THE RAIDERS OF SATURN'S RING

By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN

Only one man could save Titan's Earth colony from the merciless legions of the furred Callistans. But between Ron Leiccsen and his goal lay Saturn's whirling, deadly Rings.

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

Everywhere in Leiccsenland the farms were burning. Silvery Callistan ships, slim arrows of destruction, flew above the countryside methodically. Splendid grain and hay crops were blazing. Barns and dwellings, too.

The thin, clear air trailed streamers of blue smoke, that blurred the ringed globe of monster Saturn, visible at the horizon, above the craggy surrounding hills.

The Earth-Colony here on Titan, largest of Saturn's satellites, seemed doomed. The invaders were firing everything they could reach.

Angry farmers were gathered in front of the Community Bank in Leiccsendale. Old Arne Reynaud, who kept a great orchard and flower-garden beyond the village outskirts, stood on the concrete steps of the bank building, and shouted to the assembled group of bitter faces.

"Twenty-three Earth-years, Terrestrials have been here in Leiccsenland!" he shrilled grimly. "Ain't nobody gonna drive us out now! Not even these damned Callistans from their moon back Jupiter-way! Titan, so far from the sun, was a frozen world when we came. Its water was ice. Even its air lay in frozen snowdrifts in the awful cold! We slaved and starved and spent almost every cent we had, getting started here! Setting up Bart Mallory's atomic sun-ray towers, to make the climate warm! Cultivating the soil, that hadn't had any life in it for a billion years, since Saturn cooled too much to radiate any heat to Titan! Bringing in seeds and cattle and hogs! Even bumble-bees to pollinate the flowers! Ain't no dirty, fuzzy Callistan devils gonna take Titan away from us now! We made us a little heaven, here, with the sweat of our brows! And we're gonna keep it! Ain't no—"

Arne Reynaud got this far in his speech, his shrill, scratchy old voice vibrant with mingled grief and wild determination. But just then a second voice, from the rear of the little crowd, cut in like a whetted knife-blade, keen and caustic and condemning:

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