Alfred Coppel

“ Kane grinned. "Afraid, old man?"
"I'm a space pig," Pop said. "Space takes care of its own."
"You're in a bad way, old timer," Kane said, "and you haven't much sense. I'm doing you a favor."
Pop lifted his hands in an instinctive gesture of futile protection as the blaster erupted flame.
There was a smell in the control room like burnt meat as Kane holstered his weapon and turned the old man over with a foot. Pop was a blackened mass. Kane dragged him to the valve and jettisoned the body into space.
Alone among the stars, The Luck moved across the velvet night. ”

“ Sitting at the battered console of The Luck, Pop watched his passenger. He knew Kane, of course. Or rather, he knew of him. A killer. The kind that thrives and grows fat on the frontiers. The bulky frame, the cropped black hair, the predatory eyes that looked like two blaster muzzles. They were all familiar to Pop. Kane was all steel and meanness. The kind of carrion bird that took what others had worked for. Not big time, you understand. In another age he'd have been a torpedo—a hireling killer. ”

“ The Patrol was on Kane's trail and the blaster in his hand was still warm when he shoved it up against Pop Ganlon's ribs and made his proposition.
He wanted to get off Mars—out to Callisto. To Blackwater, to Ley's Landing, it didn't matter too much. Just off Mars, and quickly. His eyes had a metallic glitter and his hand was rock-steady. Pop knew he meant what he said when he told him life was cheap. Someone else's life, not Kane's.
That's how it happened that The Luck lifted that night from Yakki, outward bound for Ley's Landing, with Pop and Kane aboard her alone. ”