ng nuts."

He took one step and someone jumped him from behind. The needle-beam
pistol spun from his hand and slithered across the floor as Wayne fell
under the impact of the heavy body. Apparently the whole Medical Corps
was out to knock him down today.

He twisted rapidly as an arm encircled his neck, and rammed an elbow
into the newcomer's midsection. Then he jerked his head back, smashing
the back of his skull into his opponent's nose.

The hold around his neck weakened, and Wayne tore himself loose from the
other's grasp. He jumped to his feet, but the other man was a long way
from being unconscious. A stinging right smashed into Wayne's mouth, and
he felt the taste of blood. Hastily he wiped the trickle away with the
back of his hand.

With his nose pouring blood, Wayne's antagonist charged in. His eyes
burned with the strange flame that had been gleaming in Boggs's face out
on the desert in the valley. He ploughed into Wayne's stomach with a
savage blow that rocked Wayne back.

He grunted and drove back with a flurry of blows. The other aimed a wild
blow at Wayne's head; Wayne seized the wrist as the arm flew past his
ear, and twisted, hard. The medic flipped through the air and came to
rest against the wall with a brief crunching impact. He moaned and then
lapsed into silence.

* * * * *

Quickly, Wayne grabbed the gun off the floor and planted his back to the
wall, looking around for new antagonists. But there was evidently no one
left who cared to tangle with him, and the four medics strewn out on
the floor didn't seem to have much fight left in them.

Wayne crossed the room in a couple of strides and bolted the door. Then
he walked over to the box of sand. If it contained what he suspected--

He stepped over to the lab bench and picked out a long steel support rod
from the equipment drawer. He placed the rod gently against the sand,
and pushed downward, hard. There was a tinny scream, and a six-inch
needle shot up instantly through the surface.

"Just what I thought," Wayne murmured. "Can you talk, you nasty little
brute?" He prodded into the sand--more viciously this time. There was a
flurry of sand, and the football-shaped thing came to the surface,
clashing its teeth and screaming shrilly.

Wayne cursed. Then he turned the needle gun back up to full power and
calmly burned the thing to a crisp. An odor of singed flesh drifted up
from the ashes on the sand.