The Stevedore of Jupiter

There was something strange about Jupe. Was he really of Jupiter? But the oddest thing was the uncanny way he could compute weights —even the weight of Death


excerpt

“Snap it up. Get that stuff loaded!" It was the season of storms—not a favorable time for a salvaging expedition. But Captain Branaugh was an impatient man. So he ignored the danger.


The silver sands swept through these bad lands of Jupiter, scouring the copper-red crags and illuminating the air with a satin-silver glow. The gray old abandoned hull that had once been a space freighter had weathered eighteen years of these sand storms and it looked it. But the name, John Heen, painted on the prow, could still be distinguished.


Captain Branaugh and his mate of the brand new freighter, Hanover, had handpicked six seasoned thugs to make up their six-man army of guards. They had filled out their crew with three desert-skilled workmen, one of them a veteran of an earlier expedition to this planet.


One additional pickup, however, had occurred at a lonely oasis here on Jupiter, where the expedition had made a preliminary stop to replenish their water supply. There Captain Branaugh had picked up "Jupe."


The heavy end of the job of transferring the cargo of the John Heen to the hold of Branaugh's gleaming Hanover fell to Jupe. For Jupe was young and willing and able.


"What wouldn't I give for some of his muscle!" said Stephens, the youngest of the three workmen.