"Come ahead," repeated Dan. The audio disconnected.
Dan sprang into motion. He believed Lady Alice's warning. And he was prepared to meet subtlety with subtlety; deceit with deceit. Not yet had Smith won. He bent and lifted the broken body of Albert Lemming. Hurriedly he jammed the oxy-helmet down over the dead man's bloody features. He grunted, "Sorry, pal!" as he hoisted Lemming into the pilot's chair, forced stiffening arms back and up in token of surrender. The high back of the chair, the padded cushions made the form hold its position.
He finished just in time. There was a scraping at the airlock. The two ships had drifted side to side now, and entry was a simple matter. Mallory ducked back into the compartment from which Lemming had emerged. His needle gun was in his hand, poised, ready....
Smith entered quietly. He glanced once at the figure in the pilot's chair, said, "Don't move, Lieutenant—" and his arm raised. The girl's warning had been all too true. There was rankest treachery in the leveling of that gun, in the fiery needle dart that hurled across the chamber, burying itself in Lemming's defenseless head. The stench of charred flesh filled the room. The dead body wobbled, lurched to the floor. And—
"Now, you stand still, Smith!" gritted Mallory.
Smith whirled, his jaw dropping open. In his eyes dawned horror, disappointment, rage. He cried out once, raised his gun.
That was how he died. With his traitorous fingers lifted for the last time against a man who wore the uniform he had once worn ... and had disgraced....
Afterward, as they stood in the control turret of the Libra, watching a sober-faced Rick Norton plot the landing that would bring new life to the Ionian colonists, swift retribution to the fomenters of the uprising, Bud Chandler whaled his comrade's back enthusiastically.
"Guy," he said, "in words of one syllable, you're terrific!"