Captain Midas: Greed Among the Stars

Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel - The captain of the Martian Maid stared avidly at the torn derelict floating against the velvet void. Here was treasure beyond his wildest dreams! How could he know his dreams should have been nightmares?

Gold! A magic word, even today, isn't it? Lust and gold ... they go hand in hand. Like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. And, of course, there's another word needed to make up the trilogy. You don't get any thing for nothing. So add this: Cost. Or you might call it pain, sorrow, agony. Call it what you like. It's what you pay for great treasure....

These things were true when fabled Jason sailed the Argo beyond Colchis seeking the Fleece. They were true when men sailed the southern oceans in wooden ships. And the conquest of space hasn't changed us a bit. We're still a greedy lot....

I'm a queer one to be saying these things, but then, who has more right? Look at me. My hair is gray and my face ... my face is a mask. The flesh hangs on my bones like a yellow cloth on a rickety frame. I am old, old. And I wait here on my hospital cot—wait for the weight of years I never lived to drag me under and let me forget the awful things my eyes have seen.

I'm poor, too, or else I wouldn't be here in this place of dying for old spacemen. I haven't a dime except for the pittance the Holcomb Foundation calls a spaceman's pension. Yet I had millions in my hands. Treasure beyond your wildest dreams! Cursed treasure....