I believe you were expecting me!"

Marshall spun and his gray mane quivered. It angered him to be caught off guard. Glaring past the glistening pyrite cases of interplanetary souvenirs, he saw the doorway. In it stood a man garbed roughly as are those accustomed to space travel, a great fellow fully as large as himself, who had to stoop to get in.

Stalking forward grimly came the mastodonic spaceman, while wellworn asteroid boots cut insolent gashes in the varnished teakwood floors, leaving scars that struck sparks in the owner's outraged eye as he watched the careless advance.

A spectacled secretary thrust his head in at the doorway, panting in an effort to overtake the caller.

"Mr. Rufus Thallin to call upon you," he gasped and withdrew apologetically.

"Mister who?" demanded Marshall.

"Rufus Thallin was my father," announced the young giant softly, and his grey eyes kindled. "They put him away yesterday, scattered his ashes to the infinities he loved. He made me promise to keep the old Thallin Starways going, whatever I did. That's why I'm here."

There was a small space-ship on Marshall's desk, spindle-shaped, a model of the latest Marshall anti-gravity spacer. It was a symbol of power, of survival of the fittest in space. Marshall was shocked by the news, but pretended a sudden interest in the miniature.

He stared through a window over his acres of a vast California rancho. So old Rufe Thallin, lean of girth, leathery of visage, was dead. Queer that he would never face him again. The executive went over to his desk and plopped down in a chair.

"Have a seat, son," he said in a quavering voice that surprised himself. He knew at once it was the wrong tone. Young Rufus had straightened, had scuffed new chicken tracks into the polished floor.

"Don't call me son!" burst out the young man angrily. "My father told me all about how you've hounded him, underbid all of his contracts, drove his spacers out of business. I'm warning you I'll do anything, anything at all, to get back at you. That's how I feel about it!"

The young whippersnapper! This was more like it. Marshall was glad he wouldn't have to waste sympathy on the young pup.

"Have a stogie, kid," he growled condescendingly, "and don't get huffy! Your old man stuck 

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