and broke the
collar bone.

Treb came on, his left hand jabbing, and his right arm dangling. Neilson
chopped at his face with the vertically held carbine, and tore a great
chunk from his left cheek.

And then Treb's knee came up. The shielded razor-sharp blade sliced
through his trouser. He drove the ugly little dagger into Neilson's
body.

Neilson went down, squirming away from the sudden pain that tore at his
vitals. The carbine went clattering.

Treb knelt beside him; tried to stanch the warm gush of red life, and
cursed, soundlessly, the ambition that is mankind's greatest boon--and
curse. He tore off the bloody knife.

"You won't die, Neilson," he said gravely. "Not with the surgeon and the
hospital here on Earth Satellite so near. You'll live to see Andilia
again.

"And about the invitation to visit us--I'm sorry you rejected it like
this. But the offer still stands. When I can call you Harl again, when
you are a _man_, visit us."

The lock behind them creaked and started to open.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stalemate, by Basil Eugene Wells

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