HEALING RAYS IN SPACE

By J. HARVEY HAGGARD

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Comet March 41. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

CHAPTER I STRANGE BARGAIN

The big library was of platinum-and-teakwood. There were two occupants, a monstrous man who wore expensive vitrilex, and a wisp of a girl in a wheel chair. One entire wall space was taken up by a chart of the solar system. Below the chart was the label: Marshall Space Lines, 1990 to 2055, First In Astral Commerce.

Spaceports, marked by red pins, dotted the entire chart. The large man was humming as he thrust other scarlet pins into Ceres, Pallas and Juno with such a savagery as one might use in thrusting swords.

"Feel better, dad?" The wisp of a girl was speaking. Misty locks of sheeny hair lay on the back of the invalid chair like starclouds on a summer night. A beautiful frame for a picture of lifeless, transparent features.

"I ought to! It took fifty years to scalp the Thallin Starways!" gloated Keith Randolph Marshall, looking proudly at the carmine clusters that marked new interspace commerce lanes. "You bet! Fifty years to skin old Rufus Thallin's hide! Why, every ship he owns is mine now.

"He's going to come and beg! I've got it figured out. He'll come today, before the foreclosure. He'll be on his knees and I'll like it. He'll want more time on his notes, the ones I bought from mortgage owners long ago. That's another little surprise for him. Right now my secretary is waiting down below, and will send him up."

"You must be very proud," said the girl listlessly, and the leonine man brought his pacings up very short. Pain marked the tycoon's face. Deepening lines went snaking from his puckered brows.

"Eh? I'm proud enough, but I'll never be really happy! That's the bitter edge of crushing an enemy, I guess. I'd give everything I ever owned, turn over every red copper, if I could only make you well again, cure you from the Venus plague. You know that, darling."

Wistful eyes glimmered moistly, and her feeble hands pressed his monstrous one against her cheek.

"As a last resort," bellowed a new voice, "I'd even take you up on that, Marshall! 

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