He opened the door wide, turned his back, walked toward the gaping grill-hole. The guard entered suspiciously.
"All right," the guard said. "What's up?"
"See!" the Falcon said, pointed.
The guard gaped. "Who in hell did that?" he swore angrily. "Now I've gotta—" He swung about, momentarily forgetting the man with him.
The Falcon swung with a delicate precision, striking with the death-blow of a trained IP agent. The guard was dead before his sagging body was caught in the pirate's strong arms. He never moved.
The Falcon laid the body gently on the floor, removed the filtration mask, fitted it to his face. He pulled the coat from the slack arms and shoulders, carried it with him to the wall. Carefully, he emptied his vial of the smothalene crystals into the air-tube, covered the hole with the muffling coat. He stood that way for several minutes, until he was certain that the dust had been carefully sucked along the pipe. Then he darted back to the guard, took his gun, and stepped to the door.
He shot the approaching guard squarely through the throat, the gun singing its piercing note of death, the instant cry of the guard disappearing with his throat. Then the Falcon hurdled the body, raced along the catwalk.
"Benton," he yelled, "this is it."
A guard shouted in brief anger, his ray searing a burning streak of agony along Curt's side. Then the Falcon whirled, dropped to one knee on the metal flooring, and his gun sang a song of death that didn't cease.
Rays lanced from the patrolling guards, and their cries were startled angry sounds. One went down from the Falcon's ray; another lined his gun with a deliberate slowness.