An aged spaceman, broken and penniless, begins a grim confession about the voyage that ruined him aboard the Martian Maid. Speaking as a warning, he traces the disaster back to the oldest temptation in space: greed, and the fatal belief that every drifting prize can be turned into profit. In his younger days, he captained a rough, money-hungry crew sailing from Mars with a hold already packed with shady cargo and a crew more loyal to quick riches than to honor. Beyond the familiar inner-system routes, the ship ventures into deep space and spots a vast derelict tumbling through the black. What first seems like a routine salvage opportunity quickly becomes something far more ominous. The captain calculates its path, invokes the rules that might make it theirs, and watches his men dream of impossible wealth. But as hope hardens into obsession, the true danger emerges: not just the lure of treasure, but humanity's reckless urge to claim the unknown before understanding what it is. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
