The Lucky Starr Series

Conway could remember the day, the exact minute, when the news had reached Science Tower. Patrol ships had shot out into space, tracing the pirates; they attacked the asteroid lairs in a fury that was completely unprecedented. Whether they caught the particular villains who had gutted the Venus-bound ship none could ever say, but the pirate power had been broken from that year on. And the patrol ships found something else: a tiny lifeboat winding a precarious orbit between Venus and Earth, radiating its coldly automatic radio calls for help.

Lucky Starr’s Ergometrics probed space with widely stretching fingers. It detected many ships, but Lucky watched only for the one which he would recognize with certainty the instant it appeared. Nor did he fail. At a distance of twenty-million miles, the first quiverings roused his suspicions. At 100-thousand miles, his telescope showed it as a faint dot. At ten thousand, it had form and shape—it was the flagship of Anton, the pirate chieftain! At a thousand miles, Lucky sent out his first message—a demand that Anton return to Earth.

From a distance it seemed an emerald green, fairyland bubble! Aphrodite, the largest city on Venus, deep beneath the planet’s sea. Earthmen had established an incredible civilization, but now it is threatened by an unknown force preying on men’s minds. “Bigman’s head snapped back at a sudden new and strange sound. It was a voice, flat, without intonation. It said, “Do not tamper with your machine of far-reaching sound. We do not wish it.” Bigman turned. His mouth fell open and, for a moment, stayed so. He said, “Who said that? Where is it?” Lucky said, “Easy, Bigman. It was inside your head.”

“Ghosts!” cried the engineer wildly, flinging his arms about. “I’ve seen them, but will anyone believe me?” Bigman said, “Ghosts! Are you nuts?” At once Mindes screamed, “You don’t believe me either. But I’ll prove it.” With a harsh screech of laughter, he drew his blaster, and with frenzied speed, before Bigman could move to stop him, he aimed it at Lucky at pointblank range and squeezed the trigger … Can Bigman save Lucky, before it’s too late?

Sabotage!!! Agrav. It was the century’s most important advance in space travel … and an experiment so revolutionary that only the men who huddled beneath the surface of Jupiter Nine were permitted to know its full meaning. Yet someone else did know—knew everything, saw everything, head everything—and was diabolically sabotaging the top-secret mission. Who or what the enemy was, Lucky Starr didn’t know. But one thing was certain: the deadly force was not human … not even remotely human!

Earth officials were hard on the heels of the mysterious Sirian spy, Agent X, when he blasted off in a stolen spaceship. But before they could catch him, the master spy jettisoned the capsule that held his report into the icy rings of Saturn. In a flash, Lucky Starr and Bigman Jones found themselves in a race with the Sirian war fleet to recover the top secret information ...