e sooner or later. Bradley I care nothing about ... but
Costigan handled me ... and the woman...." Diamond-hard eyes glared
balefully at the urge of thoughts to a clean and normal mind
unthinkable.

"To your posts," he ordered. "The robots will continue to function under
their automatic controls during the short time it will require to abate
this nuisance."

"_One moment!_" A strange voice roared from the speakers. "Consider
yourselves under arrest, by order of the Triplanetary Council! Surrender
and you shall receive impartial hearing; fight us and you shall never
come to trial. From what we have learned of Roger, we do not expect him
to surrender, but if any of you other men wish to avoid immediate death,
leave your vessel at once. We will come back for you later."

"Any of you wishing to leave this vessel have my full permission to do
so," Roger announced, disdaining any reply to the challenge of the
_Boise_. "Any such, however, will not be allowed inside the planetoid
area after the rest of us return from wiping out that patrol. We attack
in one minute."

"Would not one do better by stopping on?" Baxter, in the quarters of the
American, was in doubt as to the most profitable course to pursue. "I
should leave immediately if I thought that that ship could win; but I do
not fancy that it can, do you?"

"That ship? _One_ Triplanetary ship against _us_?" Penrose laughed
raucously. "Do as you please. I'd go in a minute if I thought that there
was any chance of us losing; but there isn't, so I'm staying. I know
which side _my_ bread's buttered on. Those cops are bluffing, that's
all. Not bluffing exactly, either, because they'll go through with it as
long as they last. Foolish, but it's a way they have--they'll die trying
every time, instead of running away, even when they know they're licked
before they start. They don't use good judgment."

"None of you are leaving? Very well, you each know what to do," came
Roger's emotionless voice. The stipulated minute having elapsed, he
advanced a lever and the outlaw cruiser slid quietly into the air.

Toward the poised _Boise_ Roger steered. Within range, he flung out a
weapon new-learned and supposedly irresistible to any ferrous thing or
creature, the red converter-field of the Nevians. For Roger's analytical
detectors had stood him in good stead during those frightful minutes in
the course of which the planetoid had borne the brunt of Nerado's
superhuman attack; in such