Who was this sweet-voiced singer weaving a
spell of dreams and drugs that drove men mad
and threatened to smash the System? SBI
Captain Roal Hartford dared the death of the
Thousand Minds to learn her dreadful secret!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
That's what they called her, Alayna, Queen of the Silver Stars, and shewas singing when Roal Hartford stepped into the Starhouse.
The setting was the same—the swirling blue smoke from scores of zhemacigarettes, the odor of stale alcohol and penetrating Valcoso. Thesetting was the same as in a thousand other taverns hovering in thebackwash of man's advancing conquest of the planets. Only Alayna madethis Martian tavern any different from the rest.
The silence while she sang was tribute. The brawling and the laughterand the loud curses stopped for no other tavern singer but Alayna.
As Roal Hartford stood motionless in the doorway, listening, he knewwhy they called her the Queen of the Silver Stars. She was a queen tothese men. Those who listened were men who had no home, and she sang ofhome to them. She sang of green fields and blue skies and of lovers andof children. Her voice was so low and deep that it was like a husky sobin her throat and they had to strain to hear.
Roal glanced at a table where bearded, drunken space miners listened tothe dream of which she sang. One of them with a livid burn scar acrosshis face turned away from his companions and ran a finger over his eye.
For an instant Roal himself was lost in that dream. He thought of farEarth, which he had not seen for so long. The conquest of space seemedsuddenly futile. It was nothing but a vain waste of lives and energyand brought no one happiness. Yet why should a man live except forhappiness? Someone like Alayna could be happiness for him, he thought.The Queen of the Silver Stars could be happiness.
He dragged his mind abruptly out of the dream world of Alayna's song.He was Captain Roal Hartford of the Solar Bureau of Investigation.His world was the world of dope peddlers, thieves, and murderers thatinfested the starways. He was a little cog in a great machine and heknew that he had to keep going to keep the machine from breaking down.It wouldn't do for him to wonder why the machine should be kept runningat all.
Alayna's song ended, but the silence hung on for an instant. Thenslowly the spacemen and gamblers turned back to one another, avoidingeach others' eyes until they were sure their own were dry.
Roal Hartford moved away from the doorway and picked his way among thetables. He was not here in the guise of Captain Roal Hartford of theSBI. His matted beard and space-worn garb was like that of the dozenmeteor miners scattered through the tavern room. Miners who kept goingday after day because of the yarns of occasional fabulous treasurefound floating on the spaceways. But no one of them had ever seen suchtreasure—they had only heard of it, and kept going in the hopes ofsome day making a strike that would in turn create new fables of vasttreasure.
Roal moved with the shambling gait of one worn and haggard by monthsamong the meteors. When he sat down at a table he rested his head onhis hands a moment until one of the shy little Martian girls came totake his order.
The Martians were like withered flowers. The little creature besidehim must not be more than twenty of her planet's years, Roal thought,but her skin was like old and dried leather. The bones could be seenthrough the flesh a