The dummy that was DuQuesne whirled, snarling, and its automatic pistol and that of its fellow dummy were leaping out when a magnetic force snatched away their weapons and a heat ray of prodigious power reduced the effigies to two small piles of gray ashes. And DuQuesne, motionless inside his space suit, waited—
Motionless inside his space suit, DuQuesne waited until the airlocks of the Fenachrone vessel had closed behind his erstwhile prisoner; waited until the engineer had told his story to Fenal, his emperor, and to Fenimal, his general in command; waited until the communicator circuit had been broken and the hypnotized, drugged, and already dying creature had turned as though to engage his fellows in conversation. Then only did the saturnine scientist act. His finger closed a circuit, and in the Fenachrone vessel, inside the front protector flap of the discarded space suit, the flat case fell apart noiselessly and from it there gushed forth volume upon volume of colorless and odorless, but intensely lethal, vapor.
"Just like killing goldfish in a bowl." Callous, hard, and cold, DuQuesne exhibited no emotion whatever; neither pity for the vanquished foe nor elation at the perfect working out of his plans. "Just in case some of them might have been wearing suits, for emergencies, I had some explosive copper ready to detonate, but this makes it much better—the explosion might have damaged something we want."
And aboard the vessel of the Fenachrone, DuQuesne's deadly gas diffused with extreme rapidity, and as it diffused, the hellish crew to the last man dropped in their tracks. They died not knowing what had happened to them; died with no thought of even attempting to send out an alarm; died not even knowing that they died.
II.
"Can you open the airlocks of that scout ship from the outside, doctor?" asked Loring, as the two adventurers came out of the armory into the control room where DuQuesne, by means of the attractors, began to bring the two vessels together.
"Yes. I know everything that that engineer of a first-class battleship knew. To him, one of these little scouts was almost beneath notice, but he did know that much about them—the outside controls of all Fenachrone ships work the same way."
Under the urge of the attractions, the two ships of space were soon door to door. DuQuesne set the mighty beams to lock the craft immovably together and both men stepped into the Violet's airlock. Pumping back the air, DuQuesne opened the outer door, then opened both outer and inner doors of the scout.