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Project Gutenberg's The World with a Thousand Moons, by Edmond Hamilton

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Title: The World with a Thousand Moons

Author: Edmond Hamilton

Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32317]

Language: English

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                         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.

       *       *       *       *       *







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