Sargasso of the Stars

The Spot was the curse of the Universe—a drifting Sargasso of vanished spaceships and soul-lost men.
Haller watched silently as they crowded into the control room. His eyes were slivers of gray granite, but he didn't speak. There was a long moment of silence as the five men, scum of the space-ports, shifted uneasily, their faces strained, tense. Haller frowned; he'd been expecting something like this for the past few days. From now on it would be his nerve against their strength.
Well? he snapped, whip-like. What is it?
Carlson, the big engineer, shouldered to the fore. His massive frame and sloping skull betrayed his Jovian blood, even as the scars and purple ray burns on his bulging forearm betrayed a checkered, violent past.
We want to know where you're taking us! he rumbled. Seltzsky here, says it's off the regular lanes. If we're not heading for Jupiter, where're we going? We got a right to know.
Icy as outer space, Haller surveyed them. The pilots at Mercis had likened him, since the Cosmic affair, to a living robot, devoid of all feeling, all emotion. Now, as he stared at the sullen crew, this simile was especially apt. His lean, set face held a curious hardness, as if it had been hammered from steel, and one sensed about him a terrible determination, an unswerving singleness of purpose, found in men who pursue a self-imposed duty rather than the call of adventure. Haller's eyes made one think that he had gazed upon all the worlds, all things that lived, and found them dull, futile.
So you think you've a right to know where we're bound? he said deliberately. You'll recall that I chartered this ship, that you all signed on for three months, no questions asked. However, ... he smiled unhumorously ... since you're so interested, I'll tell you.
Haller turned to the big chart upon the control room's wall, pointed.
Our present position is about here ... ten days out of Mars and rather off the regular lanes. Our destination is this. He indicated a shaded area forming the apex of a vague triangle of which Mars and Jupiter were the other angles. This area is known, for want of a better name, as the Magnetic Spot. Ships passing near it report radio disturbances, variations in their instruments. And that's where we're going! Any more questions?