Star let the compartment door slide shut behind him, and sighed with heartfelt relief as the thunder of the atomic engines succeeded in drowning out the sound of Phath's tuneless space-chanty from the other end of the trim little speedster.
A small alarm trilled in Star Pirate's ear. The redheaded space adventurer gave a jaw-cracking yawn, stretched out his long, rangy legs, and blinked at the small illuminated chrono-dial sunk into the bulkhead wall at his eye-level. He had exactly twenty-four minutes before it was his turn to relieve Phath, who was on watch in the control room.
Generally speaking, Star and his Venusian sidekick never bothered to keep live watch over the ship's progress, leaving that to the robot pilot, whose super-keen electronic senses could easily and swiftly detect the approach or the presence of danger in plenty of time to awake the two. But here, at the very edge of the System, no one could guess what mysteries and perils lurked, and to keep live watch—although an irksome chore—seemed wise.
Star rose, splashed his face with stingingly cold water to rinse away the last clinging vestiges of sleep, slid his long legs into his drab gray zipper-suit, pulled on his boots, clasped his gunbelt around his lean hips, and sauntered forward.
He was not due to relieve his Venusian comrade for several minutes yet, but the redheaded space adventurer had set the alarm some several minutes ahead deliberately. Avoiding the door which led into the control room, Star went up a steel ladder to the observation deck, where he found, much to his surprise, that he was not alone.
A hunched, diminutive, squat little figure stood before the huge circular porthole, staring out at the restless fire of the glittering stars, and at the wan and ghostly gray luminance that was the orb of frozen, lonely Pluto, here at the very edge of known space.
Dull Pluto-light glimmered on the wrinkled scalp of the bald head of the old Martian savant, who glanced up quizzically as Star came sauntering out of the shadows.
"You, too, eh lad?" muttered the scientist, edging to one side so as to make room at the huge circular window for the Earthling. "Come to say a last farewell to the inner worlds?"
Star shrugged, and gave a halfhearted grin.
"Something or other like that, Doc, I guess," the Earthling murmured. He stared out to where the huge globe of ghostly gray light that was Pluto floated beneath their soaring keel, accompanied by its twin moons, Oberon and Titania. He watched the blurred, featureless sphere drift by beneath them. No one lived down there on the surface of bleak, inhospitable Pluto, as he well knew. The continents of frozen methane drifted aimlessly over seas of liquid hydrogen in a frigid hell where even the toughest steel became so brittle a child could snap it between his fingers.
Only on the little astronomical observatory satellite, called Tombaugh Station, did a crew of dedicated scientists and officers and men of the Space Patrol maintain the hegemony of human civilization, here at the very edge of known space.
Even as that thought was passing through Star Pirate’s mind, he became aware that the trim little speedster had passed beyond the orbit of Pluto—
Now that they had crossed over the Rim of the Unknown, they flew in trackless, unexplored space.
The Jolly Roger now blazed a trail where no other ship had ever gone before, in all the vast immensity of time ...
As Star went down the steel ladder again, to relieve Phath on watch in the control room, the Venusian’s voice was raised in careless and unmelodious song—
A slight, rueful smile touched the bronzed lips of the tall space adventurer as he strolled into the control cabin to relieve his albino comrade.
And he reflected, with just a touch of self-mockery in his thoughts, that while some men have at least a spark of poetry in their souls, others have a song on their lips.
It was quite a Universe!
PART II
Star Pirate discovers the astounding secret of the mystery planet!
Our Story Thus Far—
Dr. Zoar, a distinguished Martian scientist, has mathematical proof of the existence of a long-suspected but unknown Tenth Planet beyond the edge of the solar system.
He persuades that team of space-adventurers, Star Pirate and his Venusian sidekick Phath, into a journey of exploration and discovery. Installing his new superdrive aboard Star's scoutcratt, the Jolly Roger, Zoar predicts they will achieve speeds narrowly close to that of light itself.
The renovated speedster is launched from Star's secret hideout, the asteroid Haven, drops below the ecliptic, and accelerates on its new propulsion system—only to run into an uncharted meteor-storm which hulls the Roger and cripples the rocket drive. As Star and Phath toil to repair the damage, the powerless ship drifts deeper and deeper into the sinister "Vortex," a whirlpool of gravitational forces at whose heart lies an eerie graveyard of lost ships. At the last minute, the repairs are completed and the impetus of the superdrive enables the Jolly Roger to break free of the gravity-vortex.
Later, the little ship crosses the orbit of Pluto and heads into unknown, uncharted space—where no man of the Inner Worlds has ever trespassed before. What mysteries will they be faced with, what inexplicable perils, on the surface of the "brave new world" Zoar has named Persephone?
8. Over the Edge
"Why, you mud-eating swamp-lizard, if you dare touch one string of that devil's instrument, or utter a single caterwauling yowl of so-called song, I'll throttle you with my bare hands!"
This savage challenge was uttered by a squat green dwarf, a malignant scowl disfiguring his froglike face, under a tall, bald, wrinkled brow. He wore a dusty red smock and leathern sandals, for all that he was one of the System's most distinguished scientific celebrities, Zoar of Mars.
"Izzat so, you dust-chewing old horned toad?" snarled a soft, sibilant voice from the other side of the cramped little cabin, where a lithe figure with dead-white skin and slitted pink albino eyes lounged, cradling his nine-stringed Venusian guitar protectively in his arms. This was Phath, a Venusian space-adventurer who was pilot and first mate of the trim little speedster, the Jolly Roger.
"Yes, that’s so," growled the diminutive Martian scientist with a fierce glare from his ink-black eyes. "I’ll break that cursed noise-maker over your empty skull if you dare interrupt my concentration with your tuneless gargling!"