The Star of Satan

More than the wreck of the Martian Princess lay on the lazily spinning asteroid. That uncharted star of Satan harbored madness in awful, human form.
Hype Garth was suddenly awake. He lay there on his cot in the dark, listening intently for the sound he knew would shortly come through the receptor. It almost frightened him, this subconscious awareness of his. He often wondered about it and wished he could explain it. Always, during their sleep period, just a minute before a message came through he was wide awake and waiting, knowing. He supposed nerves had something to do with it. Or the time he'd spent out here? Nerves were bound to go raw and perhaps play strange tricks when two men were thrown together in this black isolated hell of outer space. And Garth had been out here for twenty-three full years and seen his partners come and go.
From the other side of the room came Prokle's slow, sonorous breathing. Garth suddenly hated his partner for his ability to sleep at this moment. Garth reached out and touched the huge, nine-foot receptube by his bed; a faintly glowing violet permeated the darkness. His whole attention centered in a strained, concentrated listening.
Then the sound came, as he knew it would: first the crisp, crackling static; then the familiar and hated voice of the sender at Martian headquarters, stabbing the darkness almost viciously:
Salvage Station M3! Attention M3! Passenger liner Callisto , enroute Jupiter to Mars, radios they have just encountered uncharted asteroid swarm on the Martian side of the belt. They have passed through unscathed. But attention to this, M3: Captain Lambert of the Callisto reports that he detected a light on the surface of one of the larger masses! This may have been a distress signal-flare, and if so, can mean but one thing: that the sole remaining life-boat unaccounted for from the wreck of the Martian Princess twenty days ago landed on this asteroid; and the party, or some of them, have managed to survive. This seems hardly possible, but we must investigate.