
A daring stowaway named Mark Travers slips aboard a secretive spacecraft bound for the legendary “Planet X,” a world whispered about as a haven of freedom, adventure, and hidden riches. He’s quickly caught by the ship’s hulking security chief, Mal Driscoll, who forces him into the captain’s presence. There, Mark must convince the formidable commander Janus—a red‑haired, bearded figure with a reputation for ruthless pragmatism—that his mysterious black‑boxed device is more than a simple camera.
The tension rises as Janus and his crew interrogate Mark, probing the true purpose of his invention and the motives that drove him to flee a powerful corporate conspiracy. With the ship’s engines roaring and the void of space pressing in, Mark’s quick wit and the secret technology he carries become his only bargaining chips. Listeners are drawn into a high‑stakes cat‑and‑mouse game that teeters between daring espionage and the promise of an uncharted world beyond the known stars.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (71K 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
2020-11-09
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1913–1977
A lively pulp-era science fiction writer, he published energetic stories in the 1930s and 1940s and later became especially remembered for working with Ray Bradbury on an early fanzine. His fiction mixes big ideas, adventure, and the imaginative spirit of classic magazine SF.
View all books