Corsairs of the Cosmos

2. Calling Star Pirate!

The chairman of Interplanet Lines was a large, red-faced man named Pendleton whose hair was growing thin on top and whose temper was usually belligerent. As at the moment, for instance.

He glared accusingly across the gleaming expanse of his huge desk, carved from a heavy slab of costly Venusian goldenwood, at the Space Patrol officer who had just entered the executive suite. This was a granite-jawed veteran with thin lips and eyes like twin gimlets. His name was Brannigan. At the moment he was perspiring freely and striving to hold on to his own temper.

"—I assure you, Mr. Pendleton, that the Patrol is doing everything in its power to catch this crook who calls himself The Blur and to bring him to justice! That's why we have called upon persons such as yourself to cooperate with us—"

"Cooperate!" said Pendleton, with a rude snort. "Brannigan, everybody at Interplanet has cooperated fully with requests from the Patrol since first this madman ran amok and began raiding our freighters! You requested that we keep our ore shipments secret, and we kept them secret. You requested that we permit no passengers aboard our freighters, and passengers were forbidden, save for our own employees. You requested that all officers go armed in space, and we armed them all. And none of these measures did any good! Do you know how many credits that shipment of rare metals The Blur pirated from the Saturn Maid was worth, man? More credits than you'll earn in your entire career! And this is the sixth of these outrages this maniac has perpetrated against Interplanet!"

"I know, sir, but—!"

"But nothing!" growled Pendleton. "I've had enough of you and your cautious half-measures. The time has come to bring into play extraordinary resources—the extraordinary abilities and skills of a truly extraordinary man. I refer to none other than—Star Pirate!"

Brannigan flushed and bit his lip. That mischievous, devil-may-care rogue of the spaceways had long been a thorn in the Patrol officer's side. In the days when he had been an outlaw, a thief and a living legend, he had outsmarted, outwitted and outflown Brannigan with merciless ease; then, when he grew bored with such easy victories and was offered an official pardon from the System Council, following his heroic endeavors in the affair of the Solar Queen, and turned his brilliant intelligence, his matchless skills as a space pilot and his intrepid bravery to the service of justice, he proved better at crime-fighting than Brannigan, and had solved more than one mystery crime that had left the Patrol officer helplessly baffled.

"You mustn't do that, sir!" Brannigan protested. "Whatever people think, the boy's nothing less than a cunning criminal—pardon or no pardon! Oh, he's got everybody fooled by pretending to work on the side of the law—but I know better! And someday that clever young devil will trip himself up, and I'll have him at last! You know the old saying, sir—a leopard cannot change his spots. Once a crook, always a crook!"

The executive looked unconvinced. "And I'll remind you of another old saying," he said tartly. "Set a thief to catch a thief."

"But he's a common criminal—!"

"Rather an uncommon one, I'd say," snapped Pendleton sharply. "For seven years he ran you and the Patrol ragged. Ship after ship fell to him; he always showed you his heels and got away with the loot, and never once did he so much as spill a drop of blood in accomplishing this thievery. True?"

Brannigan dug out his handkerchief and swabbed his streaming brow. "True enough, sir, but—"

"The entire resources of the Patrol were hurled against him, and you couldn't even locate his secret base ... what does he call it, 'Haven'? As a matter of fact, even now that he works on the side of the law, it's my understanding that you of the Patrol still don't know where Haven is!"

"That's true enough, sir, but you don't—"

"Enough of this talk!" Pendleton said harshly. "You're a good man, no doubt, Brannigan, in your way. But you go by the rules . . . and what we need right now is someone who's not afraid to throw away the book and maybe even bend a law or two, just a little, in order to get the job done."

"But, sir, I—"

"I've met your chief, Carew, a time or two. An excellent officer, a shrewd judge of men, I'd say. I understand he trusts this Star Pirate implicitly. He's nobody's fool, Carew; fine old family. And if he trusts Star Pirate, then I trust Star Pirate!"

He turned to thumb his desktop televisor to life. The sweet, heartshaped face of a lovely girl with honey-blond curls and eyes as blue as April skies melted into view.

"Yes, Mr. Pendleton?"

"Get me Commander Carew at the Patrol base on Pallas, please, Robin.

Person-to-person; I'll deal with underlings no longer ..."