interference closed down. The pirate—a first-class super-dreadnought—flashed up, and a heavy visual beam drove in.

"Go inert," came the tense command. "We are coming aboard."

"Are you crazy?" The liner's captain was surprised and disgusted, rather than alarmed. "If not, you've got the wrong ship. Everything we have aboard, including the ransom—if any—you can get for our passengers, wouldn't pay your expenses."

"You wouldn't know, of course, that you are carrying a package of Lonabarian jewelry, would you?" The question was elaborately skeptical.

"I know damned well that I'm not!"

"We'll take the package you haven't got, then!" The pirate snapped. "Go inert and open up, or I'll inert you with a needle-beam and open you up, compartment by compartment—like this." A narrow beam lashed out and expired. "That was through one of your cargo holds, just to show you that I mean business. The next one will be through your control room."

Resistance being out of the question, the liner went inert, and while the intrinsic velocities of the two vessels were being matched, the attacker issued further instructions.

"All officers are to be in the control room, all passengers in the main saloon. Everybody unarmed. Any person wearing arms or slow in obeying orders will be blasted."

Lines were rigged and space-suited men crossed the intervening void.

One squad went to the control room. Its leader, seeing that the Communications Officer was still trying to drive a call through the blanket, beamed him down without a word, then fused the entire communications panel. The captain and four or five other officers, maddened by this cold-blooded butchery, went for their guns and were butchered in turn.

A larger group—helmets thrown back for unimpeded vision, hands bared for instantaneous and accurate use of weapons—invaded the main saloon. Most of them went on through to perform previously assigned tasks, only a half dozen posting themselves to guard the passengers. One of these guards, a hook-nosed individual wearing consciously an aura of authority and dominance, spoke.

"Just take it easy, folks, and nobody will get hurt. If any of you have guns, don't go for them. That's a specialty that—" One of his DeLameters flamed briefly. Cloud's right arm vanished almost to the shoulder. The man behind him—what was left of him—dropped.

 Prev. P 15/26 next