 What crime did Moran commit?
I. Moran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a slash of flame. Moran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the plans which would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans were thrashed out very painstakingly, in formal conference on the space-yacht Nadine , with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion. From the viewpoint of the Nadine's ship's company, it was simply necessary to get rid of Moran. Now it lay astern, and Moran could see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in the planet's atmosphere. The fact was verified by the thick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,—all the surface, in fact, outside the ice-cap. In short, the ice-cap proved that a man could endure the air and temperature conditions he would find. Moran observed these things from the control-room of the Nadine , then approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with no reason ever to expect rescue. Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. Without rigid control of space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences of any crime simply by buying a ticket to another world. Moran couldn't have bought a ticket, but he'd tried to get off the planet Coryus on the Nadine . The trouble was that the Nadine had clearance papers covering five persons aboard—four men and a girl Carol. Wherever the yacht landed, such a disparity between its documents and its crew would spark an investigation. Moran, at least, would be picked out as a fugitive from Coryus Three. The others were fugitives too, from some unnamed world Moran did not know. And Moran was the extra man whose presence would rouse space-port officials' suspicion of the rest. Blaster in hand, he'd made the Nadine take off from Coryus III with a trip-tape picked at random for guidance. But the trip-tape had been computed for another starting-point, and when the yacht came out of overdrive it was because the drive had been dismantled in the engine-room. It could have travelled at almost any speed in practically any direction for a length of time that was at least indefinite. A liner could re-locate itself without trouble. The process would be to find a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets, and its flora and fauna against descriptions in the Directory.
 murder
 theft  fraud  murder  treason