But Curt had no time for that. He felt his ship winning free, sent it whipping to the left again, wondering if his rockets would burn out under the stupendous strain. And relief filled him, when he realized that he was pulling the other ship from its death-bed of gravity.
And even as he laughed, he felt all power cease in his ship.
He swore brittlely, fought with the controls. All of them were dead. Panicky, he stared from the vision port, and dull wonder filled his mind.
Twin tractor-beams were lancing from the clot of space debris below the ship, each centered on a different ship. The beams were almost white in their intensity, so great was their power.
"What the hell!" Curt Varga said audibly, relaxed momentarily.
And then the cruiser was hurtling toward the clot, sucked there by the tractor beam, moved with an incredible titanic force such as was only possible from a mighty generator. Curt swerved his gaze to the freighter, saw that it, too, was trapped.
He thought then of the words that his brother had spoken to him on Mars before, of the information that had come through about the base of the drug-smuggling ring being in the Sargasso. He cursed the utter blind stupidity that had made him discount the words even as they were spoken. And then puzzlement grew within him, for it was an established fact that, once caught within the Sargasso, nothing could escape. How, then, could this be thesmothalenesmuggling headquarters; the smuggling ships could not escape the drag of the knitted gravities?
But he had no more time for thinking. The cruiser jarred squarely into the center of the clot of debris, was sucked through it. Metal jarred and strained, and a light flickered into life on the board, indicating that a plate had been sprung in number Three hold.
Curt darted for the wall closet, unzipped it, tugged at his bulger. He slid into it, closed it, left the quartzite face-plate open until the control room was actually ruptured and the need for air from the shoulder tank was necessary.
Outside, rubbish flashed by the ports in a rush of whirling objects. Except for the crash and clatter of the cruiser forcing its way through the churning maelstrom, there was no sound.
The cruiser landed with a jar that threw Curt to one side, dazing him for a moment. He braced his feet, flipped a dis-gun from the wall rack, went slowly toward the port. He heard it unscrewing before he got there, and he cogged his head plate shut, switched on the flow of oxygen. The port came open, and a radio signal buzzed within Curt's helmet. He felt the rushing of air from the ship into the Void.
"Come on out, with your hands up," a heavy voice snapped authoritatively.
The Falcon paused irresolutely, then shrugged, shoved the dis-gun into a pocket of his bulger. Bending a bit, he stepped from the port, was menaced instantly by five dis-guns held in the hands of bulger-suited Earthmen. The leader moved forward, disarmed Curt, stared at him through the face plate of his spacesuit.
"I've been hoping we'd meet," he said in surprise. "But I never figured you'd come popping in like this!" He gestured about. "I'm Duke Ringo; these are some of my men."
Curt gazed about, recognized that he stood in the freight hold of a great liner. The metal was twisted and torn with gravitational strain, with only one wall intact. Even now, he was being herded toward that wall.
"I'm Davis, Kemp Davis," Curt said slowly. "I've been scavenging the lanes. I was trying to save that freighter, figuring salvage rates, when your ray brought me in." He affected a dead-face expression. "What are you men doing here, were you sucked in by the tides?"
Duke Ringo laughed scornfully. "To hell with that stuff, Falcon!" he said. "We know who you are; some of us have seen you. And we've got a—" He broke off, swung about to face another group clambering into the hold. "Who is it?" he snapped.
Curt's heart missed a beat; he took an instinctive step forward, stopped before the menace of a dis-gun. He heard Ringo's voice echoing tinnily in his earphones, heard another man's answer.
"It's agirl, Duke."
"Who, damn it!"
Jean's voice came dear and cool. "I'm Jean Vandor, daughter of Jason Vandor. If you have charge of these men, make them take their hands from me."
The second group slowly approached the first. The girl evidently recognized Curt, for her voice held a triumphant ring. "I see you've captured him," she said. "That's good. The reward for him will make all of you men rich. He's Curt Varga, Chief of the Food and Smothalene Pirates."
"Who'da thought it!" Duke Ringo said in mock amazement, turned away. "Come on, we'll get back to where it's comfortable."
"Nice going, Jean," Curt Varga said bitterly. "Because of your sheer stupidity, we're in a jam that made your former one look infantile. These boys are part of thesmothalenesmugglers; we haven't got a chance."
"Shut up, Varga," Duke Ringo said curtly.
Curt subsided, went slowly forward. They entered a small compression compartment, and Duke cogged a door shut. Air hissed from vents in the walls, and the pressure gradually mounted. Thirty seconds later, Duke Ringo unzippered his suit, motioned for the others to do the same. He lifted a box from one corner of the chamber, handed small nitration masks about.
"Stick these on," he said to Curt and Jean. "Otherwise you may find yourself aging pretty rapidly."
Curt fitted his mask to his nose, clamped his lips, his eyes flicking over the group of men. They were tough, as tough as any men he had ever seen in space. And he felt queasiness in his stomach when he saw the sheer cold brutality in their eyes when they looked at him. His fists tightened when he saw the manner in which they regarded Jean.
"All right, Ringo," Curt said. "Now what's the play?"
Duke Ringo turned slowly. He was fully as tall as Curt, but he was bulkier, heavier. He surveyed Curt deliberately out of expressionless eyes, then turned his gaze to Jean.
"The young lady," he said, "will be confined to a cabin for a few days. You, I think, will earn your keep by working at a drier."
A smuggler laughed openly, subsided when Curt spun toward him.
"I'm making no threats," Curt said finally. "But don't go looking for trouble. My men know where I am; they'll be looking for me. You can't afford to buck them."
Duke Ringo chuckled. "Don't be childish, Varga," he said. "Your men wouldn't have a chance in the tides; I only found out how to enter and get back, by accident. Play nice, and you won't get hurt. Try getting tough, and—" He spread expressive hands.
Curt took a stubborn step forward. "Listen, Ringo," he said earnestly, "my work is important; I've got to get back. I'll make a deal with you."
Jean pushed forward. "I'lldoubleany bribe he offers you," she told Ringo, "if you keep him a prisoner for the IP. And I'lltriplethe reward, if you get me back to Earth within the next six days."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Duke Ringo clucked his tongue. "Maybe I'll collect a reward bigger than you think—for turning both of you in later."
"How much ransom?" the Falcon said resignedly.
Duke Ringo pondered. "Not much," he admitted. "I just want to take over your base, your ships, your food-supply." He grinned, opened and shut his hands. "It looks as if I will."
Curt leaned forward, drove his right hand with every bit of strength in his rangy body. He forgot the issues at stake, in the blind rage of the moment; he thought only of his dreams he saw shattered beneath the grinding heel of the other's desire. He slashed with a desperate fury, and skin split on the knuckles of his hand.
Duke Ringo went sprawling backward upon the wall, a thin trickle of blood oozing from a swelling mouth. He swore nastily, came blasting forward, his right hand catching Curt high on the chest, his left darting in, smashing at Curt's jaw. Curt rolled with the punch, sagging backward, then side-stepping. He lashed with both hands, felt a blind gladness in him when his fists drew gasps of pain from the other. He waded forward, both hands pistoning, taking blows to his own face that sent curtains of red pain spinning through his brain.
And then a savage driving punch caught Duke Ringo squarely in the throat. He sagged, pawed with both hands at his battered larynx. He gasped, unable to speak, his face purpling from the effort to breathe.
Curt darted in, flicked out a hand, caught the exposed dis-gun at Ringo's belt. He flipped the gun free, whirled, menaced the remaining men with its flaring muzzle.
"Back," he snarled, "or I'll cut you down." He nodded at Jean. "Get behind me," he finished savagely. "This is our only chance to get free." He was the Falcon then, deadly, dangerous, a light burning in his eyes.
Jean moved hesitantly toward Curt, edged around him. The smugglers said nothing, apparently waiting for the slightest opening in Curt's offensive. Duke Ringo straightened, his face puffed, air whistling into his bruised throat.
"You'll never make it," Ringo said harshly. "Put down that gun."
Curt laughed mockingly. "I'll take my chances," he said.
And went cold with horror. For Jean lunged forward, swept the gun aside, and clung panting to his arm. The next instant, Duke leaned forward, and clubbed with his knotted fist. The blow caught Curt in the temple, hurled him to one side. He tried to turn, to spin, even as he was falling, but the girl's clutch on his arm tripped him. He went to his knees, his free hand shoving at the floor.
And then two of the smugglers had dropped on him, were smashing with heavy fists. Curt drew his legs beneath him, tore his arm free, came hurtling upward. In the midst of the movement, he saw the boot lashing at his face. He sobbed deep in his throat, knowing the blow could not miss. He tensed the muscles of his neck, rolled his head. And the boot smashed just below his right ear.
He felt the coolness of the metal flooring on his face, but there was only a grey blankness before his eyes. He tried to force his body to his feet, but there was no strength in his arms.
"Take him below," he heard Duke Ringo say. "Stick him at a drier. And because he likes to play tough, we'll see just how tough he is.Make him work without a mask."
The Falcon called out, but his voice was only a whisper in his mind. He felt oblivion reaching for him with talon-like fingers, felt panicky terror constricting his heart. He knew what the last order meant; and horror filled his brain. Then hands gripped his body, swung it high. He tried to fight, and the entire world collapsed in a blaze of white-hot light.
IV
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 oflankaweed 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 thesmothalenefactory 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 thelankaweed 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 thesmothaleneusers 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 thesmothalenesmugglers.
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 thesmothalenebinge, 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 thissmothaleneis 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 ofsmothalenepowder 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 thesmothalenecrystals 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.Smothalenehad 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 thesmothalenedropped 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 thesmothalenefactory, 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 twopulnikcigarettes, 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 sellsmothalenethroughout 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.
"Youbelievethat, 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 theArdethon 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 asmallman, 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.