Planet of Dread by Murray Leinster Read Free Book Online

waste-pipes and people will be surprised but not suspicious. You’ll file for mineral rights, and cash your cargo. Everybody will get busy trying to grab off the mineral rights for themselves. You can clear out and let them try to find the bessendium lode. You’ll be allowed to go, all right, and you can settle down somewhere rich and highly respected.”
    “Hmmm,” said Burleigh. Then he said uncomfortably; “One wonders about the original owners of the stuff.”
    “After a hundred and fifty years,” said Moran, “who’d you divide with? The insurance company that paid for the lost ship? The heirs of the crew? How’d you find them?” Then he added amusedly, “Only revolutionists and enemies of governments would be honest enough to worry about that!”
    Brawn came into the control-room. He said broodingly that breakfast was ready. Moran had never heard him speak in a normally cheerful voice. When he went out, Moran said;
    “I don’t suppose he’ll be so gloomy when he’s rich!”
    “His family was wiped out,” said Burleigh curtly, “by the government we were fighting. The girl he was going to marry, too.”
    “Then I take back what I said,” said Moran ruefully.
----
    They went down to breakfast. Carol served it. She did not look well. Her eyes seemed to show that she’d been crying. But she treated Moran exactly like anyone else. Harper was very quiet, too. He took very seriously the fact that Moran had saved his life at the risk of his on the day before. Brawn breakfasted in a subdued, moody fashion. Only Hallet seemed to have reacted to the discovery of a salvageable shipment of bessendium that should make everybody rich,—everybody but Moran, who was ultimately responsible for the find.
    “Burleigh,” said Hallet expansively, “says the stuff you brought back from the wreck is worth fifty thousand credits, at least. What’s the whole shipment worth?”
    “I’ve no idea,” said Moran. “It would certainly pay for a fleet of space-liners, and I’d give all of it for a ticket on one of them.”
    “But how much is there in bulk?” insisted Hallet.
    “I saw that half a dozen boxes had been broken open and emptied for the lifeboat voyagers,” Moran told him. “I didn’t count the balance, but there were several times as many untouched. If they’re all full of the same stuff, you can guess almost any sum you please.”
    “Millions, eh?” said Hallet. His eyes glistened. “Billions? Plenty for everybody?”
    “There’s never plenty for more than one,” said Moran mildly. “That’s the way we seem to be made.”
    Burleigh said suddenly;
    “I’m worried about getting the stuff aboard. We can’t afford to lose anybody, and if we have to fight the creatures here and every time we kill one its carcass draws others.”
    Moran took a piece of bread. He said;
    “I’ve been thinking about survival-tactics for myself as a castaway. I think a torch is the answer. In any emergency on the yeast surface, I can burn a hole and drop down in it. The monsters are stupid. In most cases they’ll go away because they stop seeing me. In the others, they’ll come to the hole and I’ll burn them. It won’t be pleasant, but it may be practical.”
    Burleigh considered it.
    “It may be,” he admitted. “It may be.”
    Hallet said;
    “I want to see that work before I trust the idea.”
    “Somebody has to try it,” agreed Moran. “Anyhow my life’s going to depend on it.”
    Carol left the room. Moran looked after her as the door closed.
    “She doesn’t like the idea of our leaving you behind,” said Burleigh. “None of us do.”
    “I’m touched.”
    “We’ll try to get a ship to come for you, quickly,” said Burleigh.
    “I’m sure you will,” said Moran politely.
----
    But he was not confident. The laws governing space-travel were very strict indeed, and enforced with all the rigor possible. On their enforcement, indeed, depended the law and order of the planets. Criminals had to