The Project Gutenberg EBook of Loot of the Void, by Edwin K. Sloat

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Title: Loot of the Void

Author: Edwin K. Sloat

Release Date: July 19, 2009 [EBook #29457]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories September 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Loot of the Void

By Edwin K. Sloat

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Into the Trap-Door City of great spiders goes Penrun after
the hidden plunder of the space-pirate Halkon.]

Dick Penrun glanced up incredulously.

"Why, that's impossible; you would have to be two hundred years old!"
he exclaimed.

Lozzo nervously ran a hand through his white mop of hair.

"But it is true, Sirro," he assured his companion. "We Martians
sometimes live three centuries. You should know that I am only a
hundred and seventy-five, and I do not lie when I say I was a cabin
boy under Captain Halkon."

[Illustration: _Down from the pinnacle of rock streaked a gigantic
spider._]

His voice sank to a whisper, and he glanced apprehensively about the
buffet of the _Western Star_ which was due now in three days at the
Martian city of Nurm. Penrun's eyes followed his anxious glances
curiously. The buffet was partly filled with passengers, smoking,
gossiping women, and men at cards, or throwing dice in the Martian
gambling game of _diklo_, which was the universal fad of the moment.
No place could have been safer, Penrun reflected. Doubtless the old
man's caution was a lifelong habit acquired in his youth, if he had
actually served under Halkon.

Before long the old codger would be saying that he knew the hiding
place of Halkon's treasure, about which there were probably more
legends and yarns than anything else in the Universe. A century had
elapsed since the death of the