Steve Haller came to, to find himself in the closet-like chart room. His hands were bound, and his jaw ached. Barger lay opposite him; the grizzled old quartermaster appeared to be still unconscious. Haller struggled to his knees, peered out of the small observation port. Space ... silent, intangible, unknown! Stars crawling painfully across the black void, and no one knew what mysteries lurking in the vast reaches between worlds. Like the Magnetic Spot....
Haller turned from the port, his face more like steel than ever. No chance of helping Barger as long as his hands were tied. The ship was silent, and without apparent motion in spite of the speed she was making; it gave one the impression of falling through a dark bottomless pit. Impossible to tell how long he'd been out, but they should be nearing the Magnetic Spot. He swore helplessly. Might have known that crew of space-rats would turn yellow, mutiny. Not that he blamed them so much, after the tales that were told about the Spot. Hundreds of ships, in the course of the past two centuries, had entered it, some fleeing meteor storms or enemy ships in time of war, others deliberately, in hopes of learning its secret. And none had ever returned. The whispered yarns told in spacemen's dives were lurid in their speculations about that strange unknown area.
Haller's thoughts turned to the Cosmic, and his eyes grew tortured. Fay Carroll had been aboard the liner. Fay of the sleek, bronze hair, the laughing blue eyes, the curved red lips that were scarlet scimiters, stabbing at men's hearts. Reckless, madcap, with just enough of the devil in her to add piquancy to her charm. And now she was gone. He, Haller, had been to blame. He'd radioed her from Jupiter to meet him there, and she'd taken the first out-going ship, the Cosmic. And the Cosmic, driven off her course by a meteor storm, had last been reported on the outskirts of the Spot.
Haller moved restlessly, straining against his bonds. The lines about his mouth deepened as the old self-accusation returned to plague him. If he hadn't sent Fay that radiogram, urging her to come to Jupiter, she'd be alive today. For months that one thought had beat like a rocket-blast through his mind. It had changed him from a gay, happy-go-lucky space-pilot to a living robot, had driven him to resign from Trans-Jovian, sink his savings, the money he'd hoped to spend on a home for Fay, in chartering this old tub, the Lodestar, and setting out on this vain hope. He'd recruited his crew from the space-dives of Mars, loaded the ramshackle tramp with fuel, and headed for the Magnetic Spot. Not that he'd believed there was any chance of finding Fay, but he'd felt that if he could discover the secret of the Spot, he'd have done his bit toward atoning. Now, thanks to the mutinous crew, even that poor consolation was denied him. Yellow scum of space, without enough guts to venture into the unknown area!
A click of the chart room door drew Haller's gaze. Carlson appeared in the entrance, his great hands gripping an atomite gun, a broad grin on his brutish countenance.
"All right, you two," he grunted. "Come on out! We're going to have a little bull session! Up, you molat!" He prodded Barger not too quietly with the toe of his boot.
The quartermaster groaned, swayed to his feet. Dazed, he followed Haller out into the control room. Seltzsky, Wallace, and Kindt stood grouped about the navigator's table, their faces flushed with triumph. A bottle of fiery Martian tong, half-empty, stood before them.
"Okay," Carlson barked. "Now you listen to us! If you think we're going into the Magnetic Spot, you're nuts! But long's you're so anxious to see what it's like, you and Barger can go, in one of the life rockets! We'll take this packet to Jupiter, sell it, and whack up the dough! And you can run around the Spot in the life rocket to your heart's content, while your fuel holds out!"
"Life rocket!" Barger growled. "You dirty dogs! They don't carry enough fuel to get us a quarter of the way back to Mars! You can't...."