proposition, Mr. Kenniston!" Gloria declared. "We'll
start for Vesta just as soon as you can get the equipment you'll need
loaded on the _Sunsprite_."

"Gloria, you're being too hasty," protested Hugh Murdock. "I've heard
of this world with a Thousand Moons. There're stories of queer,
unhuman creatures they call Vestans, who infest that asteroid. The
danger--"

Gloria impatiently dismissed his objections. "Hugh, if you are going
to start worrying about dangers again, you'd better go back to Earth
and safety."

Murdock flushed and was silent. Kenniston felt a certain sympathy for
the young businessman. He knew, if these others did not, just how real
was the alien menace of those strange creatures, the Vestans.

"I'll go right down to the spaceport and see about loading the
equipment aboard your cruiser," Kenniston told the heiress. "You'd
better give me a note to your captain. We ought to be able to start
tomorrow."

"Pirate treasure on an unexplored asteroid!" exulted the enthusiastic
Robbie. "Ho for the World with a Thousand Moons!"

Kenniston felt guilty when he and Holk Or left the big hotel. These
youngsters, he thought, hadn't the faintest idea of the peril into
which he was leading them. They were as ignorant as babies of the dark
evil and unearthly danger of the interplanetary frontier.

He hardened himself against the qualms of conscience. There was that
at stake, he told himself fiercely, against which the safety of a lot
of spoiled, rich young people was absolutely nothing.

Holk Or was chuckling as they emerged into the chill Martian night. He
told Kenniston admiringly, "That was one of the smoothest jobs of
lying I ever heard, that story about finding John Dark's treasure.
Take it from me, it was slick!"

The Jovian guffawed loudly as he added, "What would their faces be
like if they knew that John Dark and his crew are still living? That
it was John Dark himself who sent us here?"

"Be quiet, you idiot!" ordered Kenniston hastily. "Do you want the
whole Patrol to hear you?"

CHAPTER II

Discovered

The _Sunsprite_ throbbed steadily through the vast, dangerous
wilderness of the asteroidal zone. To the eye, the cruiser moved in a
black void starred by creeping crumbs of light. In reality those
bright, crawling specks were booming asteroids or whirling
meteor-swarms rushing in complicated, unchartable orbits and
constantly threatening destruction.

For three days now, the cruiser had ca