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."