more came around the bend, starting up the corridor for
him....

Quite suddenly, the lights went out.

The men stopped. Sound stopped. The corridor was pitch black. Tom fired
wildly down the corridor, heard shouts and oaths from the men, but he
could see nothing. Then, ahead, a flicker of light as a headlamp went
on. The men from the airlock were close, moving in on him, and from
behind he saw light bouncing off the corridor walls....

He jerked open the hatch to a storage hold, ducked inside, and slammed
the hatch behind him. He pressed against the wall, panting.

He waited.

Suddenly an idea flickered in Tom's mind.

It was a chance ... a long chance ... but it was something. If they were
going to be captured in spite of anything they could do, even a long
chance would be worth trying....

He waited in the darkness, tried to think it through. It was a wild
idea, an utterly impossible idea, he had never heard of it being tried
before ... but _any_ chance was better than none. He remembered what
Johnny had said in the control cabin. The Ranger ship would have homing
shells. An attempt to make a run with the _Scavenger_ might be
disastrous.

He thought about it, trying to reason it out. The Jupiter Equilateral
men obviously wanted them alive. They did not dare to kill Roger
Hunter's sons, because Roger Hunter might have told them where the
bonanza was. And Jupiter Equilateral would not dare let anyone of them
break away. If one of them got back to Mars, the whole U.N. Patrol would
be out in the Belt....

The plan became clear in his mind, but he had to let Greg know. He
fingered the control of his helmet radio. The boarding party would have
a snooper, but if he was quick, they wouldn't have time to nail him. He
buzzed an attention code. "Greg? Can you hear me?"

Silence. He buzzed again, and waited. What was wrong? Had they already
broken through to the control cabin and taken Greg? He buzzed again.
"Greg! Sound off if you can hear me."

More silence. Then a click. "Tom?"

"Here. Are you all right?"

"So far. You?"

"They got past me, but they didn't hit me. How's Johnny?"

"I don't know," Greg said. "I think he's been hurt. Tom, you'd better
get off, they'll have snoopers...."

"All right, listen," Tom said. "How does it look to you?"

"Bad. We're outnumbered, they'll be through to here any minute."

"All right, I've got an idea. It's risky, but it might let us pull
something out of this mess. I