J. Harvey Haggard

“ Seized with unbearable emotions of delight, he grabbed the controls and sent the space-flyer in dizzy spirals and crazy patterns while the girl lay sleeping.
His scheme had been triumphant, though not as he had expected. A tiny mechanism, unrolling a strip of celluloid film, had been buried on the space-wireless, and a beam of light had carried his clever imitation of voices from the supposed broadcast.
The spark of life was being fanned, not by an emotion aroused from the sound of a familiar voice, but from hate. ”

“ He had seized upon her and the sickness that lay prey to her body as a means toward an end. He felt that there was a good chance of her being cured when exposed to the healing rays of the void. He was gambling not only her life, but his own as well. For if he failed in his mission the Space Police would hound him to an eventual ignoble end.
In the visor screens, earth was falling away swiftly. As he watched a scattering of dots appeared, drifted slowly across the face of the globe, into space. Police craft, of course. ”

“ He was glad that his score was even with Frenchy Logrieux.
Ahead of him, a black planet was swimming out of the void. Dark and foreboding, that lustreless sphere had an evil repute throughout the solar system. It was a barren, lifeless world, and one to be avoided by living creatures. Rufus Thallin headed the spacer in that direction. He knew that it was Pluto.
Repairs were made, and Pluto was far in the shimmering wake of the improved radiotron—again an opalescent beam of pure radiation hurled the space-flyer into the astral depths at speeds his accelerometer was incapable of registering. ”

“ Though the Space Police had been thrown off the trail, they would be questing even now for new leads, new spoors that might send them speeding in the wake of the space-flyer, even here in this Stygian depth of outer space.
Of course he had a watch to measure hours. He used it to plot a diet of synthetic foods for the girl, and followed it religiously. He was not so careful with his own.
Her spark of life was still glowing, though dimly. It needed kindling. New energies must build that spark to a flame, but those energies could not be fed from the outside. ”

“ Magnetic grapple! It slithered past the front cowling of his space flyer, looped out and whipcracked back. If it had fastened to the outer berylumin hull, escape would have become impossible. Through transparent ports on all sides he saw the bulky noses of the Space Police ringing him in. Many eyes were watching him over the sights of grapple rockets.
Big Rufus Thallin grinned, turned and waved goodbye through the nearest port, then slammed a power throttle down. ”

“ Now Marshall's eyes were glazing with horror, and he seemed too paralyzed to move. The other's mockery drove him frantic.
"You wouldn't dare!" he gasped. "The physicians have said the shock on going to space will kill Alyce. It would be plain—murder!"
"You're a man of your word," yelled young Rufus. "I'll take that word. Don't forget that, Marshall! If I ever come back, it'll be to collect!"
With the flame-gun held expertly he leaned and scooped the girl's fragile body up in one powerful arm, then backed slowly away. ”

“ TWO LIVES ARE GAMBLED
Staggering toward his desk, Keith Randolph Marshall began to jab at buttons affixed on its top. When servants appeared, he began screaming orders to pursue and apprehend the kidnapper.
Almost unable to breathe from sheer horror, he slumped at a window and gazed into a courtyard below. The big man was springing lightly across the lawn, and the puny wisp of the girl looked a light burden in his massive arms. A last leap, and they went through the open port of the moored space-flyer. ”

“ The space-flyer floated out over the edge of the abyss and dropped. It descended straight for three miles, then followed the curl of the titanic crevice toward the horizontal. Ancient civilized men had shaped the upper cavern, men of a lost generation, but this titanic lower abyss was a fault created by nature herself. ”

“ I'd give every space-ship I've got if she had the vitality of your oxlike body."
Whirling around, young Rufus pounced without warning, snapped up the flame-gun from the girl's lap, and held it before him. Then he began to rock with wild bursts of laughter.
"There's only one chance for her," he chuckled. "It's a cure most doctors, even now, are afraid to speak much about. But I've seen it happen. Out in space, a person's body is permeated with lots of solar rays you never get on Earth. Sometimes unhealthy tissue will heal like magic. ”

“ The features were vaguely familiar.
"Who are you?" he demanded of his mysterious caller. "And where are you calling from?"
"My name's Frenchy Logrieux!" spoke the black image. "We're up ahead of you, some fifty space-ships, and every one a battler. The police won't dare come up to us, so just head your space-flyer into our middle, Doc. Look here, Doc, remember these!" Great hamlike hands were thrust before the televisor screen. Scarred and misshapen, the flesh had obviously been grafted back to the tendons.
"Venus Colony!" exclaimed Rufus Thallin amazedly. ”

“ She was not retreating and her little head was held high.
"Other people besides you can make bargains!" she cried. "And they'd have kept them with Frenchy Logrieux, even as my father would keep your bargain. Why don't you take me back to earth now? I'm not ill any longer, and I'm certain you can buy any number of sleek space-ships in return for my body."
"Well, why shouldn't I?" demanded Rufus furiously. "That's what I intended to do when we came here. If your father lives up to his word that is just what is going to happen!"
"Don't worry about my father!" burst out Alyce Marshall proudly. ”

“ The space-clad man turned. He saw the academic features of the physician but dimly.
"He came with a property deed to every space-ship he has," said Dr. Haliburton. "I think you'll find that Marshall is a man who always keeps his word, no matter how the bargain is made."
Rufus Thallin made no answer but stood holding the atomic lantern until two space-clad figures walked from the space-flyer and came toward him. The faceplate of the larger helmet was turned into the lantern's glow and he made out the massive, aquiline countenance of Keith Randolph Marshall, glaring at him. ”

“ Lordy me, what speed!"
"Feed the juice into this star wagon!" groaned a Space Police commander, deeply chagrined. "He's got some new propelling force that has everything beat."
"They're getting away," gritted the pilot bitterly. "They're getting away, and we can't do a thing. All we can do is stand here and watch while that crazy man escapes to space with the poor girl."
In the craft ahead, Rufus' body was pulling away from the throttle. ”

“ Arms interlocked, they went hurtling from the airlock to the black table of lavalike rock. The smashing jar of collision wrenched their bodies apart. For a moment the pirate seemed about to flee, and Rufus would have let him go. Then the beady eyes fastened upon the space cruiser, and he came for Rufus swinging. One of them would go back to earth with the girl. Frenchy Logrieux didn't intend to spend the rest of his life as a castaway. ”

“ His big visitor did not cringe.
"You're big and strong," scoffed young Rufus scornfully. "And all puffed up with your own importance. Like a robber baron! Lots of power in your hands, and worlds to tremble at your decisions, but there's some things you're weak at. One thing—"
He looked suggestively at the limp little being in the wheel chair, so pallid and impassive. Her handling of the gun had been almost mechanical and quite without feeling. Marshall swayed, and young Rufus knew he had struck a vital spot. ”

“ Yet before nature began its healing work that inner spark, the vital "will" to live, must be nurtured. The body itself would only respond when her desire to continue life had been instilled. And that would never be when she lay in that perpetual coma, not caring whether she lived or died. ”

“ Alyce shot him a malignant glance.
"Oh, but I do!" she cried indignantly. "And the man is human, just as I am human, though you treat me like a dog."
"Come on outside, Frenchy," snapped Rufus angrily. "I want to talk to you." The amazed pirate followed him into the chilled gloom of the Cerberusian landscape.
"She hates me!" he explained hurriedly. "And it's necessary that she keeps on hating me. Sometimes she tries to kill me, and she always keeps plotting—"
"Oh yeh?" grated Frenchy Logrieux, bringing his big doughy hands up in a strangling motion. "Whyn't ye give her this, Doc? ”

“ The announcer's voice, booming and sympathetic, cut back in, "So you have heard the final plea of a tired old man, whose health has been broken and is under the constant care of doctors, who is hoping against hope that a miracle may be achieved, and the hard heart of a criminal softened by a father's plea...." ”

“ The rockets are on full blast. There are about ten police ships hot on my trail. If I depended entirely on rocket blasts, I'd never get away from anti-gravity chasers."
As he spoke he was engrossed in making changes on the oval mechanism board.
"My new drive doesn't use an explosive blast," he explained. "The fuel doesn't explode, but changes into primitive radiation! This radiation shimmers away—at almost the speed of light. Due to its increased mass with its enormous velocity, it will exert an enormous force in the opposite direction." ”