rage and frustration,
catching the old man's calves with his powerful shoulders. The captain
toppled, and Sabo was fighting for the power gun, straining with all his
might to twist the gun from the thin hand, and he heard his voice
shouting, "Run! _Go, Brownie, make it go!_"

The lock was open, and he saw Brownie's sled nose out into the
blackness. The captain choked, his face purple. "Get him! Don't let him
get away!"

The lock clanged, and the screens showed the tiny fragile sled jet out
from the side of the Station, the small huddled figure clinging to it,
heading straight for the open port of the gray ship. "Stop him! The
guns, you fools, the guns!"

The alarm still clanged, and the control room was a flurry of activity.
Three men snapped down behind the tracer-guns, firing without aiming, in
a frenzied attempt to catch the fleeing sled. The sled began
zig-zagging, twisting wildly as the shells popped on either side of it.
The captain twisted away from Sabo's grip with a roar, and threw one of
the crewmen to the deck, wrenching the gun controls from his hands. "Get
the big ones on the ship! Blast it! If it gets away you'll all pay."

Suddenly the sled popped into the ship's port, and the hatch slowly
closed behind it. Raving, the captain turned the gun on the sleek,
polished hull plates, pressed the firing levels on the war-head servos.
Three of them shot out from the Satellite, like deadly bugs, careening
through the intervening space, until one of them struck the side of the
gray ship, and exploded in purple fury against the impervious hull. And
the others nosed into the flame, and passed on through, striking
nothing.

Like the blinking of a light, the alien ship had throbbed, and jerked,
and was gone.

With a roar the captain brought his fist down on the hard plastic and
metal of the control panel, kicked at the sheet of knobs and levers with
a heavy foot, his face purple with rage. His whole body shook as he
turned on Sabo, his eyes wild. "You let him get away! It was your fault,
yours! But _you_ won't get away! I've got you, and you'll pay, do you
hear that?" He pulled himself up until his face was bare inches from
Sabo's, his teeth bared in a frenzy of hatred. "Now we'll see who'll
laugh, my friend. You'll laugh in the death chamber, if you can still
laugh by then!" He turned to the men around him. "Take him," he snarled.
"Lock him in his quarters, and guard him well. And while you're doing
it, take a