Planet in Peril

II. Calling Star Pirate

On Haven, that tiny worldlet lost among a whirling meteor-swarm in the uncharted regions of the Asteroid Zone, rugged cliffs and scarps of naked stone lifted to the distant stars. Their slopes and the vales that stretched between them were thickly grown with an odd forest of queer-looking trees which closely resembled titanic ferns.

Few of the asteroids retain enough super-heavy metals at their core to sustain sufficient gravity to hold moisture and any kind of an atmosphere to their breast, but Haven was one of these, and that was the reason why Star Pirate had chosen Haven, back in the wild, lawless days when he was a buccaneer of the spaceways, for his secret hideout. Even today, a free man, his past record wiped clean with a blanket pardon from a grateful System government, now when he devoted his keen wits and space-honed skills to fighting crimes, not committing them, Star still dwelt on Haven.

It was a late afternoon. In one part of the huge dome-room, Star sat at a desk of polished mineral, poring over sheafs of computer printouts and depth-photos of the puzzling petroglyphs left behind ages ago by the mysterious inhabitants of the lost planet, Aster, whose breakup in the gravitic tug-of-war between Jupiter and Saturn on the one hand and the mighty sun on the other had created the zone of huge rock-fragments which circle ever between the orbits of Mars and the giant, Jupiter. The attempt to decipher the enigmatic records the lost race had left, here and there, carven on the stony surface of a handful of asteroids, was Star's consuming hobby—no: his passion.

At the opposite side of the shallow curved dome, through whose lucent plasteel surface the stars blazed and flashed and sparkled like diamonds strewn on black velvet, Star's sidekick and buddy, Phath, reclined on a rattan lounger, plucking moodily on an eleven-stringed pittipak from his native Venus. The plaintive, moaning tune he played was one of the poignant, atonal love-songs from the Low Swamp country, his homeland. From time to time, when no adventure beckoned, no tantalizing mystery taunted with its allure of the Unknown, the slim, albino-pale Venusian lapsed into a melancholy of homesickness .

And this was just such a time. It had been weeks since last they had been summoned to the aid of beleaguered justice, to do battle against a mystery-mastermind of supercrime, and the languid, moody Venusian was suffering from acute boredom.

Then the flashing of a sharp green light over the ground-glass screen of the huge televisor roused him from his lethargy. Phath tossed the musical instrument on the couch and bounded lithely to his feet, excitement sparkling in his strange pink eyes. Star Pirate looked up from his work, frowning.

"That will be Carew," he guessed. "And about this nasty 'Fire Troll' business out on Mercury, I’ll bet," said the Ace of Space distractedly. Phath looked exultant, because he knew his chief had to be right: only Commander Jason Carew, senior Space Patrol officer on Pallas, was entrusted with a few trusted others with the secret combination of wavelengths used to contact Star Pirate’s hideout on his special multiwave televisor.

Light and color swirled in the ground-glass screen, and tightened into focus. Now a lean, hawk-faced man with a space-tan of deep bronze and keen, steady gray eyes under a trim head of hair the same precise shade peered out at them. He wore the high-necked tunic and slacks, space-black, of the Patrol.

"Glad you were in, Star," said the officer in clipped tones. Despite his calm, his self-control, he looked worried and tense.

"What’s up, Commander? This Mercury business?" inquired the younger man. Jason Carew relaxed his stiff features, permitting himself a reluctant half-smile.

"Can’t catch you napping, lad! Never could when you were on the wrong side of the law, and still can’t, even now that you’re fighting the good fight on our side. Yes ... seven murders, each in the same manner, the most recent at nine o’clock this morning, Solar Standard time. All the victims men of no particular consequence—"

"And all killed the same way, burnt to death, apparently by the searing heat of white-hot paws," rapped Star harshly.

Carew nodded slowly. "Yes, the throat or torso of each victim bore the same horrible burn-marks left by four-clawed paws. I understand Fire Trolls are supposed, in Mercurian myths, to have four-clawed hands and feet."

"What’s the story on these Fire Trolls, anyway, Commander?" burst in Phath the Venusian. "Anything to the notion, or is it just pure legend ...?"

"Insofar as we know, they fall into the same class with vampires, werewolves and goblins," said Carew, with the ghost of a smile. "However, the System’s a big place, and lots of strange mysteries and curious creatures may lurk just beyond the edges of discovery . . . will you see to it for us, Star? The colonists on Mercury are panicky, on the verge of open revolt and wholesale flight, unless something is done soon—"

"On our way, Carew," said Star, rising to his feet and buckling on his gunbelt. The screen went dark.

"Ready the Jolly Roger for flight within the hour, Phath; I want to be on our way to Mercury before the Universe is an hour older!"

"By Yakdar’s iridium intestines—some action at last!" grinned Phath. And whether his ejaculation was in the nature of a curse or a prayer, none could say. Perhaps it was both.

Only thirty minutes later Star’s trim little speedster lifted from the rocky, fern-clad surface of the jungle moonlet, raising to the stars on a plume of rocket-fire. The deadly "moat" of whirling meteors which surrounded Haven would be sudden death to any craft ignorant of the secret freeway through the maze of hurtling rock, ice and iron ... but Star had long ago planted radiobeacons on key meteors, and by their coded signals the Jolly Roger's "brain" (a compact, but superbly capable computer) guided them unerringly through the moat of whirling death. They emerged into clear ether without so much as a scratch to mar the black enamel which made the little speedster all but invisible in the dark night of space.

Falling well below the plane of the ecliptic, so as to be safely beyond most of the asteroids in the Zone, Star switched on the robot autopilot and turned in his huge swivel-chair to the televisor. He began fiddling with the vernier dials while his Venusian sidekick watched curiously.

"Who you callin', chief? Pallas Base?"

"No; I need to consult briefly with Zoar."

The pallid-skinned Venusian screwed up his face, with the expression of one experiencing a very bad smell. The bald and wrinkled green dwarf, Dr. Zoar, one of the wisest and most learned of the philosophic savants of Mars, was Star Pirate's old mentor and ally. Little love was lost between Phath and Zoar, however, and whenever they got together the bickering and name-calling between them was vituperative and seemed childish to Star.

"Calling Dr. Zoar . . . this is Star Pirate, calling Dr. Zoar," the redheaded adventurer spoke into the microphone. But the ground-glass screen whirled with a vortex of meaningless colors and did not resolve into the wrinkled, scowling features of the little Martian scientist.