Trexel. In a few moments your hide-out'll be swarming with Patrol ships. They know where I am and they'll be here any moment."

The fat man laughed. "Still trying to pull that stuff," he scoffed. "Well, it doesn't go over again. I contacted Washington and my agents tell me there's no truth whatsoever in your story. No one knows where you are. You were both working entirely on your own." He raised his pistol. "But enough of this!"

"Wait," said Vanger. He coughed behind his hand. "Why shoot the woman? Give her to me and she'll never speak a word of what she's seen if I have to cut her tongue out."

Trexel smiled. "So you, too, have been attracted by Miss Borden's beauty. But perhaps you won't like her, so well as Dorothy Adison, Vanger. Have you thought how she would look without that yellow dye on her skin, without that makeup on her eyes and with Dorothy Adison's blonde hair?"

"I like blondes," said Vanger. "And if I remember rightly, Dorothy Adison was a beauty in her own right."

"Well," said Trexel. "A dead woman's little use to anyone. If you'll remember about that tongue-cutting—"

Vanger laughed till he began coughing.

Trexel raised the gun, pointed it full in Ricker's face and laughed. Ricker could see his fat knuckle whiten as it squeezed the trigger.

Molly Borden screamed, flung herself in front of him. The Martian jerked her aside. Ricker's good left arm came up. Then it halted in mid-air.

To his ears came a sound like bubbling water to a man dying of thirst. He didn't believe it at first, paused, lips parted, listening. Then his eyes danced with a wild light.

Trexel heard it too. His face was like chalk. He stood there with the gun still poised, a great bear-like statue. It was the hum of rockets! Not the rockets of Trexel's ships, the jets of the Stellar Patrol. It was! The Patrol had gotten through!

Trexel stood like a man of stone. For a full ten seconds he didn't move.

Ricker knocked the woman aside, dropped to the floor. The gun flamed. Trexel pulled the trigger wildly. Ricker snatched the glass table from the floor beside him, hurled it up into the man's ghastly face. His thick mouth burst into a red spray as glass crashed. He fought to get rid of the table, its jagged edges cut into his arms and face. Ricker hurled a chair. It hit the man's 

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