grips, and, using his weapon as a staff, he scrambled to his feet. He planted one steel boot upon the helmet's dome, got a momentary stance with the other thrust into the angle between barrel body and flailing leg, bent his burly back and heaved. The deeply-embedded blade tore out through bone and flesh and metal—and as it did so the two rear cabled arms dropped limp, useless!

That mighty rear shoulder and its appurtenances were thoroughly hors du combat. The monster still had one good hand, however—and he was still in the fight!

That hand flashed out, to seize the hatchet and to wield it against its owner. It was fast, too—but not quite fast enough. The man, strongly braced, yanked backward, the weapon's needle point and keen blade tearing through flesh and snicking off clutching fingers as it was hauled away. Then Cloud swung his axe aloft and poised, making it abundantly clear that the next stroke would be straight down into the top of the Uhalian's head.

That was enough. The monster backed away, every eye aglare, and Cloud stepped warily over to the captive, Luda. A couple of strokes of his trenchant sampler gave him a length of chain. Then, working carefully to keep his wounded foe threatened at every instant, he worked the chain into a tight loop around Darjeeb's neck, pulled it unmercifully taut around a stanchion, and welded it there with his DeLameter.

Nor did he trust the other monster unreservedly, bound though she was. In fact, he did not trust her at all. In spite of family rows, like has a tendency to fight with like against a common foe! But since she was not wearing armor, she didn't stand a chance against a DeLameter. Hence, he could now take time to look around the saloon.

The pilot, lying flat upon the floor, was beginning to come to. Not quite flat, either, for a shapely Chickladorian girl, wearing the forty-one square inches of covering which was de rigeur in her eyes, had his head cushioned upon one bare leg, and was sobbing gibberish over him. That wouldn't help. Cloud started toward the first-aid cabinet, but stopped. A white-wrapped figure was already bending over the injured man, administering something out of a black bottle. He knew what it was—kedeselin. That was what he had been going after himself, but he would not have dared to give even a hippopotamus such a terrific jolt as she was pouring into him. She must be a nurse and a top-ranker—but Cloud shivered in sympathy.

The pilot stiffened convulsively, then relaxed. His eyes rolled; 

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