4-1/2B, EROS

By MALCOLM JAMESON

"4-1/2B, Eros."... A strange code, but grizzled space-trader Karns used it to break the perilous Mercury-Venus Jinx.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"Makee chop chop. Kwei! Kwei!"

The two Venusian coolies squatted down between the shafts and with one quick motion elevated the sedan chair to shoulder height. Then they started off in a lazy run through the torrential downpour, splashing mud right and left as their sturdy yellow legs struck into the watery lane of muck that passes for a road in Venusberg. Captain Hank Karns, the Lone Trader, sank back in his seat and watched idly with mild blue eyes as first one grass hut and then another appeared momentarily through rifts of rain. There would be time enough to worry about Cappy Wilkerson's plight when he reached the administration building and found out more about the charges against him. No doubt it was just another shakedown, the effort of some minor official to pry loose a little more than the customary cumshaw.

Captain Karns had berthed his own old trading tub not an hour earlier and as he registered the arrival of his Swapper he noted that under the date of three days before there was the entry: "Wanderer, Captain Wilkerson, en route Mercury to Luna." After it was the notation in red: "Detained by order Collector of the Port; captain in custody."

Hank Karns thoughtfully pawed his long white beard. Cappy Wilkerson was a careful and upright man and a lifelong friend; what manner of charge could they have trumped up against him? That they were trumped up he took for granted, for the local government of autonomous Venus was notoriously corrupt and always had been. The Venusians themselves were the descendants of coolies brought centuries before from tropical Asia. They took little or no interest in government. Politics had, therefore, fallen into the hands of white adventurers, most of whom lived on Venus for the very good reason they were not wanted elsewhere. The Central Council of the loose Interplanetary Federation seldom interfered with them unless for acts so flagrant as to affect the Federation as a whole.

The old space merchant left his 

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