behind the girder and, aiming carefully, picked off four more of the aliens. He tried to put his shot just back of the oversized, toad-like heads of the Flesso, though it didn't matter much where the beam landed. The result was the same.

The survivors were conferring hissingly and evincing great confusion. Apparently they still thought the fire was coming from somewhere within the ship, but they were unable to figure out where.

There were eight of them left. Marten picked off one of them with his ninth charge, then held fire. He had one charge left, and then there would be a thirty-second delay while the Spaulding's recharged themselves. He didn't want to leave himself defenseless even for thirty seconds.

He counted off. Ten, fifteen, twenty—one gun was charged. He raised it, readied to fire, when he heard a sudden tell-tale hiss from behind him.

He whirled, but it was too late. A searing beam of energy cracked into him, hurling him backward. He clung to consciousness an instant, then blacked out as the beam shorted his neural circuits.

When he awoke, Marten opened his eyes, blinked, closed them again.

"Ugh," he said.

He felt a savage poke in the stomach. "Open your eyes!"

"Do I have to?"

"Open them!"

With visible reluctance, he opened his lids and stared into the bulging, lidless eyes of none other than Ghuvekenkh-Nathor himself.

The Flesso leader was even uglier than usual. "Very clever, Earthman," he said coldly. "For that little trick, you'll die—slowly. After we have extracted all the information we need from you, that is."

"Trick?" asked Marten blankly.

"Yes. Getting out of the ship and shooting down my men."

"Dear me," Marten said innocently. "I thought that was the smart thing to do, in view of your hostile attitude. I didn't realize you'd be so stuffy about it, but I'm sorry that you're so stupid you—"

"Silence!"

 Prev. P 4/10 next