lk Or angrily grabbed for the atom-pistol, but Kenniston promptly
threw it away. Not even in this last extremity could he bring himself
to kill.

"You're a fool!" gritted the Jovian. "Now there's nothing for it but
surrender."

With their hands raised, they walked out of the jungle into the
brilliant silvery light of the clearing. Instantly they were
surrounded by Captain Walls, Murdock and the other armed crew-men.

The girls and their scared chaperon, and young Lanning and Robbie
Boone, were emerging in alarm from the _Sunsprite_. Kenniston did not
look toward them.

Captain Walls' face was grim in the moonslight, as he and his men
covered the two captured fugitives. "Kenniston, you and this Jovian
were going to make your way to John Dark and tell him of our presence
here, weren't you? You needn't deny it--it's plain enough."

"Sure we were!" exclaimed the angry Jovian. "We'd have made it, too,
if a Vestan hadn't jumped us in the jungle."

"That would have meant capture of us all by Dark's pirates," said the
captain grimly. "You two are a danger to us all, while you live. I'm
going to remove that danger. As master of a space-ship, I have legal
right to order summary execution of any space-pirates I capture. I'm
going to order that now."

"You're going to kill them?" exclaimed Gloria. "Oh, no--you can't!"

"It's absolutely necessary, before they betray us to the pirates, Miss
Loring," defended the captain. "They'd be sentenced to death by the
courts if we took them back to Mars, anyway. But we daren't take a
chance on keeping them prisoned that long."

"But just to shoot them down!" said Gloria horrifiedly. "I won't stand
for that!"

Murdock took her by the arm. "It's space law, Gloria," he told her
earnestly. "You'd better go back into the ship."

Kenniston stood silent in the moonslight, for he realized from the
finality of Walls' voice that appeals would be utterly useless. There
was no use trying again to explain why he'd been willing to betray
them all to save Ricky. Even if they listened, they wouldn't
understand.

He felt tired, crushed, old. He'd gone a long way in the last dozen
years, but every mile of it had only led toward this ending. He was
going to die here under the hurtling meteor-moons of Vesta, and that
meant that Ricky and Ricky's dream were going to die soon too.

"I _told_ you you were a fool to throw away that gun," Holk Or was
muttering.

* * * *