The rain was only a light patter now and the sky was brightening as the three men and one woman crawled out of the rocket car. The shadows were very close now, but there still was no sign that their weapons would speak.

Silently the shadows moved, scores of them. That straight line they made began to bend and curve around the four who stood waiting.

No threatening gestures, no weapons visible, just that relentless, closing circle.

"Damn you," said Dead-Eye suddenly. "Elizabeth didn't get a chancet at you before. But she will now."

"No!" Curt Wing snapped. "I think they want to take us alive. Maybe we can learn something. No, Dead-Eye, no!"

But it was too late.

Dead-Eye had snapped his ancient powder gun from its holster, and his left hand was fanning Elizabeth's sharp-biting tongue. The hammer snapped down thrice--three shots blasted out.

In that breathless second before the awful blast of sound and light struck, Curt Wing saw three shadows suddenly disappear. Then the sound and light struck as Wing steeled his muscles and mind against it.

But, amazingly, at the first touch, it was gone, and he was standing unharmed.

He twisted his head. Pat was standing close beside him, and George. But Dead-Eye was gone. Only Elizabeth, her metal twisted and white hot, lay smoking on the ground where Dead-Eye had stood.

Dead-Eye, Wing's mind was crying, you big, dumb, blundering bear, where are you? Oh, you damn fool, pitting an old, crazy powder gun against atomic power! You killed yourself, you crazy, gallant guy. Now you're gone--who am I going to have to look out for after this?

Pat's fingers were soft on his arm, drawing him back from the pain of the loss. "He always wanted it that way, Curt. Quick, while he was in action."

Rage began to boil in Wing's heart against these tenuous shadows who scorned giving an Earthman even a hopeless chance. The ache for Dead Eye, who was like a big good-natured puppy; that ever-conscious nagging of the doom of mankind at the hands of these callous shadows; the knowledge that even if this doom could be somehow stopped or turned aside there was Zhan Nekel's space fleet coming nearer, churned his mind. And from his whirling brain came only one driving thought. Avenge Dead-Eye--the thousands of 

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