The Falcon was drunk, completely, hilariously drunk. He sang a song
about a girl with golden hair who rode a moonbeam in a race with the
Venusian express, and he stopped now and then to breathe deeply,
completely oblivious of the glances given him by the guards patrolling
the catwalks above the manufacturing room.
He pressed the slender shoots of _lanka_ weed into the cutters,
drunkenly raked the chopped remnants into a basket. Lurching, he turned
to the great kiln drier, dumped the basket load into the hopper, and
closed the door. He adjusted the rheostat until a needle backed another
on a dial, then went back to the cutter. He leaned against the machine,
idly scratched the back of his neck with one hand, gazed blearily about
the room.
Then he slipped several vitamin and energy capsules from his pocket
and swallowed them. He felt their quick power sealing through his
body, felt the cloudy numbness lifting from his brain. He fought with
a desperate effort to think clearly and concisely, for he knew that
another few weeks in the _smothalene_ factory would kill him.
He waited patiently, felt strength coming back to his mind. Men watched
him with a blind calm curiosity, their faces, behind their filtration
masks, indicating their wonder that he should still be as well as he
was after several days in the polluted air of the factory.
Duke Ringo had kept his threat; the Falcon had been compelled to work
at the _lanka_ weed cutter without a mask. And those seven work periods
had taken their toll of his rugged lithe strength. He was lucky that
the machine filters permitted only the barest trace of the powder
to get into the air, for a breath of the pure drug would kill him
instantly, knotting his body with muscle-ripping cramps.
The drug, _smothalene_, was the deadliest aphrodisiac discovered in
more than a century. Its action was swift and diabolic, raising the
rate of metabolism to an incredible height, literally burning the flesh
from the body of the users. Such was its action, the user consumed
fifty times his normal usage of oxygen, and consequently went on an
oxygen-drunk that was more satisfying, more habit-forming, than any
drug that could be found. Its final effect came in a spasmodic, hideous
moment, when the cumulative effects of the drug literally exploded in a
surge of unleashed power. Every bit of energy and life was sucked from
the body, and the corpse became nothing but a desiccated mummy.
The Falcon thought of that and many things, remembering the brushes
his men had had with the smugglers, recalling the bodies of the
_smothalene_ users he had seen. And he remembered, too, the accusations
hurled at him and his brood, wild accusations that placed him and his
men in the roles of mass murderers--as the _smothalene_ smugglers.
He gripped the machine edge tightly with whitening hands. He could feel
the life being burned from his body from the tiny bit of the drug his
body had assimilated, sensed the coolness coming to his heated muscles
as the energy tablets fed the speeded metabolism. He knew instinctively
that he had not grown so accustomed to the drug that he could not break
its lecherous hold. All that he needed was a greatly supplemented diet
for the next few days, and then, except for the natural deterioration
of his body during the _smothalene_ binge, he would be as perfectly
conditioned as before.
A guard leaned over the edge of the catwalk, gestured with a paralysis
gun. "Snap into it, Varga," he roared. "Your period isn't up yet."
The Falcon nodded, lifted new weeds into the hopper. Benton, the
Earthman working at his side, flicked his gaze warily at the guards,
and his voice was a quiet whisper.
"Don't be a sap, Falcon," he said. "Walk into a paralysis ray, get it
over with in a hurry."
Curt Varga shook his head. "Sorry," he said softly, "I've got other
plans."
Benton smiled derisively. "Yeah? Well, a couple of others thought they
had, too. They got a converter burial in the energy room."
The Falcon swayed a bit, felt drunkenness creeping into his mind again.
He found and swallowed the last of his energy tablets.
"Look," he said, "I need the help of everybody in here. I've got a plan
that might work--but this _smothalene_ is burning me so I can't really
think. Collect all the energy tablets the men can spare for me; I'll
use them to stay sober until I bust the place wide open."
Benton shook his head.
The Falcon raked weeds into the cutter, glanced about.
"The guards think I'm drunk all of the time," he whispered. "They don't
worry about me any more; I can do damned near as I please. Get me those
energy tablets, so my mind won't blank out at the last moment, and I'll
guarantee freedom for all of us."
The Earthman considered gravely for a moment, then nodded doubtfully.
"I'll do what I can, Falcon, only because of your reputation. If your
idea doesn't work, there's little lost, anyway."
Slowly, he turned, caught up a great oil-can, drifted among the
machines. He talked quietly with worker after worker, finally returned
and handed Varga a double handful of tablets.
"That's all I could get," he said. "Now what happens?"
"Watch for your cue." The Falcon dropped the tablets into his pocket,
retaining about a dozen. He swallowed them, felt their cool rush of
energy almost immediately. He unscrewed a vial from beneath a jet.
Then he proceeded to get very drunk.
* * * * *
His face went slack, his muscles rubbery. He sang in a cracked tenor,
weaved carelessly through the machines, going toward the steps that led
to the catwalk. He staggered drunkenly, almost belligerently righted
himself again and again.
"Get back to work, Falcon," a guard called, grinned at the slackness of
the pirate's once-erect body.
"I don' wanna work!" Curt Varga said nastily. "I'm gonna be sick."
"All right!" The guard jerked his head toward the rest-room. "Be
sick, and then get back to your job." He grinned, as the Falcon came
laboriously up the stairs.
The Falcon staggered drunkenly toward the rest-room, shoved through
the door, dropped his pretense the moment he was alone. He went
swiftly toward the air-intake grill, worked at its fastenings with a
screwdriver secreted in his boot-top. And as he worked, he thought.
"_Jean_," he thought, and his face went white from concentration.
"_Jean, this is the Falcon. Listen to me. In a few minutes, I'm going
to release smothalene into the air-system. Put on your mask, and be
ready to run for it._"
He sent the message again and again, wishing that he had had the
telepathic training to receive as well as send. He had no way of
knowing if the girl could get his message; he had no way of knowing
whether or not she would tell Duke Ringo of his plans.
The grill plate came loose in his hands, and he lifted the vial of
_smothalene_ powder into the hole revealed. For a second, his hand
remained there, and then he felt the sickness of futility come over
him. He had no mask.
He stepped back from the wall, pocketed the vial, went toward the
door. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled the door ajar, beckoned
drunkenly to the nearest guard.
"Cummere," he said melodramatically. "I got somethin' to show you."
"What's the matter?" the guard asked suspiciously, and his gun was
bright in his hand.
"Thieves, that's what it is," the Falcon asserted solemnly. "Cummon,
I'll show you."
He opened the door wide, turned his back, walked toward the gaping
grill-hole. The guard entered suspiciously.
"All right," the guard said. "What's up?"
"See!" the Falcon said, pointed.
The guard gaped. "Who in hell did that?" he swore angrily. "Now I've
gotta--" He swung about, momentarily forgetting the man with him.
The Falcon swung with a delicate precision, striking with the
death-blow of a trained IP agent. The guard was dead before his sagging
body was caught in the pirate's strong arms. He never moved.
The Falcon laid the body gently on the floor, removed the filtration
mask, fitted it to his face. He pulled the coat from the slack arms and
shoulders, carried it with him to the wall. Carefully, he emptied his
vial of the _smothalene_ crystals into the air-tube, covered the hole
with the muffling coat. He stood that way for several minutes, until
he was certain that the dust had been carefully sucked along the pipe.
Then he darted back to the guard, took his gun, and stepped to the door.
He shot the approaching guard squarely through the throat, the gun
singing its piercing note of death, the instant cry of the guard
disappearing with his throat. Then the Falcon hurdled the body, raced
along the catwalk.
"Benton," he yelled, "_this is it_."
A guard shouted in brief anger, his ray searing a burning streak of
agony along Curt's side. Then the Falcon whirled, dropped to one knee
on the metal flooring, and his gun sang a song of death that didn't
cease.
Rays lanced from the patrolling guards, and their cries were startled
angry sounds. One went down from the Falcon's ray; another lined his
gun with a deliberate slowness.
A thrown spanner-wrench crushed in the side of his head, and Benton
raced up the catwalk's steps. He waved two more wrenches at the Falcon.
"Let's go, Varga," he shouted.
The Falcon rayed the last two guards to death with a single sweeping
shot that cut them down as though before a scythe. Then he was running
toward the exit.
"Stay here and organize the men," he yelled back. "Follow as quickly as
possible, and mop up the smugglers still alive."
* * * * *
Then he had plunged through the door and was racing down the corridor.
He gagged in sheer horror when he saw the bodies of the smugglers in
the hall and adjacent rooms. They were sere and brown, withered mummies
dressed in clothes sizes too large. Some still twitched feebly in
their last throes. _Smothalene_ had dropped them with their first deep
breaths of the virulent drug.
He raced on, his feet pounding deafening echoes from the floor, his
gun gripped tightly in his hand. He prayed silently as he ran. And then
he was at the control cabin, skidding to a stop, his gun swivelling to
menace the room. It was empty, except for the sere mummy of a man at
the astrogation table.
"Damn!" the Falcon swore, swerved about as a footstep sounded at the
door. Then he was holding Jean in his arms, soothing the shaking of her
slender shoulders.
"Ringo escaped!" the girl cried. "He was making me broadcast a ransom
demand to my father, when I got your message. I grabbed a mask, and
ran. He must have suspected something, for he didn't chase me. I hid,
and watched him running toward the escape hatch. He was wearing a
bulger." She glanced at the mummified man at the table, shuddered,
tears flooding her eyes.
The Falcon shoved her aside, sprang to the control board. He flicked a
switch, grinned tautly when a needle leaped to instant life. He sat in
the seat, laid his gun aside. Flicking on the vizi-beam, he sent its
scanner ray swirling about outside the dead ship. Almost instantly he
found the tiny cruiser boring toward the outside of the clot of space
debris.
His hands darted to two levers on the board, drew them back. Tractor
rays leaped into sudden life, spun in pursuit of the fleeing cruiser.
Secondary rays fended off the rubbish that tended to be sucked into the
tractor beams.
Then the tractors caught the cruiser, caught and held it immovable. It
swung about, almost stopping its direct flight. It bucked and plunged
like a fish on a line, rockets flaring with incredible power to break
the hold. But Curt's hands never gave it a chance. The rays grew whiter
by the second, became almost invisible in their power. And the cruiser
wheeled over, began sinking slowly toward the headquarter's ship.
The vizi-screen grew silvery, then green, and a face appeared on its
surface.
"Clever, weren't you, Falcon," Duke Ringo said viciously. "I should
have killed you when I had the chance." His eyes were mad pits of
reddish hell. "I knew something was wrong when the girl made a dash
from me with a mask, but I didn't have time to warn the men, for I
wasn't certain what was happening. Then the _smothalene_ dropped my
mate, and I barely got into a bulger before I had to take a breath. I
had to run for it; I couldn't have fought your entire crowd."
The Falcon's face was stony and bleak, his eyes impersonal.
"I'm bringing you back, Ringo, and turning you in."
"To hell with you, Falcon," Duke Ringo snarled. "When I go out, you go,
too." He laughed. "_All right, I'm coming in!_"
The vizi-screen went momentarily black, then the scanner ray cut back
in. Duke Ringo's ship had ceased its futile efforts to escape; now
it was turning, the needle prow centered directly on the smuggling
headquarters. In that one flashing second, the Falcon felt a surge of
admiration for the brutal bravery of the man.
But there was no time for thinking; there were only a few seconds in
which to act with an instinctive blinding speed. Duke Ringo's ship was
smashing downward now, driving at full-speed throttle, speeding with
the combined power of the tractor rays and the surging drone of its
rockets. It flashed with a speed that increased by the second, became a
diving bullet that could not miss its mark.
Curt Varga cursed deep in his throat, switched off the tractor beams,
watched the ship smashing in. He cringed from the explosion he knew was
coming, felt terror deep in his mind. Then sanity reasserted itself,
and his hands moved with a flowing speed.
He flicked on the tractor rays again, sent them spiralling to one side.
They touched a fifty-foot meteor, caught it, spun it into the path of
the hurtling death-ship.
Duke Ringo tried to swerve the cruiser, failed, for the ship and meteor
struck in a titanic slanting blow. White heat flared for a soundless
moment, force waves pushing outward in the burst of energy. Then the
ship and meteor were one, and in their place was only a fused lump of
metallic refuse that spun endlessly in the Sargasso of Space.
The Falcon cut all switches, turned slowly about on his seat. He stared
at Benton and the other prisoners who had crowded into the room. He
felt the nearness of the girl at his side, cursed himself for becoming
a sentimental fool.
"The show's over," he said quietly. "Ringo's dead."
V
Fourteen hours later, the Falcon stood before the control board of
his sleek pirate cruiser. Jean was at his side, and they faced the
vizi-screen. Except for a certain amount of lethargy because of the
tiny amount of drug he had inhaled in the _smothalene_ factory, the
Falcon felt all right again. He was dressed in fresh clothes, a new gun
was buckled at his waist. And through the blackness of his hair were
threaded bits of silver the past few days had brought. Jean was dressed
becomingly in some of the Falcon's spare clothes, appearing much like a
rather pretty boy playing in his father's garments.
"Benton and the others," the Falcon said, "have their orders and
directions for finding the Base. Those of you who did not care to
join me may go where your fancies dictate. Now, don't forget. To free
yourself of the Sargasso, you merely have to hold your ships to the
debris clot with a tractor, and race at full throttle in as large a
circle as you can. When maximum speed is reached, cut the tractor, and
centrifugal force will throw you free. Has everybody got that?"
Acknowledgments came piling in from the thirty ships gathered about the
Falcon's ship.
"Then let's go," the Falcon said, and sat at the controls. He flipped
switches, built up speed, finally cut loose, and the Sargasso fled back
behind them.
The Falcon set the robot-control, sighed relievedly. He grinned at the
girl beside him, liked what he saw in her eyes.
"I'm doing this against my better judgment, Jean," he said
half-mockingly, half-seriously, "but since you've given me your solemn
oath, I'm willing to take a chance. Anyway, you owe me your life; for
that, you should be willing to keep the Base's location a secret."
Jean Vandor nodded. "I shall keep my word," she said slowly, then she
sank into a seat, caught at the Falcon's arm. "Please, Curt," she
finished swiftly, "please forget this mad plan of yours! I don't say
you're right or wrong, I just say that the odds are too great for you
to win. Come with me to Earth; my father will see that you are given a
good job where you can be wealthy and respected. I promise you that."
The Falcon fashioned two _pulnik_ cigarettes, handed one to the girl.
He shook his head slightly, wryly.
"Sorry," he said, "but I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I owe too much
to the people who trust me. And I have a certain sense of integrity
that wouldn't let me sleep nights, should I quit now." He smiled with
the quickening exuberance of a man ten years younger. "Put in a good
word for me, though; I'll maybe need it, if things go wrong."
Jean Vandor smoked her cigarette silently. "They will go wrong," she
said finally.
"It's a chance worth taking." The Falcon shrugged. "But tell me of
Ringo's ransom demands; this is the first real chance we've had to
talk, what with wrecking the smuggling headquarters, plundering the
dead ships of the Sargasso, and then making our escape." He grinned. "I
thank you for that, anyway; if you hadn't heard Ringo telling his men
how to escape the gravitic tides, we'd be there, yet."
Jean nodded. "I heard him give the order when a new recruit was about
to take a ship out. As for the ransom demand; well, Ringo demanded
immunity from the Administrators, and a license to sell _smothalene_
throughout the system, in return for my release. But as he told me, he
planned to keep me prisoner until all the drug now manufactured was
sold. With myself as a hostage, my father would be helpless to fight
back."
The Falcon turned to the control board, made minute adjustments, tried
to force a casual tone. He could feel the flush stealing upward from
his open collar.
"What do you plan to do, once back on Earth?"
"Nothing, I suppose, just the things I did before--well, this entire
affair happened."
"Are you--" The Falcon came to his feet, walked to the door. "Nothing,"
he finished. "I think I'll get a bit of sleep before we land."
Not waiting for a reply, he walked down the corridor. He hated
himself at the moment, hated himself and the life he lead. In his
mind grew the first nucleus of a doubt that he might be wrong. In all
probability, what he should do, what was the logical thing to do, was
to accept Jean's offer, forget his past, and try to settle back into
the ordered routine of life the Administrator's plans had mapped for
twenty billion people.
Entering his cabin, he threw himself on the bunk, smoked interminable
cigarettes. And as the hours passed, coherence came to his thoughts,
and the bitterness faded. After a time, he slept.
* * * * *
He woke only when the light tap came on his cabin door.
"We're landing, Falcon," Jean said breathlessly. "I talked with father,
and he has promised a truce for the period you are on Earth."
"I'll be right out," Curt Varga said, felt the vague prickle of a
premonitory thrill along his spine. Then he shrugged, climbed from the
bunk, did quick ablutions. Five minutes later, his hand was on the
controls when the cruiser glided to a landing at the spaceport.
Jason Vandor waited on the field, his purple robe bright in the midst
of his personal bodyguard. He caught Jean in his arms, and the Falcon
felt a certain sense of gladness when he saw the open affection of the
man toward his daughter. Despite his faults, the man was truly a father.
"So you're the Falcon," Vandor said at last, staring at the pirate from
eyes as blue and chill as ice.
Curt Varga grinned. "I'm the Falcon," he said calmly. "But I never
thought to meet you under these circumstances."
"Nor I. But I do offer you thanks, anyway."
"You owe me nothing; I am here under truce. When I leave, our battle
starts again."
Vandor smiled. "But you see, Falcon, that is where you are wrong. I
thank you for bringing my daughter back, yes; but I also thank you for
saving my men the trouble of running you down." His hand made a sharp
imperative gesture. "_Blank him out_," he ordered.
There was no time to move, no time to think; there was only the split
second of consciousness when he saw the smile of triumph on Vandor's
face, and its mocking echo on the girl's. Then the dis-gun blast caught
the Falcon squarely in its glow, sucked away all thought and dropped
him into a blackened abyss that had no bottom.
* * * * *
The Falcon moved groggily, felt nausea cramping at his belly. He
groaned, shook his head, forced himself erect. Chains clanked loudly,
and he felt the coolness of their metal on his arms and legs.
"Hell!" he said feelingly, felt despair eating at his heart.
Jason Vandor moved slightly, sighed, then stood from where he sat
across the cell. His grey hair was almost white in the gloom, and his
face was hard and merciless.
"I want to talk to you, Falcon," he said harshly.
Curt Varga blinked away his dizziness, searched the cell with his eyes.
Except for two bunks, it was empty. The chains he wore were welded to
the bunk upon which he sat.
"Go ahead," he said finally. "You seem to have the whip hand."
"It's about Jean." There was a tiny thread of fear running through the
dictator's voice.
"All right, what about her?"
"I want you to do something. She and I just had a terrible fight, the
first I can remember having with her since she was a child. She seems
to think that I was wrong in capturing you while I had a chance. Now, I
know such a request is strange, I know you hate me, but I want you to
talk with her, and convince her that I was in the right. You know our
fight is to the death; you know that neither of us asks quarter; you
know you would have done the same thing had you been in my place. I'm
not asking this for myself; I'm asking for her peace of mind. Her life
will be wrecked, if she hates me as long as she lives."
The Falcon laughed, and the sound was ugly and ironic in the
semi-darkness. He had met strange situations in his years as a
freebooter of space, but none of them had been as fantastic as this.
"You honestly mean that you want me, the man you intend to execute, to
intercede for you with your daughter?"
Panic tightened Jason Vandor's voice. "I'll make it worth your while,
Falcon," he said. "I'll see that you are not executed; I'll see that
you get life. I'll even see that you have all requests granted."
"To hell with you," the Falcon said dispassionately.
"Falcon, you've got to listen to me, you've go to. Jean is a girl,
she's been brought up differently than either of us. You and I know
what fighting and death are; you and I have no illusions to temper
our judgments--we are cold intellects. But Jean is young, she has
ideals, and they must not be destroyed. You have appealed to her
instincts for romance; she has colored your actions of the past few
days until you seem to be what you pretend to be. Now I want you to
make her understand that your real desire to crush me and the other
Administrators has nothing romantic about it; you must make her
realize your real purpose--that you plan to become dictator in the
Administrator's place. Will you do that, Falcon?"
Curt Varga sagged back against the wall, stared blindly at the man
before him. Thoughts were chaotic in his mind.
"You _believe_ that, don't you, Vandor?" he said slowly.
"Of course, what else can I believe? Self-government, freedom, bah! The
cattle of the worlds wouldn't know what to do with either."
The Falcon shifted. "Where is Jean?" he asked.
"On her way to Mars, where I sent her." Jason Vandor's tone grew harsh
and strained. "I'm making a request, Falcon," he finished, "and I can
be generous in return. But make me force you to talk to her, and I can
do to you just what you would do to me." He laughed without mirth.
"A pitcheblend mine, wearing no protection, might be much worse than
agreeing."
Curt Varga nodded. "I don't understand you, fully. You're a merciless
butcher--yet you think enough of your daughter to bargain with your
enemy. But I'll do what you say--for my freedom."
Jason Vandor shook his head. "Not that," he said brittlely. "I have no
desire to fight you a running battle until the final showdown. You're
dead, as far as your past is concerned. But you have your choice of
death; either a slow one in prison, or a hideous one in a mine. Either
way, you will fight me no more."
"What would I say?"
"Practically nothing. She swore she would believe what I said, only if
you told her that my statements were the truth. Tell her that over a
vizi-beam, and I promise you a decent prison life."
"I've sampled your promises."
"I swear I shall not go back on my word. Jean is the only thing in
life I love; I'll do anything for her." Vandor's words were bitter and
brooding.
"All right." The Falcon nodded. "I'll speak your pretty little speech.
Not for you; I wouldn't give you water in hell. But for Jean; who at
least hates and fights cleanly and openly." He spat. "Now get me out of
here before I change my mind."
Jason Vandor stepped forward, tossed a key into Varga's lap. His
concealed hand came from beneath his robe, and a gun glinted dully in
his fist.
"Cross me, Falcon," he said quietly, "and for every minute of mental
torture you give me, I'll give you a year of the same."
The Falcon unlocked his chains, stood erect. "I'll speak your piece,"
he answered. "But don't make threats."
* * * * *
He walked before the menace of the gun through the open door, followed
the line of radi-lights down the stone corridor. He felt nothing but a
dull apathy within his mind, and he cared nothing for the future. He
knew there was no escape, and the knowledge left him unemotional.
But then the thought came that Jean had fought on his side, and he felt
warmness spreading through his heart. There was a gulf between them, a
space that would never be spanned. Yet he felt closer to the girl now
than he had felt toward any person other than his brother in years.
"This way, Falcon," Jason Vandor said.
They walked a corridor, turned right, entered the vizi-beam room where
operators sat before the machines that connected with all planets.
Jason Vandor stopped beside a machine. "Get the _Ardeth_ on the beam,"
he ordered.
"Yes, your Lordship!" The beam-man's fingers made clicking contacts
with the machine's controls. The vizi-screen became silvery, slowly
turned green.
Life grew on the screen. Color swirled, then merged, and Jean Vandor
frowned from the screen.
"Yes?" she asked.
Jason Vandor forced the Falcon to the screen with his gun. The Falcon
was conscious then of the utter quiet in the room, as though all were
afraid to breathe. He could feel the pounding of his heart as he
stepped forward.
"Can you hear me, Jean?" he asked quietly.
"I can hear you, Curt."
The Falcon forced all feeling from his voice. "Jean, answer me
truthfully; did you plot that I should be captured?"
Tears welled in the girl's eyes, and her head shook slightly.
"No, Curt."
Curt Varga sighed then, and the ache in his heart was a tangible thing
that hurt with an agony he had not thought possible for a man to feel.
"Remember the things I told you, Jean? Remember the hopes and dreams
and plans I had?"
"I remember."
"Then, Jean, this is the truth. Remember this all of your life; fight
for it, never let it die. _Men are born to be free; no man can place
himself in the role of God, there to dictate what--_"
The blow of the gun barrel smashed him to his knees. He knelt there for
seconds, laughing into Jason Vandor's face.
"I'm a _small_ man, Vandor," the Falcon said. "I can hate and I can
love. But I am true to myself, if nothing else. Get somebody else to do
your lying."
Jason Vandor's face was a chiseled mask of evil rage. He saw then the
crumbling of the life he had built, saw then the truth that lay in the
Falcon. He knew then that all of the treasures and powers of a hundred
worlds could not replace that which he had lost in those fleeting
seconds.
He lifted his gun to shoot the defenseless Falcon to death--and died
that way, a dis-ray scything him down in a huddled heap.
"By damn, a fight at last!" a great voice roared from the doorway, and
Schutler sprang into the room.
His laughter was mad with the richness of the moment, and the twin
guns were almost buried in the greatness of his fists. Crandal was at
his side, his bald head gleaming, his gun lancing flame like a jet of
glowing water. And behind both, shoving them forward, came Jericho, his
ebony face agleam, a great sword in one hand, a gun in another.
"_Falcon!_" Jericho cried, and his gun made an arc through the air, was
caught deftly in the Falcon's reaching hand.
* * * * *
Then hell broke loose in that great room, a hell of a dozen darting
crossing rays of death, a holocaust of power that surged and twisted
and searched for the lives of the men within.
A guard went down, his gun still holstered, his face blown away by the
left gun of the laughing giant at the door. Crandal darted sideways
like a crab, gun-flame licking out, precisely, almost daintily, never
wasting energy on the wall or air. And Jericho moved like a black
whirlwind, countering the dis-flame of a single guard by touching it
with his sword-blade, and grounding the energy in his power-glove.
And the Falcon was on his feet, his laughter ringing as in the days of
old, when a fight had been the thing to set a man's blood to pounding,
when to live was a zestful thing of promise, when the future was bright
and the past a gay memory.
He raced to the side of his men, cutting a guard from his side, raying
a second even as he was lining his gun on Jericho. The Negro grinned,
and his swinging sword fled through the neck of a guard, followed about
and dropped a hand from the wrist of a screaming second.
Schutler went down, his beard flaming where a bolt had grazed his
chin. He roared like an angry bull, pawed at the flame and smoke of
his burning beard, swept his other hand as a man sprays water. Guards
dropped like flies beneath a poison spray.
A shot caught Crandal in one leg, dropped him to his knee. His face
went even whiter, and sweat was on his head.
The Falcon sprang to Crandal's side, caught him up with his left arm,
raised a barrage of shots with the gun in his right. His teeth were
white against the tan of his face, and the cold of his grey eyes was
strange against the laughter that filled his face.
And the four were together, and no man could stand against them. They
were courage and brains and strength and agility, all together, yet
separate in themselves. Apart, they could be downed; but together, all
hell itself brought mad rich laughter to their throats, and a flame to
their eyes.
They stood together, and their guns made singing sounds that were like
those from a harp of death. And before those notes men sank and died,
one by one, and two by two, until only living stood beside the door,
and there was no other life.
"Come, man," Schutler boomed, "before others hear the fight and stick
their noses in!" He fingered the stubble of his beard.
"Are you all right, Jim?" the Falcon asked Crandal, and the man grinned
with a white-faced smile.
Jericho caught up the wounded man, ignoring a ray burn that raced like
a livid purple snake across the blackness of his shoulders. He jerked
his head at the door.
"We come in by a secret passage," he explained in a rush of words. "We
didn't find you in the cells, so we come hunting."
The Falcon choked back the lump in his throat, and his eyes were misty
as he looked at the men to whom loyalty was neither a word nor a
gesture, only a thing that was in them when the need arose.
"How--?" he began.
"I did it, Curt," Jean's voice said.
Jean was crying then, crying like a child whose first dreams are gone,
crying like one whose new dreams are but the faintest of sounds in
her consciousness. Through the vizi-screen she had seen all that had
happened, and the sickness in her eyes would be long leaving.
"Jean," the Falcon said. "Please, Jean--"
She was smiling then, smiling through the tears that would not stop.
And the Falcon, watching her features on the screen, knew the torture
that was hers.
"I'll be waiting, Curt," she said. "But hurry--Oh, please hurry!"
"Wait for me, Jean, _wait for me_."
And the Falcon and his brood were running down the hall, running toward
the secret spot where a pirate ship waited to take them back to their
fight and their loves and their freedom--and to the far horizons of
their starway destiny.