
In a dimly lit office on Venusport, a tough‑as‑nails engineer named Gavin Murdock is thrust into a murky deal with a Martian bureaucrat. Blacklisted and desperate, he agrees to serve as a third‑assistant on a notorious slaver vessel, even though the job strips him of his Terra citizenship and offers only a sliver of the profits. The uneasy partnership hints at hidden agendas, and the ever‑creeping yellow mist that shrouds the ship promises an unknown horror waiting to emerge.
As Murdock prepares to board the Nova, the tension between his hardened instincts and the alien’s cryptic motives builds a claustrophobic atmosphere. The looming threat of imperial crackdowns on the slave trade and the ominous “yellow fog” set the stage for a perilous voyage where every decision could seal his fate—if he can survive the first encounter with the unknown.
Language
en
Duration
~2 hours (116K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2021-01-17
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1914–1975
Best known as a Kentucky historian, this versatile writer also built a lively side career in pulp science fiction and adventure magazines after serving in the Merchant Marine during World War II. His work moves easily between regional history, frontier subjects, and fast-paced speculative fiction.
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by Robert Emmett McDowell

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