famous pirate who had preyed on the
shipping of the Void with fearless, ruthless audacity and had piled up
a fabulous treasure before that fatal day when the massed battle
spheres of the Interplanetary Council trapped his ships out near
Mercury and blew them to atoms there in the sun-beaten reaches of
space. Some of the men had been captured; old Lozzo might have been
one of them. Penrun knew the history of Halkon from childhood, and for
a very good reason.

The ancient Martian stirred uneasily. His piercing blue eyes turned
again to Penrun's face.

"Every word I have said is true, Sirro," he repeated hurriedly. "I
boarded this ship at New York with the sole intention of discharging
my sworn duty and giving a message to the grandson of Captain Orion
Halkon, his first male descendant."

* * * * *

Penrun's eyes widened in startled amazement. He, himself, was the
grandson of the notorious Halkon, a fact that not more than half a
dozen people in the Universe knew--or so he had always believed. His
mother, Halkon's only daughter, good and upright woman that she was,
had hidden that family skeleton far back in the closet and solemnly
warned Dick Penrun and his two sisters to keep it there. Yet this old
man, who had singled him out of the crowd in the buffet not thirty
minutes ago and drew him into conversation, knew the secret. Perhaps
he really had been a cabin boy under Halkon!

"I have been serving out the hundred-year sentence for piracy the
judges imposed on me, a century in your own Earth prison of Sing
Sing," muttered Lozzo. "I have just been released. Quick! My inner
gods tell me my vase of life is toppling. I swore to your grandfather
that I would deliver the message. It is here. Guard well your own
life, for this paper is a thing of evil!"

His hand rested nervously on the edge of the table. The ancient blue
eyes swept the buffet with a lightning glance. Then he slid his hand
forward across the polished wood. Penrun glimpsed a bit of yellow,
folded paper beneath it. Then something tweaked his hair. A deafening
explosion filled the buffet. Lozzo stiffened, his mouth gaped in a
choked scream, and he sprawled across the table, dead.

As he fell, a fat white hand darted over the table toward the oblong
of folded, yellow paper lying unprotected on its surface. Penrun
clutched at it frantically. The fat fingers closed on the paper and
were gone.

Penrun whirled about. The drapes