Wreck Off Triton By ALFRED COPPEL _His plans were thorough. Every risk had been closely considered. Now Ron Carnavon, ruthless convict, was ready to loot the wrecked spaceship of its sapphire treasure, and thrust his warped power around the entire, antagonistic EMV triangle._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Ron Carnavon had been the skipper of the late _Thunderbird_, and it was common knowledge in every port of the EMV triangle that he had scuttled her. There was a price on his head, and the High Space Guard was combing the spacelanes for him--and for the _Thunderbird_. For the _Thunderbird_ was a treasure ship. But Carnavon was a cautious man and no fool, for all that he'd committed barratry. He left the _Thunderbird_ in a Trojan orbit a million miles off Triton, ruptured and spilling corpses into space. He took a spaceboat and jetted sunward to the Holcomb Foundation Outpost on Oberon. Then he stowed away on the mail ship to Canalopolis, still carrying the chart that showed the _Thunderbird's_ position. In the Canal City, Carnavon evaded the lax Guard cordons and found himself a renegade Martian hypnosurgeon to change his face and fingerprints. From then on it was easy. Across Syrtis Major by sand-ski to Marsport posing as a prospector. And from Marsport down the Grand Canal to the spaceman's boneyard at Yakki. It was there that he met and hired Pop Wills and the _Carefree_. Ron Carnavon acted with characteristic caution when he chose Pop and the _Carefree_ to do the ghoul work on the ship he had murdered. Pop's ship was a rusty bucket, but well enough fixed to reach Triton where the _Thunderbird's_ corpse orbited, her vault heavy with Plutonian sapphires. And Pop needed work badly. He was almost too broke to outfit his ship for the flight. Carnavon noted with curling lip that most of Pop's assets had long ago been liquidated to buy gin. The long years in space had taken a toll on the old man. Actually a greater toll than even Carnavon could have imagined. Pop and the _Carefree_ fitted in with Carnavon's plans to perfection. Pop had been in trouble more than once with the High Space Guard. Pop was an old soak who wouldn't be missed. When something happened to the _Carefree_, the rest of the beached wrecks in Yakki would only shake their heads and agree that Pop had pushed the old bucket a few Gs too hard somewhere. That was just the end the wrecker had in mind for Pop when his job was finished, too.