
On the bleak, dust‑covered plains of Callisto, rocket‑port dispatcher Mart Wells lives by a strict schedule of freighter hops and ore‑smelting cycles. One morning his routine is shattered when a flash of metal catches his eye on the horizon—a small ship where none should be. The sight sends him racing toward the administration building, where the colony’s tightly run operations are suddenly interrupted by an unexpected arrival.
Beneath the routine, a deeper danger looms: Director Barrow’s powerful grip on the settlement hides a desperate bargain with a Venusian pirate, Tar Norn, whose freedom could cost the life of the Director’s own daughter, Leah. As Mart becomes the first to notice the mysterious craft, he finds himself pulled into a clash of loyalty, intrigue, and a looming threat that could upend the fragile peace on Callisto.
Language
en
Duration
~30 minutes (29K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-11-06
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1908–1999
Best remembered as a longtime literary agent in Milwaukee, he also wrote brisk, imaginative pulp fiction, including science fiction stories that still find readers today. Born in Austria and later settled in the United States, he moved between the worlds of writing and publishing with ease.
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