commanding, like the paralyzing fangs of a serpent. His finger tightened on the trigger.

"Give me the pistol. Please." Her voice was low, throaty but with vibrant confidence. With the spell of her eyes, it urged Ricker like the subtle demand of a hypnotist. "Please."

She halted before him, a gorgeous creature, like some great poisonous jungle flower. Her cold green eyes bored into him without a waver. Her face was expressionless, a thing of tinted marble. She held out her hand.

"Give me the gun, Bill Ricker," she said softly. "They'll kill you if you don't."

Ricker leveled the pistol at her heart. "I've never killed a woman—" Gurren and Hines moved around to get a shot at him. "Stay where you are!" said Ricker. "I'll burn a hole through her if you move a step."

He tried to avoid her seeking eyes, met them again. Their gaze met like live wires touching. A current passed between them that almost made sparks. Ricker's whole body vibrated to the electric force of her gaze. Her eyes became an irresistible power transfixing his very being.

For an instant he felt like a moth on a pin. Then without shifting her eyes, Molly Borden slapped the pistol from his hand.

It clattered to the floor. The men were upon him....

Ricker found his pockets contained one cigarette, a book of matches and a clipping from the Times. He sat down on the cold metal bunk, dejectedly lit the cigarette and stared at the dark windowless walls and the heavy door that made his prison. Finally he glanced at the clipping:

As Molly Borden, confessed murderess of scientist Adison, was hustled into a plane bound for Pluto today, the only question in the minds of the police and the thousands who witnessed her spectacular trial was "Who is Molly Borden?" The identity of the Venusian panther-woman remains as mysterious as her emerald eyes.

Since immigration officers apprehended her at the City Rocket Terminal as she attempted to leave the country, no hint of her past has escaped her carmine lips. Her fingerprints, photographs, the handsome assassin herself, have brought no trace of recognition from a bewildered universe.

Dorothy Adison, socially prominent daughter of the scientist, who left for Africa after the inquest at which she testified to seeing Senator Geb Trexel at 

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