Ghosts of Ganymede

7. The Murderer—Unmasked!

The Jolly Roger shrieked like a meteor as it flashed through the misty skies of Ganymede. At the giant spaceport, the trim little craft rode down on a blazing pillar of rocket-fire as it settled into a landing-pit of blistered metal. Within moments, Star Pirate and his Venusian comrade strode Into Madame Ong’s Cafe and were met by Branigan.

Star looked around swiftly, sharp green eyes missing little. In the case of this particular establishment, he correctly guessed that "cafe" was a polite euphemism for "house of joy," for the dancing-girls were slim and young and of seductive loveliness, and beyond the huge square stone-walled room of the cafe, in a number of small cubicles, discreetly veiled behind tinkling bead curtains, were dispensed pipes of the forbidden Saturnian drug quang, if his keen nostrils were any judge.

He examined the girl’s body swiftly, discovering nothing to surprise him. She had been a lovely young creature, her dusky bronze skin and slanting amber eyes denoting an exotic mixture of the blood of several foreign worlds.

Madame Ong herself was a buttery-skinned Uranian, hugely fat and grotesquely painted with enough cosmetics to adorn half-a-dozen women. The abiq-plumes in her jewelled headdress quivered and trembled in the sweet, smoky air as she shook with fear, recounting the horror she had seen.

"P-poor little Ydara! Been one of my girls for two years, now, come next dragon-bird festival! What a horrible way to die!" the madame moaned, fanning herself with a greasy pack of gambling cards.

"Just tell me everything you saw," urged Star.

"A cloud of black smoke, it was like, the murderous thing," quivered the fat Uranian woman. "You could see right through it, like—like a ghost! A black, murdering ghost ... little Ydara, she had just finished her dance and was about to go upstairs with a customer—" she caught Branigan's grim, steely eye and flushed purple. "I—I mean, about to have a cup of wine with an old and valued patron," she said, in hurried, flustered tones. "When the dark shape settled about her, and part of it sort of ... shaped itself into something like—like—"

"A—tentacle?" rapped Star Pirate keenly. The Uranian madame blinked long, thick, and obviously artificial lashes at him with a grateful smirk oil her painted features.

"Yes, kind sir—like a tentacle, which whipped about her slim and pretty neck, and—and—" She whipped out a bit of perfumed lace, buried her lace in its folds, and moaned, flapping one bejewelled hand at the dead body eloquently.

"Did you, or anyone else in the room, happen to notice where the black vaporous ghost came from?" inquired Star, green eyes flicking from face to face. More than a few of the cafe's patrons turned and pointed to a place high up on the far wall. Star took one long look.

"Just as I suspected—the grill of an air-circulator!" he crowed. "The walls of the room are solid stone, except for the ventilating ducts, and there are no windows. Quick, Phath, the equipment case!"

From the vestibule beyond, the Venusian lugged into the big square room a small, compact case, and opened it to remove a cubicular mechanism of gleaming metal, with a long hoselike attachment, which he plugged into the nearest power-outlet. Meanwhile, Branigan eyed the scene in bewilderment.

"What in the name of thirty spacedevils do you think you’re doing, Pirate?" he demanded.

Star nodded at the machine. "What does that look like to you, Branigan?" he inquired in sweet tones. The Patrol officer studied it belligerently.

"Like a suction-machine," he muttered. "What the devil do you plan to do, Pirate, try to suck the ghost out of the wall with a cursed vacuumcleaner?"

Star grinned and winked mysteriously. Then he attached a large bulk of transparent metal to the front of the suction-pump, and told everybody to stand back—

Night had fallen on the jungle moon, as the Jolly Roger rode down on a column of blazing atom-fire into the scorched and muddy clearing where the little cabin stood under the weird glory of the many moons aloft. Sue Barlow and Scotty McGuire came out to regard the two adventurers in surprise.

The blond girl stared at Star with wide, wondering eyes.

"We heard it on the newscast" she said breathlessly. "That you had discovered and unmasked the ghost-murderer—"

"Aye, and captured the black phantom, to boot!” crowed Scotty McGuire, reaching up to clap Star on one hard, muscular shoulder. "Come into the cabin, aye, and your Venusian friend, too. We'll share a bottle of good Uranian wine to celebrate, and you can tell us all about it!"