Round about Rigel

Book excerpt: Raiders Meet Grim Starlight Justice in the interstellar void. Note: short storyexcerpt"Blazing Novas!"" exclaimed Lt. Hermer, looking down into the funnel-shaped declivity."They're hatching. It must be an incubator here on Vaporia."High overhead shone the pinkish-hued Rigel, tiny as a child's marble, yet so intensely luminous as to give scarcely less light than the solar sun on Earth, even through the diffusing atmosphere of Vaporia, a cold husk of a former star, which just now was acting as Lieutenant Hermer's prison.He had been marooned here a few hours before by two of his erstwhile prisoners, the Mason brothers, whose elusive trail of savagery and crime had led across space from planet to planet. Now he was startled at what was taking place in the funnel shaped cleft.Lemon-yellow bodies writhed from torn yard-long cocoons; tiny yellow arms, legs and antennae developed as the sun dried agglutinous declivity.Since hatching the figures had expanded incredibly. "What a childhood!" murmured Lieutenant Hermer, noting the shafts of sea-weed consistency that composed the outer walls of the incubator, while it was obviously covered by a transparent conical roof that sheltered the fledgling bodies. "What kind of creatures are there on Vaporia! Ouch!"