to move fast now. The success of the whole mission depended on timing from here on out. The guards, naturally, would see the airlock door swing open; they would know something was wrong. It would take them, he estimated, about four minutes to bring up heavy armament to blast the door open.

Moistening his lips nervously, he decided to correct the estimate. Better make it three minutes for safety's sake, he thought.

In that time, he would have to warm up the generator and punch the co-ordinates for the planet Valdor into the big guiding computer. Doing that would require, say, two minutes—giving him a minute's leeway. Good!

He waited until the guards all seemed to be looking away from the airlock door. Then he pressed the lock. The door swung open, and Torlyn Khy stepped quickly inside.

There was a shout from one of the guards below, but they were too late to do anything; the Valdorian had the airlock door closed before they could see what had happened. He turned the master switch on the inside of the door, which locked the door against any outside interference.

He grinned sardonically. The fool Earthmen would have a devil of a time doing anything now!

The next thing was to switch off his invisibility belt. It was difficult to do delicate work if you couldn't see your own arms and fingers, and punching co-ordinates into a computer was a delicate job.

He turned toward the inner door—and, at that moment, the door opened! An Earthman stepped out, an engineer named Harris who had apparently been making some last-minute adjustments on the ship.

"Oh, hello, Blaine," Harris said. "I—"

Without a word, the Valdorian leaped forward, taking the Earthman by surprise. He slammed his fist into Harris' abdomen, and he doubled up in pain.

Torlyn Khy jumped back as the Earthman's foot suddenly sliced toward him. The toe of the engineer's foot hit him stingingly alongside the jaw, but the Valdorian managed to grasp the foot and twist.

Then he bent and picked Harris up, and knocked him down again with a crashing blow to the chin.

He left the unconscious Earthman on the floor, locking him inside the airlock. He would be no trouble there.

The real 

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