[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet March 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
STRANGE BARGAIN
The big library was of platinum-and-teakwood. There were two occupants,a monstrous man who wore expensive vitrilex, and a wisp of a girl in awheel chair. One entire wall space was taken up by a chart of the solarsystem. Below the chart was the label: Marshall Space Lines, 1990 to2055, First In Astral Commerce.
Spaceports, marked by red pins, dotted the entire chart. The large manwas humming as he thrust other scarlet pins into Ceres, Pallas and Junowith such a savagery as one might use in thrusting swords.
"Feel better, dad?" The wisp of a girl was speaking. Misty locks ofsheeny hair lay on the back of the invalid chair like starclouds on asummer night. A beautiful frame for a picture of lifeless, transparentfeatures.
"I ought to! It took fifty years to scalp the Thallin Starways!"gloated Keith Randolph Marshall, looking proudly at the carmineclusters that marked new interspace commerce lanes. "You bet! Fiftyyears to skin old Rufus Thallin's hide! Why, every ship he owns is minenow.
"He's going to come and beg! I've got it figured out. He'll cometoday, before the foreclosure. He'll be on his knees and I'll like it.He'll want more time on his notes, the ones I bought from mortgageowners long ago. That's another little surprise for him. Right now mysecretary is waiting down below, and will send him up."
"You must be very proud," said the girl listlessly, and the leonineman brought his pacings up very short. Pain marked the tycoon's face.Deepening lines went snaking from his puckered brows.
"Eh? I'm proud enough, but I'll never be really happy! That's thebitter edge of crushing an enemy, I guess. I'd give everything I everowned, turn over every red copper, if I could only make you well again,cure you from the Venus plague. You know that, darling."
Wistful eyes glimmered moistly, and her feeble hands pressed hismonstrous one against her cheek.
"As a last resort," bellowed a new voice, "I'd even take you up onthat, Marshall! I believe you were expecting me!"
Marshall spun and his gray mane quivered. It angered him to be caughtoff guard. Glaring past the glistening pyrite cases of interplanetarysouvenirs, he saw the doorway. In it stood a man garbed roughly as arethose accustomed to space travel, a great fellow fully as large ashimself, who had to stoop to get in.
Stalking forward grimly came the mastodonic spaceman, while wellwornasteroid boots cut insolent gashes in the varnished teakwood floors,leaving scars that struck sparks in the owner's outraged eye as hewatched the careless advance.
A spectacled secretary thrust his head in at the doorway, panting in aneffort to overtake the caller.
"Mr. Rufus Thallin to call upon you," he gasped and withdrewapologetically.
"Mister who?" demanded Marshall.
"Rufus Thallin was my father," announced the young giant softly, andhis grey eyes kindled. "They put him away yesterday, scattered hisashes to the infinities he loved. He made me promise to keep the oldThallin Starways going, whatever I did. That's why I'm here."
There was a small space-ship on Marshall's desk, spindle-shaped, amodel of the latest Marshall anti-gravity spacer. It was a symbol ofpower, of survival of the fittest in space. Marshall was shocked by thenews, but pretended a sudden interest in the miniature.
He stared through a window over his acres of a vast California rancho.So old Rufe Thallin, lean of