Beyond the Point of Unknown (Space Travel & Alien Contact Novels). Ray Cummings

      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      Our ship, the space-flyer, Planetara, whose home port was Greater New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours in port here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour for Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.

      We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flash summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan "Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radio operator of the Planetara. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a quick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him.

      The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Dean eyed me.

      "You haven't been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?"

      "He wants you, also," I retorted.

      He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and my private life will remain my own."

      We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of mid-evening when we