Its ports glowed suddenly red, as though with internal explosions, and a wide cone of golden light sprang from her prow to envelope the unsuspecting liner. Too late Thorne remembered he had not replaced the broken wires activating the directo-beam and the regular crew had apparently not discovered the damage. And the black ship rushing upon them was already not a thousand feet away.
Thorne's warning shout was never uttered. As the golden ray struck, the room was livid with its sudden glare, then dark and sullen red.
The girl with the musical instrument, cutoff in midflight, bowed stiffly forward and fell heavily to the floor at his feet. Her accompanist swayed sideways and toppled like a wooden doll from his low seat. A cold chill bit into Thorne, numbing him from neck to heels, but leaving his brain only too clear. Sodden thuds behind him as members of the Chanler party fell to the floor only confirmed his dread. If it were not the Avitt paralysis, it was a starker ray he had never known. A more dreadful fear which had been nagging at his subconscious for days bit deep and, as he turned his head with painful slowness, came to horror-stricken realization.
"Be silent, Captain Thorne," came a cold hard voice. "No sound, or you die."
It was the voice of Iris Chanler.
III
For a long minute he studied her, over the barrel of the small Blandarc she had whipped up from the cushions of her lounge seat. And at last he saw what it was that had been troubling him so long. Her hair was dark and her color and figure warm and sultry, but the hard grey eyes were flinty pale and glinting. Killer's eyes....
"So you were a pirate, after all," he breathed, slowly.
Her icy laugh crawled over his twitching skin. "Did you think I had my wealth from my father's dribbling salary? He left me a better legacy, Captain Thorne."