The pilot grinned mirthlessly. “By den,” he said, “society may be su alien dat Hart, once cured, will relapse into insanity too deep for dem to handle—so dey will have to put him back in de Crypt…” He spied his goal and sent the airjet slanting downward.

MacCannon

MacCannon was a Fireball man. That rambling rocketeer
Could lift off into orbit on a single keg of beer.
The whisky that he much preferred was made not for the meek
Unless you were a Scot, it would ground you for a week.

MacCannon was a macho man, a brawling, balling Celt.
For EVA he needed just a helmet and his pelt
His lady friends expressed their love in moans and groans and pants
And made remarks among themselves concerning elephants.

Its clouds sulfuric acid, high above the CO2( ½ down)
So hot and thick down underneath that lead itself would stew,
The atmosphere of Venus is as poisonously ripe
As the air became around us when MacCannon lit his pipe.

His ship once had an argument while passing thru the void,
Alone, about the right of way, with one big asteroid.
Adrift, he used the time to make a large discovery,
The art of shooting craps to win in zero gravity.

The devil knocked upon the lock and said, “You’re doomed to die.
Come down with me.” MacCannon spat some whisy in his eye.
The sizzle and the reaction sent the devil with a yell
On a hyperbolic orbit that would take him back to hell.

MacCannon then decided his diabled boat should boost.
He ate himself a mighty meal of beans and set himself to roost
Upon a mass ejector tube far sternward in his craft,
And the ship went leaping forward from the thunders booming aft.

The Martian Crown Jewels

The signal was picked up when the ship was still a quarter million miles away, and recorded voices summoned the technicians. There was no haste, for the ZX28749, otherwise called the Jane Brackney, was right on schedule; but landing an unmanned spaceship is always a delicate operation. Men and machines prepared to receive her as she came down, but the control crew had the first order of business.

Yamagata, Steinmann, and Ramanowitz were in the GCA tower, with Hollyday standing by for an emergency. If the circuits should fail—they never had, but a thousand tons of cargo and nuclear-powered vessel, crashing into the port, could empty Phobos of human life. So Hollyday watched over a set of spare assemblies, ready to plug in whatever might be required.

Yamagata’s thin fingers danced over the radar dials. His eyes were intent on the screen. “Got her,” he said. Steinmann made a distance reading and Ramanowitz took the velocity off the Dopplerscope. A brief session with a computer showed the figures to be almost as predicted.

“Might as well relax,” said Yamagata, taking out a cigarette. “She won’t be in control range for a while yet.”

His eyes roved over the crowded room and out its window. From the tower he had a view of the spaceport: unimpressive, most of its shops and sheds and living quarters being underground. The smooth concrete field was chopped off by the curvature of the tiny satellite. It always faced Mars, and the station was on the far side, but he could remember how the planet hung enormous over the opposite hemisphere, soft ruddy disc blurred with thin air, hazy greenish-brown mottlings of heath and farmland. Though Phobos was clothed in vacuum, you couldn’t see the hard stars of space: the sun and the floodlamps were too bright.