e. It struck the steel roof of the chart room. A
violent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off and,
doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
downward to the window, where I clung.

And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon leveled at me!

XIII

"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one."

He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he
wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.

"No!" I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic
projector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled
myself down. Miko did not fire. I reached the weapon. The bodies of
the Captain and Johnson had drifted together on the floor in the
center of the room.

I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of
vision, was empty.

But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement,
ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a
shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up.

"Don't fire, Haljan!"

The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger. It
was the tall, lanky Englishman. Sir Arthur Coniston, he as called
himself. So he too, was one of Miko's band! The light through a dome
window fell full on him.

"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely."

From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing
me. But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses
reel.

Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"

I did not answer. I wonder if he would dare approach to see if I had
been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's
voice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper
close beside me.

"We see you, Haljan. You must yield!"

Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me.
I retorted loudly, "Come and get me! You cannot take me alive!"

I do protest if this action of mine in the chart room may seem
bravado. I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy
desire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might
come wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason
told me it was hopeless. Our loyal members