The Dark Swordsmen of Saturn

By Neil R. Jones

Illustrated by Ed Smalle

Originally published in Planet Stories, Summer 1940

Revenge lured Lindquist to towering Greygin Deg, where a sly killer lurked behind the clicking blades of the Dark Swordsmen.

“YOU are going to die, Denhert, but before you die you are going to tell me where Strower is."

Lindquist, the lone pirate, watched his victim with cold, calculating eyes in which there lurked a subtle hint of sadness. Here was one of the men he had tracked so long and relentlessly among the worlds and moons of the solar system since his own renunciation of civilization. It had been this same Denhert and his partner Strower who had come to Mars in a pirate cruiser to steal Lindquist's young bride for the retinue of Garn Ellend, the pirate emperor of the earth,

"Wait until Ellend gets you!" snarled Denhert,

The blue-liveried pirate leered defiantly at Lindquist despite the bonds which strapped him to the laboratory chair. tall, massive figure, a Venusian, fully a head taller than Lindquist, loomed in the background waiting his master's bidding. His repulsive, scarred face remained impassive, yet his single good eye-glared balefully at Denhert, lifting occasionally to watch Lindquist for instructions. The hands of the Venusian troglodyte tightened perceptibly upon the controls of a complicated apparatus beside Denhert.

"No, Cyclops—not yet!" Lindquist admonished, and turned his attention to the earth pirate. "Ellend will never seek me out. He fears me. He sends men like you, Denhert, whom I trap—if they're worth trapping. You were worth that trouble to me. So is Strower. Where is he?"

"You think I'd tell you?" Denhert blustered. "Not even if you offered me my life, which you haven't!"

"You are right about that," the lone pirate responded quietly. "It will be your life now, then Strower's. Ellend will be last. I shall have to find my way through the blanket of destructive rays again and hunt him out. Not all your damnable space pirates or cunning of the cult can keep me from that. I am the only man who can reach the outlawed world without using your space locks you guard so carefully." "Ellend will forgive you your grudge, will make you practically a king, in return for that secret," Denhert urged eagerly. "The Durina Rangue will reward you liberally. Anything you demand that can possibly be given you will be yours."

"I desire nothing except revenge!" rasped Lindquist. "Everything that I loved in life is dead!" The perpetually drawn lines of his face became intensified With his sorrow and bitterness. His eyes gleamed excitedly, and his hands commenced instinctively to fondle the butts of his atom pistols slung one om each side.

"She died five years ago at the hands of that filthy space vulture when he was through with her I fought my way through the hell of the cult to find her dead on a slab ready for one of their devilish experiments! And you helped put her there, Denhert!"

The blue-liveried pirate quailed momentarily before the awful intensity of Lindquist's flaming hatred. The Cyclops meanwhile fastened his one eye on the lithe, dark-garbed figure of Lindquist. Denhert slid a swift, sidelong glance at the menacing troglodyte. Mustering his courage, he again sought to reason with the lone pirate. "You are mad! Everything could be yours! Perhaps even the position Ellend holds. The cult is none too well satisfied with him. They can depose him any time they wish. They are the true power. We are but minions set up in power as a reward for conquest of the earth under the cult's direction and scientific aid. Be one of us. You have no friends. The hand of civilization is against you. The Interplanetary Guard is always looking for you. Some day, one or the other of us will get you."

"Thanks to the conniving of the cult," spoke Lindquist grimly, his wrath dispelled, "I was made to appear a conspirator in the earth's conquest. I am not even safe here on Venus in this hideaway. But I shall go on, nevertheless, to fulfill my destiny. Where is Strower?"

"I'll see you in hell first!" "Then you'll have to wait for me, Denhert, for you're going there first," Lindquist countered suggestively, nodding slightly to his one-eyed henchman.

THE earth pirate's nerve became slightly shaken as he watched the burly Cyclops go silently about the task of swinging an octagon block of translucent material above his head and push a square, flat box beneath the chair. The silent troglodyte next snapped together two sets of three-semi-circular rings about the pirate's body equi-distant from him by about eight inches. The face of the octagon block was flat. The other side tapered to a diamond point which led off into several wires. The Cyclops' hairy hand glided along these wires and into a box on a nearby laboratory table from which he lifted a small dome to which they were attached. Denhert's eyes darted anxiously to Lindquist as this dome was set upon his head and fastened with straps and adjustable, padded plates. "Torture, eh? Think that will make me tell—but I won't!"

“You can talk now if you want to, Denhert. Later, it will not be necessary. Your brain will illustrate without aid of vocal expression just what I want to know."

Sweat started from the man's forehead, and he fought for control of the arrogance he had earlier shown.

"That damned contraption won't find out anything I don't want to tell you! I won't think!”

"You can't help but think, Denhert," Lindquist told him, a faint smile relaxing the hard lines of his face. "No one can deliberately halt their thought processes while conscious."

"I won't think what you want to know!” flashed the pirate.

"That remains to be seen." "Your torture won't break me down, either, you damned privateer!"

"I don't torture my captives," returned the lone pirate somberly, his eyes dancing with cold fire. "But I could really enjoy myself watching you die like Ellend sometimes makes men die. I am not on his level, however."

Unmistakable relief relaxed the worried lines of Denhert's face. He took a deeper breath, and self assurance welled in him once more. He had not feared the death Lindquist had so ominously mentioned. Memories of Ellend's victims lingered. He had also heard tales of how the Cyclops had received that ghastly, diagonal slash across his face which bridged an empty eye socket. It was the one-eyed giant he feared more than Lindquist,

"Do you want to tell me where Strower is now?"

"He is at Berkeley with Ellend."

"On the earth, you mean?"

"Yes."

"You lie, Denhert. I have positive information that he is not on the earth."

The pirate's face remained impassive. He neither denied nor supported the accusation.

"All right, Cyclops." At word from Lindquist, the one-eyed giant solemnly pressed a lever and set several controls which made the translucent octagon glow strangely and Denhert to jump in sudden surprise. The pirate settled back easily, however, with a puzzled expression when he found that he had been subjected to no pain. The Cyclops turned momentarily elsewhere, and then the lights in the subterranean laboratory went out, leaving as the only illumination the glowing octagon which exuded a lemon-coated brilliance over all nearer objects standing eerily out of the gloom. The faces of Lindquist and Denhert stared ghostly at each other. The Cyclops remained a part of the surrounding shadows, Strange little fires commenced to play about the rings surrounding the pirate who watched them fascinatedly.

"If one of your straps break or comes unattached, which is unlikely, however, don't touch those rings," Lindquist warned him, “unless you want to die a great deal sooner than I expect you to die which would be an extreme source of annoyance to me."

The lone pirate watched the octagon. In its face he saw shadowy objects materialize into sharp focus under the careful adjustment of the Cyclops. There stood Denhert in cinematic relief standing vengefully and triumphantly above his own dead body. It was not what Lindquist wanted to see, and he immediately banished the thought from the other's mind.

"You would, of course, enjoy nothing better than killing me, Denhert. I could have guessed that easily. But let's leave the realm of fancy and concentrate on more material things like, say, the past. Where is Strower?"

Instantly, the picture leaped into chaos, fogged and re-materialized into a figure of a man dressed in the same livery as Denhert. Lindquist's heart skipped a beat. It was Strower. But Denhert was aware of what he was doing, and the picture immediately vanished to be replaced with a view of the pirate barracks at Tucson, Arizona. It was deliberate concentration, for the picture was unusually sharp and replete in detail, something which Denhert had seen often. There was only an occasional flicker as his mind diverted temptingly, a minds will do, to the object he sought deliberately to avoid. Faint impressions of Strower loomed and faded.

DENHERT commenced to find that the ordeal was less serene than he had figured it would be. He found himself under an acute mental strain which was self-inflicted. There was no rest, no way he could cheat the mechanical inquisitor which waited so patiently yet vigilantly upon his train of thought. Lindquist watched like a hawk for the slightest clue. Denhert could actually feel the mild, searching power of the wired headpiece. There was no pain, only the dread of relaxed vigilance which the mental probing induced. There was a strong temptation to let his thoughts drift to Strower. The constant effort of mind avoidance to Strower's whereabouts was exhausting his nerve energies. The temptation finally became so great that Denhert actually concentrated on Strower himself, yet he always placed him in a setting he had known in the past. He found mental relaxation in this for a time; but then again he commenced to feel the strain rapidly becoming intolerable. It was not unlike the water drip of the old inquisition, yet the drip was from within and was not physical. What a horrible burden the secret had become.

Denhert's face dripped yellow beads of sweat in the yellow light which shone upon his tired features. The set corners of Lindquist's mouth turned a bit sardonically in grim satisfaction. He had occasionally prompted the pirate to other thoughts regarding the pirates who held rule over the earthly dominions. He pried into what Denhert knew concerning the guidance and unseen power of the Durina Rangue from their grim, isolated sanctuaries in all parts of the world. He learned much which he had wanted to know, much which at a future time would be valuable. Denhert's thoughts became more scattered and less clear, almost desperate in design and occasionally fantastic as he sought to invent rather than draw upon memory. More and more his thoughts reverted perilously to Strower, yet never for long did they dare linger upon the ugly, squat figure with the bulky shoulders and evil face. Lindquist found it in his heart, despite his hatred of Denhert and his unscrupulous ways to admire his loyalty and fortitude. Ellend picked his closer associates well. But Denhert was weakening.

Two hours or more of the constant grilling had passed. Lindquist had spoken little, only to prompt the other's mind into desired channels of information or tempt him back to his self-forbidden thought. Pictures from Denhert's mind came and went on the octagon face. The Cyclops never spoke. The image of Strower lingered longer. Lindquist watched his surroundings sharply. Once he saw a space ship. Of course, if Strower was not on the earth he had left in one of the pirate cruisers.

The first inkling the lone pirate received of Strower's whereabouts was the sudden appearance on the octagon face of a red, ringed crescent. It was Saturn.

"So, he has gone to one of Saturn's moons. Dione or Titan? Either is more likely than any of the other of Saturn's moons."

Denhert was shuddering from the strain. His head lolled back, and his eyes darted crazily, yellow irises from the suffused glow of the octagon weirdly surrounding the dilated pupils. Lindquist leaned forward, his face tensed. He made a motion to the Cyclops.

"We're on the right track at last Intensify the power! He'll go out, but before he does we'll have what we want to know!”

What the Cyclops did was not visible in the dark, but the increased brilliance of the octagon which shaded to a lighter hue brought his ugly features into dim prominence where he stood like a monstrous gargoyle attending the machine. Denhert stiffened suddenly, and his lips set in a hard line. He stared off into infinity straight through Lindquist who had risen to his feet and crept panther-like before his enemy. The darting fires in the three rings became a steady glow. The eyes of the lone pirate shifted to the octagon. He saw Strower, and around him were many brown figures much like men yet strangely unlike them in many respects. One arm terminated in a bony sword, the other in a claw. They wore queer trappings, and their features were not wholly unattractive. Across their eyes and forehead stretched a black band of color, and their noses were straight and clean cut. A narrow slit of a mouth gave them a rather set expression of cruelty and determination. They were walking with Strower and more of the blue-liveried pirates.

LINQUIST knew now what he had suspected before. Denhert had gone with Strower to Dione, Saturn's moon. These were the brown swordsmen, or degmen, as their red brethren and hereditary enemies of Dione called them. The brown swordsmen clanned together in castles, or degs, while the red swordsmen lived in walled cities and were more civilized though none the less skilled with their sword-arms. The lone pirate had caught Denhert on his way back to the earth. Strower, then, was on Dione at one of the degs. He was not surprised. The red swordsmen, better organized and more law abiding, had cast their lot with the civilizations of colonized Mars and Venus. The degmen, always lawless and at odds with the red swordsmen, were allies of the space pirates.

Lindquist remained watchful. He wondered which deg Strower was visiting. There was probably a plot a foot to enslave more red swordsmen. The thoughts of the rigid and staring Denhert continued their reflection upon the octagon face. No longer did he possess the will to resist mentally. They had at last beaten down his enforced reserve and tapped the hidden secret. Lindquist saw Strower and the group of degmen approach a castle. Its towers and battlements rose in the distance. With the keen scrutiny of a hawk, Lindquist watched it grow closer. A broken tower loomed higher than the rest. It drew a soft exclamation from the lone space pirate.

“Grygin Deg!”

He had discovered what he wanted to know. For a short time afterward, he continued to watch the reflections' of Denhert's mind as the group entered the Dionian castle, but he found little more that was helpful. He signaled the Cyclops to shut off the machine. The intensified yellow glow died out, and the rings became invisible in the darkness which engulfed the laboratory,

Presently, the lights came on again, and rubbing his eyes which he momentarily shaded from the brighter glare to which his eyes had become unaccustomed, Lindquist saw the body of Denhert relaxed and motionless. He was not dead. Of that, he knew. The earth pirate had succumbed from nervous exhaustion.

"Take him out and lock him up," the lone pirate turned to his one-eyed henchman, and then he walked out of the laboratory.

THAT next day, at Lindquist's orders, the Cyclops brought Denhert into the lone pirate's museum and armory in another subterranean chamber, long and narrow. The walls and display cases were covered or filled with weapons of all ages and peoples. There were stone axes of the ancient earthmen, various types of bows and arrows, relics of the ancient Martians including their effective, sun-ray reflector tubes, and knives, axes, lances and all forms of offensive cutlery were liberally represented. The powder, cap and lead slug guns of six centuries earlier were in evidence as well as the electric pistols which followed in a later era. This type of weapon led up to the various ray guns and counter rays, or nullifiers. The successor of these weapons was the modern atom pistol.

Two of these black, ominous death-dealers hung from the hips of Lindquist. They were a part of him, for he was never without them. It was said that they moved at his bidding, literally leaping into his clutching, lightning-like hands, yet this was a fallacy founded on the wild supposition of an observer who once had occasion to witness the lone pirate's remarkable speed and accuracy in handling them.

Denhert was once again his offensive, sarcastic self as he swaggered in with a spiteful glitter in his eyes for the black-clad, lone pirate. The ever-watchful Cyclops, who saw more with his one eye than many people with two, followed him, a hand conveniently near his atom pistol.

"Well, now you know what you do," sneered Denhert, "you are probably ready to murder me."

"No one said anything about murder. Murder and its kindred crimes I leave solely to Ellend and those devils in human form who call themselves the Asurians."

"Then you mean to let me go?" Denhert asked hopefully.

"You'll be let go, all right," Lindquist grated harshly. A fanatical gleam rested in the pupil of each eye as he paused before his next words. "As one who aided principally in stealing my young wife for the clutches of that snake, that arch-demon who calls himself the pirate emperor of the earth, I condemn you to death by combat. I promised you that I would kill you, Denhert."

The pirate was puzzled. It was unlike his kind to grasp any suggestion of fair play in a situation where one held all the power. "Wha—what do you mean?" he queried.

"We shall fight to the death with any pair of weapons you may care to choose. Look—you have centuries, even ages, from which to select your choice of weapons. Here are tools of combat of long dead races, some of whom mankind never knew. Weapons of three worlds and four satellites are before you. Choose. I have an appointment to keep with Strower, you know."

Something in the lone pirate's deadly confidence caused an uncomfortable chill to run up and down Denhert's back. It was talked among the space pirates that Lindquist was not right in the head. He believed he recognized a touch of this insanity now in Lindquist's offer to fight him on even terms with any weapon he chose from the well-equipped armory. His eyes darted among the myriad weapons. One thing he knew for certain. Lindquist was cleverly dangerous and the match for any space pirate who ever sped the shoreless seas of the cosmos.

LINDQUIST caught the sudden gleam in Denhert's eye but he misinterpreted it as a sign that the pirate had found weapons to which he felt himself peculiarly Suited. With a quick movement, Denhert bowled the lone pirate to the floor. The Cyclops yanked his gun from its holster too late. Denhert was out of range behind a heavy display case on hands and knees is Lindquist's quickly-jerked gun sprayed his previous position with savage, blue flashes. Denhert's hand came up rapidly over the edge of the display case and disappeared holding an ancient sub-machine gun. There came a sputtering of sharp "ports, and a barrage of lead slugs shot at the lighting system, plunging the armory into darkness. Several violet shafts of light streaked ineffectually from the pistol of the Cyclops.

"Back against wall, Cyclops' the crisp, hard tones of Lindquist cut the dark. “Find your way out ! Get Liate, Mre and Oruk and wait outside Denhert has chosen his method of combat. It suits me well enough!"

A pyrotechnic of blinding flashes and explosions lit up the vicinity of Lindquist's last remark.

"Not even close, Denhert. I suspected as much. You've found the explosion tossers of early twenty-first century vintage, I see. I know just about where you are, now."

Stabbing blue death spread fan-wise from the lone pirate's spitting atom pistols. A blue, crackling flame from an electric gun was Denhert's answer. Another intermittent series of blue flashes followed, and the scrambling, panting sounds which followed apprised Lindquist of the other's narrow escape. Something whizzed close above Lindquist's crouching body and smashed against the wall, setting an old muzzle-loading rifle to clanking. Reaching a groping hand, Lindquist felt of the battle ax Denhert had chanced upon and thrown at his last burst of firing. He smiled grimly. Stealing along past more cases, he retaliated to this medieval choice with several acid bombs fired in quick succession from a spring gun. He heard them smash and listened to the sizzling of their deadly, corroding contents. He heard a variety of obscene curses. Denhert had been lightly sprayed.

Again his pistols blazed blue death in the general direction of the voice. Behind him, something struck the wall. It was the clang of cutlery thrown with savage, hopeful intent. Lindquist thought of the static paralyzers nearby, but he did not want to temporarily disable the pirate. He wanted to kill him. For several minutes neither of then made a move, and then suddenly Denhert's agonized voice split the dark.

"Lindquist I crawled into that damnable acid! My body's on fire!"

"Roll in it!" was the terse reply as the lone pirate quickly abandoned his position. “You'll die sooner!"

"Help me out" the voice preyed on Lindquist's supposedly mad twist. "This is no way for me to die! I'll battle you with atom pistols!"

"All right," was Lindquist's laconic and emotionless reply. "Cyclops, send in a radium light.”

A subtle movement from Denhert's position did not escape Lindquist's sharp ears. He was prepared as the Cyclops brought in the light himself. A slickering movement far up to one end of the arms museum caught the tail of his eye. It was not where Denhert had called to him. With lightning rapidity, the lone pirate twisted his body into a knot close to the floor beneath a withering blast of destructive light, both atom pistols spitting silent, blue death at the visible Denhert in the midst of his last, treacherous act. Semi-gloom engulfed that end of the armory as the Cyclops instinctively ducked to the floor behind a display case of nineteenth century weapons,

"Raise the light above your head," Lindquist instructed him coolly.

The lone pirate peered over his pistols around the end of a case. Denhert lay slumped over the lens of a heat lamp which had burnt him to a crisp before more of Lindquist's shots had put the lamp out of commission. The lone pirate urged his one-eyed henchman closer. Together, they examined Denhert. His head and shoulders crumbled to ashes at their touch, and one of his arms fell to the floor. Denhert had fallen across the lamp dead. On lower parts of the pirate's body, they found black, charred discs which marked the fire of Lindquist's atom pistols. These discs marked the outlines of charred cylinders of flesh all the way through the pirate's dead body.

"I'll never give Strower the chance for treachery that Denhert had," vowed Lindquist. "That generosity coupled with my old habit of collecting weapons nearly finished me off."

IT was not long after this that from an island in the vast morass of the great Stoencean swampland of Venus a space ship arose and became lost in the gray and silver cloud blankets, bound for the rarefied heights and into space,

The trip was a long one to the seventh planet, and several earthly days were consumed in plumbing the dark, cosmic depths at ultra-meteoric speed before Saturn stood out against the fiery star dust of infinity, a red blot encircled by its graceful rings. Several smaller blots of light in various phases were also visible on their journeys around Saturn, and toward Dione, the fourth satellite, Lindquist headed the ship.

A touch on his arm turned his attention to the Cyclops. The giant troglodyte motioned significantly to the proximity detector plates. The lone pirate consulted the moving dots.

"Ships of the Interplanetary Guard. Here we've come all the way from Venus and passed Mars in opposition without meeting a soul. Not much surprised though, Cyclops. There's deviltry a foot among the space pirates and degmen."

The cruisers of the Interplanetary guard were the swiftest in the cosmos, and Lindquist had often wished that he had one of them. They were well to keep away from, and it was always a larger group of pirate ships which possessed the temerity to do battle. Lindquist was thankful for his ingenuity in having more powerful proximity detectors than either enemy pirates or ships of the guardsmen. This more than anything else was responsible for his present liberty and well-being.

Passing the danger zone of distant ships, they neared Dione which loomed vast and multi-colored. There was a strip of nearly total darkness feebly visible by reason of reflected light from other moons; the rest of the visible sphere was tinged a subtle shade of red from Saturn's illumination; circling the satellite, they moved above the daylight area of weak sunlight, part of that surface merging with the red light from Saturn. They passed high out of sight above Laroos, a city of the red swordsmen. It did not take Lindquist long to locate Grygin Deg, several hundred miles beyond.

The large, black castle loomed large under the powerful lens through which Lindquist examined it. Degmen were visible moving about the massive gates and walls, The deg, like all others of its kind, was a veritable feudal fortress, for the degmen often fought among themselves. Of late the space pirates had been trying to organize them. The cult was back of it all Lindquist saw no space ships, but he realized how easy it would be to conceal or camouflage them.

"We'll drop anchor a few miles away and hide the ship," he told the Cyclops. "I want to watch that place for Strower." They searched for and found an ideal position, a hollow among several hills where the tall, yellow grass and trees would help screen the ship. A hill nearby commanded a good telescopic view of the deg with the ruined tower. Descending many miles away, they clung low to the ground in speeding rapidly to their chosen position. Leaving the ship well hidden, Lindquist and his servitor crept to the brow of the hill. The lone pirate soon became absorbed in watching the castle several miles away, and the time passed quickly for him. He watched the brown figures on the walls and outside the deg. Many of them gathered, and their formation outside the deg spoke of a march. The troglodyte sat silently beside him as he watched with the lens strapped to his head.

A wild yell suddenly aroused them from behind. Lindquist jumped and turned excitedly, his hands leaping for his guns, Through the powerful lens of the glasses, he saw but a mixture of dull red moving against yellow. He heard the trampling of feet, excited yells, panting lungs and the snarling growl of the Cyclops. He also heard an ominous clicking as he tore frantically at the glasses with one hand, his other gripping an atom pistol.

MANY things occurred simultaneously. A warm, muscular body struck him forcibly; the lens and straps came away from his head; he felt his remaining gun yanked from its holster; while a struggling figure engaged him on the grass. He looked into a crimson face. Dark eyes stared keenly from a black band of color across the other's face. Instinctively, the lone pirate's free hand leaped to grip the struggling blade of the red swordsman who had borne him to the ground. The swordsman meanwhile held his gun arm to disadvantage. Lindquist hurled the red Swordsman from him with doubled knees. He leaped to his feet to find more than a score of red swordsmen rushing them. The one-eyed troglodyte held two of them on their backs while three more struggled to overcome him, another of them darting around the melee on nimble feet waiting for an opportunity to sink his poised blade. Like a tidal wave, they bore down on Lindquist. One of them already stood before him as he rose from the trampled, yellow grass, and he was quickly deprived of his remaining weapon as he paused a split-second to contemplate the Cyclops' helplessness. A lightning flick of the swordsman's supple sword-arm sent his atom pistol spinning out of sight. And then they were down on him like an avalanche, pinning him to the ground. A bony blade was quickly pressed against his throat, its tip jabbed menacingly beneath his chin.

“Hold, or you die, pirate ! We know you, Lindquist!”

"I have no quarrel with the red swordsmen," Lindquist replied in the language of the swordsmen as he was dragged forcibly to his feet.

"But the reward offered by the Interplanetary Guard is large," was the reply. "Yald and all the red swordsmen are honest, and we do no bargaining with degmen or pirates.”

The comparison of contempt was not lost upon Lindquist. The menacing blade still threatened his life. His eyes fell upon the struggling heap which was his faithful Cyclops and combatants. The lone pirate recognized the fact that the red swordsmen had passed up the opportunity of killing him, still struggling to subdue the animal strength of the huge troglodyte.

"It's no use, Cyclops," Lindquist called. "They've got us all right. They want us alive."

He hoped they had no knowledge of his space ship, but his hopes were short-lived when he saw several flying figures circling far above the location of the hidden craft. They were red swordsmen on skels, great birds from the Dionian forests which the red swordsmen had trained and saddled for air travel.

Lindquist and the Cyclops were held securely on each side by swordsmen. Sword tips swung and clicked suggestively about them. They were forced in the direction of a small village of the red swordsmen which Yald curtly informed Lindquist was a scant ten miles distant.

"If you go quietly, all is well," said Yald, "but if you resort to trickery, we shall not hesitate to run you through."

"Am I as valuable dead as alive?"

"You are."

"Then why did you not kill us in combat?”

"It heightens the glory of the red swordsmen to say that they caught the great Lindquist and his terrible, one-eyed lieutenant alive."

"Prestige, I see."

"And the red swordsmen respect brave men, too," added Yald generously.

LINQUIST bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment. His eyes sparkled, and he was about to speak when a voluble chatter among several of the swordsmen made him pause and look upward in the direction they gesticulated and waved their sword-arms aloft. A plunging, black space ship raced earthward on a long slant. It sped in the direction of the few swordsmen on circling skels who were now urging their aerial mounts to the ground. Riders and mounts were killed instantly and sent plunging downward. A slower-settling cloud of feathers followed leisurely. The remaining skels were swiftly guided down to safety.

"Another pirate!" one of the swordsmen spat and glared ominously at the two prisoners. "Lindquist's friends!”

"Lindquist has no friends," replied Yald quietly. "It is a ship of the earth pirates."

Other swordsmen grunted or nodded their agreement. Meanwhile, the space ship circled afar, nearly a speck on the distant horizon, returning swiftly and unerringly above the position the swordsmen had been circling on skels. Several flaring rays leaped one after another downward. A terrific roar shook the ground and wreckage leaped skyward in the swift wake of the passing space ship. A fierce crackling followed like an echo. Lindquist watched the remnants of his space ship settle back to the ground.

"Quick—out of sight!" Yald urged them. "They will blast us next!"

Expertly, the red swordsmen searched shelter under trees, in the grass, behind rocks, some of them becoming inert parts of the hillside. Many times the space ship circled the vicinity, yet it did not drop down or even come low. A few times

they hopefully believed that the ship had departed for good when it flew out of sight, but always an eagle-eyed swordsman saw it returning, usually from the direction of the nearby deg the lone pirate had been watching. He and the Cyclops were still under surveillance, but there was little need of it. A common foe rode on high.

Yald's attention focused upon the sharp, low-hissed exclamation of a swordsman who came sneaking on his hands and knees through the bushes.

"Degmen are coming over the hill. A large force of them. They are come to hunt us out. The ship rides above to direct them !"

"That is why the ship did not rake about with its fire," reasoned Yald thoughtfully. "The degmen and pirates are working together. The pirates want slaves to take back to the earth. We have a fighting chance. Wait until the degmen are among us; then rise and fight."

"Let us fight with you," urged Lindquist. "They are my enemies, too, even had they not destroyed my ship."

"We are honored," Yald flourished his blade in a magnificent gesture.

The degmen came closer. Their legs could be heard swishing the grass aside, their bony blades rattling the bushes. At tall, brown figure suddenly found himself face to face with a red swordsman who had leaped up before him so suddenly that his surprised defense had time to make but one startled parry before the red swordsman darted his blade to a vital spot. This was the signal the red swordsmen had been awaiting. Their battle cry rose clear and strong as they precipitated themselves among the half-surprised degmen who had been hunting them yet had found them sooner than they had expected.

"Uh-ra-ha! Uh-ra-ha!" All became instant pandemonium and clashing blades. Lindquist sprang up with Yald at his side. The latter engaged a degman who aimed a vicious blow at him. With lightning movements of superlative swordsmanship, Yald penetrated the other's guard, lunging his blade deep into the deg man's vitals. His rapier was scarcely stained with the brown swordsman's life blood when it was withdrawn swiftly to clash with another degman. The odd threatened to be overwhelming. There were dying shrieks above the cursing, clashing din of battle. Yald called to his swordsmen to converge and work toward the top of the hill.

Lindquist planted an iron fist into the face of a degman. Another he caught by the sword-arm, snapping the blade off and hurling the screeching degman into several more who were advancing to attack. A blade swung his way in a hissing arc. It was too late to dodge, and he raised his arm and ducked. The blade never struck him, for a sinewy red arm shot forward and upward in a quick lunge which parried the blow. The lone pirate's quick smile thanked an unknown swordsman.

THE milling red swordsmen closed in a group, backs to backs, partly surrounded by their brown foe. It was a vicious, desperate defense on the part of the red swordsmen. Above them all rose the head of the Cyclops who, armed with the body of a brown swordsman whose neck he had broken, flailed it brutally like a club at all the degmen who came within his reach. Lindquist's fingers itched for the touch of his customary weapons, and he voiced his regret that Yald had not kept them.

"Who thought such as this would come to pass!” rued Yald, indicating the carnage and trampled, dead bodies around them. "Besides, what of the enemy above? Would they tolerate your slaughter of the degmen?”

The lone pirate realized the wisdom of this, yet from time to time through force of habit his hands darted to the empty holsters.

They were gaining the hilltop. On all sides the degmen pressed their attack. Dead and wounded lay strewn behind the scene of battle. The pirate space ship lurked on high. Several red swordsmen had already been taken prisoners. Others lay dead. Seeing the superior forces of degmen, Lindquist realized that it would only be a question of time. The degmen seemed to have forgotten the value of slaves. They fought with the killing fury of old, and the red swordsmen retaliated in kind. Sword-arms leaped faster than the eye could follow, slashing, darting and biting. There were no more individual duels. It was group dueling, a wall of dancing blades, the degmen seeking to break and scatter their compact foe on the hilltop and employ the natural advantage of their numbers. Quarter was neither given nor asked. Brown and red alike overwhelmed a lone swordsman wherever they could. The red swordsmen possessed an intelligent advantage, and it was by dint of their terrific fencing and deadly skill that the brown legions from the degs did not quickly overcome them.

But the end was already a foregone conclusion of what the red swordsmen themselves must have known. They were divided and broken into lone, fighting groups. An amplified order from the space ship warned the degmen against the slaughter their fighting frenzy had worked them to, reminding them of the red slaves they had set out to capture.

Red swordsmen were engaged by degmen while others leaped upon them from behind and bore them down. It was soon over. Lindquist, as soon as he saw Yald taken, gave up the struggle he was waging against two brown swordsmen. The Cyclops was hardest to overcome, and seeing that the huge Venusian was in no danger of being run through, the lone pirate did not discourage his resistance. With glittering eyes, Lindquist watched six degmen finally overcome his brute strength at the cost of snapped swords and broken, twisted bones.

THEY were all lined up on the brow of the hill. The space ship descended and came to rest at the foot of the hill. Meanwhile, another band of degmen hurried into view, swelling the ranks of those who had fought victoriously. Several figures stepped out of the space ship and started up the hill. Lindquist's blood turned to ice as he recognized the peculiar, blue livery of Garn Ellend's men. His eyes narrowed to glowing coals, and his face set in strained, hard lines as he reached instinctively for the deadly weapons which were gone.

One of the approaching pirates, squat, thick-set and brutal of expression, was Strower, the man he had come to Dione to kill, and all his killer's instinct tingled at a high pitch. A degman and two space pirates walked with him. Strower saw Lindquist and the Cyclops. His astonishment yielded to unholy delight.

"Brong, you will live in luxury for this good fortune!" thundered Strower, slapping the startled degman's back. "Your brown devils have captured Lindquist, the lone space pirate, who's the greatest thorn in Garn Ellend's side in the whole solar system—and I'm not countin' out the guardsmen, either! He'll pay a fortune for this man!"

Strower strode up and leered triumphantly at Lindquist. "Denhert told me you were lookin' fer us. Wait'll I show him the prize I caught!"

"You'll wait the rest of your life, then, Strower. I killed Denhert."

All the deadly hate of the lone pirate for Strower lurked in those few, quiet words.

"What's that?" demanded Strower in mixed unbelief and astonishment. "What you givin’ us?"

"I killed Denhert," Lindquist replied, and Strower read the truth in the firm lines of his face. "I caught him on the way back to earth from Dione. I made him tell where you were. That's why I am here—to kill you."

"Why, you dirty Strower slapped a hairy paw across Lindquist's face with a resounding crack. The lone pirate never flinched, but the color drained from his face, and his eyes grew colder with deadly intent. Only the degmen who held him were aware of his physical reaction to the blow.

"If it weren't for Ellend, I'd roast and skewer you alive, but it's likely he'll think of somethin' as good—maybe better—and you can bet I'll be there!"

At this point, Strower's fury subsided to more controlled expression, and he seemed to be partly satisfied with the anticipation of Lindquist's eventual fate. He turned to the chief of Grygin Deg who stood alongside.

“Brong! Have all the prisoners taken back to the deg well guarded. We'll go back in the ship and watch out for any more bands of those red devils who may be in the neighborhood."

THE red swordsmen, with Lindquist and the Cyclops, were marched to Grygin Deg over a well-worn trail they struck into soon after leaving the hills. The massive portals swung open, and they were ushered into a broad courtyard. The black stones of the castle reared their combined bulk forbiddingly, and into this dark pile the prisoners were directed with jabs from the sword tips of their brown captors. Stone-flagged corridors were left behind, and they descended gloomy, stone stairways into levels below the castle. In the third level, Lindquist suddenly found himself with the Cyclops, Yald and another red swordsman. Many degmen surrounded them, but the rest of the captives had disappeared, probably led of in different directions on the higher levels. The lone pirate and his three companions were led down a poorly lit side passage which was too narrow for more than one to pass at a time. The degmen kept them separated until they reached a metal grating which swung inward to a broad cell. They were each administered a spiteful jab and told to get inside. The grating was then slammed shut and locked, and the small band of degmen left, the patter of their sandals on the stone floor and the brushing clatter of their blades becoming less noisy and finally dying away.

"Well, they took us," observed Yald regretfully.

"But you put up a great fight," commended Lindquist. "For the Cyclops and I, this means an exquisite and elaborate death at the hands of Garn Ellend."

"I am of relatively less importance, I fear," Yald admitted, "although I am a small chief among my people. For Ruod and I, it means slavery on the earth or victims for the Durina Rangue to experiment on."

"Is this slavery on the earth so tolerable that you would not risk death on the long chance of escape if such a chance were offered?" queried Lindquist.

"Show me the chance!" the red swords man demanded. "Death by fighting for freedom is preferred to slavery"

"I do not know that there will be chance—yet," the lone pirate admitted "but if there is one, I want to know ho" you and Ruod will stand."

"We'll take it, no matter how hopeless if you suggest it, Lindquist.”

"We shall wait and see what our chances are when they come to take us out," said Lindquist. "Watch me for a signal. If one of the pirates comes with the degmen, I may be able to get an atom pistol."

The dungeon was furnished with a bench and several musty pallets on which to lie. It was dark and gloomy, the faint illumination from a radium lamp in the opposite wall of the corridor making of them but fitful moving shadows. They were three levels beneath the ground. There was at least one more level below their own, for they had seen another stairway descending into the dark.

Periods of sleeping alternated with exchanges of morose conversation. At intervals, food and drink were thrust inside and left on the floor by a single degman who came but never opened the door. Lindquist estimated that two days must have passed. He wondered what plans Strower had made. He had expected the pirate to lose little time in taking him to Ellend. At any time, he expected to be removed from the dungeon along with the Cyclops and placed aboard a space ship bound for the outlawed world. It was during the third day that Lindquist, hearing the degman coming with their food, stole to one side of the grated doorway and watched from the shadows. Something he saw sent him immediately back to Yald after the degman moved away.

HE next time the degman brought their food, he was startled from his moody thoughts when a pair of huge hands reached through and laid hold of his neck and shoulder in a strong grip. A foot stamped and held his sword-arm in the act of shoving the food inward. His surprise was short-lived, for a long blade darted through the grating and into his vitals, followed by another sword thrust from a different angle. The rough, gray hands which gripped the dying degman were those of a troglodyte. Slender, brown hands groped through the grating, and, unmindful of the Splash of blood upon them from a withdrawn sword-arm, sought and found the bunch of keys the lone pirate had noticed the time before.

The troglodyte's grip relaxed, allowing the dead body to slump forward. Meanwhile, the hands of Lindquist were busy finding the right key from continual trial and error until the right one fitted and turned. The grating was then jerked open, and four prisoners walked cautiously into the narrow corridor over the brown swordsman. Yald stooped and wiped off his bloody blade on the degman's hair and then picked up the corpse and threw it in the dungeon, pulling the grating shut once more. They filed out into the broader passage.

"If we can only get to the upper levels unseen, we may be able to drop out of a window to the top of the wall, offered Lindquist.

"A long drop," muttered Ruod, They made their way cautiously up the stairways to the ground level and met no one. It was on the ground level that they almost ran on tiptoe into a group of degmen rounding a turn. In the semi-gloom, the surprised degman did not at once recognize their foe until Yald and Ruod had each run their blades into a brown figure. Lindquist and the Cyclops closed with two more who fought desperately to use their bony rapiers. The Cyclops had a fondness for breaking necks and added another victim to his diversion. Lindquist bent his opponent's sword-arm until he shrieked in maddened pain. The remaining degmen at once engaged the two red swordsmen and set up a furor to attract attention. The answering yells of degmen came from every direction.

"Come on! We can't stay here and fight!" exclaimed Lindquist, hurling the yelling degman into the faces of those who battled Yald and Ruod. "They'll all be down on us! Find the quickest way out!" They ran in the direction of the courtyard. Two brown swordsmen approached them on the run. The degmen had just issued from the daylight; the four fugitives were still in the semi-gloom of the corridor.

"In here a moment!" hissed Yald, taking hold of Lindquist's arm.

Ruod and the Cyclops darted into the doorway with them. Yald stood ready as the two degimen stepped past. With a rapid stroke of his supple sword-arm, the red swordsman sent the head of the nearer degman rolling down the corridor much to the dumb astonishment and stupefied horror of his companion, who next felt a foot or more of bony blade transfix him. So quickly did it all happen that both bodies fell together, the headless one across the other.

Yald urged them from their concealment, and they dashed into the courtyard. A concerted cry arose from degmen inside the walls. The lone pirate drew the attention of his companion to a small roof which flanked the high wall above the courtyard at one end of the castle.

"If we can make that roof, we may be able to hold them off and edge along the roof where we can climb down outside" Ruod stared hopelessly at the top of the wall so far above their heads. "But how to get up?" he protested.

Lindquist made no reply but gave a running leap and caught the edge of the wall with his fingers, hanging a moment before he flexed his muscles to yank himself across the wall. He turned.

"Hoist them up, Cyclops!"

THE big troglodyte ogled fearfully at the degmen running across the courtyard and boosted Yald up the wall where the lone pirate gripped his sword-arm and helped him up. The Cyclops lifted Ruod to where the red swordsman might catch hold with his one hand and left him hanging there as the degmen rushed him. The Cyclops grunted his pain and anger as his | fending arm met the biting tip of a sword-arm. Lindquist and Yald dragged Ruod up as a degman rushed forward and aimed a vicious cut at his hanging body. Too late, the rapier slashed a long scratch in the wall. A degman was now behind the one-eyed giant who was beset from both sides. Yald snapped a command to Ruod, who seized his legs as he lay down across the wall.

The Cyclops was aware of his peril from behind, but he was assailed from the front by two degmen and could give no attention to the one in the rear. The latter strode up behind the Venusian and measured his broad back for the death thrust as he drew back his sword-arm. It was Yald, leaning far out and held by his legs in the grip of Lindquist and Ruod, who parried the blow and dealt the degman a vicious cut across his forehead. Streaming blood, the degman fell, and the retreating Cyclops stumbled backward over his body and would have fallen but for the wall behind him. Quick as thought, he seized the dazed swordsman and used him to batter at the darting sword-arms which sought to reach him. More degmen had reinforced the original three. Others were pouring from the deg.

"Jump!" cried Lindquist, his hands darting excitedly to the empty holsters once more. "Hurry, Cyclops, or they'll have you downed!”

Hurling the mutilated degman into the faces and sword-arms of his fellows, the Cyclops turned and leaped up the wall. All three on the wall were quick to pull him up, but not too soon. A brown blade struck his leg and drank deeply.

"To the roof!" cried Yald, and they sped to the small roof which backed against a towering wall of the castle.

Degmen pushed one another upon the wall and followed. Ruod turned to fight. The wall was not broad enough for two abreast. He engaged with the foremost degman. Their blades flashed too quick for the eye to follow, leaping in and out, darting and clashing. With a swift series of feints and counter strokes, Ruod sent his sword-arm into the heart of the degman, who fell gasping out his life in the arms of a companion behind him. The dying warrior was tossed unceremoniously off the wall. Ruod backed toward the roof which his fellow fugitives had gained. His bare shoulder struck the foot of Yald who stood on the roof's edge above him.

The foremost degman was upon Ruod. Again he battled. Above him, Yald leaned out and severed the degman's throat with a fierce swing. Ruod seized the opportunity and turning leaped upon the roof beside Yald. Together, with ready blades, they prepared to hold off the degmen. Another brown swordsman took up the challenge. Ruod retired, waiting, at a terse word from Yald, who crouched on the roof's edge and engaged the degman. The latter held of cunningly enticing Yald to descend, but the red swordsman stayed where he was. The fugitives held the advantage, and only on degman at a time could approach the roof. Yald continued to counter the caution efforts of the degman when from the cast there issued into the milling ranks of the brown swordsmen more reinforcement One of them bawled orders and abusive execrations. Lindquist recognized Brong, the chief of Grygin Deg. He wondered where the space pirates were. These were all swordsmen who surrounded Brong.

“Ladders, you fools !” screeched Brong, waving his sword-arm menacingly. "Scale the roof and take them. Those red devils can slaughter you coming from the wall as you do!"

While the line of degmen on the wall waited, the one closest to the roof still engaging Yald in desultory swordplay, degmen hurried about the courtyard and into the castle, Brong shouting orders and cursing his followers for being present in such large ineffective numbers as to block each other's way. Ladders rattled against the wall, and clambering degmen raced up them. Those on the wall pressed their attack against Yald, two of them standing close and clinging together, both darting their blades at the red swordsman above them.

THE CYCLOPS, his white scar flushed with the heat of battle, seized the ladder nearest him and hurled it into the middle of the thronging degmen. A swordsman on the lower rungs fell back. Lindquist's fist smashed into the face of a mounting degman whose sword tip he fended, sending him toppling off the ladder. Ruod ran the length of the roof, quickly pushing over three ladders, one of which came back again immediately. Up the ladder rushed several degmen. One of them leaped safely to the roof just as Ruod returned. He engaged the red swordsman who knocked the ladder sideways with his foot where it fell to the ground, hearing with it several degmen. More light ladders were being erected. They were a requisite to the degmen in their raids on the cities.

A hoarse yell from several brown throats Swelled into a roar as a dark space ship raced into view above the deg. It was Strower's ship. It hovered over the scene of battle speculatively. Ruod battled the degman desperately in an effort to dispose of him and be back on the roof's edge defending it from further attack, but the latter proved a skilled swordsman and appeared to be cautiously stalling for time until more of his comrades had gained the roof. The space ship settled out of sight. The ladders were being erected too fast for Lindquist and the Cyclops to handle. There were too many of them, too many degmen. The towering Venusian, glaring balefully at the foe from his single eye, seized a ladder and used it to batter away others and mounting degmen until it was reduced to kindling which he threw disgustedly into the faces of the howling degmen below. The lone pirate felt the sting of a blade in his thigh when he leaped back too late. The Cyclops had been touched in several spots, but his wounds were superficial and served only to make of him a gory spectacle as he reveled in the heat of conflict.

Yald, in desperation, deserted his protection of the wall momentarily to transfix a burly degman who clambered to the roof off a nearby ladder. The red swordsman sent the ladder and several yelling degmen into the closely jammed courtyard. It was the opportunity those upon the wall had been awaiting. Three degmen were on the roof as Yald returned quickly from his brief diversion. The red swordsman faced them, bringing into play every bit of his superior skill. He fought fiercely, desperately, but saw himself forced backward, while behind the three degman others climbed upon the roof.

The Cyclops was already at grips with several, hurling two off the roof before the others bore him down. Had the degmen not been under strict orders to take him and Lindquist alive, the Cyclops would have bled his life out on the roof's edge. Superior numbers overwhelmed him. Another degman had joined the one Ruod battled, and the red swordsman, forced back against the castle wall, battled for his life. Yald, holding off three degmen who pushed him backward inch by inch, was laid open to a murderous thrust from behind, and a sword tip appeared almost magically from his chest. As his sword-arm shot upward in a thrust which slit the face of a degman from chin to ear, two sword-arms from in front transfixed him and were withdrawn.

Too late did Lindquist kick over another ladder near his corner of the roof and seize the degman behind the tottering Yald. With the body of the thrashing degman above his head, he paused at the roof's edge before hurling it down upon several who were placing a ladder. Into the court from outside the wall rushed several blue-clad figures, among them Strower. Weapons glittered. He saw the evil eyes of the pirate upon him. The degman's seething blade whistled past his ear, and he cast the brown swordsman upon the heads of those mounting the ladder.

More degmen poured upon the roof, and Lindquist saw Brong among them. There was no questioning the chieftain’s courage. He rushed Lindquist with his sword-arm raised threateningly. The lone pirate sprang and seized his legs, bringing him down grunting and cursing. They rolled together in combat dangerously near the roof's edge. Lindquist rolled over on top. No one was left to guard the roof, and the degmen poured upon it in full force. Someone came to Brong's aid and seized the lone pirate from behind. A pantomimic query seemed to have been raised behind Lindquist, for Brong looked past the lone pirate and shouted negation.

"No!" he roared angrily. "Kill him and you die for it ! Ellend pays a fortune for him alive!”

TERRIFIC roar shook the roof. Even the massive castle trembled to it. There followed a long, crackling hiss. Alarm and cries of agony rolled up from the courtyard below. Falling masonry mingled with the din of throats. The grip on Lindquist's shoulders relaxed. Brong, still staring past Lindquist, suddenly wore an expression of alarm. Something dark flashed through the sky. The lone pirate saw it from the tail of his eye and turned his head. A long, slim cruiser of the Interplanetary Guard streaked over the deg. Another hovered on high. Still a third crept closer from the horizon and grew swiftly in perspective. A blinding crackling light flashed a split second from the ship overhead, and a tower of the castle staggered, its shattered pinnaces crumbling majestically and raining down upon turrets and walls, sending its debris crashing and roaring into a corner of the courtyard. A second flash and roar demolished the gates and a section of the wall.

Lindquist felt the roof leap beneath him and then down it sagged, rolling its combatants helter-skelter into the wreckage destruction of life in the courtyard. Something struck Lindquist and dazed him. It was a hard fall. He pushed a brown body off him. Another degman, his sword-tip pushed through the dead body of a fellow swordsman and broken off against the flinty floor of the yard, muttered his pain and strove ineffectually to disentangle the remains of his shattered sword-arm from the corpse. A pair of brown legs and an arm projected from under the fallen roof close to Lindquist.

He sat up dazedly and looked upon death and further ruin about him. He saw degmen limping into the castle from the sight of the dread destroyers from on high. His full faculties leaped back to him as he saw a blue-clad figure sneak along the wall and disappear into a doorway of the deg. It was Strower. He was escaping further death from the skies. Two of the ships had settled out of sight, but the third one still circled above the deg. Lindquist became aware of a hand which touched his shoulder from behind. He turned and looked into the worried, blood-stained features of his faithful Cyclops. The lone pirate stood up, and the horrible face grinned at him in evident delight at his undamaged condition. Blood was caking on the troglodyte from several minor word thrusts, but he was still alive and vigorous. "Strower' exclaimed Lindquist, pointing to the doorway through which the pirate had vanished. "He went in there We'll get him if it is the last thing we do!" The Cyclops followed Lindquist, turning a thoughtful eye upon the space ship above. The lone pirate gripped the troglodyte's arm as he stopped before a crumpled body in the blue livery of Ellend's pirates.

"Wait!”

Quickly he knelt and fumbled in under the body of the pirate with the crushed skull. Lindquist breathed a long sigh of satisfaction as he brought forth an atom pistol and slid it into a waiting holster. Meanwhile, with a grunt of approbation, the Cyclops jerked on a pair of blue legs which disappeared beneath a pile of fallen masonry and brought out another dead pirate, quickly removing the side arm for his own use. Lindquist found another weapon; and after quickly testing them both in the doorway of the deg, he and the Cyclops set forth along the corridor Strower had taken. Lindquist stopped when he came to the stairways. One set led upward, the other downward. He turned significantly to the Cyclops, whose animal instincts he now consulted. The troglodyte sniffed questioningly both up the stairs and down. He snarled and jerked a horny thumb downward. Together, they descended.

THE Cyclops' sense of smell led them through another corridor and down more stairways. They found themselves on the fourth and last level. The Cyclops stopped suddenly near the turn in one of the damp, ill-lit corridors. He sniffed suspiciously, walked on a few paces and then returned, bending low to the floor. He pointed at something. On hands and knees, Lindquist stooped and found a faint line in the floor. It turned at right angles to form a square. His searching eyes caught sight of a knob of rock on the wall. He motioned the Cyclops back and pressed the knob. A square, dark cavity yawned in the floor. Silently, the lone pirate pointed into it and looked at the Cyclops. The troglodyte moved down the stone steps, Lindquist behind him. They were in a corridor, or tunnel, low and unfinished. The passage ended blankly in under the stone trap which Lindquist left open against the possibility of their return.

Far away, a light shone dimly. It was another of the radium bulbs. They followed the tunnel. It was long and a bit winding. They passed more lights. The tunnel they found silent and empty.

"Are you certain he came this way?" Lindquist demanded.

The Cyclops grunted and urged his master along. Both kept their hands near their atom pistols. Far ahead, they suddenly saw a checkered glow of green and dull gold. Voices reached them vaguely. They tiptoed closer and saw daylight shining through green and yellow foliage. It was an exit from the castle, a hidden exit through which Strower had fled from the threat of the Interplanetary Guard.

With both pistols leveled, Lindquist stepped to the edge of the concealing foliage, brushing away the leafy branches with the muzzles of his atom pistols.

Strower and two more pirates stood in a deep ravine beneath a group of trees less than a hundred feet away. Two degmen were with them, and all five were watching the banks of the ravine and listening. Strower held a gun in his hand. The other pirates were armed. Lindquist stepped clear of the tunnel and stood there for a moment contemplating them. So intent were they in gazing up the opposite bank of the ravine that they did not see him. His voice cut the leafy silence in deadly, measured accents.

"Strower—I've caught up with you at last. You're about to join Denhert."

Five startled faces turned his way. Strower's face went livid with chilled surprise and hatred. For a second or two he stood frozen into startled indecision. Then his face twisted into a snarl and every muscle of his body leaped into rapid action. His gun arm streaked into position and fired, but already death, blue and silent, spurted like twin rocket exhausts from the guns of the lone pirate. The guns of Strower's companions were half raised but never leveled, for all three pirates tottered and fell, firing wild, blue flashes of silent destruction. With cries of alarm and widely distended eyes, the degmen disappeared into the bushes like frightened rabbits. The ugly face of the Cyclops peered over Lindquist's head, a slightly cynical smile of amusement touching his wide mouth.

The lone pirate stepped leisurely to the fallen men, never taking his eyes off them. He turned them over with his foot, satisfying himself that they were really dead.

"That leaves the big one—Ellend," remarked Lindquist grimly. "Some day his turn will come if the powers who work in the dark will permit me."

The Cyclops motioned anxiously back toward the deg they had just left. Lindquist nodded understandingly.

"I know, Cyclops. More enemies. We'll just have to drift and hide until this business is over."

CAUTIOUSLY they climbed the bank of the ravine. Lindquist stepped out from the bushes which lined the edge and almost immediately returned, bumping the Cyclops. His face was one of astonishment, and a strange light crept into his eyes. They glittered, as they often did when his imagination conceived a new and daring plan. He motioned the Cyclops to look. What the huge troglodyte saw was a cruiser of the Interplanetary Guard stationed less than fifty yards away. From the direction of the deg, the sounds of excitement and conflict reached them faintly. In the distance, another of the cruisers was grounded. The third still circled above Greygin Deg. The Cyclops saw no one about the nearer cruiser which towered so close to them, but from a small doorway in the side, voices issued faintly. "We're going to take that ship!" Lindquist hissed, a wild gleam in his expressive eyes. "Come—run for it!"

The Cyclops lumbered swiftly after his lithe, running master who leaped quickly and quietly through the little doorway. He followed Lindquist into the control room and heard his crisp edict to several startled officers of the Interplanetary Guard.

"By all the fates' one of them managed to find his voice. "Lindquist!"

"Wha—what are you doing here?" "I'm here, and I'm in a hurry! Step fast! See that they leave properly, Cyclops!"

The officers stepped fast, the Cyclops behind them, removing their guns as they filed out the doorway in bewilderment and chagrin.

Lindquist radiated triumph, his eyes sparkling. He had always wanted a cruiser like this. Quickly he guided the ship into the sky. Down below, he saw guardsmen and red swordsmen mobbing the deg. Many of the latter were astride the skels, flying among the turrets and towers of the deg in search of degmen. The companions of Yald and Ruod who had escaped that day when the pirate ship had plunged among the skels had returned with ships of the Interplanetary Guard.

“We're leaving fast,” announced Lindquist. "One of those ships is likely to give chase when they get no signals from us, but what chance have they got with the start we'll have? They've never been able to catch me before in my own ship, and their cruisers are the swiftest in the solar system."

The speedy cruiser flashed through the heavens, until it was a fast-diminishing speck in space. A minute later it vanished altogether.

END