ury or two."

For Pete was on one of the Vulcan Fleet ships, the hell-ships of the
prison fleet. There were confined only the most vicious and the most
depraved of the Solar System's criminals. He would be forced to work
under the flaming whip-lashes of a Sun that hurled such intense
radiations that mere spacesuits were no protection at all. The workers
on the Vulcan Fleet ships wore suits that were in reality photo-cells
which converted the deadly radiations into electric power. For electric
power can be disposed of where heat cannot.

Quailing inside his force shell, Scorio saw his men go, one by one. Saw
them lifted and whisked away, out through the depths of space by the
magic touch upon the keyboards. With terror-widened eyes he watched
Russ set up the equations, saw him trip the activating lever, saw the
men disappear, listened to the thunderous rumbling of the mighty
engines.

Chizzy went to the Outpost, the harsh prison on Neptune's satellite. Reg
went to Titan, clear across the Solar System, where men in the infamous
penal colony labored in the frigid wastes of that moon of Saturn. Max
went to Vesta, the asteroid prison, which long had been the target of
reformers, who claimed that on it 50 per cent of the prisoners died of
boredom and fear.

Max was gone and only Scorio remained.

"Stutsman's the one who got us into this," wailed the gangster. "He's
the man you want to get. Not me. Not the boys. Stutsman."

"I promise you," said Greg, "that we'll take care of Stutsman."

"And Chambers, too," chattered Scorio. "But you can't touch Chambers.
You wouldn't dare."

"We're not worrying about Chambers," Greg told him. "We're not worrying
about anyone. You're the one who had better start doing some."

Scorio cringed.

"Let me tell you about a place on Venus," said Greg. "It's in the center
of a big swamp that stretches for hundreds of miles in every direction.
It's a sort of mountain rising out of the swamp. And the swamp is filled
with beasts and reptiles of every kind. Ravenous things, lusting for
blood. But they don't climb the mountain. A man, if he stayed on the
mountain, would be safe. There's food there. Roots and berries and
fruits and even small animals one could kill. A man might go hungry for
a while, but soon he'd find the things to eat.

"But he'd be alone. No one ever goes near that mountain. I am the only
man who ever set foot on it. Perhaps no one ever will again. At night
you hear the sc