From a billion miles away, from a bourne unguessable thousands of
light-years distant, came the faint, far whisper of a voice. Nearer and
nearer it came, and ever faster, till it throbbed upon Chip's eardrums
with booming savagery.
"--coming to, now. Good! We'll soon find out--"
Chip opened his eyes, too dazed, at first, to understand the situation
in which he found himself. Gone was the familiar control-turret of the
_Chickadee_, gone the bulger into which he had so hastily clambered. He
lay on the parched, rocky soil of a--a something. A planetoid, perhaps.
And he was surrounded by a motley crew of strangers: scum of all the
planets that circle the Sun....
Then recollection flooded back upon him, sudden and complete. The
chase ... the call of the fateful Lorelei ... the crash! New strength,
born of anger, surged through him. He lifted his head.
"My--my companions?" he demanded weakly.
The leader of those who encircled him, a mighty hulk of a man, massive
of shoulder and thigh, black-haired, with an unshaven blue jaw,
raven-bright eyes and a jutting, aquiline nose like the beak of a hawk,
loosed a satisfied grunt.
"Ah! Back to normal, eh, sailor? Damn near time!"
Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip--but
he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm
him, and confronted the big man boldly.
"What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?"
The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his
raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed
in boisterous mirth.
"Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he?
'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?"
Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in
his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His
tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered
mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have
a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and
straight!"
"Talk?"
"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice
haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one
chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters
out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's
ominous warning. "--if your message was intercepted, you may have
played into the hands of--" He said slowly, "Then you _are_ the
Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron--where did
it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man _did_ hold
the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important
secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a
secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell--?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor--" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and
a cold light glinted in his eyes--"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to
beat it out o' you!"
* * * * *
He took a step forward. Chip, still unsteady on his feet, but feeling
his strength renew itself with each passing moment, braced for rough
encounter. But the moment of contest was not yet. For even as the big
man's companions drew back, grinning evilly, to form a ring about the
pair, rose a familiar voice from behind Chip.
"_Hold!_ 'Stay now the hand of wrath, yea, shalt thou restrain even
thine arm raised in striking lest His vengeance smite thee into dust!'"
A look of swift, incredulous dismay, sweeping across the giant's face,
vanished in an expression of unholy glee.
"Salvation!" he exclaimed exultantly. "It's Salvation Smith! So we meet
again!"
The circle parted, admitting newcomers. Syd and the old missionary
and the pirates who had dragged them from the broken _Chickadee_.
Chip thought that never before had he been so glad to lay eyes on his
two comrades. Events had followed so swiftly that he had had no time
to feel concern for them, but it was a relief to find them alive and
unharmed.
Nor had the crash sapped either of his valor. Syd's face was stubbornly
determined, and Salvation breathed raging defiance. He glanced once at
Chip, as if to assure himself the young spaceman was uninjured, then
turned to their captor.
"Aye, Salvation Smith!" he thundered. "And how came you to this new
rat's nest, Blacky Jordan?"
Blacky Jordan! The name touched the fringes of Chip Warren's memory,
tugged there fretfully. Then came recollection. Of course! Blacky
Jordan had been the chief lieutenant of Balder Sorenson ... the only
one of Sorenson's space-preying gang to escape when Lt. Russ Bartlett
of the Solar Postal Department had smashed the mail-robbers off Eros
two years ago!
The filthiest kind of a scoundrel, Blacky Jordan. A treacherous,
back-stabbing murderer who found no methods too low to achieve
the results he desired. Chip understood, now, why only one small,
frightened boy had ever returned to tell of the Lorelei's gang.
But--the Lorelei? Where was she? And in what way had Jordan earned the
allegiance of a girl like--
He snapped out of it abruptly. For Jordan's chunky frame had stiffened,
his raven-bright eyes narrowed to meager slits, and he was moving
forward, hands half-clenched at his sides in an anticipatory hunger.
His voice was low and hard.
"Salvation Smith! The psalm-singin' dog who ran me out of Mars Central!
I always said some day I'd get even for that! Well, now's the time!"
And suddenly he lunged, hands clawing for the older man's throat. But
they never found their mark. For, swiftly as he moved, Chip Warren
moved faster still. A step forward, a foot outthrust, an arm upraised,
spinning the man....
"_So!_" bellowed Jordan. "So you're still lookin' for trouble, bucko?
O.Q. I'll take care o' that mealy-mouthed space-parson later!"
He turned on Chip viciously; the blow he directed at the smaller man's
head would have felled an ox. But Chip was no ox. He was like a
panther as he gave with the blow, bobbed, weaved in underneath Jordan's
flailing arm, and came up with both fists driving like pistons.
A right to the heart, a short, jabbing left into the mid-section,
dropping the bigger man's guard--then a crashing right to the jaw! And--
Jordan went down!
* * * * *
But not yet had Chip Warren fully recovered from the effects of his
recent shock. His blows had the power to hurt and sting, but they
lacked their accustomed effectiveness.
Scarcely had he touched the ground than Blacky Jordan was up again,
his beefy face a red mask of rage, his voice a roaring thunder. Like
an unleashed behemoth he hurled himself upon his slighter antagonist,
bulling Chip back by sheer bulk, smashing down Chip's guard with
sledge-hammer blows.
Even so, Chip gave more than he took. Even as he retreated, his fists
continued to dance in for stinging slashes at the other man's face,
heart, wind. And had the locale of their meeting been a sporting
ring, even yet he might have emerged the victor. But there was little
sporting spirit in those who watched.
The foot of a pirate gangster slipped between Chip's legs, tripping
him. As he stumbled backward, off balance, the tentacular paw of a
Martian whipped about his shielding arm. He was completely at the mercy
of the charging Jordan. Mercy was a word the black-haired one did not
know. With a bellow of triumph, he smashed both fists, left, right,
left again, into Chip's unprotected face. The blows throbbed home like
burning rivets. A dizzy nausea assailed Chip; he felt the rocky soil
springing up to meet him.
And now it was Syd who, angered beyond discretion, would have leaped
forward to take up his friend's fight. But he could not. A dozen arms
locked him in a vise of flesh; he was held motionless, straining
futilely, as Jordan transferred his attentions to Salvation Smith.
This was no battle at all. Given a gun, the old war-horse was a match
for any man in the System. But age had taken its toll of his strength;
Jordan's first spite-filled punch smashed down his feeble defenses. In
no time at all he was on the ground, stunned, bruised, shaken, unable
to defend himself even against the lashing kicks of the pirate's boots.
And as he drained the dregs of his vengeance, Blacky Jordan laughed.
"I've waited a long time for this, Salvation Smith!" he gloated. "You
kicked me out of Mars; now it's my turn--"
With deliberate savagery he raised his thick, lead-soled boot, buried
it in the old man's side. And again. And yet again. Salvation moaned
and tried to rise, failed. Chip Warren, shaking off the dark clouds
that had blinded him, got to his knees uncertainly, managed one
lurching step toward the pirate. And then--
"_For shame!_" A voice that must be born of delirium. A voice
lilting-clear as crystal, golden as dawn, valiant and proud as a banner
flying. "You--you monster! I always knew you were a cur, Blacky Jordan,
but I didn't know you'd stoop to _this_--"
And through the circle burst a figure Chip knew ... the figure of a
girl with the face of an angel. But an avenging angel now, with her
halo of golden hair cascading about her shoulders, her warm, ripe lips
tightset with scorn and anger. Like a dancing gleam she raced between
Jordan and his victim; her white hand raised once and descending
stingingly upon the pirate's cheek ... then, with a little cry of
sympathy, she was on her knees beside Salvation Smith.
It was--the girl of the lens! The Lorelei!