orearm of steel clamped around the back of each guard's head and
jerked it sharply into the other's. There was a quick crack; then,
dazed, only half-conscious, the two men toppled off their seats and
fell to the deck.

"Quiet!" warned an icy whisper. They stared, gaping, then staggered up
to their feet.

A ray-gun that just before had been lying on the deck was leveled
steadily at them, held in the hand of a gray-eyed man whose fine
features were as if graven from stone and on whose wrists were deep
blue lines that showed where ropes had pressed. The guards' faces
whitened as realization came. One of them choked:

"It's him!"

"Yes," whispered the Hawk dryly. He took a few steps backward, eyes
not moving. "Go to that locker," he said to the shorter of the men,
indicating with a curt nod the place where space suits were stowed.
"First draw your gun and lay it on that table. Hurry!"

The man hastily complied. Anything else was unthinkable; meant quick
and lonely and useless death. Shouts and laughter and drunken shrieks
were echoing from outside. No one would have ears for him.

When he had stepped into the locker, Carse closed and sealed the door.

"What you goin' to do with me?" croaked the remaining guard. He was
big and burly and he towered inches over the figure facing him, but
his lips were trembling and his eyes wild with fear.

"You," whispered the Hawk frigidly, "kicked me when I was bound." He
sheathed his ray-gun in his holster, then spoke again. "Go for your
gun."

The pirate trembled all over. His mouth fell open, and his eyes stuck
on Carse's shabby holster. He seemed half hypnotized.

"Draw."

The other's swarthy brow beaded with sudden-starting sweat. His hands
hung limp, twitching at the finger-tips. He watched death stare him in
the face.

"Damn you, Carse!" he burst out and suddenly went for his ray.

* * * * *

Carse deliberately let him get the gun out. Not until then did his
left hand move. But even with such a head-start, so bewildering was
the adventurer's speed that only one streak of orange light made a
flash in the cabin, and that streak was the Hawk's. The brigand
quivered, his face still contorted with his last desperate emotion;
then he fell slowly forward and thudded into the deck. His body
twitched a little, and in a spasm rolled over. Square between the eyes
was a crisp, smooth-burned hole.

Hawk Carse gave the body not a glance, but sheat