The Space Opera MEGAPACK ®. Jay Lake

fist smashed the space-sailor’s chin and the man sagged limp and unconscious with no chance to utter the cry on his lips. Hastily, Kenniston took his atom-pistol and eased him to the floor.

      He and Holk Or listened tensely. The single sharp crack of the snapping bolt had apparently aroused no one. The ship was silent. All aboard were sleeping exhaustedly.

      “Come on,” Kenniston murmured tensely to the Jovian. “We’ve got to hurry to get to Dark’s camp before night is over.”

      Holk Or chuckled. “The chief will welcome us with open arms when he learns we’ve got the equipment here for him.”

      Kenniston gripped the atom-pistol as they stole through the dark ship and out of the space-door. Outside, they paused in the darkness.

      The scene was one of magic, unearthly beauty. The metal bulk of the cruiser and the towering jungle around the clearing were washed by brilliant silver light that fell from the wonderful night sky of this World with a Thousand Moons.

      A thousand moons indeed seemed blazing in the canopied heavens overhead! The whole dark sky was crowded by the shining moonlets that rushed ceaselessly across the firmament with the spinning of the meteor-swarm of which they were part. It was like the glorious vista of a world seen in dreams.

      But Kenniston was familiar with the unearthly spectacle. He led the way rapidly toward the northern edge of the jungle.

      “We’ll just have to plunge in and head north,” he told the Jovian. “If we reach that little lake, we can soon find Dark’s camp.”

      They started into the dense jungle, a fairyland of silver beams sifting through the choking fronds. Something scurried close by.

      “Kenniston, shoot!” cried Holk Or instantly.

      Kenniston had already glimpsed the white beast scurrying toward them across a little patch of moonslight. It was one of the big meteor-rats. On its neck bunched one of the little gray masses—a Vestan.

      The horror inspired by the hideous parasites tightened Kenniston’s finger convulsively on the trigger of the atom-pistol. The crackling bolt of fire from the weapon ripped into the Vestan on the meteor-rat, and both parasite and animal victim were instantly a scorched, smoking heap.

      “Hell, that’s torn it!” cried the big Jovian. “We’ve roused the whole ship!”

      Men awakened by the blast of the atom-gun were pouring out of the Sunsprite, rushing after the two escaped men. Kenniston heard Captain Walls shouting.

      “They’re in the jungle here! Spread out and surround them!” the officer was ordering.

      Kenniston and the Jovian plunged forward, seeking to escape northward. But they had come up against an impenetrable abatis of brush.

      Before they could find a way around it, they heard men crashing all around them. They were completely encircled.

      “Kenniston, you and that Jovian walk back into the clearing with your hands raised or we’ll blast every inch of the brush till we get you!” came the stentorian shout of the captain.

      “The devil—they’ve got us boxed!” exclaimed Holk Or furiously. “We’ll try to fight our way through.”

      “No!” Kenniston declared. “We couldn’t make it anyway. And I’m not going to shoot innocent men.”

      Holk Or angrily grabbed for the atom-pistol, but Kenniston promptly threw it away. Not even in this last extremity could he bring himself to kill.

      “You’re a fool!” gritted the Jovian. “Now there’s nothing for it but surrender.”

      With their hands raised, they walked out of the jungle into the brilliant silvery light of the clearing. Instantly they were surrounded by Captain Walls, Murdock and the other armed crew-men.

      The girls and their scared chaperon, and young Lanning and Robbie Boone, were emerging in alarm from the Sunsprite. Kenniston did not look toward them.

      Captain Walls’ face was grim in the moonslight, as he and his men covered the two captured fugitives. “Kenniston, you and this Jovian were going to make your way to John Dark and tell him of our presence here, weren’t you? You needn’t deny it—it’s plain enough.”

      “Sure we were!” exclaimed the angry Jovian. “We’d have made it, too, if a Vestan hadn’t jumped us in the jungle.”

      “That would have meant capture of us all by Dark’s pirates,” said the captain grimly. “You two are a danger to us all, while you live. I’m going to remove that danger. As master of a space-ship, I have legal right to order summary execution of any space-pirates I capture. I’m going to order that now.”

      “You’re going to kill them?” exclaimed Gloria. “Oh, no—you can’t!”

      “It’s absolutely necessary, before they betray us to the pirates, Miss Loring,” defended the captain. “They’d be sentenced to death by the courts if we took them back to Mars, anyway. But we daren’t take a chance on keeping them prisoned that long.”

      “But just to shoot them down!” said Gloria horrifiedly. “I won’t stand for that!”

      Murdock took her by the arm. “It’s space law, Gloria,” he told her earnestly. “You’d better go back into the ship.”

      Kenniston stood silent in the moonslight, for he realized from the finality of Walls’ voice that appeals would be utterly useless. There was no use trying again to explain why he’d been willing to betray them all to save Ricky. Even if they listened, they wouldn’t understand.

      He felt tired, crushed, old. He’d gone a long way in the last dozen years, but every mile of it had only led toward this ending. He was going to die here under the hurtling meteor-moons of Vesta, and that meant that Ricky and Ricky’s dream were going to die soon too.

      “I told you you were a fool to throw away that gun,” Holk Or was muttering.

      “You two march over there to the edge of the clearing,” Captain Walls ordered grimly, gesturing with his gun. “Anything you want to say first, Kenniston?”

      “Nothing that you would listen to or understand, you people,” Kenniston answered dully. “No, I’ve got nothing to say.”

      A crackling voice came out of the dark jungle at that moment.

      “I have something to say! Drop those guns, every man of you, and get your hands up!”

      Walls spun around with an oath, levelling his atom-pistol. But out of the jungle crashed a streak of fire that hit the captain’s arm and sent him reeling.

      One of the girls screamed. Another of the Sunsprite’s crew had tried to aim his weapon and had been cut down by a second bolt of atomic fire that had hit his leg.

      “I don’t want to kill you unless you force me to,” came that crisp voice from the darkness. “You have ten seconds to drop the guns.”

      “That’s the chief, Kenniston!” yelled Holk Or excitedly. “It’s John Dark himself!”

      The dreaded name of the pirate, a synonym for cold ruthlessness, reinforced the threat from the darkness.

      Murdock let his weapon fall and shouted, “Drop the atom-guns, men! If we try to fight, the women will be hurt!”

      The Sunsprite’s men dropped their atom-pistols. Instantly out into the brilliant light from the jungle rushed a score of armed pirates. Martians, Earthmen, Venusians and others—this horde represented the criminal under-world of every planet in the System.

      In a moment they had those in the clearing completely disarmed and lined up against the ship. All except Holk Or, who was loudly greeting his pirate comrades.

      Kenniston saw John Dark coming across the moonslit clearing toward them. The notorious pirate was a tall, bulky Earthman, but he walked with the lightfootedness