Questions darted back and forth. No word came from the control room
forward, and little of what transpired outside could be seen through
the thick glass ports. The pirate ship loomed over them like a
monstrous leech, its bolts sharply etched in black and white by the
sunlight from their stern. Beyond that was only the velvety
darkness--the absolute vacuity of space that carries no sound,
refracts no light. A battle was raging out there, but of that nothing
could be seen or heard in the salon. Only a dull, booming vibration
through the flyer's hull, made by the rockets in a useless effort to
shake off their captor.

* * * * *

Of all the passengers, none understood the situation as well as Quirl
Finner. In imagination he followed the desperate struggle that was
going on out there, for the men who were selling their lives were his
companions in arms, the ship's guard of the redoubtable I.F.P., the
Interplanetary Flying Police who carried the law of white men to the
outermost orbit of the solar system.

Quirl bristled, but he maintained his pose of indifference--of the
sightseeing passenger who depended blindly on the ship's crew for his
own safety. In appearance he might easily have been the pampered son
of some millionaire that he impersonated. His close-fitting silken
tunic of blue, with its bright yellow roll-collar, the turban of fine
yellow lace, the close-fitting trousers that showed his lithe yet
powerfully molded legs, the thin-soled low boots--all proclaimed him
the typical time-killing dandy of the times. His superb proportions
made him look smaller, lighter than he really was, and his lean
features, which under the I.F.P. skullcap would have looked hawk-like,
were sufficiently like the patrician fineness of the character part he
was playing. Young men of means in the year 2159 were by no means
without their good points. They indulged in athletic sports to
counteract the softening influence of idleness, and so Quirl Finner
had no misgivings about the success of his disguise.

Yet he could not refrain from listening intently for every sound that
penetrated the hull. His part was to be captured by the pirate, who
had been named "The Solar Scourge" by sensational newscasters, and to
learn all he could, and eventually to be ransomed by a "wealthy
father" with his priceless information. So he waited, chafing, while
men he knew, men who had faced the perils of space with him, met the