Gunnar had heard enough. The huge sword flashed in a circle as he swung it above his head with both hands. A Bron stepped forward and Gunnar slashed him from shoulder to stomach-pit.
Odin thrust Maya to the couch as he came forward to help.
But Grim Hagen had merely stepped back. Now he was holding a deadly little tube in his hand. A cold light winked on and off. Odin felt his muscles harden as though a hundred charley-horses had struck him at once. He froze, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Gunnar standing like a statue, his sword still upraised, a look of agony upon his face.
“One more flash and you will be dead.” Grim Hagen mocked. “But before you plunge into the night, remember that I watched you so I could get Maya back. You were not clever at all, Gunnar. Ato can have these worlds if he wants them. I have the ship and Maya. And space is mine to ravage as I please.”
Then, at last, while Maya watched with fear-struck eyes, the tube flashed once more. Gunnar and Odin stood there for a second. They fell like unbalanced things of stone.
A Bron stepped forward and drew his sword. But Grim Hagen waved him aside as he bent over the two silent forms. “Put up your sword,” he said quietly. “They are dead.”
CHAPTER 12
HE HAD been drowned. He was floating in a sea of light, and now and then shining little fishes swam inquisitively up to him and stared. They would look at him with wide, cold eyes and then dart off into space, leaving a flashing wake behind them. They hurtled through the murky light like shooting stars. And once two of them dashed together and burst like a rocket. The sparks came falling down through a billion miles of space, and as they fell they built up planets and systems of their own. Until a dark coil that had the shape of a dragon slithered across the milky way and began to devour them one by one. The sparks disappeared into its dark maw. Then it turned about and came snuffling the air as it looked for him. It found him and buried its long fangs in the back of his skull.