"You wouldn't dare!" he gasped. "The physicians have said the shock on going to space will kill Alyce. It would be plain—murder!"

"You're a man of your word," yelled young Rufus. "I'll take that word. Don't forget that, Marshall! If I ever come back, it'll be to collect!"

With the flame-gun held expertly he leaned and scooped the girl's fragile body up in one powerful arm, then backed slowly away. Reaching the doorway, he leaped out of sight. His pounding feet echoed from down the hallway.

CHAPTER II TWO LIVES ARE GAMBLED

Staggering toward his desk, Keith Randolph Marshall began to jab at buttons affixed on its top. When servants appeared, he began screaming orders to pursue and apprehend the kidnapper.

Almost unable to breathe from sheer horror, he slumped at a window and gazed into a courtyard below. The big man was springing lightly across the lawn, and the puny wisp of the girl looked a light burden in his massive arms. A last leap, and they went through the open port of the moored space-flyer.

Spurts of flame came from smoky rear jets. A sound like thunder rolled into being, shaking the house and rattling the windows. For an instant the space-flyer was cushioned on a turmoil of flames. Jets beneath the prow tilted the nose upward. Then it darted swiftly into the heavens.

People over the solar system called the grizzled old man a dictator of the spacelanes, yet it would have been hard, even for a close acquaintance, to recognize Keith Randolph Marshall in the broken man who now stooped over the tele-panels, pleading for a wireless connection with the Space Police Bureau.

His next connection went through to a Dr. Haliburton, in the Medical Towers Building of San Francisco. Marshall was calmer now, but controlled himself only with an effort.

The mirror cleared to reveal a tall man in a laboratory apron, bent absorbedly over a retort. As the features turned to Marshall, a look of surprise gleamed behind gold-rimmed glasses and he tugged at the point of a distinguishing Van Dyke beard.

"What's wrong, Mr. Marshall?" he demanded. "Is Alyce ill—"

"Everything!" gasped Keith Randolph Marshall. "I'll explain later. Tell me, do you know young Rufus Thallin?"

"Indeed I do," responded the scientist with a frown. 

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