 How does Gunther maintain his hold on power?
For Click and Irish were marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Click Hathaway's camera was loaded and he stood there listening to it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting a damned sweet picture of everything that was happening. The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console, wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. It made a spiked fist and knocked the rear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round. Hathaway only knew he was picked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn't long in following, swearing loud words. A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out of the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now. "Is this what ?" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet. They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of gravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled around—human dice in a croupier's cup. They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that stretched off, dipping down into silent indigo and a rash of stars. Overhead, the sun poised; black and stars all around it, making it look sick. Upon the sharp meteoric rocks Hathaway saw the tangled insides of the radio, the food supply mashed and scattered. "It's not proof we need now, Click. Hathaway went on saying his thoughts: "This is Gunther's work. Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back to Earth. I.P.'s Irish Marnagan, temporarily indisposed by a pirate whose dirty face has never been seen, Gunther by name, finally wins through to a triumphant finish. There wasn't much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting. We got fifty minutes to prove you're right. "Gravity should not act this way, Click." Immense crimson beasts with numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some tubular and fat, others like thin white poisonous whips slashing along in the air. Hathaway yelled and ran, Marnagan at his heels, lumbering. The immense things rolled, slithered and squirmed after him. Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. Click's voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him.
 Tricks of the eye
 Brute force  Money  Benevolence to his guards  Tricks of the eye