He took time to think it over, but he knew that no thought was
required. Already the hands that he had locked behind him were
clenched, taut. Already the muscles of his legs were tensing.
"You're ready," he repeated. "You've armed the Callistan exiles--the
worst gutter scum on nine planets. You're set to betray the League that
gave you power here.... Well, that changes things. I can't let you do
it!"
He hurled himself at Andrias, hands sweeping around to grapple for the
dark man's throat. Andrias, off-balance, staggered backward. But his
own hands were diving for the twin heat guns that hung at his waist.
Duane saw his danger, and reacted. His foot twisted around Andrias'
ankle; his hands at the other's throat gripped tighter. He lunged
forward, slamming the hard top of his head into the other's face,
feeling flesh and cartilage give as Andrias' nose mashed flat. His own
head pin-wheeled dizzily, agonizingly, as the jar revived the pain of
his earlier accident.
But Andrias, unconscious already, tumbled back with Duane on top of
him. His head made an audible, spine-chilling thud as it hit the
carpeted floor.
Duane got up, retrieving the two heat guns, and stared at him.
"_They tell me I killed Stevens the same way_," he thought. "_I'm
getting in a rut!_"
But Andrias was not dead, though he was out as cold as the void beyond
Pluto. The thick carpeting had saved him from a broken head.
Duane stepped over the unconscious man and looked around the room. It
was furnished severely, to the point of barrenness. Two chairs before
Andrias' ornate, bare-topped desk and one luxurious chair behind it;
a tasseled bell cord within easy reach of Andrias' chair; the long
carpet. That was all it contained.