The tenth Moon-King’s first son is heartless and headstrong, the second son
is guileful and able to change his appearance at will, and the third son is
perspicacious and deft of hand. Ten tourists thoughtlessly bring to the Moon-
King’s domain a bull they slew, but alas the animal is the Moon-King’s second
son who temporarily transformed into the form of a bull. The tourists are
imprisoned, portpasses confiscated. They will not be set at liberty until they
provide a ransom of neutronium that covers the hide of the slain bull, which
automagically stretches out to an enormous size. One of the ten tourists is
permitted to go in search of the precious neutronium, although strictly upon
pain of death for his fellow tourists should he fail in his quest or take the knave’s
course of failing to return. He journeys to a planet in the orbit of a raging pulsar,
where dwells a medium-sized giant known to manufacture neutronium. After
many battles the brave tourist compels the medium-sized giant to disgorge
his entire treasure, although the giant bitterly curses whoever should come to
hold his wealth. Hardly consoled at the loss of his second son by the valuable
radioactive hoard, in a scant few months the Moon-King is treacherously
usurped by his heartless and headstrong firstborn son, who also succeeds in
driving away his brother. The Moon-King’s exiled third son spends many years
devoting himself to learning all that he wishes to know; how to sow and reap,
how to make contemporary art, how to navigate the skies, to hack, to build,
to weave and to sew. Meanwhile, throughout all these years the Moon-King’s
eldest son clasps his cursed prize close to his horrible heart until he is deformed
by greed and mutated by neutronium into a most loathsome monster.
