Men Without A World

By JOSEPH FARRELL

The Centaurians were making one last effort to conquer Earth, and their tools were wise-cracking, space-jaunting O'Dea and Hawthorne—two guys to whom freedom was more than a word.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The frantic flares of the rockets lit up a murderous landscape as barrel-chested Paul Hawthorne wrestled with the controls. He fought to keep the ship from falling too swiftly, anxious eyes searching for a level spot to set down the partly-crippled vessel.

Behind him, Lance O'Dea clung to a chart table and growled.

"Put it down!" O'Dea ordered. "You're the Einstein who got us to this desert planet of Centauri; now get us landed safely!"

Hawthorne risked a second to turn his grimy face to the animated bean pole behind him. Like himself, O'Dea was unshaven and wrapped in the shapeless coveralls of spacemen. Hawthorne scowled and pushed his hairy arms back into the controls.

"If you think you can do any better," he grunted, "take over yourself!"

"No, thanks." O'Dea bent over to look through the port. The jagged terrain was closer, and a horrified shudder ran down his bony frame. "No, I'll let you answer to Saint Peter for the death of us both!"

His expression as he glared at Hawthorne was distasteful, but the makings of a grin played on the corners of his lips, and a thinly-hid concern was in his eyes.

"This is the end," he said. In one hand he clutched a photograph of a dark-haired girl. "The end, Mercedes! To think you'll be a widow before you're even a wife, all because that ape of a Hawthorne lost all our fuel in Centauri's asteroid belt—"

"Shut up!" the pilot demanded. One of his hands flipped a wad of something green back in O'Dea's direction. "Here's the ten platins I owe you. And get ready—this is it!"

A roughly level spot swept up at them—an uneven mesa that ended abruptly a few hundred feet ahead. Hawthorne dropped the vessel in a cushion of rocket blasts that were starting to cough for lack of fuel.

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