Project Gutenberg's In the Orbit of Saturn, by Roman Frederick Starzl

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Title: In the Orbit of Saturn

Author: Roman Frederick Starzl

Release Date: June 4, 2009 [EBook #29038]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories October 1931.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: The two fighting men circled warily.]

In the Orbit of Saturn

By R. F. Starzl

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Disguised as a voluntary prisoner on a pirate space ship,
an I. F. P. man penetrates the mystery of the dreaded "Solar
Scourge."_]

The _Celestia_, gliding through space toward Titan, major satellite of
Saturn, faltered in her course. Her passengers, mostly mining
engineers and their wives, stockholders, and a sprinkling of visitors,
were aware of a cessation of the heavens' apparent gyrations, due to
the halting of the ship's rotation on its axis. At the same time the
ship's fictitious gravity, engendered by the centrifugal force of its
rotation, ceased, so that passengers, most of whom were assembled in
the main salon, which occupied the entire midship section, drifted
away from the curved floor, whose contour followed that of the outer
skin, to flounder in helpless confusion.

A woman screamed. A rasping sound, as of metal scraping against the
hull, came from one point in the circumference, and here the portholes
were obscured by a dark mass that blotted out the stars.

An old man, clinging to a luxuriously upholstered chair, and pale with
fright, cried:

"It's those damned pirates. If they find out who I am it'll break the
company to ransom me."

"If the company thinks it worth while to ransom you," retorted his
youngish, saturnine companion, who seemed less scared than annoyed.