Rocky Trask murdered an officer of the Space Patrol, earning him a life-sentence in a labor camp on one of the moons of Jupiter. Gror, a fellow inmate, tells Rocky of his plans to escape on the next spaceship, and shows Trask his “Martian gas gun”. Days later, Trask, working on a bridge over a valley, intentionally bumps Gror off onto a ledge below, killing him. Rocky rushes to Gror’s lifeless body and retrieves the gun. A month later, a spaceship lands to drop off prisoners. Trask uses the gas gun to bump off the Mercurian guards and escape into the spaceship. He finds the controls inoperative. The rockets fire and the spaceship takes off. The Prison Warden’s face appears on a “telion screen”, informing Trask that not only does the spaceship run automatically, but since the craft was supposed to be empty after the prisoners were dropped off, the “oxygenators” were turned off, and that he’ll never see Mars. Trask suffocates and dies on the floor.
Description Rocky Trask murdered an officer of the Space Patrol, earning him a life-sentence in a labor camp on one of the moons of Jupiter. Gror, a fellow inmate, tells Rocky of his plans to escape on the next spaceship, and shows Trask his “Martian gas gun”. Days later, Trask, working on a bridge over a valley, intentionally bumps Gror off onto a ledge below, killing him. Rocky rushes to Gror’s lifeless body and retrieves the gun. A month later, a spaceship lands to drop off prisoners. Trask uses the gas gun to bump off the Mercurian guards and escape into the spaceship. He finds the controls inoperative. The rockets fire and the spaceship takes off. The Prison Warden’s face appears on a “telion screen”, informing Trask that not only does the spaceship run automatically, but since the craft was supposed to be empty after the prisoners were dropped off, the “oxygenators” were turned off, and that he’ll never see Mars. Trask suffocates and dies on the floor.
