* * * * *

At last Ban's mental cursings stopped. His straining ears had caught a
sound.

It was quickly repeated, and again and again--the heavy, grating noise
of metal on metal. The boots of space-suits on the metal floor of the
port-lock. They had arrived!

Ku Sui would be there, close behind him; probably gazing at his
outflung figure; probably puzzled, and suspicious, and quickly looking
around for the enemies that had apparently killed one of his coolies.
With a raygun in hand--and guns in the hands of the two others with
him--glancing warily around over the guard-chamber close to the
port-lock, and the main buildings beyond, and the whole area inside
the dome, and seeing no one.

And then--approaching!

Ban could tell it by the silence, then the harsh crunch of the great
boots against the powdered, metallic upper crust of ground. But he lay
without an eyelash's flickering, a dead coolie, limp, crumpled. He
heard the crunch of boots come right up to him and then pause; and the
feeling that came to his stomach told him unmistakably that a man was
looking down on him....

Now--while Ku Sui's attention was on him--now was the time! Now!
Otherwise the Eurasian would turn him over and see that he was white!

It seemed to Ban centuries later that he heard the welcome voice of
the Hawk bark out:

"You are covered, Dr. Ku! And your men. I advise you not to move. Tell
your men to drop their guns--_sh!_"

The sound of the voice from the guard-chamber was replaced by two
spits of a raygun. Unable to restrain himself, Ban rolled over and
looked up.

He saw, first, the figure of the Hawk. Carse had stepped out from
where he had been concealed, in the guard-chamber, and was holding the
gun that had just spoken. Standing upright, close to the inner door of
the port-lock, were two suit-clad coolies. Ban saw that they had
turned to fire at Carse, and that now they were dead. Dead on their
feet in the stiff, heavy stuff of their suits.

Dr. Ku Sui was standing motionless above him, and through the open
face-plate of the Eurasian's helmet Ban could see him gazing at Hawk
Carse with a strange, faint smile on his beautifully chiselled,
ascetic face.

The Hawk came towards them, the raygun steady on his old foe; but
while he was still yards away, and before he could do anything to
prevent it, the Eurasian spoke a few unintelligible words into the
microphone of his helmet-radio. Carse