Asteroid H277—Plus

In Short

Jon Akars sabotages the Sun-freighter Cinnabar, dooming its crew with a paralyzing drug and a rigged fuel explosion so he can steal four kilograms of precious Urulium. Escaping in a life tender, Akars believes he has eliminated every witness and engineered a foolproof crime. However, he discovers that the ship's first navigator, Box Jordan, survived the drug and the initial chaos. Their confrontation leads them to a dangerous, positively charged asteroid known as H277—Plus, where hidden electrical currents and a duplicate logbook ensure poetic and absolute justice.

The Story

Jon Akars, a petty officer aboard the Sun Line freighter Cinnabar, executes a meticulous plan of sabotage and theft. He introduces a Venusian drug called kui-knor into the ship's air circulators, plunging the entire crew into a paralyzed yet fully conscious coma. With the officers helpless in the navigating compartment, Akars disables the refrigeration controls for the gaseous fuel tanks, dooming the freighter to a catastrophic, spontaneous explosion. He then slips away into a docked life tender, planning to collect four kilograms of precious, heavy, and indestructible Urulium—a discovery made during an emergency landing that first navigator Box Jordan had turned over as a ship's prize.

As the Cinnabar detonates in a blinding blossom of blue-white flame, Akars navigates the debris field to recover the copper casket containing the Urulium. He crafts a false narrative of survival, intending to sell the metal to Martians and buy his own prospecting ship. His plans shatter when Box Jordan steps out of the tender's quarters. Jordan had been checking the fuel tanks when the drug took effect, leaving him half-paralyzed but aware as the tender detached. A fierce struggle ensues between the two men. Akars beats Jordan with an oxygen cylinder, binds him, and decides to maroon him on a desolate, ten-mile-wide asteroid designated as H277—Plus.

Approaching the asteroid, Akars forces Jordan out into a space suit to wander the barren rock. But as the tender settles near the basalt surface, a terrifying electrical phenomenon occurs. Unlike standard negative bodies, the "plus" designation of H277 indicates a positive electrical charge. A violent arc of lightning strikes the tender's fuel tank—which had been damaged earlier by a collision in the debris field—causing a controlled fire that triggers an explosion.

When Akars regains consciousness, he finds himself in a space suit on the asteroid, bound and guarded by Jordan with a paralysis gun. Jordan reveals that the fuel fire was anticipated because of the asteroid's positive charge, and that salvage ships are already on their way. More importantly, Jordan recovered a mandatory duplicate ship's logbook that Akars unwittingly brought along, preserving Captain Cardigan's signed account of the Urulium find. With the duplicate log and the surviving crew's widows and orphans finally receiving their due, Akars faces certain imprisonment at the mines, completely undone by his hubris and ignorance.

How It Unfolds

The silent poisoning Jon Akars introduces a paralyzing drug into the Cinnabar's air circulators, rendering the entire crew immobile while remaining fully conscious. He then shuts off the fuel refrigeration, dooming the ship to an explosive end before escaping in a small life tender.

The fiery wreckage From a safe distance, Akars watches the Cinnabar disintegrate in a blinding explosion of white-hot gas. He maneuvers back through the glowing debris field to retrieve the heavy copper casket containing four kilograms of precious Urulium.

An unexpected encounter While plotting his route back to Earth with a fabricated tale of survival, Akars is shocked when first navigator Box Jordan emerges from the tender's quarters. Jordan, who was half-paralyzed during routine maintenance, survived the ordeal and immediately comprehends Akars' murderous betrayal.

The brutal struggle After a violent physical confrontation involving an oxygen cylinder, Akars overpowers the injured navigator and ties him up. Determined to eliminate the last witness without risking detection near Earth, Akars steers the tender toward a desolate asteroid.

The electrical trap Akars maroons Jordan on the rocky surface of asteroid H277—Plus, unaware that its "plus" designation denotes a positive electrical charge. The resulting electrostatic discharge ignites a leaking fuel tank, destroying the tender and stranding Akars alongside his intended victim.

The final reckoning Awakening bound in a space suit, Akars learns from Jordan that salvage ships are inbound. Jordan exposes the fatal flaw in Akars' plan: a mandatory duplicate ship's logbook found aboard the tender, ensuring that the truth of the Urulium theft will come to light.

The People

Jon Akars is a petty officer consumed by greed and a vicious streak. He views himself as exceptionally clever, plotting mass murder and theft with cold calculation while nursing a specific hatred for authority figures who demand competence. What stands in his way is his own arrogance, a damaged fuel tank, and his total ignorance of stellar physics. He ends up utterly defeated, bound, and destined for the grueling mercury mines.

Box Jordan is the ship's first navigator, a lean, red-headed officer known for his strict adherence to duty and unyielding standards. Unfazed by Akars' past hostility, Jordan refuses to overlook negligence and remains entirely unintimidated. He survives the paralysis through pure resilience, thwarts Akars' impunity, and outsmarts the saboteur by leveraging the asteroid's unique properties and a duplicate logbook, ensuring justice for the Cinnabar's lost crew.

Captain Cardigan and the rest of the Cinnabar's crew are professional spacemen caught unaware by the insidious kui-knor gas. While the captain and officers are apparently killed in the initial disaster, Cardigan's meticulous record-keeping through the ship's log ultimately survives via the duplicate copy, serving as the definitive proof that condemns Akars.

In Its Own Voice

Mass murder and piracy! But he wasn't clever enough to allow for the innocent-sounding asteroid charted as "H277--Plus."

This opening line establishes the overarching irony of the narrative, highlighting how petty officer Akars fails to anticipate the environmental hazard that will ultimately destroy his plans.

Without warning men would drop at their posts, apparently insensible, rigid of muscle, eyes staring fixedly.

This description details the eerie, silent effect of the Venusian drug Akars uses to incapacitate the crew of the Cinnabar before he initiates his sabotage.

That was what you weren't interested in, Akars, the 'plus' of H277 plus.

Jordan delivers this sharp realization to Akars, emphasizing how the saboteur's blind arrogance and lack of technical knowledge led directly to his downfall.

What It's Really About

The story examines the illusion of the foolproof crime and the limits of individual cunning against systemic reality. Akars represents the hubris of the minor criminal who believes he can outsmart both human integrity and physical laws through sheer audacity. Beneath the pulp adventure lies a thematic exploration of accountability: secrets cannot truly be buried in the vastness of space, and institutional safeguards like duplicate logs and shared prizes outlast individual greed. Furthermore, it touches on the dangers of specialized ignorance, where overlooking technical details—such as an asteroid's electrical polarity—proves just as fatal as a murderer's hands.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy classic, hard-edged science fiction with tight pacing, mechanical problem-solving, and a satisfying poetic justice will find much to appreciate here. Reading the story evokes the atmosphere of early pulp magazines, offering a brisk, tense narrative driven by claustrophobic shipboard mechanics and high-stakes survival.

Modern readers should approach it with an awareness of its 1940s pulp origins, which feature straightforward prose, blunt period attitudes toward violence, and archetypal characters rather than deep psychological interiority. Despite these genre conventions, the story's tightly wound plot mechanics and the delightful irony of Akars' undoing make it a brisk, entertaining piece of speculative fiction. The tension of the ticking clock, the stark depiction of space travel hazards, and the clever resolution anchored by the asteroid's electrical properties remain genuinely engaging, leaving a memorable impression long after the final page is turned.