he went
floating slowly out to emptiness, his arms and legs jerking
spasmodically, while he shrieked ...

The Plumie in the air lock stepped out. He trailed a cord behind him. He
leaped briskly toward nothingness.

There came quick darkness once more, and Baird struggled erect despite
the adhesiveness of the _Niccola's_ hull. When he was fully upright, sick
with horror at what had come about, there was sunlight yet again, and men
were coming out of the _Niccola's_ air lock, and the Plumie who'd leaped
for space was pulling himself back to his own ship again. He had a loop
of the cord twisted around Taine's leg. But Taine screamed and screamed
inside his spacesuit.

It was odd that one could recognize the skipper even inside space armor.
But Baird felt sick. He saw Taine received, still screaming, and carried
into the lock. The skipper growled an infuriated demand for details. His
space phone had come on, too, when its air supply began. Baird explained,
his teeth chattering.

"_Hah!_" grunted the skipper. "_Taine was a mistake. He shouldn't ever
have left ground. When a man's potty in one fashion, there'll be cracks
in him all over. What's this?_"

The Plumie in the golden armor very soberly offered the skipper the
object Taine had meant to introduce into the Plumie's ship. Baird said
desperately that he'd fought against it, because he believed it a booby
trap to kill the Plumies so men could take their ship and fill it with
air and cut it free, and then make a landing somewhere.

"_Damned foolishness!_" rumbled the skipper. "_Their ship'd begin to
crumble with our air in it! If it held to a landing--_"

Then he considered the object he'd accepted from the Plumie. It could
have been a rocket war head, enclosed in some container that would
detonate it if opened. Or there might be a timing device. The skipper
grunted. He heaved it skyward.

The misshapen object went floating away toward emptiness. Sunlight smote
harshly upon it.

"_Don't want it back in the _Niccola__," growled the skipper, "_but just to
make sure--_"

He fumbled a hand weapon out of his belt. He raised it, and it spurted
flame--very tiny blue-white sparks, each one indicating a pellet of metal
flung away at high velocity.

One of them struck the shining, retreating container. It exploded with a
monstrous, soundless, violence. It had been a rocket's war head. There
could have been only one reason for it to be introduced into a Plumie
ship.