Phantom of the Seven Stars
By RAY CUMMINGS
Lovely Brenda Carson, scholarly Jerome, pompous
Livingston ... everyone aboard the Seven Stars
scoffed at the idea of a Phantom Pirate. But I.P.
agent Jim Fanning didn't laugh. He knew the luxury-liner's
innocent looking cargo was already marked for plunder.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Part of my assignment on this space-flight of the Seven Stars was towatch the girl. That much, at least, wasn't hard. She was certainlyeasy to look at—a little beauty, slim with a pert, oval little faceframed by unruly pale-gold hair. With mingled starlight and earthlightgleaming in that hair, it was like spun platinum. Her name was BrendaCarson. Certainly, she was an inspiring figure to any young man, in herwhite blouse and corded black and white trousers and her long blacktraveling cape with its hood dangling at the back of her neck and thecape folds flowing from her slim shoulders almost to the ground.
We were several days out from New York, with Mars, our destination,hanging like a great dull-red ball among the blazing stars in the blackfirmament ahead of us, when I first noticed that there was anythingqueer about Brenda. We were sitting under the glassite pressure-dome onthe forepeak of the Seven Stars, bathed in the pallid starlight. Byship-routine it was mid-evening.
I gestured toward one of the side bull's-eyes of the bow-peak."Gloomy-looking world, that Asteroid-9," I said.
The little asteroid, one of the many out here in the belt between theorbits of Earth and Mars, was a small leaden crescent of sunlightwith the unlighted portion faintly putty-colored. It was, I knew, aworld some five-hundred miles in diameter, amazingly dense so thatits gravity was not a great deal less than Earth. A bleak, barrenlittle globe. It had an atmosphere breathable for humans; there waswater—occasional rainfall; but chemicals in the cloud-vapors poisonedthe water for human consumption. The rocks were heavily laden withmetals. But they were all base metals, of no particular value. So faras I knew, nobody had ever bothered to settle on Asteroid-9. It wascompletely uninhabited.
"Asteroid-9?" Brenda murmured. "Is that what it's called?"
Something in my chance remark had frightened her. Her blue eyes as sheflung me a quick, startled glance were suddenly clouded with what mighthave been terror.
Her brother Philip was with us. He quickly said, "Asteroid-9? Somebodysaid we pass pretty close to it this voyage." He laughed. "Rotten sortof place, by what I've heard. You can have it and welcome."
I must explain that I was—and still am—an IP Man. My name, JimFanning. I was assigned as Lieutenant to Patrolship two. I hadbeen on vacation, in New York. My ship, one of the biggest in theInterplanetary Patrol, was now on roving duty somewhere in the vicinityof Mars. Then suddenly an emergency with the Seven Stars had arisen.Chief Rankin had planted me on her. Only the captain knew my identity.To the dozen or so passengers, I was merely a young civilian traveler.
"I've never been to Asteroid-9," I was saying. And I, too, laughedcasually, "I agree with you, Carson. Nice place to die in, but I guessthat's all."
There was no question but what Brenda was trying to hide her suddenemotion. Terror? Was that it? We said no more about the asteroid;chatted of other things, and we w