And this was just such a time. It had been weeks since last they had been summoned to the aid of beleaguered justice, to do battle against a mystery-mastermind of supercrime, and the languid, moody Venusian was suffering from acute boredom.
Then the flashing of a sharp green light over the ground-glass screen of the huge televisor roused him from his lethargy. Phath tossed the musical instrument on the couch and bounded lithely to his feet, excitement sparkling in his strange pink eyes. Star Pirate looked up from his work, frowning.
"That will be Carew," he guessed. "And about this nasty 'Fire Troll' business out on Mercury, I’ll bet," said the Ace of Space distractedly. Phath looked exultant, because he knew his chief had to be right: only Commander Jason Carew, senior Space Patrol officer on Pallas, was entrusted with a few trusted others with the secret combination of wavelengths used to contact Star Pirate’s hideout on his special multiwave televisor.
Light and color swirled in the ground-glass screen, and tightened into focus. Now a lean, hawk-faced man with a space-tan of deep bronze and keen, steady gray eyes under a trim head of hair the same precise shade peered out at them. He wore the high-necked tunic and slacks, space-black, of the Patrol.
"Glad you were in, Star," said the officer in clipped tones. Despite his calm, his self-control, he looked worried and tense.
"What’s up, Commander? This Mercury business?" inquired the younger man. Jason Carew relaxed his stiff features, permitting himself a reluctant half-smile.
"Can’t catch you napping, lad! Never could when you were on the wrong side of the law, and still can’t, even now that you’re fighting the good fight on our side. Yes ... seven murders, each in the same manner, the most recent at nine o’clock this morning, Solar Standard time. All the victims men of no particular consequence—"
"And all killed the same way, burnt to death, apparently by the searing heat of white-hot paws," rapped Star harshly.
Carew nodded slowly. "Yes, the throat or torso of each victim bore the same horrible burn-marks left by four-clawed paws. I understand Fire Trolls are supposed, in Mercurian myths, to have four-clawed hands and feet."
"What’s the story on these Fire Trolls, anyway, Commander?" burst in Phath the Venusian. "Anything to the notion, or is it just pure legend ...?"
"Insofar as we know, they fall into the same class with vampires, werewolves and goblins," said Carew, with the ghost of a smile. "However, the System’s a big place, and lots of strange mysteries and curious creatures may lurk just beyond the edges of discovery . . . will you see to it for us, Star? The colonists on Mercury are panicky, on the verge of open revolt and wholesale flight, unless something is done soon—"
"On our way, Carew," said Star, rising to his feet and buckling on his gunbelt. The screen went dark.
"Ready the Jolly Roger for flight within the hour, Phath; I want to be on our way to Mercury before the Universe is an hour older!"
"By Yakdar’s iridium intestines—some action at last!" grinned Phath. And whether his ejaculation was in the nature of a curse or a prayer, none could say. Perhaps it was both.
Only thirty minutes later Star’s trim little speedster lifted from the rocky, fern-clad surface of the jungle moonlet, raising to the stars on a plume of rocket-fire. The deadly "moat" of whirling meteors which surrounded Haven would be sudden death to any craft ignorant of the secret freeway through the maze of hurtling rock, ice and iron ... but Star had long ago planted radiobeacons on key meteors, and by their coded signals the Jolly Roger's "brain" (a compact, but superbly capable computer) guided them unerringly through the moat of whirling death. They emerged into clear ether without so much as a scratch to mar the black enamel which made the little speedster all but invisible in the dark night of space.
Falling well below the plane of the ecliptic, so as to be safely beyond most of the asteroids in the Zone, Star switched on the robot autopilot and turned in his huge swivel-chair to the televisor. He began fiddling with the vernier dials while his Venusian sidekick watched curiously.
"Who you callin', chief? Pallas Base?"
"No; I need to consult briefly with Zoar."
The pallid-skinned Venusian screwed up his face, with the expression of one experiencing a very bad smell. The bald and wrinkled green dwarf, Dr. Zoar, one of the wisest and most learned of the philosophic savants of Mars, was Star Pirate's old mentor and ally. Little love was lost between Phath and Zoar, however, and whenever they got together the bickering and name-calling between them was vituperative and seemed childish to Star.
"Calling Dr. Zoar . . . this is Star Pirate, calling Dr. Zoar," the redheaded adventurer spoke into the microphone. But the ground-glass screen whirled with a vortex of meaningless colors and did not resolve into the wrinkled, scowling features of the little Martian scientist.
III. Fire Trolls
Riding its arch of atom-fire, the Jolly Roger hurtled through the void, passing "beneath" the asteroids and approaching the orbit of Mars. Ere long the Red Planet could be seen dead ahead, and in his mind's eye Star Pirate could see the vast plains of ochre dust, the half-ruined cities of ancient amber marble, the broad belts of rubbery blue vegetation which were the famous "canals"
"Phath, keep trying to get Zoar on the 'visor," he directed. "I'm going back to consult the library computer. We need all the dope we can get on these Fire Trolls, legendary or not!"
"Right, chief," nodded the Venusian.
A little while later, finding nothing of use in the computer memory, Star returned to the control cabin and discovered that Phath had just managed to get through to Dr. Zoar. Indeed, the dwarfish Martian was glaring out of the screen at the grinning Venusian. "What is it now, you moss-eared swamp-lizard?" snapped the savant impatiently, bending a malignant scowl on the albino. "Don't you realize that I am on the verge of a momentous discovery—?"
Phath flushed a little and his pink eyes went hard and venomous. "Izzat so, you knee-high green toad? Why, you wouldn't know a momentous discovery if you fell over one— which, considering your height, so called, wouldn't be hard to do!" he returned with vigor in his hissing tones.
Zoar's scowl, if possible, grew even more malignant than before. "Now listen, you web-footed, mudwallowing, fungus-eating—!"
"Why, you dust-swallowing midget! I'd step on you, if I didn't know that with your bloated ego, you'd explode like a pricked balloon, you—!"
"Children—children!" sighed Star Pirate in long-suffering tones, stepping between the Venusian and the Martian mirrored in the 'visor screen. Grumbling a curse to his low swamp devil-god, the lithe Venusian relinquished the chair and Star took a seat before the machine. At the sight of him, Zoar relaxed his ferocious scowl and his age-seamed and time-wrinkled features assumed an expression almost mild.
"Oh, it’s you, lad! You'll be interested to hear the results of my latest observations—I have detected the most interesting slight perturbations in the orbit of Pluto! If they recur on a periodic basis, I may have found proof of the existence of a trans-Plutonian planet—the one astronomers have inferred and alleged may well exist on the uttermost verge of the Solar System—the long-rumored ’Persephone,’ Pluto’s ancient companion on the long voyage through the blackness of space ..."