K
enniston's hands were flashing over the throttles. TheSunspritewas 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 theSunspritefull 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 theSunspritedown 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 theSunspritethrough 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. "Youfool!"
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 theSunspritegyrated 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 theSunspritewas falling helplessly, turning over and over as it plunged down toward the green surface of the jungled asteroid.
M
y 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 theSunspriteout 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.
K
enniston picked himself up groggily. The others in the bridge had been thrown against walls or floor by the shock, but seemed no more than bruised. Holk Or was nursing his burned arm. But Hugh Murdock, staggering in a corner, still held his atom-pistol trained on Kenniston and the Jovian.
"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. TheSunspritewas 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 theSunspritelay awkwardly heeled on its side. The symmetrical torpedo shape of the cruiser was now badly marred by the crumpled condition of its bow.
A
ll around them in the thin sunlight rose slender trees whose enormous green leaves grew directly from the trunks. This grotesque forest was made more dense by festoons of writhing "snake-vines," weird rootless creepers which crawled like plant-serpents from one tree to another. Each stir of wind brought white spore-dust down in a shower from the trees.
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 theSunspritecrushed 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."
G
loria spoke to Kenniston, her dark eyes still accusing. "If what you say is true and you're not a pirate, then you brought all of us into this danger simply to save your own brother?"
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."
"Thatisa 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 itdoto 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-intelligentparasites. 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."
H
orror 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 theFalconas 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'tletRicky 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!
K
enniston got to his feet, rigid with decision. "Then we've got to get out of here," he muttered. "We've got to escape and take word to Dark that the equipment is here."
He continued quickly, "Holk, Dark's camp is only a few miles north of here. I spotted it as theSunspritefell."
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!"
K
enniston 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.
K
enniston had already glimpsed the white beast scurrying toward them across a little patch of moonslight. It was one of the big meteor-rats. On its neck bunched one of the little gray masses—a Vestan.
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 theSunsprite, 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 theSunsprite. 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.
"Itoldyou you were a fool to throw away that gun," Holk Or was muttering.
Y
ou two march over there to the edge of the clearing," Captain Walls ordered grimly, gesturing with his gun. "Anything you want to say first, Kenniston?"
"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.
"Ihave 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 theSunsprite'screw had tried to aim his weapon and had been cut down by a second bolt of atomic fire that had hit his leg.
"Idon'twant 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!"
TheSunsprite'smen 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 theSunsprite. "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 theFalconat 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.
T
he pirate encampment was a big clearing hacked from the jungle a mile west of the little lake. In this space lay the long, looming black mass of the most dreaded corsair ship ever to sail the void. TheFalconhad 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 blackFalcon, 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 theFalconrepaired," 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 saveyourneck."
"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."
K
enniston went across the hut and brought back the square black medicine-case of his young physician-brother. He opened it, and out of the vials and instruments inside he took a square bottle of milky fluid.
"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 yousure?"
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'swhy 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 theSunspriteextended 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 Iknowwhat 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.