere in the clearing, and all had heard John Dark's +strict order to blast down the captives if they left their prison. + +But from the hut, Kenniston and the others could see that the horde of +Vestan-dominated animals around the camp had further increased. With +ghastly avidity, they kept circling the shimmering, electric wall. + +Kenniston turned in alarm at a ripping sound from the back of the log +hut. Two of the logs were being torn out bodily. The battered green +face and giant shoulders of Holk Or came through the opening. + +"Kenniston, I came in this way because I didn't dare let Dark see me +talking to you!" the Jovian exclaimed. His face was urgent in +expression. "I've found out that Dark doesn't mean to let your friends +here get away from Vesta alive." + +"What?" exclaimed Kenniston. "That's impossible! Dark said he was +going to hold Gloria and the others for ransom." + +Holk Or nodded hastily. "I know, and he meant it, then. But since +then, he's found out something that's changed his plans. He found it +out from me--like a big fool, I told him everything when he questioned +me." + +The Jovian continued rapidly. "I told him that Murdock had sent that +telaudio message back to Patrol headquarters, asking about my record. +Now Dark figures that the Patrol will come out here to find out if +that message meant that some of John Dark's outfit had actually +escaped. + +"Dark wants the Patrol to keep thinking that he and his outfit were +destroyed--so he can slip out to Pluto and prepare a new base. So +Dark, when he leaves here, is going to drop Miss Loring and her +friends by the wrecked _Sunsprite_, so the Patrol will find 'em dead +by the wreck and will believe their cruiser crashed accidentally. That +way, they won't go on searching as they would if Miss Loring's party +was all missing. And Dark will have a chance to get out to Pluto +without an alarm going out." + +Kenniston was suspicious. "Why do you tell us this, Holk? You're one +of the pirates yourself." + +"I know, but I'm afraid Dark means to drop _me_ with the others by +the _Sunsprite_!" Holk Or exclaimed. "He didn't say so, but I believe +he figures on doing it so that the telaudio inquiry about me would be +explained when I was found dead with the others by the wreck." + +Murdock said swiftly, "The Jovian's right, Kenniston. All this is just +what Dark _would_ do, to hide his trail, now that he knows my telaudio +message may have aroused the Patrol's suspicion." + +Holk Or said emphatically, "I'm with you if you can figure out any way +to take the _Falcon_, Kenniston!" + +Kenniston paced to and fro. His whole mind was suddenly in a wild +turmoil of stark fears. This meant death for Gloria and the others, +and the ultimate responsibility for that death would be his. + +"There is one possible chance for us to take the _Falcon_," he +muttered finally. "But my God, it seems like an insane idea--" + +"Wait a minute!" Captain Walls interrupted. "Dark won't drop you and +your brother to die, Kenniston. He still needs your brother as a +physician. You two will be safe even if we are killed." + +"What of that? I can't let Gloria and the rest of you be murdered! I +was willing to sacrifice you when I thought it was only a question of +your being held for ransom, but this changes everything," Kenniston +said wildly. + +"It doesn't change anything," the captain said firmly. "Your duty is +to keep your brother alive at all costs, to save that formula that +means life and hope for thousands of gravitation-paralysis victims +like my son." + +"You mean--I should let you all be killed so Ricky and I can be +saved?" Kenniston cried. "I'm damned if I will!" + +"We'll never do that!" Ricky Kenniston agreed warmly. "No formula in +the world is worth that." + +"_This_ formula is," Gloria said earnestly to Kenniston. "The captain +is right." + +"I won't do it," Kenniston repeated. "I have an idea by which we might +be able to take the _Falcon_. We're going to try it." + +"Be reasonable, Kenniston," pleaded Hugh Murdock. "None of us except +Holk Or has a weapon. What chance would we have against half a hundred +armed pirates?" + + * * * * * + +Kenniston looked at his brother. "Ricky, your formula strengthens the +nervous system against any form of shock or damage, doesn't it? You +said it did it by sheathing the nerves themselves with an impenetrable +coating." + +Ricky nodded puzzledly. "Yes, that's the principle. But how is that +going to help us?" + +"The Vestans," Kenniston reminded, "seize control of their victims by +inserting those tiny needle antennae of theirs into the victim's +nerve-system to establish contact. Wouldn't your formula insulate the +nerves against such contact? Wouldn't it make a man immune to Vestan +attack?" + +"Why, it would!" Ricky declared wonderingly. "I never thought of it, +yet it's entirely logical." + +"Then," Kenniston said swiftly, "I want you to give every one of us, +including yourself, an injection of the formula right now." + +The driving purpose in his voice brushed aside all their bewildered +questions and objections. Hastily, Ricky prepared his hypodermics and +rapidly made an injection of the milky fluid into the big +nerve-centers in the neck of each of them. Kenniston did the same for +Ricky himself. + +"We _should_ be immune now to Vestan attack," Kenniston said +prayerfully. + +"But what good's that going to do us?" Holk Or demanded. "Are you +figuring to try an escape into the jungle?" + +"No, I'm figuring on taking the _Falcon_--by using the Vestans," +Kenniston replied. "Holk, can you get into the ship and turn off the +power that keeps the electric wall going? Can you drop the wall?" + +The Jovian's jaw dropped. "Why, sure, I could do that, but if I did, +all those hordes of Vestans outside the wall will burst in here--" + +He stopped, his eyes bulging. "Good God, then that's your plan? To let +the Vestans in?" + +"That's it," Kenniston said tightly, his face grim. "To let the +Vestans in on the pirates. That'll give us a chance to take the +ship--if the formula really makes us immune to the Vestans." + +The terrible nature of the proposal stunned them all. But in a moment +a flame of purpose lit in the Jovian's eyes. + +"I'll do it!" he swore. "It's better than waiting for Dark to kill me +like he's planning. You be ready!" + +The Jovian slipped out of the opening in the back of the hut. They saw +him presently, casually approaching the door of the _Falcon_. + +John Dark stood, a tall, dominant figure in the moonslight, barking +orders to the scores of pirates who were bolting in the last of the +new rocket-tubes. Kenniston's eyes swung toward the shimmering +electric wall, and the horde of Vestan-dominated animals outside it. + +The wall suddenly died! And as the electric barrier vanished, into the +clearing came rushing the swarm of asteroidal animals. + +"The wall's down!" John Dark yelled, his atom-gun leaping into his +hand. "Get back into the ship--get back--" + +The crash of his atom-gun drowned his own shout. Other pirates were +firing wildly at the hideous creatures assailing them. + +For the little gray Vestans had detached themselves from their animal +victims and were swarming upon the pirates, clambering with blurring +speed up their legs and backs, sinking into their necks the tiny +antennae. + +Kenniston glimpsed John Dark, with a hideous little gray bunch now +fastened to the back of his neck, drop his gun and stalk stiffly away +toward the jungle. His face was an unhuman, lifeless mask--he was a +human automaton, dominated utterly by the alien creature. + +"Come on!" Kenniston yelled to his friends. "Now's our chance to get +into the ship!" + + * * * * * + +They plunged out of the hut into the gruesome melee. Screaming pirates +were now running into the jungle in vain effort to escape the hordes +of Vestans. More than half the corsairs were now overcome. + +Kenniston heard a scream from Gloria as they ran, felt a swift +scurrying up his back, then the needle-like stab of antennae sinking +into his neck. + +But the parasitic creature did _not_ overpower his will! He reached +around, grasped and tore loose the hideous little thing, and with +strong revulsion flung it to the ground. + +"Your formula works, Ricky--we're immune to them!" he gasped. "But +hurry!" + +Other Vestans were clambering up on them like ghastly gray spiders as +they ran, but were powerless to overcome them. They tore away the +creatures and plunged on. + +Holk Or appeared in the door of the _Falcon_, his green face blazing +as his atom-pistol pumped crashing fire into pirates inside the ship. + +"I've got the ship cleared of them!" the Jovian shouted to Kenniston. +"Let's get out of here!" + +It was time they did so. Almost the last of John Dark's pirates had +been possessed by Vestans and had become parasite-dominated robots +stumbling off into the jungle. The remaining swarms of gray creatures +were scurrying toward Kenniston's group. + +They tumbled into the _Falcon_ and slammed shut the space-door. The +ship, completely if roughly repaired, was ready for take-off. Captain +Walls and the men of the _Sunsprite_ crew hastily started the +newly-installed cyclotrons while Kenniston and the others raced up to +the bridge. + +Kenniston took the controls. He sent the big black pirate ship leaping +up into the darkness upon flaming keel and tail-jets, and then it +climbed steeply toward the wonderful sky of countless rushing +moonlets. + +By the time an hour had passed, the _Falcon_ had groped out through +the periodic break in the meteor-swarm around the asteroid. And it was +throbbing at steadily increasing speed out into the vault of space, +away from the World with a Thousand Moons. + +"We'll head for Mars," Kenniston told the others. "We can report there +to the Patrol." + +"If you don't mind," Holk Or put in hastily, "I'd just as soon you +dropped me at some asteroid before then. I've no desire to meet the +Patrol." + +Captain Walls told the Jovian, "Nonsense! After what you've done, +you'll get a full pardon from the Patrol." + +"You can count on it," Hugh Murdock told the doubtful Jovian. "We have +some influence, back at Earth." + +"Well, I guess I'll have to go honest, then," sighed Holk Or. "All the +real pirate outfits are gone now, anyway." He shook his head heavily +as he walked away. "The System sure isn't what it used to be." + +Captain Walls was asking Ricky earnestly, "You're quite sure your +formula will cure my son? All these years, I've hoped and prayed--" + +"I'm certain," Ricky smiled. "Within a few weeks after we get back to +Earth, gravitation-paralysis will be a thing of the past." + +They moved off with the others. But Gloria lingered in the bridge with +Kenniston. + +"Where will you be going, after we get back?" she asked him quietly. + +"Oh, back to space," he answered, a little uncomfortably. "There's +nothing to hold me on Earth now that Ricky's work has succeeded." + +"Nothing to hold you on Earth?" Gloria repeated. "That, I would say, +is about the most ungallant speech on record." + +He flushed. "You don't mean--that night on the _Sunsprite_--you +weren't in earnest, surely--" + +"Your passionate proposal is accepted," Gloria said calmly. + +Kenniston was aghast. "But I didn't propose! I mean--I do love you, +and you know it, but you're an heiress, and I--" + +"We'll have all the way back to Mars to argue _that_ out," she told +him. "And I have an idea you'll lose." + +Kenniston had the same idea. + +The End. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The World with a Thousand Moons, by Edmond Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS *** + +***** This file should be named 32317.txt or 32317.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32317/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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