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                       Prey of the Space Falcon

                         By WILBUR S. PEACOCK

              The Administrators of the Solar System were
           as deadly as a Hydra-monster to those who sought
          freedom. Then came the Falcon and his outlaw Brood,
            fighting with the strangest weapon the Universe
         had ever seen--only to find that their existence lay
           in the slender hands of a girl with a Judas kiss.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                       Planet Stories Fall 1943.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Curt Varga watched lazily from a shadowed corner of the Martian
_gailang_ night club, his space-tanned left hand toying with a frosted
glass of _cahnde_, and his right hand making cryptic marks with a
radi-stylus upon the scrap of gold paper before him.

Music was a lilting swirl in the air, and his booted foot tapped
unconsciously with the muted rhythm. He smiled at the great-chested
Martians squatted about the dance floor, wondering for the hundredth
time what enjoyment they received from swaying to music they
understood only as a series of harmonic vibrations.

Over by the circular bar, four Venusians drank stiffly and stolidly of
Venusian _cahnde_, as they stood knee-deep in their water tanks. Their
skins were wet and slimy, eternally soaked with the fluids flowing from
the glands in their reptilian skins. They watched the good-natured
crowd from beneath nictilian lids, their gazes blank and eerily aloof.

Curt Varga's throat muscles tightened as he sent his inaudible
questions to his brother in the curtained booth across the room.

"Is there any suspicion that you are working with me?" he asked. "If
so, then this arrangement must be broken; I can't ruin your career,
too."

The bean-sized amplifier imbedded so cunningly in the living bone at
his right temple vibrated lightly from the mocking laughter.

"I think they do, Falcon," Val Varga said lightly. "But it doesn't
matter; somebody has to do the undercover work--and I happen to be
in a position where I can do it with the least suspicion." The voice
softened. "Careers _aren't_ important, anyway. I seem to remember
that Dad had quite a reputation as a bio-chemist, until the Food
Administrators decided his work threatened their dictatorial monopoly.
And as a Commander of the IP, you were slated to go rather high."

Curt Varga grinned, and suddenly all of the deadly grimness was gone
from his tanned face, and there was only the laughter in his cool grey
eyes and the hint of a swashbuckling swagger to the tilt of his head to
betoken the man.

"OQ!" he said inaudibly into the amplifier unit. "Now, give me a few
facts."

"Well," Val's voice steadied, "the IP is still searching for the
Falcon's base; they've got direct orders from Vandor to smash it within
a month, Earth time. The situation is getting rather desperate; gardens
have been found on half a dozen worlds, and the revenue from sale of
vitamins and energy tablets has fallen alarmingly. Unless the base is
found and destroyed, the IP is due for a general shake-up in command
and personnel."

"Hold it!" Curt said brusquely, glanced at the Martian waiter who
padded along the wall toward him.

The waiter, grotesquely-chested, round-headed, with his antennae curled
on either side of his great single eye, threaded his way through the
tables, stood solicitously over the Falcon's table. His right antennae
uncurled, its tip lightly darting out to touch the Earthman's wrist.

"Another _cahnde_," Curt Varga said loudly. "And a _pulnik_ capsule."

"_Five IP agents just entered_," the Martian said, the nerve impulse
emanating from the antennae and travelling along Curt's arm to his
brain, where the impulse was changed into familiar English. "_I think
they know you are here._"

"Thank you, Yen Dal," the Falcon said evenly. "That will do fine."

       *       *       *       *       *

He leaned indolently back in his chair, his clear gaze utterly
guileless, a lazy hint of careless laughter lifting the corners of
his mobile lips. He tightened the muscles of his belly, shifting
the gun-belt a bit until the dis-gun lay flat along his thigh. He
felt mocking laughter bubbling in his throat, when he saw the IP men
moving inconspicuously about the night club, their keen gaze searching
patiently and eagerly every shadowed corner. The Martian padded
silently away.

"Things are getting hot, Val," he said into his throat mike. "Yen Dal
just told me that five IP men are searching the place. Better get out
of here before a fight starts."

"I heard your conversation." Val's voice grew tight and hurried. "Now
listen, Curt," he finished. "As far as I have been able to learn,
the headquarters of the _Smothalene_ Smugglers lies somewhere in
the Sargasso. An Earth renegade, Duke Ringo, is the boss. You've
got to smash those smugglers, and do it quickly, for the worlds are
beginning to believe that the Falcon is the man behind the _smothalene_
smuggling."

Curt Varga scowled unconsciously, swirled the liquid about in the
bottom of his _cahnde_ glass. He felt the first pulsings of anger in
his heart, and his grey eyes were no longer cool.

"I know," he answered brittlely. "Two of my ships rocketed into a trap
on Jupiter's moons last week. They were carrying cargoes of oranges to
the _Dahkils_, and some woman whose son had died of _smothalene_ gave
information to the IP."

"I hadn't heard that," Val said slowly, his voice grave.

"Now, here's the situation," the Falcon said tautly, watching the
unhurried movements of an IP man walking along the long bar. "I have
sold almost enough fruit and vegetables the past three months to
finance buying three more Kent-Horter needle-rockets. My fleet is
almost complete, lacking but a dozen or so ships that I figure will be
the minimum needed to whip the IP. I won't contact you again here,
but will let you know where to meet me later. This place is getting
too hot; I've got a hunch somebody tipped the fact that I use this as
headquarters on Mars. Get out of here as inconspicuously as you can;
then I'll make a run for it, if necessary."

"OQ, Curt!" Val's voice with subdued. "But take it easy; your job is
too big to be destroyed because you insist on taking chances."

"Forget it, kid."

The Falcon finished the liquor in the first glass, sipped slowly at the
fresh _cahnde_ set before him by a noiseless waiter. Deep in his mind
sang a tiny warning voice of danger. But he sat still, waiting for an
opportunity to make a silent escape from the night club that was fast
becoming an IP trap. His keen gaze flicked about the room, finding and
identifying the agents scattered through the crowd.

He broke the _pulnik_ capsule, rolled the fragrant tobacco in a fresh
paper, lit it with his pocket lighter. He smoked slowly, the glow
shadowing the flat planes of his face, lighting the rugged, almost
brutal, sweep of his jaw. He edged his chair back quietly, tensing the
great muscles of his legs, estimated the distance to the rear door.

Other than that, he didn't move, for he saw that he was watched by two
agents converging on him from both sides of the swaying dancers on the
floor. He smiled slightly, sat cool and debonair, the leather vest and
silk singlet accenting the wedge of his deep chest and shoulders.

"_Any minute now, Val_," he said into his throat amplifier.

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Kaana_ four-piece orchestra swung into the soft lazy melody of
a century before. Glasses clinked at the bar, and the soft rustle of
laughing conversation made the room seem intimate and warm. Nostalgia
bit at Curt Varga's heart, when he remembered the days not so many
years before when his life had been an ordered thing, when he had not
been a hunted outlaw prowling the spaceways, a price on his head.

In those days, before his mind had fully matured, he had thought his
life full and untrammelled. He had worn his uniform as an IP Commander
with the bullying swagger his superiors affected. With dis-guns and
a brutal carelessness, he had enforced the commands of Jason Vandor,
Dak Yar and Mezo Yong, the Food Administrators, had forced obedience
from recalcitrant people of a dozen worlds, had been the leader of the
shock-troops that pillaged city after city because they had incurred
the anger of the Triumvirate whose hands controlled the food supplies
of the Solar System.

Then in his twenty-fifth year, he had seen the foulness of the system
that broke the lives and courage of the inhabitated worlds. He had
seen his father blasted to death for daring to raise his voice against
the tyranny of the Food Administrators. He had seen his older brother
die while fighting to save their father. And a conflict had raged
within him for days; he had fought against the training that had been
instilled within him from the day of his birth.

From musty records, he had reread the histories of the worlds, had
really _understood_ for the first time the true meaning of freedom. And
in that hour, he had thrown aside all that had been his life, and had
striven to build a new one. In a stolen Kent-Horter, he had prowled the
spaceways, striking at small freighters for supplies and wealth. In
the cold of space, he had stooped like the Falcon for whom he had been
named, and stolen the Food Administrators' supplies time and again.

And as ever when a leader arises, other men and women came to him as
filings are attracted to a lodestone. Some were renegades, the scum
of the spacelanes, whose only desire was to pillage and rob those who
could not fight back. But others were the peoples of a dozen worlds in
whose minds flowed the desire for freedom, whose only wish was to aid
in a seemingly-hopeless fight against the oppressors. And still others
were the great minds of science and art and living whose lives had been
stifled by rigid rules of living imposed by the Food Administrators.

Plan after plan had been made and discarded, until one was left that
showed the clever brilliance of its creators. Unlimited wealth was the
one thing needed for a revolution, and the plan showed clearly that way
in which it could be obtained.

Because they controlled all energy-tablet and vitamin factories, the
Food Administrators held a whip hand over all the worlds. Starvation
was the answer to any trouble that might arise. And should the trouble
become too large to handle with the starvation threat, then the
degenerate remnants of the famous Interplanetary Patrol used their
weapons and brutal methods to enforce the laws.

The plan reasoned out by Curt Varga and his board of strategy had been
clever enough to avoid all obstacles.

In a great asteroid, used by the Falcon for his first base, great
rooms had been hollowed by gargantuan dis-guns. These rooms had been
converted into living quarters for the men and women. Once established
there, the men and women had worked for two years to hollow out more
caverns for the growing of fruit and vegetables by hydropony. Still
more rooms were manufactured for the workshops and hangars for the
fitting of a huge space fleet with which the Falcon hoped to smash for
all time the IP and the three men who controlled it.

And in the passing four years the gigantic task had almost reached
fruition. Dead-black freighters raced the starways, carrying contraband
food to all planets, there unloading, and then returning with all
monies collected to buy more space equipment for the fight that was to
come.

The Falcon's luck had been phenomenal; he had lost less than two
percent of his men and fleet since the day his plans had been carefully
organized. While IP ships had been blasted out of existence at the
alarming rate of over five per cent a year.

Of course there had been trouble. There had been the internal
revolution created by the rotten elements of his pirate gang. Blood
had been spilled, and the war had been a deadly one that lasted for
ninety days. Then the Falcon's men had conquered the others by clever
maneuvering, had quashed the civil war at the cost of hundreds of
lives. Telepathy and hypnotism had been used on all of the survivors,
driving all thoughts of greed from their minds, fitting their
mentalities for the task that was a common purpose.

And there had been the time when the IP had almost closed a trap over
the Food Smugglers' leaders. Only a lucky chance had sprung the trap
too soon, permitting Curt Varga and most of his board of strategy to
escape.

       *       *       *       *       *

But those things lay in the past. Now a new situation had arisen that
promised to be more destructive to their plans than any IP plot or
internal strife.

_Smothalene_ smugglers had begun to operate again on each planet. Once,
the drug had been outlawed, all sources of the Venusian _lanka_ plant,
from which it was derived, had been blasted from existence. But now the
drug had reappeared, was being smuggled from some secret base, and its
origin could not be found.

The inhabitated worlds were slowly becoming convinced that the Falcon
and his men were distributing the drug; and such was the horror and
agony the drug inflicted on its users, the peoples of the worlds
had forgotten the good done by the Falcon's men, and were giving
information to the IP as to the movements of the Food Smugglers.

It had become a war of survival for the Falcon; he had to stamp out the
_smothalene_ smugglers so as to protect himself, his great plan, and
the lives of those who had entrusted their futures to his capable hands.

Progress had been slow, for the _smothalene_ ring had been so carefully
organized that only the barest of information was obtainable. But
Curt Varga's organization, too, was carefully organized. His spies
and agents had been working for weeks, ferreting out trivial bits of
information, then relaying it back to headquarters where it was sifted
and fitted with exquisite skill and patience.

For days, the Falcon had prowled the planets, contacting his agents,
obtaining first-hand reports, doing two men's work himself. Now, he
had the clue given him by his brother, and he felt a thrill of success
touching his mind as he thought over his plans for invading the
Sargasso of Space, where the drug ring's headquarters were supposed to
be.

But the pressing problem of the moment was not the _smothalene_
smugglers, but rather the saving of himself from the IP men who were
advancing so grimly on his table.

The Falcon shifted his glance indolently about the room, giving only
an uninterested cursory scrutiny to the agents, then relaxed, his
cigarette canted debonairly between his lips. He glanced about in faked
surprise, when one of the agents seated himself at the table.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked pleasantly. "There are plenty of
empty tables; when I want company, I'll send out invitations!"

The agent said nothing; his eyes made a quick inventory of Curt's
lounging body, widening imperceptibly when they saw the casual wornness
of the dis-gun's butt. He nodded at his companion, and the man ranged
himself at the Falcon's left side.

Curt Varga straightened, feigning anger. "Listen," he said coldly, "I
don't know you, so beat it!"

The agent at the table opened his hand; a small shield glowed dully in
the palm. "What's your number, Earthman?" he asked heavily.

The Falcon shrugged, held out his wrist. The agent standing beside the
table lifted a pocket fluorscope tube, trained it on the exposed wrist.
The flesh seemed to dissolve, and numbers glowed bluely from the ulna
bone.

"X three five one four eight L T," the agent read impersonally. He
twitched off the fluorscope beam; the flesh magically came back into
being. The second agent spoke the numerals and letters into a pocket
vocoder.

"Hell," the Falcon said, "why didn't you tell me you were IP men? I
haven't done anything wrong!"

"Who are you, and why the gun?"

Curt Varga shrugged. "I'm a scavenger, just in for a couple of days.
I always carry a gun; I've got a permit from the IP here on Mars." He
dry-washed his hands nervously. "Look, I don't want any trouble; I'll
help any way I can, if you'll tell me what you want."

"Shut up!" the seated agent said brittlely, listened to the tinny voice
coming from his vocoder. Then he pocketed the tiny unit, stood slowly.
"Your numbers check," he said slowly. "But don't leave this place
without my permission."

Without another word, he and his partner walked back to the bar. Curt
Varga sat silently for a moment, feeling the cold sweat on his spine,
breathing a bit fast. He grinned slightly, mockingly, remembering the
hours of pain that had been his when the surgeons of his hidden base
had grafted the ulna of a slain Earthman into his arm after removing
the natural bone. Unconsciously, his right hand lifted, and the
forefinger traced the invisible scars left on his face by the surgeon
whose plastic surgery had changed the shape of his features.

"I think I passed all right, Val," he said into the microphone imbedded
in the cartilage of his throat. "Take it easy."

"OQ, Curt," Val answered. "I'm about to get the once over, too."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Falcon's fingers dipped into his pocket, found a bill. He laid
it on the table, came lithely to his feet. He stood there for silent
seconds, watching the crowd that swayed to the music.

Then he walked toward the bar; and there was in the unconscious swagger
of his stride a love of life and laughter, a hint of the adventurer's
blood that made his home the great sweeps of starway that stretched to
the far horizons of the universe.

He skirted the swaying dancers on the dance floor, thrust out a
steadying hand to the weaving figure of a Martian _boiloong_ who had
evidently been inhaling _gailang_ gas for too long a period in the
rooms below. The _boiloong_ embraced him drunkenly with a couple of
tentacles, then staggered benignly away, hiccoughing loudly from two of
his three mouths.

"_Cahnde_," Curt said to the bartender. The music piled in tiny swirls
of melody in the air, and he absently hummed several notes of it. He
accepted the frosted glass from the bartender, turned, braced his
elbows on the bar. He stood silently, his nerves like taut wire.

He watched the crowd, permitting his eyes to lift to the alcove
in which his brother sat. He felt a surge of affection for the
man who dared to fight at his side for a principle he did not
clearly understand. They met but once or twice a year, and then
surreptitiously, for Val was on the chemi-staff of the Food
Administrators' greatest vitamin plant. They knew they played a deadly
game, in which the probable reward was death; but such was the mettle
of the brothers, they gave no heed.

An IP agent jerked the curtain aside on the booth, spoke to the seated
man. The Falcon could barely make out the words, the speech coming
through the amplifier grafted into Val's throat, as they were grafted
into all key man of the Falcon's brood.

"Declare yourself," the agent snapped.

"Jak Denton, five four three M R S two nine, on special furlough from
the chemi-staff at Luhr." Val Varga's voice was submissive, resigned,
as befitted those who knew the power of the IP.

Tiny sparks of anger flared in the depths of the Falcon's grey eyes,
and the muscles swelled across his wide back. But he made no outward
move. "It checks," he heard the agent declare a moment later, and then
the agent stepped from the booth.

The Falcon smiled slightly, drank slowly from his glass. Then his
fingers tightened spasmodically, and he felt shock traveling over his
lithe body in a nerve-tightening shroud.

"Get out of here, Val," he snapped earnestly into his throat-mike. "The
showdown is coming."

       *       *       *       *       *

Time was frozen for the moment. The music dwindled to flat discords,
and the dancers were only a blur at the edge of his line of sight. The
Falcon straightened, set the glass on the bar without turning around,
and braced his wide-spread booted feet. He felt a surge of fear in his
heart, and the muscles of his gun hand were tight and strained. He knew
then that the trap was sprung; it was too late to run.

Yen Dal, the Martian waiter, was on his knees, his mouth gaping in
soundless agony, held there by a numbing paralysis beam in the hands
of the IP man who had questioned Curt. His single eye rolled in the
ecstasy of pain, and his antennae twisted and writhed with an uncanny
life, as the paralysis beam ripped along each nerve with exquisite
agony. Then a whistle of pain came from his lung orifice, scaled until
it was almost inaudible--and his body threshed in an intolerable spasm
that was horrible to see.

The Falcon stepped from the bar, circled noiselessly toward the rear
exit, felt panic eating at his nerves, for he knew that Yen Dal could
not hold out much longer.

He stopped in the shadow of a pillar, seeing the IP agent beside the
door. He turned a bit, gasped, when he saw that the paralysis beam had
been turned off, and that the Martian's antennae was wrapped tightly
about the agent's wrist. Then the agent whirled, and his shrill whistle
ripped the music to scattered shreds.

"_Get that man!_" he bellowed. "_He's the Falcon!_"

Curt Varga went whirling to one side, and the dis-gun leaped into his
fingers. A needle-ray brushed at his back, and he scythed the agent
down with a withering blast from the dis-gun. Smoke surged from a
naming drapery, where a ray slashed, and then the curtain flaked into
nothingness.

A Venusian screamed in a high thin whistle, dropped below the surface
of the water in which he stood. The music stilled in broken fragments,
and women screamed their fear in panic-stricken voice. Vibrations from
a hundred sets of antennae filled the air with a solid sense of knowing
dread.

"Shoot that man!" the first agent screamed again, and his voice died in
a choking burbling sound, as the Falcon's shot caught him squarely in
the throat.

Curt fired without conscious thought, his hand following the dictates
of instinctive thinking, the blazing energy of his gun's discharges
hissing in a blurred stream at the agents firing from behind pillars
and overturned tables.

An agent came erect, sighed deliberately, died, his head blown
completely from his shoulders by a shot winging from a side booth.

"Get out of here, Curt!" Val Varga's voice rang high and exalted. "I'll
keep them busy."

His gun sang again in his hand, and there was something simple and
heroic about the manner in which he stood before the booth on his
crippled twisted legs. He was not a cripple then, not the remnant of a
man the IP had crushed and left for dead years before when he had stood
fighting at his father's side. He was, instead, bright and formidable,
like the licking blade of a cause that fought against superstitious
greed and intolerance.

"This is my way, Falcon," he called clearly. "Don't let me down."

Curt Varga sobbed deep in his throat, seeing that last gallant stand of
the man whose deformities and keen brain had made him able to act as a
spy in the Food Adminstrators' stronghold. He spun on his heel, smashed
a Martian to one side with a sweep of his gun-hand, then rayed an agent
to death with a brutal callousness utterly foreign to his nature.

He plowed through the tables, scattering them and their screaming
occupants, hoping to get to his brother's side before the man was
killed. He cursed in a vicious steady whisper, darted through the
crowd, firing without sighting at the men behind him. He ducked
instinctively, and a network of rays crossed the spot where his head
had been, burning the very air, filling all the room with the stench of
ozone.

And then he was at Val's side, towering over him, and their guns wove a
barrage before whom Death walked with a steady implacable stride.

An IP agent screamed, pawed blindly at the shattered remains of his
face, his gun singing an undirected arc of death about the room. Bodies
were lanced with the ray, and the cries of the dead made a ghastly
overtone to the sound of the firing.

And then Val sagged, caught through the chest with a ray bolt that
held him erect for a fleeting moment. He fell, his free hand clutching
Curt's arm, almost dragging him from his feet. He smiled a bit as he
died, and his voice was barely audible.

"_Make it a good world, Curt_," he said, and he was dead.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Falcon straightened, and there was no mercy in his eyes then; there
was only a bleak grief and a hate for those whose utter blind stupidity
and cruelty had brought about such a situation.

He went forward lightly, his gun blazing in his hand, his face craggy
and stone-like. He never looked back at the huddle which had been his
brother.

An IP man died in a blast of searing energy that sought him out behind
a pillar, surging through the wood, and then withering him into a
charred and blackened mass. Another agent turned to run, and the
bolt of Curt's dis-gun skewered his back, pinned him to a wall for a
fleeting second, then dropped him in a silent heap.

Curt whirled, darted toward the rear door. His gun menaced the entire
room, and he was a shifting fading figure as he fled from that room of
death. His eyes were blurred with tears, and his throat was constricted
with grief. At the door, he hesitated briefly, then surged ahead. He
heard the shrill whistles of other IP men in the street before the
night club, and his nerves were tense for the slightest of sounds
betokening hidden watchers in the alleyway.

He slammed the door behind him, raced down the alley. He tripped,
rolled like a prowling cat, came lithely to his feet again. His hand
brushed at a wall to steady himself, missed its hold, and he lurched to
one side.

That misstep saved his life. A blazing bolt from a dis-rifle sprayed
molten rock from the alley's floor, swung, tried to catch him in its
range. He fired twice, shooting instinctively, feeling a gladness in
him when he heard the choking death-rattle of the man who had fired.

He twisted about a corner, ran with a desperate speed, hearing the
growing sounds of pursuit behind. He knew a place of comparative safety
a block away, and he plunged toward it through the moon-lit night.

Feet were pounding in the street, when he came to a manhole that led
into the unused conduit system of the city. He knew he was watched but
he knew also that he had to make his escape as best he could. He kicked
the rusted latch of the manhole cover free, lifted the lid, shoved
one leg through. Sitting on the manhole rim, he lifted his other leg
through the hole, then braced his hands, and lowered himself so fast he
almost fell.

The single shot melted the edge of the conduit opening, flecked briefly
at the side of his head, dropped him squarely into a blaze of flame
that seemed to grow out of nowhere and fold him in its embrace.


                                  II

The Falcon landed in a sprawling heap, cramped with vertigo, his mind
numb with the shock of the shot that had slapped at the side of his
head. He groped blindly for support, felt the skin ripping from his
hands on the rough metal of the pipe. For seconds, he fought to retain
his senses, finally forced the black shadow of unconsciousness back
from his mind.

His eyes focused slowly, made out the glow cast through the open
manhole. Only a moment could have passed, for he still heard the
excited calling of his pursuers, and felt the vibrations of men
climbing the outside of the pipe.

He went at a staggering run down the pipe, guiding himself by the beam
of the radi-light torch he fumbled from his belt. Echoes drummed along
the metal tube from his running feet, and the dull pounding in his head
raced with the sound. He whirled around a bend in the pipe, stopped,
braced himself momentarily on the curved wall. Then, the ringing in his
head slowing, and his mind clearing, he ran again at a faster pace.

The yells of his pursuers rocketed through the tube, slowly gaining.
But a thin smile twisted the Falcon's mouth; he had a bolt-hole or two
that were unknown to any but him, holes that had saved his life before.

He slipped now and then in the greasy seepage at the pipe's bottom,
came again to his feet, feeling strength draining from him, realizing
that the shot had almost put a partial stasis on his nervous system.

He ran slower now, utterly unable to keep up the headlong pace. His
breath was hot and dry in his throat, and a heart-pain in his side
cramped his belly. He staggered again and again, until at last he could
move only at a fast walk.

The agents gained, crying their pack call like Martian _ganths_ running
a lowland creature to death in a canal bottom. Their boots slammed
driving echoes from the pipe, growing louder with each passing second.

The Falcon knew that he could run no further; he leaned against the
wall, checked the charge in his gun. A mirthless laugh grated in his
throat, and he felt futility beating at his heart for the first time in
years.

"_Make it a good world, Curt!_" Val had said.

Curt Varga fought then, fought the dizziness in his mind, struggled
with the defeat he felt in his heart. He had a task to do; not for
himself, not for his martyred brothers and father--but for a dozen
worlds to whom he and his brood had become a symbol of hope in a
blackened century.

       *       *       *       *       *

He spun about, seeking a manhole opening, saw none. He did not know
where he was, for there were no identifying marks in the tube. He
thought swiftly, but his thoughts seemed to move with a treacly
slowness. Then he lifted his gun, flicked it to full force, blasted a
hole through the side of the conduit.

Metal flowed in a crimson stream, grew turgid, hardened with the
queerness of the native iron. Great blisters reared on the Falcon's
hands as he clawed his way from the tube. He fell to the ground
outside, blinked, tried to find his directions by some distinctive
landmark. He gasped, whirled back to the pipe.

He had come squarely into the parking plaza at the rear of the
spaceport at the edge of the city. Before him, guards had whirled, were
running toward him, already clawing for the guns at their waists. And
even as he turned, he heard the excited cries of the agents inside the
conduit pipe.

He ran at a zig-zag pace, hugging the shadow of the pipe, toward a
fleet tiny cruiser rolling into its parking place. Darting across a
cleared space of ground, he tugged at the inset port-handle.

The port surged open from the weight of the air-pressure inside, and
the Falcon dived through, pulling the port shut again. Still in a
crouch, he spun the gun in his hand, jammed it into the side of the
single passenger.

"Get out of here," he snarled. "Gully-hop this ship--and do it fast."

"Listen, you--" the pilot began.

"Either you do--or I do. Now, get going." The Falcon's face was utterly
bleak and cruel, his eyes blazing with the trapped lust of a cornered
wolf.

Shots slammed against the impervium hull, bounced harmlessly away. The
vizi-screen glowed greenly, and the reflection of the Port Authority
appeared.

"_Take off, and we'll ray you down._"

The Falcon growled deep in his throat, slammed into the dual control
seat, snapped the control-switch to his side. With a single twitch of
his right hand, he sent the ship flipping skyward.

The cruiser whipped through the night, inertia momentarily pinning
its passengers to their seats. A beam lanced out from the spaceport,
instantly winked off. The Falcon's hands made lightning adjustments on
the board, and the ship scooted back toward the ground, fled, barely a
hundred feet above the rusty sand.

The vizi-screen was dull now, reflecting the interior of the port
office--and the Port Authority's voice sang through the speaker.

"Five IP ships take off. Catch that pleasure cruiser. Use tractors to
bring it down; it isn't armed. Watch out for the man aboard--he's the
Falcon."

"_The Falcon!_" Fear was in the voice; the words were barely breathed.

Curt Varga smiled savagely, glanced around, fully saw his companion for
the first time. He felt a certain sense of amazement; but so much had
happened to him in the past hour, he no longer had the capacity for
complete surprise.

She was tiny, and the synthesilk dress gloved the soft curves of her
body. Her nose was impudent against the red of her mouth, and fright
was in her bluish-green eyes momentarily. Then she stiffened, and her
eyes were hard with a calculating coldness.

"I thought kidnaping went out with the dark ages," she said quietly.

"Miss, this is _shipnapping_." Ironical humor softened the brutal
harshness of Curt Varga's jaw for the moment.

And then there was no time for talk, for he was weaving the ship in
a manner that only a space-master could do, flipping the cruiser
about until metal sang in a dozen tones, evading the bluish rays that
fingered from the ships behind.

He gained the night shadow, circled about on muffled jets, watched the
IP ships flash past him in hot pursuit of their quarry. Then he sent
the cruiser straight back toward the city, angling after a time toward
the mountains to the north. Not a word was spoken until after he had
landed the cruiser close to his own rocket hidden beneath the overhang
of a rusty bluff.

"Now what?" the girl asked.

The Falcon killed the rockets, turned about on the seat, conscious for
the first time that he still held his dis-gun against her side with his
left hand.

He thought fast then, made plans and discarded them with a speed that
raced them kaleidoscopically through his mind. He could leave the girl
tied in the cruiser--but she had seen him, could identify him to the
IP men. Or he could--he shrank from the thought; he was brutal in a
dispassionate way, but he was no murderer.

"Get out," he snapped.

Color surged into the girl's face, then faded, leaving the skin a
sickly white. She shrank from him, pressing against the far wall.

"I read it in your eyes," she whispered. "You were thinking of
_killing_ me!"

The Falcon flushed angrily, more at himself than at the girl, hating
himself for thinking such thoughts, hating the twisted years that had
warped him to the point that he acted like the scum he had weeded from
among his men.

"Get out," he said again, and his voice was softer. "I mean you no
harm." He flicked a glance from the port, toward the sky where the
violet beams of mass-detectors probed the sky and earth.

She slid from the seat, took the two steps to the port, opened it with
a surge of lithe strength. She dropped to the ground, followed by the
Falcon. There was a puzzled fear in her eyes, a fear that grew by the
moment as she saw the sleek Kent-Horter quiescent on the sand.

The Falcon stepped lithely about his prisoner, whistled with a queerly
distorted note, and the port came automatically open. He gestured with
the gun, impatience flaming in his eyes as she hesitated.

"Walk--or be carried," he warned grimly.

       *       *       *       *       *

The girl scrambled into the pirate ship. Curt Varga stepped in behind
her, dogged the door shut with almost casual flicks of his right hand.
He urged the girl before him with the gun, waved her into a sleeping
cubicle, then pulled the door shut, locked it.

Holstering the dis-gun, he raced to the pilot room, slid into the
pilot's seat. He warmed the rockets with brief twitches of his fingers
on the control studs, then pulled the drive switch a third of the way
back.

He felt the thrust of the rockets against his body, saw the brief
flicker of the girl's ship whipping past the port. Then his ship was
fleeing with accelerating speed into the tenuous atmosphere.

A dis-cannon rolled the ship, almost sent it on beam's end. He
straightened her, poured the power into the Kent converters,
flicked out of range with amazing ease. Air whistled through the
purifying-system, and he cut the rheostat down a bit when the reading
gave an Earth-norm.

Then, and only then, did he relax. He set a reading into the
calculator, flicked on the robot control, and walked slowly back to the
sleeping cubicle he had momentarily made into a cell.

"Come on out, now," he said, swung the door fully open.

She had been crying, and the defiant gesture with which she tried to
hide that fact built a tiny warm glow in Curt Varga's heart. But he
didn't permit that feeling to show; he knew he had to keep the girl
more or less cowed, if he were to have no trouble with her.

"Come on," he said again. "We'll declare a truce for the time."

She stepped past him, walked toward the pilot's room. He followed,
liking her unconscious swagger which matched his own. She refused to
sit, and he took one empty seat, regarded her quizzically, as he rolled
a _pulnik_ cigarette.

"Who are you?" he said at last.

Puzzlement kindled in the girl's eyes, was as quickly erased.

"I'm Jean--Harlon," she said slowly. She gestured about the ship. "Why
did you kidnap me?"

The Falcon laughed, and youth was in his face again, some of the bitter
lines softening and erasing utterly away.

"It wasn't planned," he admitted. "I was being chased--I saw your ship
taxiing into a parking place--and I commandeered it." He shrugged. "You
just happened to be the ship's pilot."

Amusement lifted the girl's mouth for a moment, then concern deepened
the blue of her eyes. She glanced at the calculator, saw that a course
had been set, and a tiny muscle twitched in her throat.

"I'm going with you!" It was a statement.

Curt Varga nodded. "Sorry," he said, "but that's the way it has to be.
Only two men knew my identity--and they're dead. The few IP's who saw
me tonight are also dead. It's a safety measure."

Jean Harlon stiffened slightly. "I could give my word," she said slowly.

The Falcon shook his head. "Sorry, but the stakes are too big for me
to risk another's word." He nodded at the empty seat. "Sit down," he
finished kindly. "In some ways, I'm not quite as bad as I am painted."

Curt Varga tensed, felt the probing finger of thought digging at his
mind. He threw up a mind-shield almost casually, grinned mockingly.

"A _telepath_?" he said conversationally.

       *       *       *       *       *

Irritation colored the girl's cheeks; then reluctant admiration came
into her eyes. She accepted a _pulnik_ capsule, deftly rolled a
cigarette, before answering.

"Not many could dismiss me that easily," she asserted. "I had five
years at NYU, on Earth." She accepted a light for the cigarette.

Curt Varga nodded. "Old habit," he disclaimed. "I used to play
space-rocketry with the thought-men of Pluto; the guy with an
unshielded mind never had a chance."

Jean Harlon's gaze was speculative. "What happened?" she said. "Or am I
stepping on your toes?"

The Falcon's face was twisted then with a show of emotion that brought
a glance of disbelief from the girl. And then resolve flared in the set
of his shoulders, and his voice was steady.

"I was making agent-contacts. One of my men must have tipped the IP,
for they came into my 'headquarters' and made a quiet search. I would
have got away, but for the fact they used that diabolic paralysis beam
on a friend of mine. He pointed me out." Curt shrugged. "I had to fight
my way from the trap. My brother was killed. I escaped through the
conduit system, came out on the spaceport. You know the rest."

"Your brother was killed!" Loathing was in Jean Harlon's eyes. "And you
can sit there, and talk calmly about it?"

Anger and grief unsteadied the Falcon's voice for a moment.

"What the hell should I do--beat my chest and swear vengeance! Val
knew the cards were stacked against us; he knew that both of us had
lived past our appointed times. He played the game as he saw it, and
died with few regrets. Hell, yes, I can talk calmly; now I've got a
job to do, I've got to finish the thing for which he and hundreds of
thousands of others have died!"

He turned to the space-scanner, saw that the Kent-Horter had escaped
the IP ships, felt the burning of unshed tears in his eyes. He sat
silently for a moment, then whipped about as the girl's words caught at
his mind.

"--dreaming fools," she was saying. "What _more_ could they ask than
they already have. They eat, they sleep, they have amusements and
medical care. Their lives are as perfect as science can make them."

"_Science!_" Curt Varga's tone flicked like a whip-lash. "You can't run
people's lives as though they were bits of unfeeling machinery. Every
man has the right to control his own destiny."

Anger was in Jean Harlon's face then, too. "You blind atavistic fool,"
she blazed, "people cannot rule themselves! Read your histories, find
in them the truth about self-government. Why, until science took the
reins of power, millions died in ghastly wars for fanatical leaders
whose greed for world dictatorial power was an insane fixation."

The Falcon's face was like chiseled granite. He silenced the girl with
a brief motion of his hand. His voice was grave with the strength of
his heart-felt belief in the thing he had made his life.

"I have no desire to convert you," he said quietly. "Conversion comes
to but a few. You've got to know deep in your heart that what I say is
the truth. There were wars, holocausts started by the mad dictators of
the Twentieth Century. But when they were over, then democracy began
to win the long struggle that had always been hers. And although other
wars came through the years, always life became better for all peoples.
But then science became a _master_ instead of a _servant_, and the few
rulers of science became the rulers of the universe. That would have
been all right, had the rule been a beneficient one--but it was twisted
and distorted by the descendants of our hereditary Food Administrators
until it throttled and murdered all initiative and ambition and
free-thinking. It strangled God-given _freedom_."

Curt Varga went suddenly silent, feeling the red creeping upward from
his collar. He avoided the girl's eyes, crushed out the still butt of
his cigarette.

"Sorry," he said. "I guess speech-making is getting to be a habit."

Jean Harlon did not move, but her eyes searched every plane of the
pirate's face.

"You really _believe_ that, don't you?" she said wonderingly.

"I do!" The Falcon's voice was calm. "And so do millions of others
throughout the planets. And soon the day will come when all peoples
shall rule themselves. I'm not the man who will bring about the change;
I am but the nucleus, that about which the change is centered. When I
am gone, another will take my place, and another, and another, until
people shall be free, their eyes to the sun."

Jean Harlon moved slowly, breaking the Falcon's words. There was
neither belief nor disbelief in her eyes; there was only the warm
awareness that before her sat a man whose heart held an ideal and his
mind a plan.

"You are a strange man, Falcon," she breathed. "But you're not quite
the same as I had pictured you in my mind. Oddly enough, I am not
afraid of you now."

       *       *       *       *       *

Curt Varga grinned. "That's a point in my favor, anyway," he said.
"I've never kidnapped a girl before; I wasn't certain just what I'd
have to do to calm you." He shrugged. "You will go through a certain
amount of discomfort," he finished, "but you will be safe--and I'll
notify your family of your safety."

Jean Harlon's eyes were suddenly hooded. "I have no relatives," she
admitted. "So I'll just string along with you, until you realize I'm
perfectly harmless and permit me to return to Earth or Mars."

"That will be--" the Falcon began, then whipped about to the port, as
the ship rocked as though shaken by a gust of wind.

"What's wrong?" Jean asked anxiously, peered out, too. "Why, it's a
tractor beam--coming from that bare asteroid!"

"Watch!" the Falcon said quietly.

The pale-green beam lanced like a misty cone from the rough surface of
a craggy boulder that sprang upward from the asteroid like a towering
skyscraper. The pocked, rubbled surface of the asteroid glittered
metallically in the faint sun-glow, great rocky spires rearing
fantastically, mountainous boulders perched in reckless confusion over
the pitted surface of the ground.

Weight was almost instantly doubled in the ship, as the tractor
beam caught the ship in its grip. Curt adjusted the gravity shield
to counteract the beam's force on himself and Jean. The rockets had
stopped their steady drumming, and the Falcon explained.

"It's a variation of the standard inertia-tractor beam. Energy of
flight is nullified by the inertia beam, which neutralizes all rocket
power. And the tractor beam is swinging us toward the asteroid."

Jean shivered. "It happened so fast!" she said slowly.

The seconds slipped by, and there was the sensation of falling. The
cruiser swung more and more toward the great boulder, descending
swiftly. There was no sound, only the steady dragging of gravity on the
ship from the pale beam. Absently, the Falcon cleared the board before
him, cutting all switches.

And then a giant hole flowed open in the top of the huge boulder, and
the pirate ship was whisked into a slanting radi-lighted tunnel.

"_Hollow!_" Jean said. "So this is the Pirate's Base!" She frowned.
"But if it is hollow, why doesn't gravitic stress rip it to pieces?"

The Falcon still peered from the port. "We use a neutron-weld invented
by Schutler. Using the weld, the skin of the Base could be but a foot
thick, and still would not rupture nor permit the atmosphere to leak."

"Schutler! But he was executed five years ago."

Curt Varga shook his head. "No, Schutler is still alive; his twin
brother took his place before the firing squad."

Horror was in the girl's eyes. "You mean that you _forced_ him to
sacrifice his life?"

The Falcon's tone was grimly brooding. "A man does what he thinks is
right."

"But such a thing _isn't right_," Jean Harlon said defiantly.

Curt Varga turned, his face like chiseled granite. "Do you know why
Schutler was sentenced to be executed?"

"Of course--treason."

The Falcon's grin was raw savagery.

"He invented a growth-stimulator which brought plants to full maturity
in five days from seed-planting. The Food Administrators' empire might
have toppled."

Jean Harlon stepped back, anger in her face. "I don't believe it," she
declared. "I happen to know the true factor."

The Falcon shrugged, glanced again through the port. Slowly the anger
fled Jean's face--and a brooding puzzlement remained.

The cruiser settled with a tiny jar, lurched slightly, came to rest.
Metal rasped outside, and the entrance port began to open. The Falcon
came from his seat, nodded toward the port.

"Was that the truth?" Jean Harlon asked.

"Of course! I have no reason for lying. Now, let's get out of here;
I've a report to make."

       *       *       *       *       *

Three men waited outside the open port; and the first, a massive
bearded giant, caught Curt in a casual hug that whitened his smeared
face.

"You lucky devil!" he roared. "Been in another scrap--and got away by
the skin of your teeth. Damn, but I'd like a good fight!"

The Falcon grinned, shoved his way from the giant's arms.

"Damn it, Schutler," he snapped affectionately, "you'll kill me some
day with those hugs of yours!"

Schutler laughed, tugged at his beard. "Come on," he said. "I've got an
experi--"

"Wait a minute, squirt," the second man said. "Now, listen, Curt, did
you make the contacts you--"

The negro brushed the others impatiently aside, tugged at Curt's arm.
He smiled, and his teeth were a solid bar of white across ebony.

"Come on with me, Boss," he ordered. "You've got some cleaning up to
do."

"Dammit, Curt--" Schutler began petulantly.

"Curt, those reports mus--" the second man said impatiently.

The Falcon gestured wearily. "That can wait for a time, Crandal. Right
now, I need food and a bit of medical care." He grinned. "Anyway, I've
a guest to show around the Base."

"A guest?" Schutler asked.

"Come out, Jean," Curt Varga called. Jean Harlon stepped from the lock,
utterly lovely and feminine. She stared with puzzled eyes at the men
standing with the Falcon.

"Why do you _permit_ such liberties with the men you rule?" she asked.

Schutler laughed delightedly, the sound rolling and booming. "A new
convert, Curt?" he said, then laughed again, and swept the startled
girl into the circle of his arms. "Welcome to the snake's den," he
finished happily.

Jean gasped in amazement, fought unsuccessfully to free herself from
the burly arms, then subsided in a gale of infectious laughter. The
Falcon grinned, tugged her free.

"You've met Schutler," he said. "This bald-headed old space-buzzard is
Crandal, better known as the Encyclopedia. And this other is Jericho
Jones, my number one mate."

The wizened man bobbed his head nervously. "Glad to know you, Miss," he
said. "Now, Curt, about those reports."

"Howdedo, Miss," Jericho said, smiled toothily.

Schutler shoved forward. "How was the kid brother, Curt? Is he still
dishing out the--" His voice trailed away, his gaze flicking about the
group. "Sorry, Curt," he finished gently. "He was a good man."

The Falcon swallowed painfully, forced a smile, wincing a bit from the
hands of the men where they touched his arms.

"He made his choice," he said slowly, and the words were like an eulogy.

He shrugged. "Take Jean to the women's quarters, Schutler," he finished
unemotionally. "Later, she and I will dine together." He made an almost
imperceptible gesture with one hand, and the giant's eyes widened in
surprise.

"Sure, Curt," Schutler agreed. "We'll walk part-way with you."

"I don't think--" Jean began, then fell silent.

The Falcon grinned. "Everything's under control," he said reassuringly.
"There are plenty of Earth women there. They'll fix you up with
clothes or whatever you need."

"Thank you, Falcon," Jean said, but fear was flickering again in her
blue-green eyes.

They walked down a gentle ramp, crossed on a suspended walk to a
web-tier that hugged one wall of the gigantic room. Jean peered about
in quiet excitement, open amazement in her face when she saw the
hundreds of fighting ships cradled in rows. She watched the men that
worked with a methodical thoroughness upon the gleaming hulls, fitting
the coppery muzzles of space-cannon into place. Carts darted here and
there on soundless wheels, carrying supplies to piles that never grew,
because other men immediately and without hurry emptied the piles in
steady streams into the holds of waiting ships.

Long radi-light tubes striped the ceiling three hundred feet overhead,
filled the room with the clear yellow glow of Earth sunlight. There
was an air of competence and efficiency about the scene that was
compellingly impressive.

"A _throg_!" Jean gasped in sudden terror.

       *       *       *       *       *

Curt glanced down at the spider man who minced daintily along on
his fragile hairy legs. His double-facetted eyes glanced toward the
suspension-walk, and two of his legs lifted in salute. A piercing
vibrational whistle followed. Curt grinned, whistled an answer in a
series of flatted notes, waved.

"That's Lilth," he explained. "He's a good guy, even if he is a
Ganymedian. His family starved to death because they could not mine
enough _xalthium_." He gestured toward a gigantic slug inching along
the floor, pulling a loaded cart. "That's a Venusian _gastod_," he
finished. "He is utterly helpless and harmless. He is also the only
_gastod_ not in captivity. His race exuded pure vitamin K from their
bodies, so the Food Administrators imprisoned the entire race. He is a
pirate here and does what he can--for oddly enough he has a brain and a
soul."

They had crossed the bridge and walked slowly down a lighted tunnel.
The tube debouched into a great amphitheater, at the mouth of which
the group halted for a moment. Shouts, whistles, hissings came from
the groups of men before them. In a gigantic pool of steaming water,
Venusian reptile-men swam with loud splashing. On the field at the
right of the pool, Earthmen played space-ball, their tiny hand-tractors
lancing pale-green rays at a floating gravity-neutralized sphere. The
beams made a network of power that spun the copper ball like an air
bubble in a whirlpool.

Spider men sat side by side, curling their legs beneath their globular
bodies, then nipping them out again, a few at a time. Gravely they
compared the numbers flipped out, then paid their wagers from piles of
money at their sides.

Cat men from the tombs of Mars played Martian chess with their
traditional enemies, the big-chested Upland _boiloongs_ whose tentacles
were like living ropes of steel. Creatures from a dozen worlds watched
or played or rested, singly and in groups, about the gargantuan room.

"They're my men," The Falcon said proudly, feelingly. "And regardless
of body-form, each is a _man_. They're the Falcon's Brood."

He led the way again, returning hearty greetings in a dozen tongues,
waving, laughing, answering a hundred questions. At the edge of the
room, near a tunnel's mouth, he turned to the girl who was strangely
silent.

"I'll meet you for dinner in an hour," he promised. "Then I'll show you
through the gardens."

"Fine!" Jean smiled, turned to follow the solicitous Schutler.

Crandal watched her go. "So she is not a convert," he said. "Then why
bring her along?"

"She recognized me," the Falcon said simply, nodded good-bye, followed
Jericho down another tunnel to his living quarters.

He walked into the three-room apartment, strode directly to the
vocoder. Flicking a switch, he spoke quietly.

"A trap on Mars was set for me; have you heard any reports."

A voice answered with the methodical thoroughness of a trained agent.
"Yen Dal died an hour ago of nerve shock caused by an IP's paralysis
beam. The man who informed the IP was executed by our Martian agent
thirty minutes later. That is all."

"Good!" the Falcon said grimly, closed the switch. He turned to the
silent negro. "A _cahnde_, Jericho," he finished tiredly. "Then we'll
doctor me up a bit."

He sagged in a chair, utterly spent and tired, worn from the constant
strain that was his life every hour of the day. He was no longer the
debonair flashing Falcon; he was only a man to whom life became grimmer
and more danger-filled day by day; a man whose life was in no way his
own.


                                  III

Jean Harlon leaned back from the table, sighed blissfully.

"I never knew," she said, "that such wonderful food existed. Why, that
watermelon was the most delicious thing I've eaten in my life."

Curt Varga smiled, shoved back his chair. "Let's take a quick look at
the gardens before getting some sleep," he said. "I'll show you such
things as the ordinary person has not seen in more than a century."

"Swell!" Jean Harlon nodded.

They walked from the dining hall, entered a side tunnel, followed a
winding ramp toward the center of the asteroid. They chatted aimlessly,
speaking of nothing in particular; and Curt felt a vague pleasure in
him when her eyes reflected her astonishment when she found that he was
educated beyond the average of most men. There was a tang to living at
the moment, and his lithe body felt good and strength-filled, ready to
follow any dictate of his mind.

They turned right, stepped through a side door, and Jean's tiny gasp of
awe was ample reward for all that Curt had done.

The air was warm and moist, heady with the oxygen of growing plants.
Great tiers of water tanks rose along the walls, their surfaces thick
with the green and yellow and bright colors of fruits and vegetables
growing in the vitamin-charged hydroponic baths. They seemed to grow
visibly, even as the Earthpeople watched.

Pipes as thick as a man's arm, bank upon bank, were braced in rows
through the center of the immense room, and thousands of clear bubbles
of water clung to them. The light of gravitic-stasis bulbs glowed deep
in each bubble, and the surfaces of all were threaded with the tender
shoots of growing seedling plants.

"How utterly incredibly marvelous!" Jean whispered.

The Falcon nodded proudly. "Ten thousand tons of food go out of this
cavern every day, taken to the starving people of a dozen worlds. It is
not a one man job; it is a tremendous task for hundreds of thousands of
men and women." He pointed to the workers between the rows. "Those are
the ones who are doing the job; those are my people, my friends. They
and all people like them are what I fight for."

"It's gallant," Jean admitted slowly. "But it's also so incredibly
foolish. A few hundred thousand, or even millions, cannot change the
world we live in. It is far better to take things as they are." She
shuddered involuntarily, as a snake-man glided effortlessly across the
path. "After all, creatures like that shouldn't be permitted to live
like Earthmen."

The Falcon shrugged, some of the good feeling going from his mind. Then
he plucked a handful of rich dark grapes.

"Try these," he said. "We've still a lot of sightseeing to do."

For another hour they walked and talked, meeting the men and women with
whom the Falcon worked. Nowhere was there a fawning attitude because
he was the one whose word was law. There was a tangible feeling of
equality among all the people, a feeling that the girl had never seen
anywhere before.

She spoke but little, until she saw the great storeroom where the
wealth of a hundred nations was piled in orderly stacks. She saw that
the door had neither lock nor bolt, and her eyes were startled when she
glanced at the tall man at her side.

"There's no need," he said, understandingly. "This is communal
property. And there are no thieves in the Base. Anyway, if a thief did
appear, he could not escape--an inertia-tractor beam would bring any
ship back before it could get away."

Jean nodded, and they strolled toward the exit that led to their
apartments. Neither spoke now; both were silent with their thoughts.
A vocoder light was on at a corner box, and the Falcon flicked the
switch.

"Yes?" he said quietly.

"A report has just come in, sir," the mechanical voice said evenly.
"The girl whose ship you stole is--"

The Falcon whirled, feeling the ripping of his dis-gun from his
holster. He whirled in a sudden spin that almost caught Jean Harlon;
and then he came to a sudden halt, the last words of the vocoder
ringing in his mind.

"--Jean Vandor, the daughter of Jason Vandor, the Food Administrator.
She was attending a dance given by--"

The Falcon moved with a desperate tigerish speed, his hand lancing out
to snatch the menacing gun. Then the softened ray caught him squarely
in the chest, and the world blanked out.

       *       *       *       *       *

He came to slowly, then with a rush of surging emotions that were like
icewater to his brain. He rolled to his feet, wobbled unsteadily for a
moment, then darted down the tunnel, running toward the comptroller's
office. Tunnel after tunnel passed behind him, and he could feel the
ragged pounding of his heart, as he raced across the last few yards of
the entrance room.

He slammed through the door of the office, felt dismay and anger fill
his mind when he saw the dissed wreck of the tractor beam board. Then
he knelt, helped the comptroller to a chair, where the man sagged
groggily.

The man shook his head. "The girl you came with burst in, demanded to
know which were the tractor controls. I wouldn't tell, but she must
have known, for she rayed them, and then blanked me out."

The Falcon snarled a curse. "She's a _telepath_," he said. "She read
your mind." He whirled to a window, peered at the rocket runway that
led into the escape tube. "One ship is gone," he finished harshly.
"Without a tractor to bring her back, she'll take the news straight to
her father. We can't fight the IP with half-gunned ships. I'll have to
run her down."

"Your ship's been refueled and is ready to go. New radi-batteries are
in the tractor gear." The comptroller roused himself with an effort.

"You sure you're all right?" Curt asked anxiously.

"I'm fine."

"Then tell Schutler and Crandal where I've gone. Tell them my orders
are to triple the men outfitting the ships. I'll be back as soon as I
can--but no move is to be made without my okay. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The Falcon whipped about, darted from the office. He ran at top speed,
fitting the dis-gun he had grabbed from a wall rack into his belt
holster. He raced to the conveyor belt, slipped into a seat, flipped
the control to high speed. An instant later, he was hurtling toward his
cradled ship, wind sighing past his face.

"Damn all women!" he thought. "Especially this one!"

The walls whizzed by in a grey blur, and thirty seconds later the
conveyor jarred to a bone-shaking stop. Curt flipped the safety
belt aside, dashed for the small cruiser resting in the cradle. He
impatiently brushed aside a slow-moving workman, stepped through the
port. He closed the port entrance, screwed it shut with powerful
heavings of his shoulders, then darted to the control cabin. Sinking
into the seat, he automatically checked the controls.

"Clear ways," he snapped into the vizi-screen, waited for the "all
clear" signal. A green light flashed to his right, and he closed five
stud switches in close succession. The ship lurched slightly, steadied,
then fled with a rush of displaced air.

The inertia gate closed behind the ship, and the entrance hole flowed
open. Ahead was the empty blackness of space. The next instant, the
planetoid was far behind, and speed was piling at a terrific rate. Curt
was grateful then to the man who had invented the stasis force-screen,
for at the initial acceleration he had achieved, he should have been
dead. But with all atoms of the ship and its contents building speed at
the same rate, he felt no discomfort.

He bent toward the vision-port, scanned the Void with slitted eyes.
Stars gleamed with a cold brightness far away. The Sun was at his back,
and far to his right whirled Earth and Mars. Venus and Mercury fled
their celestial ways far below and behind him.

He swore lightly, built up power in the vision-port, sent a scanner
beam whirling. He missed the stolen ship on the first round of the
beam, caught it on the second try. It was nothing but a tiny spearhead
of yellow flame far ahead.

The rockets drummed with an increasing roar and muted vibration, as
his fingers flicked the switches and studs before him. And despite
the stasis-field, he felt the slightest sensation of travelling at an
incredible rate of speed.

The freight ship was obviously moving at top speed, and was fully
eighty thousand miles away. It fled in a parabola, travelling above the
plane of the ecliptic, its speed now so great that it could not make a
sharp turn so as to double back to Earth at Jean Vandor's touch on the
controls.

Curt grinned. His ship was a cruiser, built for speed, a model that
could outrace the other within a few minutes. He flicked close the last
switch, sank back in his seat, watching the freight ship gradually
drawing closer. He lit a _pulnik_ cigarette, waited, knowing there was
nothing else that he could do for moments.

Then he frowned, leaned forward. His hands grew white on the control
board from the stress of his emotions, and he felt dull panic striking
at his heart. For the freight ship had swerved, had swung about in an
abnormal way, its rocket flow spinning in a flaming arc.

       *       *       *       *       *

Curt watched with the sickness eating at his heart, for he knew what
had happened. Inexperienced as she was, Jean had permitted her ship to
be caught within the conflicting tides of gravity in space, and even
now was being pulled in the Sargasso of Space.

She could not escape; there was no record of anybody ever escaping
the tides. Her only hope lay in Curt Varga, the tractor rays of his
cruiser, and the superior power of his ship.

He watched the futile struggle of the girl to tear the freighter loose,
saw the ship whip about in a series of surging dives and evolutions
that finally ceased as the ship slowly but surely was dragged into the
midst of the whirlpool.

And now the two ships were but a few thousands of miles apart. Already,
the gravity streams were tugging at the cruiser, striving to turn its
flight into a diving plunge for the maelstrom's heart. Curt worked
with a desperate calculating intensity, playing the power of the ship
against the tides, as a master machinist judges the power of his tools.

He sent the cruiser to the left, flicked on the tractor ray, flashed
its probing beam toward the freighter. The beam caught, whipped by,
then flicked back. Curt could feel the instant tugging. He increased
power, felt the shrill whine of the ray-machine building icy fingers in
his brain. Then the sound was past the audible.

The tides swept over the cruiser, flipped it about like a leaf in a
breeze, almost caused him to lose contact with the freighter. But the
shimmering thread of the tractor's light did not break; the ships were
locked together.

Curt coaxed the last bit of power from his rockets, sent his ship in
a spiralling drive for free space. He smiled thinly, grimly, when the
tossing of the cruiser lessened. He glanced from the vision port,
wondering if they would get free.

       *       *       *       *       *

A smashing blow struck the ship, drove it back, set metal to singing.
Curt swore harshly. Space was filled with floating debris captured by
the gravitic tides. Small chunks of meteoric rock flashed by, followed
by clouds of dust as fine as gravel. The bloated, ruptured body of a
space-ship rushed by in the opposite direction, hurled nowhere in its
constant swinging about the area of dead space. Curt winced, when he
caught the starshine on the bulgered bodies that trailed in its wake
like a meteor cloud. He wondered, irrelevantly, who the men were.

And then from the darkness of space came a great sweeping clot of
debris, the gutter rubbish of the space lanes. Ships that had been
caught in the tides, meteors, rocks, all the flotsam that had been
gathered through the ages.

But Curt had no time for that. He felt his ship winning free, sent it
whipping to the left again, wondering if his rockets would burn out
under the stupendous strain. And relief filled him, when he realized
that he was pulling the other ship from its death-bed of gravity.

And even as he laughed, he felt all power cease in his ship.

He swore brittlely, fought with the controls. All of them were dead.
Panicky, he stared from the vision port, and dull wonder filled his
mind.

Twin tractor-beams were lancing from the clot of space debris below the
ship, each centered on a different ship. The beams were almost white in
their intensity, so great was their power.

"What the hell!" Curt Varga said audibly, relaxed momentarily.

And then the cruiser was hurtling toward the clot, sucked there by
the tractor beam, moved with an incredible titanic force such as was
only possible from a mighty generator. Curt swerved his gaze to the
freighter, saw that it, too, was trapped.

He thought then of the words that his brother had spoken to him on
Mars before, of the information that had come through about the base
of the drug-smuggling ring being in the Sargasso. He cursed the utter
blind stupidity that had made him discount the words even as they were
spoken. And then puzzlement grew within him, for it was an established
fact that, once caught within the Sargasso, nothing could escape.
How, then, could this be the _smothalene_ smuggling headquarters; the
smuggling ships could not escape the drag of the knitted gravities?

But he had no more time for thinking. The cruiser jarred squarely into
the center of the clot of debris, was sucked through it. Metal jarred
and strained, and a light flickered into life on the board, indicating
that a plate had been sprung in number Three hold.

Curt darted for the wall closet, unzipped it, tugged at his bulger.
He slid into it, closed it, left the quartzite face-plate open until
the control room was actually ruptured and the need for air from the
shoulder tank was necessary.

Outside, rubbish flashed by the ports in a rush of whirling objects.
Except for the crash and clatter of the cruiser forcing its way through
the churning maelstrom, there was no sound.

The cruiser landed with a jar that threw Curt to one side, dazing him
for a moment. He braced his feet, flipped a dis-gun from the wall
rack, went slowly toward the port. He heard it unscrewing before he
got there, and he cogged his head plate shut, switched on the flow of
oxygen. The port came open, and a radio signal buzzed within Curt's
helmet. He felt the rushing of air from the ship into the Void.

"Come on out, with your hands up," a heavy voice snapped
authoritatively.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Falcon paused irresolutely, then shrugged, shoved the dis-gun into
a pocket of his bulger. Bending a bit, he stepped from the port, was
menaced instantly by five dis-guns held in the hands of bulger-suited
Earthmen. The leader moved forward, disarmed Curt, stared at him
through the face plate of his spacesuit.

"I've been hoping we'd meet," he said in surprise. "But I never figured
you'd come popping in like this!" He gestured about. "I'm Duke Ringo;
these are some of my men."

Curt gazed about, recognized that he stood in the freight hold of a
great liner. The metal was twisted and torn with gravitational strain,
with only one wall intact. Even now, he was being herded toward that
wall.

"I'm Davis, Kemp Davis," Curt said slowly. "I've been scavenging the
lanes. I was trying to save that freighter, figuring salvage rates,
when your ray brought me in." He affected a dead-face expression. "What
are you men doing here, were you sucked in by the tides?"

Duke Ringo laughed scornfully. "To hell with that stuff, Falcon!" he
said. "We know who you are; some of us have seen you. And we've got
a--" He broke off, swung about to face another group clambering into
the hold. "Who is it?" he snapped.

Curt's heart missed a beat; he took an instinctive step forward,
stopped before the menace of a dis-gun. He heard Ringo's voice echoing
tinnily in his earphones, heard another man's answer.

"It's a _girl_, Duke."

"Who, damn it!"

Jean's voice came dear and cool. "I'm Jean Vandor, daughter of Jason
Vandor. If you have charge of these men, make them take their hands
from me."

The second group slowly approached the first. The girl evidently
recognized Curt, for her voice held a triumphant ring. "I see you've
captured him," she said. "That's good. The reward for him will make all
of you men rich. He's Curt Varga, Chief of the Food and Smothalene
Pirates."

"Who'da thought it!" Duke Ringo said in mock amazement, turned away.
"Come on, we'll get back to where it's comfortable."

"Nice going, Jean," Curt Varga said bitterly. "Because of your sheer
stupidity, we're in a jam that made your former one look infantile.
These boys are part of the _smothalene_ smugglers; we haven't got a
chance."

"Shut up, Varga," Duke Ringo said curtly.

Curt subsided, went slowly forward. They entered a small compression
compartment, and Duke cogged a door shut. Air hissed from vents in the
walls, and the pressure gradually mounted. Thirty seconds later, Duke
Ringo unzippered his suit, motioned for the others to do the same. He
lifted a box from one corner of the chamber, handed small nitration
masks about.

"Stick these on," he said to Curt and Jean. "Otherwise you may find
yourself aging pretty rapidly."

Curt fitted his mask to his nose, clamped his lips, his eyes flicking
over the group of men. They were tough, as tough as any men he had ever
seen in space. And he felt queasiness in his stomach when he saw the
sheer cold brutality in their eyes when they looked at him. His fists
tightened when he saw the manner in which they regarded Jean.

"All right, Ringo," Curt said. "Now what's the play?"

Duke Ringo turned slowly. He was fully as tall as Curt, but he was
bulkier, heavier. He surveyed Curt deliberately out of expressionless
eyes, then turned his gaze to Jean.

"The young lady," he said, "will be confined to a cabin for a few days.
You, I think, will earn your keep by working at a drier."

A smuggler laughed openly, subsided when Curt spun toward him.

"I'm making no threats," Curt said finally. "But don't go looking for
trouble. My men know where I am; they'll be looking for me. You can't
afford to buck them."

Duke Ringo chuckled. "Don't be childish, Varga," he said. "Your men
wouldn't have a chance in the tides; I only found out how to enter and
get back, by accident. Play nice, and you won't get hurt. Try getting
tough, and--" He spread expressive hands.

Curt took a stubborn step forward. "Listen, Ringo," he said earnestly,
"my work is important; I've got to get back. I'll make a deal with you."

Jean pushed forward. "I'll _double_ any bribe he offers you," she told
Ringo, "if you keep him a prisoner for the IP. And I'll _triple_ the
reward, if you get me back to Earth within the next six days."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Duke Ringo clucked his tongue. "Maybe I'll collect a
reward bigger than you think--for turning both of you in later."

"How much ransom?" the Falcon said resignedly.

Duke Ringo pondered. "Not much," he admitted. "I just want to take over
your base, your ships, your food-supply." He grinned, opened and shut
his hands. "It looks as if I will."

Curt leaned forward, drove his right hand with every bit of strength
in his rangy body. He forgot the issues at stake, in the blind rage of
the moment; he thought only of his dreams he saw shattered beneath the
grinding heel of the other's desire. He slashed with a desperate fury,
and skin split on the knuckles of his hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

Duke Ringo went sprawling backward upon the wall, a thin trickle of
blood oozing from a swelling mouth. He swore nastily, came blasting
forward, his right hand catching Curt high on the chest, his left
darting in, smashing at Curt's jaw. Curt rolled with the punch, sagging
backward, then side-stepping. He lashed with both hands, felt a blind
gladness in him when his fists drew gasps of pain from the other. He
waded forward, both hands pistoning, taking blows to his own face that
sent curtains of red pain spinning through his brain.

And then a savage driving punch caught Duke Ringo squarely in the
throat. He sagged, pawed with both hands at his battered larynx. He
gasped, unable to speak, his face purpling from the effort to breathe.

Curt darted in, flicked out a hand, caught the exposed dis-gun at
Ringo's belt. He flipped the gun free, whirled, menaced the remaining
men with its flaring muzzle.

"Back," he snarled, "or I'll cut you down." He nodded at Jean. "Get
behind me," he finished savagely. "This is our only chance to get
free." He was the Falcon then, deadly, dangerous, a light burning in
his eyes.

Jean moved hesitantly toward Curt, edged around him. The smugglers
said nothing, apparently waiting for the slightest opening in Curt's
offensive. Duke Ringo straightened, his face puffed, air whistling into
his bruised throat.

"You'll never make it," Ringo said harshly. "Put down that gun."

Curt laughed mockingly. "I'll take my chances," he said.

And went cold with horror. For Jean lunged forward, swept the gun
aside, and clung panting to his arm. The next instant, Duke leaned
forward, and clubbed with his knotted fist. The blow caught Curt in the
temple, hurled him to one side. He tried to turn, to spin, even as he
was falling, but the girl's clutch on his arm tripped him. He went to
his knees, his free hand shoving at the floor.

And then two of the smugglers had dropped on him, were smashing with
heavy fists. Curt drew his legs beneath him, tore his arm free, came
hurtling upward. In the midst of the movement, he saw the boot lashing
at his face. He sobbed deep in his throat, knowing the blow could not
miss. He tensed the muscles of his neck, rolled his head. And the boot
smashed just below his right ear.

He felt the coolness of the metal flooring on his face, but there was
only a grey blankness before his eyes. He tried to force his body to
his feet, but there was no strength in his arms.

"Take him below," he heard Duke Ringo say. "Stick him at a drier. And
because he likes to play tough, we'll see just how tough he is. _Make
him work without a mask._"

The Falcon called out, but his voice was only a whisper in his mind. He
felt oblivion reaching for him with talon-like fingers, felt panicky
terror constricting his heart. He knew what the last order meant; and
horror filled his brain. Then hands gripped his body, swung it high. He
tried to fight, and the entire world collapsed in a blaze of white-hot
light.


                                  IV

The Falcon was drunk, completely, hilariously drunk. He sang a song
about a girl with golden hair who rode a moonbeam in a race with the
Venusian express, and he stopped now and then to breathe deeply,
completely oblivious of the glances given him by the guards patrolling
the catwalks above the manufacturing room.

He pressed the slender shoots of _lanka_ weed into the cutters,
drunkenly raked the chopped remnants into a basket. Lurching, he turned
to the great kiln drier, dumped the basket load into the hopper, and
closed the door. He adjusted the rheostat until a needle backed another
on a dial, then went back to the cutter. He leaned against the machine,
idly scratched the back of his neck with one hand, gazed blearily about
the room.

Then he slipped several vitamin and energy capsules from his pocket
and swallowed them. He felt their quick power sealing through his
body, felt the cloudy numbness lifting from his brain. He fought with
a desperate effort to think clearly and concisely, for he knew that
another few weeks in the _smothalene_ factory would kill him.

He waited patiently, felt strength coming back to his mind. Men watched
him with a blind calm curiosity, their faces, behind their filtration
masks, indicating their wonder that he should still be as well as he
was after several days in the polluted air of the factory.

Duke Ringo had kept his threat; the Falcon had been compelled to work
at the _lanka_ weed cutter without a mask. And those seven work periods
had taken their toll of his rugged lithe strength. He was lucky that
the machine filters permitted only the barest trace of the powder
to get into the air, for a breath of the pure drug would kill him
instantly, knotting his body with muscle-ripping cramps.

The drug, _smothalene_, was the deadliest aphrodisiac discovered in
more than a century. Its action was swift and diabolic, raising the
rate of metabolism to an incredible height, literally burning the flesh
from the body of the users. Such was its action, the user consumed
fifty times his normal usage of oxygen, and consequently went on an
oxygen-drunk that was more satisfying, more habit-forming, than any
drug that could be found. Its final effect came in a spasmodic, hideous
moment, when the cumulative effects of the drug literally exploded in a
surge of unleashed power. Every bit of energy and life was sucked from
the body, and the corpse became nothing but a desiccated mummy.

The Falcon thought of that and many things, remembering the brushes
his men had had with the smugglers, recalling the bodies of the
_smothalene_ users he had seen. And he remembered, too, the accusations
hurled at him and his brood, wild accusations that placed him and his
men in the roles of mass murderers--as the _smothalene_ smugglers.

He gripped the machine edge tightly with whitening hands. He could feel
the life being burned from his body from the tiny bit of the drug his
body had assimilated, sensed the coolness coming to his heated muscles
as the energy tablets fed the speeded metabolism. He knew instinctively
that he had not grown so accustomed to the drug that he could not break
its lecherous hold. All that he needed was a greatly supplemented diet
for the next few days, and then, except for the natural deterioration
of his body during the _smothalene_ binge, he would be as perfectly
conditioned as before.

A guard leaned over the edge of the catwalk, gestured with a paralysis
gun. "Snap into it, Varga," he roared. "Your period isn't up yet."

The Falcon nodded, lifted new weeds into the hopper. Benton, the
Earthman working at his side, flicked his gaze warily at the guards,
and his voice was a quiet whisper.

"Don't be a sap, Falcon," he said. "Walk into a paralysis ray, get it
over with in a hurry."

Curt Varga shook his head. "Sorry," he said softly, "I've got other
plans."

Benton smiled derisively. "Yeah? Well, a couple of others thought they
had, too. They got a converter burial in the energy room."

The Falcon swayed a bit, felt drunkenness creeping into his mind again.
He found and swallowed the last of his energy tablets.

"Look," he said, "I need the help of everybody in here. I've got a plan
that might work--but this _smothalene_ is burning me so I can't really
think. Collect all the energy tablets the men can spare for me; I'll
use them to stay sober until I bust the place wide open."

Benton shook his head.

The Falcon raked weeds into the cutter, glanced about.

"The guards think I'm drunk all of the time," he whispered. "They don't
worry about me any more; I can do damned near as I please. Get me those
energy tablets, so my mind won't blank out at the last moment, and I'll
guarantee freedom for all of us."

The Earthman considered gravely for a moment, then nodded doubtfully.
"I'll do what I can, Falcon, only because of your reputation. If your
idea doesn't work, there's little lost, anyway."

Slowly, he turned, caught up a great oil-can, drifted among the
machines. He talked quietly with worker after worker, finally returned
and handed Varga a double handful of tablets.

"That's all I could get," he said. "Now what happens?"

"Watch for your cue." The Falcon dropped the tablets into his pocket,
retaining about a dozen. He swallowed them, felt their cool rush of
energy almost immediately. He unscrewed a vial from beneath a jet.

Then he proceeded to get very drunk.

       *       *       *       *       *

His face went slack, his muscles rubbery. He sang in a cracked tenor,
weaved carelessly through the machines, going toward the steps that led
to the catwalk. He staggered drunkenly, almost belligerently righted
himself again and again.

"Get back to work, Falcon," a guard called, grinned at the slackness of
the pirate's once-erect body.

"I don' wanna work!" Curt Varga said nastily. "I'm gonna be sick."

"All right!" The guard jerked his head toward the rest-room. "Be
sick, and then get back to your job." He grinned, as the Falcon came
laboriously up the stairs.

The Falcon staggered drunkenly toward the rest-room, shoved through
the door, dropped his pretense the moment he was alone. He went
swiftly toward the air-intake grill, worked at its fastenings with a
screwdriver secreted in his boot-top. And as he worked, he thought.

"_Jean_," he thought, and his face went white from concentration.
"_Jean, this is the Falcon. Listen to me. In a few minutes, I'm going
to release smothalene into the air-system. Put on your mask, and be
ready to run for it._"

He sent the message again and again, wishing that he had had the
telepathic training to receive as well as send. He had no way of
knowing if the girl could get his message; he had no way of knowing
whether or not she would tell Duke Ringo of his plans.

The grill plate came loose in his hands, and he lifted the vial of
_smothalene_ powder into the hole revealed. For a second, his hand
remained there, and then he felt the sickness of futility come over
him. He had no mask.

He stepped back from the wall, pocketed the vial, went toward the
door. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled the door ajar, beckoned
drunkenly to the nearest guard.

"Cummere," he said melodramatically. "I got somethin' to show you."

"What's the matter?" the guard asked suspiciously, and his gun was
bright in his hand.

"Thieves, that's what it is," the Falcon asserted solemnly. "Cummon,
I'll show you."

He opened the door wide, turned his back, walked toward the gaping
grill-hole. The guard entered suspiciously.

"All right," the guard said. "What's up?"

"See!" the Falcon said, pointed.

The guard gaped. "Who in hell did that?" he swore angrily. "Now I've
gotta--" He swung about, momentarily forgetting the man with him.

The Falcon swung with a delicate precision, striking with the
death-blow of a trained IP agent. The guard was dead before his sagging
body was caught in the pirate's strong arms. He never moved.

The Falcon laid the body gently on the floor, removed the filtration
mask, fitted it to his face. He pulled the coat from the slack arms and
shoulders, carried it with him to the wall. Carefully, he emptied his
vial of the _smothalene_ crystals into the air-tube, covered the hole
with the muffling coat. He stood that way for several minutes, until
he was certain that the dust had been carefully sucked along the pipe.
Then he darted back to the guard, took his gun, and stepped to the door.

He shot the approaching guard squarely through the throat, the gun
singing its piercing note of death, the instant cry of the guard
disappearing with his throat. Then the Falcon hurdled the body, raced
along the catwalk.

"Benton," he yelled, "_this is it_."

A guard shouted in brief anger, his ray searing a burning streak of
agony along Curt's side. Then the Falcon whirled, dropped to one knee
on the metal flooring, and his gun sang a song of death that didn't
cease.

Rays lanced from the patrolling guards, and their cries were startled
angry sounds. One went down from the Falcon's ray; another lined his
gun with a deliberate slowness.

A thrown spanner-wrench crushed in the side of his head, and Benton
raced up the catwalk's steps. He waved two more wrenches at the Falcon.

"Let's go, Varga," he shouted.

The Falcon rayed the last two guards to death with a single sweeping
shot that cut them down as though before a scythe. Then he was running
toward the exit.

"Stay here and organize the men," he yelled back. "Follow as quickly as
possible, and mop up the smugglers still alive."

       *       *       *       *       *

Then he had plunged through the door and was racing down the corridor.
He gagged in sheer horror when he saw the bodies of the smugglers in
the hall and adjacent rooms. They were sere and brown, withered mummies
dressed in clothes sizes too large. Some still twitched feebly in
their last throes. _Smothalene_ had dropped them with their first deep
breaths of the virulent drug.

He raced on, his feet pounding deafening echoes from the floor, his
gun gripped tightly in his hand. He prayed silently as he ran. And then
he was at the control cabin, skidding to a stop, his gun swivelling to
menace the room. It was empty, except for the sere mummy of a man at
the astrogation table.

"Damn!" the Falcon swore, swerved about as a footstep sounded at the
door. Then he was holding Jean in his arms, soothing the shaking of her
slender shoulders.

"Ringo escaped!" the girl cried. "He was making me broadcast a ransom
demand to my father, when I got your message. I grabbed a mask, and
ran. He must have suspected something, for he didn't chase me. I hid,
and watched him running toward the escape hatch. He was wearing a
bulger." She glanced at the mummified man at the table, shuddered,
tears flooding her eyes.

The Falcon shoved her aside, sprang to the control board. He flicked a
switch, grinned tautly when a needle leaped to instant life. He sat in
the seat, laid his gun aside. Flicking on the vizi-beam, he sent its
scanner ray swirling about outside the dead ship. Almost instantly he
found the tiny cruiser boring toward the outside of the clot of space
debris.

His hands darted to two levers on the board, drew them back. Tractor
rays leaped into sudden life, spun in pursuit of the fleeing cruiser.
Secondary rays fended off the rubbish that tended to be sucked into the
tractor beams.

Then the tractors caught the cruiser, caught and held it immovable. It
swung about, almost stopping its direct flight. It bucked and plunged
like a fish on a line, rockets flaring with incredible power to break
the hold. But Curt's hands never gave it a chance. The rays grew whiter
by the second, became almost invisible in their power. And the cruiser
wheeled over, began sinking slowly toward the headquarter's ship.

The vizi-screen grew silvery, then green, and a face appeared on its
surface.

"Clever, weren't you, Falcon," Duke Ringo said viciously. "I should
have killed you when I had the chance." His eyes were mad pits of
reddish hell. "I knew something was wrong when the girl made a dash
from me with a mask, but I didn't have time to warn the men, for I
wasn't certain what was happening. Then the _smothalene_ dropped my
mate, and I barely got into a bulger before I had to take a breath. I
had to run for it; I couldn't have fought your entire crowd."

The Falcon's face was stony and bleak, his eyes impersonal.

"I'm bringing you back, Ringo, and turning you in."

"To hell with you, Falcon," Duke Ringo snarled. "When I go out, you go,
too." He laughed. "_All right, I'm coming in!_"

The vizi-screen went momentarily black, then the scanner ray cut back
in. Duke Ringo's ship had ceased its futile efforts to escape; now
it was turning, the needle prow centered directly on the smuggling
headquarters. In that one flashing second, the Falcon felt a surge of
admiration for the brutal bravery of the man.

But there was no time for thinking; there were only a few seconds in
which to act with an instinctive blinding speed. Duke Ringo's ship was
smashing downward now, driving at full-speed throttle, speeding with
the combined power of the tractor rays and the surging drone of its
rockets. It flashed with a speed that increased by the second, became a
diving bullet that could not miss its mark.

Curt Varga cursed deep in his throat, switched off the tractor beams,
watched the ship smashing in. He cringed from the explosion he knew was
coming, felt terror deep in his mind. Then sanity reasserted itself,
and his hands moved with a flowing speed.

He flicked on the tractor rays again, sent them spiralling to one side.
They touched a fifty-foot meteor, caught it, spun it into the path of
the hurtling death-ship.

Duke Ringo tried to swerve the cruiser, failed, for the ship and meteor
struck in a titanic slanting blow. White heat flared for a soundless
moment, force waves pushing outward in the burst of energy. Then the
ship and meteor were one, and in their place was only a fused lump of
metallic refuse that spun endlessly in the Sargasso of Space.

The Falcon cut all switches, turned slowly about on his seat. He stared
at Benton and the other prisoners who had crowded into the room. He
felt the nearness of the girl at his side, cursed himself for becoming
a sentimental fool.

"The show's over," he said quietly. "Ringo's dead."


                                   V

Fourteen hours later, the Falcon stood before the control board of
his sleek pirate cruiser. Jean was at his side, and they faced the
vizi-screen. Except for a certain amount of lethargy because of the
tiny amount of drug he had inhaled in the _smothalene_ factory, the
Falcon felt all right again. He was dressed in fresh clothes, a new gun
was buckled at his waist. And through the blackness of his hair were
threaded bits of silver the past few days had brought. Jean was dressed
becomingly in some of the Falcon's spare clothes, appearing much like a
rather pretty boy playing in his father's garments.

"Benton and the others," the Falcon said, "have their orders and
directions for finding the Base. Those of you who did not care to
join me may go where your fancies dictate. Now, don't forget. To free
yourself of the Sargasso, you merely have to hold your ships to the
debris clot with a tractor, and race at full throttle in as large a
circle as you can. When maximum speed is reached, cut the tractor, and
centrifugal force will throw you free. Has everybody got that?"

Acknowledgments came piling in from the thirty ships gathered about the
Falcon's ship.

"Then let's go," the Falcon said, and sat at the controls. He flipped
switches, built up speed, finally cut loose, and the Sargasso fled back
behind them.

The Falcon set the robot-control, sighed relievedly. He grinned at the
girl beside him, liked what he saw in her eyes.

"I'm doing this against my better judgment, Jean," he said
half-mockingly, half-seriously, "but since you've given me your solemn
oath, I'm willing to take a chance. Anyway, you owe me your life; for
that, you should be willing to keep the Base's location a secret."

Jean Vandor nodded. "I shall keep my word," she said slowly, then she
sank into a seat, caught at the Falcon's arm. "Please, Curt," she
finished swiftly, "please forget this mad plan of yours! I don't say
you're right or wrong, I just say that the odds are too great for you
to win. Come with me to Earth; my father will see that you are given a
good job where you can be wealthy and respected. I promise you that."

The Falcon fashioned two _pulnik_ cigarettes, handed one to the girl.
He shook his head slightly, wryly.

"Sorry," he said, "but I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I owe too much
to the people who trust me. And I have a certain sense of integrity
that wouldn't let me sleep nights, should I quit now." He smiled with
the quickening exuberance of a man ten years younger. "Put in a good
word for me, though; I'll maybe need it, if things go wrong."

Jean Vandor smoked her cigarette silently. "They will go wrong," she
said finally.

"It's a chance worth taking." The Falcon shrugged. "But tell me of
Ringo's ransom demands; this is the first real chance we've had to
talk, what with wrecking the smuggling headquarters, plundering the
dead ships of the Sargasso, and then making our escape." He grinned. "I
thank you for that, anyway; if you hadn't heard Ringo telling his men
how to escape the gravitic tides, we'd be there, yet."

Jean nodded. "I heard him give the order when a new recruit was about
to take a ship out. As for the ransom demand; well, Ringo demanded
immunity from the Administrators, and a license to sell _smothalene_
throughout the system, in return for my release. But as he told me, he
planned to keep me prisoner until all the drug now manufactured was
sold. With myself as a hostage, my father would be helpless to fight
back."

The Falcon turned to the control board, made minute adjustments, tried
to force a casual tone. He could feel the flush stealing upward from
his open collar.

"What do you plan to do, once back on Earth?"

"Nothing, I suppose, just the things I did before--well, this entire
affair happened."

"Are you--" The Falcon came to his feet, walked to the door. "Nothing,"
he finished. "I think I'll get a bit of sleep before we land."

Not waiting for a reply, he walked down the corridor. He hated
himself at the moment, hated himself and the life he lead. In his
mind grew the first nucleus of a doubt that he might be wrong. In all
probability, what he should do, what was the logical thing to do, was
to accept Jean's offer, forget his past, and try to settle back into
the ordered routine of life the Administrator's plans had mapped for
twenty billion people.

Entering his cabin, he threw himself on the bunk, smoked interminable
cigarettes. And as the hours passed, coherence came to his thoughts,
and the bitterness faded. After a time, he slept.

       *       *       *       *       *

He woke only when the light tap came on his cabin door.

"We're landing, Falcon," Jean said breathlessly. "I talked with father,
and he has promised a truce for the period you are on Earth."

"I'll be right out," Curt Varga said, felt the vague prickle of a
premonitory thrill along his spine. Then he shrugged, climbed from the
bunk, did quick ablutions. Five minutes later, his hand was on the
controls when the cruiser glided to a landing at the spaceport.

Jason Vandor waited on the field, his purple robe bright in the midst
of his personal bodyguard. He caught Jean in his arms, and the Falcon
felt a certain sense of gladness when he saw the open affection of the
man toward his daughter. Despite his faults, the man was truly a father.

"So you're the Falcon," Vandor said at last, staring at the pirate from
eyes as blue and chill as ice.

Curt Varga grinned. "I'm the Falcon," he said calmly. "But I never
thought to meet you under these circumstances."

"Nor I. But I do offer you thanks, anyway."

"You owe me nothing; I am here under truce. When I leave, our battle
starts again."

Vandor smiled. "But you see, Falcon, that is where you are wrong. I
thank you for bringing my daughter back, yes; but I also thank you for
saving my men the trouble of running you down." His hand made a sharp
imperative gesture. "_Blank him out_," he ordered.

There was no time to move, no time to think; there was only the split
second of consciousness when he saw the smile of triumph on Vandor's
face, and its mocking echo on the girl's. Then the dis-gun blast caught
the Falcon squarely in its glow, sucked away all thought and dropped
him into a blackened abyss that had no bottom.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Falcon moved groggily, felt nausea cramping at his belly. He
groaned, shook his head, forced himself erect. Chains clanked loudly,
and he felt the coolness of their metal on his arms and legs.

"Hell!" he said feelingly, felt despair eating at his heart.

Jason Vandor moved slightly, sighed, then stood from where he sat
across the cell. His grey hair was almost white in the gloom, and his
face was hard and merciless.

"I want to talk to you, Falcon," he said harshly.

Curt Varga blinked away his dizziness, searched the cell with his eyes.
Except for two bunks, it was empty. The chains he wore were welded to
the bunk upon which he sat.

"Go ahead," he said finally. "You seem to have the whip hand."

"It's about Jean." There was a tiny thread of fear running through the
dictator's voice.

"All right, what about her?"

"I want you to do something. She and I just had a terrible fight, the
first I can remember having with her since she was a child. She seems
to think that I was wrong in capturing you while I had a chance. Now, I
know such a request is strange, I know you hate me, but I want you to
talk with her, and convince her that I was in the right. You know our
fight is to the death; you know that neither of us asks quarter; you
know you would have done the same thing had you been in my place. I'm
not asking this for myself; I'm asking for her peace of mind. Her life
will be wrecked, if she hates me as long as she lives."

The Falcon laughed, and the sound was ugly and ironic in the
semi-darkness. He had met strange situations in his years as a
freebooter of space, but none of them had been as fantastic as this.

"You honestly mean that you want me, the man you intend to execute, to
intercede for you with your daughter?"

Panic tightened Jason Vandor's voice. "I'll make it worth your while,
Falcon," he said. "I'll see that you are not executed; I'll see that
you get life. I'll even see that you have all requests granted."

"To hell with you," the Falcon said dispassionately.

"Falcon, you've got to listen to me, you've go to. Jean is a girl,
she's been brought up differently than either of us. You and I know
what fighting and death are; you and I have no illusions to temper
our judgments--we are cold intellects. But Jean is young, she has
ideals, and they must not be destroyed. You have appealed to her
instincts for romance; she has colored your actions of the past few
days until you seem to be what you pretend to be. Now I want you to
make her understand that your real desire to crush me and the other
Administrators has nothing romantic about it; you must make her
realize your real purpose--that you plan to become dictator in the
Administrator's place. Will you do that, Falcon?"

Curt Varga sagged back against the wall, stared blindly at the man
before him. Thoughts were chaotic in his mind.

"You _believe_ that, don't you, Vandor?" he said slowly.

"Of course, what else can I believe? Self-government, freedom, bah! The
cattle of the worlds wouldn't know what to do with either."

The Falcon shifted. "Where is Jean?" he asked.

"On her way to Mars, where I sent her." Jason Vandor's tone grew harsh
and strained. "I'm making a request, Falcon," he finished, "and I can
be generous in return. But make me force you to talk to her, and I can
do to you just what you would do to me." He laughed without mirth.
"A pitcheblend mine, wearing no protection, might be much worse than
agreeing."

Curt Varga nodded. "I don't understand you, fully. You're a merciless
butcher--yet you think enough of your daughter to bargain with your
enemy. But I'll do what you say--for my freedom."

Jason Vandor shook his head. "Not that," he said brittlely. "I have no
desire to fight you a running battle until the final showdown. You're
dead, as far as your past is concerned. But you have your choice of
death; either a slow one in prison, or a hideous one in a mine. Either
way, you will fight me no more."

"What would I say?"

"Practically nothing. She swore she would believe what I said, only if
you told her that my statements were the truth. Tell her that over a
vizi-beam, and I promise you a decent prison life."

"I've sampled your promises."

"I swear I shall not go back on my word. Jean is the only thing in
life I love; I'll do anything for her." Vandor's words were bitter and
brooding.

"All right." The Falcon nodded. "I'll speak your pretty little speech.
Not for you; I wouldn't give you water in hell. But for Jean; who at
least hates and fights cleanly and openly." He spat. "Now get me out of
here before I change my mind."

Jason Vandor stepped forward, tossed a key into Varga's lap. His
concealed hand came from beneath his robe, and a gun glinted dully in
his fist.

"Cross me, Falcon," he said quietly, "and for every minute of mental
torture you give me, I'll give you a year of the same."

The Falcon unlocked his chains, stood erect. "I'll speak your piece,"
he answered. "But don't make threats."

       *       *       *       *       *

He walked before the menace of the gun through the open door, followed
the line of radi-lights down the stone corridor. He felt nothing but a
dull apathy within his mind, and he cared nothing for the future. He
knew there was no escape, and the knowledge left him unemotional.

But then the thought came that Jean had fought on his side, and he felt
warmness spreading through his heart. There was a gulf between them, a
space that would never be spanned. Yet he felt closer to the girl now
than he had felt toward any person other than his brother in years.

"This way, Falcon," Jason Vandor said.

They walked a corridor, turned right, entered the vizi-beam room where
operators sat before the machines that connected with all planets.

Jason Vandor stopped beside a machine. "Get the _Ardeth_ on the beam,"
he ordered.

"Yes, your Lordship!" The beam-man's fingers made clicking contacts
with the machine's controls. The vizi-screen became silvery, slowly
turned green.

Life grew on the screen. Color swirled, then merged, and Jean Vandor
frowned from the screen.

"Yes?" she asked.

Jason Vandor forced the Falcon to the screen with his gun. The Falcon
was conscious then of the utter quiet in the room, as though all were
afraid to breathe. He could feel the pounding of his heart as he
stepped forward.

"Can you hear me, Jean?" he asked quietly.

"I can hear you, Curt."

The Falcon forced all feeling from his voice. "Jean, answer me
truthfully; did you plot that I should be captured?"

Tears welled in the girl's eyes, and her head shook slightly.

"No, Curt."

Curt Varga sighed then, and the ache in his heart was a tangible thing
that hurt with an agony he had not thought possible for a man to feel.

"Remember the things I told you, Jean? Remember the hopes and dreams
and plans I had?"

"I remember."

"Then, Jean, this is the truth. Remember this all of your life; fight
for it, never let it die. _Men are born to be free; no man can place
himself in the role of God, there to dictate what--_"

The blow of the gun barrel smashed him to his knees. He knelt there for
seconds, laughing into Jason Vandor's face.

"I'm a _small_ man, Vandor," the Falcon said. "I can hate and I can
love. But I am true to myself, if nothing else. Get somebody else to do
your lying."

Jason Vandor's face was a chiseled mask of evil rage. He saw then the
crumbling of the life he had built, saw then the truth that lay in the
Falcon. He knew then that all of the treasures and powers of a hundred
worlds could not replace that which he had lost in those fleeting
seconds.

He lifted his gun to shoot the defenseless Falcon to death--and died
that way, a dis-ray scything him down in a huddled heap.

"By damn, a fight at last!" a great voice roared from the doorway, and
Schutler sprang into the room.

His laughter was mad with the richness of the moment, and the twin
guns were almost buried in the greatness of his fists. Crandal was at
his side, his bald head gleaming, his gun lancing flame like a jet of
glowing water. And behind both, shoving them forward, came Jericho, his
ebony face agleam, a great sword in one hand, a gun in another.

"_Falcon!_" Jericho cried, and his gun made an arc through the air, was
caught deftly in the Falcon's reaching hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then hell broke loose in that great room, a hell of a dozen darting
crossing rays of death, a holocaust of power that surged and twisted
and searched for the lives of the men within.

A guard went down, his gun still holstered, his face blown away by the
left gun of the laughing giant at the door. Crandal darted sideways
like a crab, gun-flame licking out, precisely, almost daintily, never
wasting energy on the wall or air. And Jericho moved like a black
whirlwind, countering the dis-flame of a single guard by touching it
with his sword-blade, and grounding the energy in his power-glove.

And the Falcon was on his feet, his laughter ringing as in the days of
old, when a fight had been the thing to set a man's blood to pounding,
when to live was a zestful thing of promise, when the future was bright
and the past a gay memory.

He raced to the side of his men, cutting a guard from his side, raying
a second even as he was lining his gun on Jericho. The Negro grinned,
and his swinging sword fled through the neck of a guard, followed about
and dropped a hand from the wrist of a screaming second.

Schutler went down, his beard flaming where a bolt had grazed his
chin. He roared like an angry bull, pawed at the flame and smoke of
his burning beard, swept his other hand as a man sprays water. Guards
dropped like flies beneath a poison spray.

A shot caught Crandal in one leg, dropped him to his knee. His face
went even whiter, and sweat was on his head.

The Falcon sprang to Crandal's side, caught him up with his left arm,
raised a barrage of shots with the gun in his right. His teeth were
white against the tan of his face, and the cold of his grey eyes was
strange against the laughter that filled his face.

And the four were together, and no man could stand against them. They
were courage and brains and strength and agility, all together, yet
separate in themselves. Apart, they could be downed; but together, all
hell itself brought mad rich laughter to their throats, and a flame to
their eyes.

They stood together, and their guns made singing sounds that were like
those from a harp of death. And before those notes men sank and died,
one by one, and two by two, until only living stood beside the door,
and there was no other life.

"Come, man," Schutler boomed, "before others hear the fight and stick
their noses in!" He fingered the stubble of his beard.

"Are you all right, Jim?" the Falcon asked Crandal, and the man grinned
with a white-faced smile.

Jericho caught up the wounded man, ignoring a ray burn that raced like
a livid purple snake across the blackness of his shoulders. He jerked
his head at the door.

"We come in by a secret passage," he explained in a rush of words. "We
didn't find you in the cells, so we come hunting."

The Falcon choked back the lump in his throat, and his eyes were misty
as he looked at the men to whom loyalty was neither a word nor a
gesture, only a thing that was in them when the need arose.

"How--?" he began.

"I did it, Curt," Jean's voice said.

Jean was crying then, crying like a child whose first dreams are gone,
crying like one whose new dreams are but the faintest of sounds in
her consciousness. Through the vizi-screen she had seen all that had
happened, and the sickness in her eyes would be long leaving.

"Jean," the Falcon said. "Please, Jean--"

She was smiling then, smiling through the tears that would not stop.
And the Falcon, watching her features on the screen, knew the torture
that was hers.

"I'll be waiting, Curt," she said. "But hurry--Oh, please hurry!"

"Wait for me, Jean, _wait for me_."

And the Falcon and his brood were running down the hall, running toward
the secret spot where a pirate ship waited to take them back to their
fight and their loves and their freedom--and to the far horizons of
their starway destiny.





End of Project Gutenberg's Prey of the Space Falcon, by Wilbur S. Peacock