Devil Garrett stepped in the door, and made a mock out of a courteous bow. As he did so, Star snarled in rage, but stood very still, for the electron knife in Garrett's hand did not waver.
Garrett gestured silently toward the door, and Star, equally silent, walked over and out, at the point of the weapon.
Star Blade stood before a transmitter, and thought about death.
He was very close to it. Garrett stood five yards away, a gun in his hand, and the muzzle trained on Blade's chest. The gun was the universally used weapon of execution, an old projectile-firing weapon.
Star did not doubt that Devil Garrett was an excellent shot with it.
The girl, very round-eyed and nervous, sat by Garrett. He had explained to her that Garrett was the type of pirate that it is law to kill, or have executed, by anyone. Which was very true.
A man stepped away from the transmitter, and nodded to Garrett. Star felt a surge of hope, as he saw that it was a two-way transmitter. If the image of an Interstellar Command headquarters was tuned in—Garrett would undoubtedly do it, if only to show the police that he had killed Starrett Blade—then Garrett could not kill him and cut the beam in time to prevent one of the police from giving a cry that would echo over the sub-space beam arriving almost instantly in this room, and let the girl know that she had been tricked. And Garrett would not want that. Not that it would matter to Starrett Blade.
Then Star saw what kind of a transmitter it was, and he groaned. It was not a Hineson Sub-space beamer ... it was an old-style transmitter which had different wave speeds, because of the different space-bridger units in it.
The visual image would arrive many seconds before the sound did. Thus the girl would not hear Garrett revealed, but would see only Blade's death. And then ... whatever Garrett had planned, Blade wished heartily that he could have the chance to interfere.