Corsairs of the Cosmos

3. Lost World of Space

Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter stretches that bewildering zone of shattered moonlets and whirling rocks known as the Asteroid Belt. In their unnumbered hundreds of thousands, the fragments of "Aster"—that lost world of space—circle in orbits and counterorbits of such complexity that even computers are often helpless to deduce their periodicity.

Some of the larger asteroids—Pallas, for example, where the Patrol maintains its regional headquarters, and Ceres, where the crops of corn and wheat and barley are grown that feed the Belt and its peoples, and a few others—are large enough to have sufficient gravitational pull to hold breathable atmospheres. The rest are airless rocks, sterile, architectural wizardry of time-lost Aster, it may be. Little is known for certain, although much is conjectured, about the Lost Planet which was (it is theorized) torn asunder in the grip of intolerable gravity tides in a relentless tug of war which took place many millions of years ago between the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus on the one hand, and the inner worlds and the mighty Sun itself. In that contest. Aster was destroyed ... but still Its weird, enigmatic ruins thrust their mystery against the cold mockery of the uncaring stars, on lost, unknown, unvisited moonlets that whirl giddily forever through the endless and cold night of space.

Haven is one of these, save that, unlike most of the asteroids, this miniature worldlet is warm and fertile, with a breathable atmosphere and near-Earth gravity. This was the result of the fact that, even though little more than a mile in width, the core of Haven is composed entirely of the very heaviest of metals. This lends Haven mass, and mass means gravity, and gravity means the ability for a body in space to hold air and moisture, which would otherwise be uselessly dissipated into the vacuum.

Star Pirate had discovered Haven and its strange ruins years before. Had not the twists and turns of fortune made of him, for a time—but only for a time—an outlaw and a buccaneer of the spaceways, his keen, searching intelligence and scholarly gifts might have made of him a space archaeologist. For his true interests lay with the immeasurable reaches of antiquity, the ancient past, of Earth and every other world.

Thus, as a youth, he had found Haven. Fascinated by its ruins and their indecipherable inscriptions, he had made his first base on the tiny moonlet. Years later, when he was being hounded from world to world by the Patrol, he remembered the tiny, uncharted fragment of immemorial Aster, and made of it his secret base. For Haven had this additional factor, beyond its warmth and atmosphere—it lay at the heart of a deadly whirling vortex of meteor swarms which were sudden death to any ship that did not know the tricks of safe passage through the vortex—which he had learned with infinite labor, and at the expensive loss of many radio-directed drone vessels.

Now it was home to him, who had no other home.

Star was working in his laboratory when the call came in from Pallas. He had programmed the computer with a complete knowledge and grammar of every known language, and of every system of writing known—every form of charactery, cuneiform, pictograph, alphabet, hieroglyphics—from Earth and every other world with intelligent life. This formidable program he was now pitting against the mysterious characters cut in the solid basaltic stone of the Asterian ruins on Haven, in an attempt to crack the secret of the enigmatic runes.

"Star? Pallas calling," said a soft, familiar voice in the hissing sibilants of a Venusian. it was Phath, his Venusian sidekick and general factotum, a slim, supple man, as sly and nimble a thief as had ever opened a lock or picked a pocket. He had the hairless pate and albino pallor and pink eyes of a true Backwater Venusian from the Swamp Country, and had been Star's comrade and friend since that day, long ago, when the Pirate had risked his own life to rescue the marooned Venusian, then a complete stranger to him, from entrapment in the vortex of gravity tides beyond Uranus which men called the Sargasso of Space.

"Curse the luck," grumbled Star. Then, "I'll be right there."

The televisor screen showed a familiar figure, lean, ascetic, with the hawk-face and silver hair of John Carew. His lean figure was clothed as usual in the dead black of the Patrol, the twin platinum comets of his rank agleam from his high collar.

They exchanged a swift word or two in greeting. On his part, the Commander saw a tall, long-legged youth with broad shoulders and lean hips. He had green eyes, sparkling with mischief and intelligence under a mop of unruly red curls, in a space-tanned, clean-shaven face, and he wore, as usual, a drab one-piece zipper-suit of gray synthetic.

"What's up. Commander? The Blur again?"

Carew made a slow, rueful grin. "Should have known you'd be one jump ahead of me, Star," he chuckled. Then, in terse, well-chosen words he described the latest daring exploit of the mystery criminal.

The redhead nodded thoughtfully.

"As in all previous cases. The Blur was already on board," he mused. "But Interplanet has refused to accept any passenger, on request from the Patrol, right?"

Carew nodded, silver hair glistening. "Outside of officers and crew, the only others aboard the Saturn Maid were one company accountant, a senior Interplanet executive returning from his vacation on Titan, and one of their scientists. Company men, one and all."

Star shrugged. "Not important; if you can make yourself invisible, as The Blur can, you can come aboard anytime the ship is loading. He could have walked aboard at Titan, say, and stayed out of sight in the hold or an unused compartment, until it was time to strike. Clever devil ... the secret of invisibility has defied science until now. Wonder how he does it ..."

"The black cruiser vanished as usual,” remarked Carew. "It did not land on Callisto, for the Port Authority was keeping watch for just such an unlicensed descent and landing, and has been since the first of these Blur robberies around Callisto."

"And it didn't venture into deep space either, I'll guess," said Star with an impish grin. His respect for this Blur fellow was Increasing by leaps and bounds, and he was looking forward to matching wits with the invisible criminal. The Asterlan runes could wait ... as they had already waited for two hundred million years, for their decipherment.