d been drawn long before the men leaped from cover.
Every pistol came up at the same instant, every index finger squeezed a
trigger.

Only Thulon stood between them and a fighting chance for life. They came
of warrior races, these men. No bugles urged them on. They needed no
bugles.

A howling vortex of radiation smashed at the figure in the lock.

One vibration pistol would destroy a man, smash him to bloody bits. More
than a dozen pistols were centered on the figure standing before them.

Thulon stood unharmed.

Staff in front of him he stood facing the fingers of hell reaching for
him. The flaming fingers grasped, and did not touch him.

The shooting stopped as abruptly as it began. The charge stopped.
Hargraves saw Nielson staring dazedly from the figure in the lock to the
pistol in his hand as if the two were irreconcilable. The pistol ought
to have destroyed Thulon. It hadn't destroyed him. For a mad moment,
Hargraves felt sorry for the new captain. He, too, had run headlong into
a logical impossibility.

All sounds were suddenly stilled, all shouting stopped, all noises died
away.

Around the bow of the ship Hal Sarkoff came running. He saw the group
and looked bewildered. "Hey! How did you guys get here?"

"Blast him!" Nielson said, centering his pistol on this new target.

From the staff in Thulon's hand came a soft tinkle, a bell-like sound.
Nothing seemed to happen but Nielson staggered as if he had been hit a
sharp blow. The pistol flew out of his hand and landed twenty feet away.

* * * * *

"Listen, you apes," Sarkoff shouted at the top of his voice. "I'm Hal
Sarkoff. I've always been Hal Sarkoff. I'll never be anybody else but
Hal Sarkoff. Do you get it?"

They didn't get it.

"If you--" Nielson whispered. "If you are really Sarkoff, then
who--what--is he?" He pointed toward Thulon still standing in the lock.

"Him?" The grin on the craggy face belonged to Hal Sarkoff and to no one
else. "Meet a god," he said.

"A god?" That was Usher speaking now, his voice a tense whisper.

Sarkoff continued grinning. "Well, he resurrected me when I was deader
than hell. I guess that makes him a god."

"You--you know you were dead?"

"Yep. At least I guess I know it. The last thing I remember is trying to
get back to the control panel when we got that hole knocked in the ship,
so I could cut the drivers back in. After that everything gets kind of
hazy. The next thin