Miller said nothing, but the cold pressure of the muzzle left Stone's neck.

Suddenly, Kendall heaved back on the control wheel, pulling the aircar out of its dive. He hung on grimly as the centrifugal force of the pullout dragged the blood from his brain. Then he blacked out.

When consciousness returned, the sturdy little aircar was climbing skyward. Stone glanced around. Miller was still unconscious, lying slumped in a rotund heap down at the floor of the aircab. Stone hauled him up, applied a hard punch to the jaw to make sure he'd stay that way, and let him sag back down. Then he grabbed the gun from the unconscious man's lap.

The other aircar was about half a mile away, heading toward him. Evidently the other pilot had blacked out, too. Overhead the moon glittered brightly. The night was wearing along. And when the sun's rays trickled over the horizon—

Holding on to the wheel with his right hand, Kendall opened the window a tiny bit and stuck his left hand out. The blast of air that tore past almost ripped the gun from his hand.

He gripped it harder, until the knuckles whitened, and turned the ship to face his assailant. A chill wind blew through the cabin. Sighting the pistol by instinct alone, he squeezed the trigger.

The blue-white beam speared out, burning off part of the control surfaces of the other car. It shuddered and spun, and then began to spiral downward.

Kendall Stone closed the window, grasped the controls, and pointed the aircar toward the Governor's palace.

The Governor yawned sleepily as Kendall Stone finished his story. He glanced at Miller, who was pinioned securely between two burly Security Guards.

"Well?"

"It's true," the fat man said.

"Oh?" Stone asked. "Why the sudden nobility, Miller?"

"It's not nobility," Miller said. "They came after your ship knowing I was in it—and that didn't keep them from shooting me down. Why shouldn't I turn them in, if it'll save my own skin?"

"You should have known," Kendall said, "that people like those two wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice you. They'd already planned to kill a whole colony, you know."

The Governor, who had watched the whole interchange of conversation rather 

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