"What's amatter, Chief?" he jerked.
Dumbly, Larry pointed. "That's—the Astral!" he gasped. "Two hundred million dollars—in gold—!"
Abe and Jeff were stunned; then they crowded the port to stare at the ancient craft dead ahead. The scout had drawn near enough now that the name of the transport was plainly visible in letters running from stem half-way to stern. Weakly, Jeff let himself back into his seat and muttered:
"Two—hundred—million ... in Martian gold! And we get ten percent for findin' 'er. Ten percent of two hundred million, divided three ways—"
Larry laughed and poked playfully at his big nose. "Don't count your shekels before you hear them jingle," he counseled. "The Astral may have been gutted by pirates. Give her the gun, mister; we're finding out!"
The little space-craft slewed and rocked to a stop beside the giant transport. Shock struck the three men dumb with their first glimpse close up. Faces crowded the ports, staring out at them. Larry fancied he saw movement among the watchers on the bridge. To all appearances the Astral might have been a vessel in mid-flight.
They cruised slowly up the side, not ten feet from the ghostly faces that watched them with staring eyes. Foot by foot they proceeded. Rounding the front of the craft, they could see into the bridge. Two men were working over charts and a man in blue-and-gray uniform was at the controls. Another, a pencil over his ear, stood reading a gauge high on the wall.
Then the meaning of it all came home to them.
The port side of the ship was ripped open from stem to stern. Something—no doubt a jagged meteor fragment—had sliced and torn its way through the shell of the speeding transport. The occupants of the open side had exploded like deep-sea fish drawn to the surface. These in the space-tight, unharmed cabins opposite had been frozen instantly by the outrush of pent-up air. And there they had stood in the attitudes in which Death had found them, staring out as they forged through the meteor-swarm, hoping they would not be hit.
In the silence they tied up to the derelict, their magnet-plates clinging like suction cups. Donning space suits and carrying kits of tools, they leaped through the rent into the dead ship.