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SARGASSO OF THE STARS
The Spot was the curse of the Universe--a drifting Sargasso of vanished spaceships and soul-lost men.
Haller watched silently as they crowded into the control room. His eyes were slivers of gray granite, but he didn't speak. There was a long moment of silence as the five men, scum of the space-ports, shifted uneasily, their faces strained, tense. Haller frowned; he'd been expecting something like this for the past few days. From now on it would be his nerve against their strength.
"Well?" he snapped, whip-like. "What is it?"
Carlson, the big engineer, shouldered to the fore. His massive frame and sloping skull betrayed his Jovian blood, even as the scars and purple ray burns on his bulging forearm betrayed a checkered, violent past.
"We want to know where you're taking us!" he rumbled. "Seltzsky here, says it's off the regular lanes. If we're not heading for Jupiter, where're we going? We got a right to know."
"So you think you've a right to know where we're bound?" he said deliberately. "You'll recall that I chartered this ship, that you all signed on for three months, no questions asked. However," ... he smiled unhumorously ... "since you're so interested, I'll tell you."
Haller turned to the big chart upon the control room's wall, pointed.
"Our present position is about here ... ten days out of Mars and rather off the regular lanes. Our destination is this." He indicated a shaded area forming the apex of a vague triangle of which Mars and Jupiter were the other angles. "This area is known, for want of a better name, as the Magnetic Spot. Ships passing near it report radio disturbances, variations in their instruments. And that's where we're going! Any more questions?"
"That's enough!" he barked. "You wanted to find out where you were going, and now you know! Get back to your quarters!"
Carlson and Seltzsky leaned forward, their savage faces intent, fists knotted. Haller's cold gaze did not flicker. For a long moment the tension was like a dark bubble, growing, growing, as it approached the breaking point. Suddenly old Barger, the quartermaster, laughed.
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