CHAPTER 2Bruce snapped off the radio and looked at Dora Kent gravely.
“The Ginzie Asteroids ceded to Mars,” he exclaimed. “It’s the old game of power politics. All the worlds jockeying for position. Mars and Mercury, overcrowded, barren little worlds, casting an envious eye on Earth’s colonial empire stretching from the Moon to Pluto. Kilku means business, no doubt of that. For ten years, both on Mercury and Mars, they’ve been churning out war materiel, half starving the people in the process. If they ever get the upper hand…”
He shuddered. The Martians, born on a world of grim daily struggle, were a grim, ruthless race. The Mercurians, blood boiling under a giant hot sun, were periodically ferocious to a violent degree.
Between the two—cold, merciless Martians and hot, tempestuous Merc
