the garden....

"Here they are, damn them—"

It was Duroh's growling, triumphant voice! I whirled. He and Carruthers were here in the garden glade, with Alan behind them. Near them were two or three of the little white Zurian guards who evidently had released them. They stood confused as Carruthers, snarling, whipped out a heat-gun and leaped for me. Its sizzling violet bolt stabbed, missed me as I leaped under it; and I struck him with my lowered head. We went down, rolling, locked together in wild scrambling combat. Above us, as we lunged and struggled with flailing fists, I could see that Duroh had gestured at Alan to help Carruthers. He himself had leaped for Tara, seized her as she fought like a little wildcat, with a knife in her hand now, trying to stab him. Carruthers' gun had dropped from his hand with my onslaught. He was a damnably agile fellow. He twisted on top of me, his hands fumbling at my throat to strangle me.

The confused, terrified Zurians had decamped. I saw in that second that Alan, unarmed, was standing numbed. Duroh thought he would leap to finish me up, of course. But he did not. Suddenly Alan seemed to realize that Duroh's huge arms were around Tara, his hand twisting the knife from her, his leering, grinning face pressing down with a caress upon hers.

And then Alan swiftly stooped, seized a blue-white ragged chunk of ice at his feet, and leaped at Duroh. The huge ice-chunk crashed on Duroh's head and he fell, with the raging little Alan upon him, crashing his head again and again. But the knife in Duroh's hand was stabbing....

"Got you—" Carruthers leered. His hands throttled me. He did not see what was going on above him as he sprawled down upon me while momentarily I lay limp. But he didn't have me. My sudden unexpected heave caught him off balance, broke his hold on my throat. And I tumbled him off. The little heat-gun was lying here and I seized it. Its bolt seared full into his face, shriveling, blackening the flesh with a ghastly stench. He was dead in that second, with his face a bubbling, pulpy mass of horror.

"John—he—he's stabbed—dying—"

Tara's voice called to me as I rose. Duroh, with his skull cracked, was dead, and beside him Alan lay with Duroh's knife buried in his chest, a ghastly crimson stain spreading over his shirt-front. His eyes were open, glazing. They seemed to focus on me, and his lips, on which bloody foam was gathering, twisted into a smile. Then he gasped faintly.

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