on fly-paper or
bird-lime. But in addition there was no gravity here, and no sense of
balance, and there was the feeling of perpetual fall.

There could be no science nor any skill in an encounter under such
conditions. Baird partly ran and partly staggered and partly skated to
where Taine faced him, snarling. He threw himself at the other man--and
then the sun vanished behind the bronze ship's hull, and only stars moved
visibly in all the universe.

* * * * *

But the sound of his impact was loud in Baird's ears inside the suit.
There was a slightly different sound when his armor struck Taine's, and
when it struck the heavier metal of the two ships. He fought. But the
suits were intended to be defense against greater stresses than human
blows could offer. In the darkness, it was like two blindfolded men
fighting each other while encased in pillows.

Then the sun returned, floating sedately above the valley, and Baird
could see his enemy. He saw, too, that the Plumie air lock was now open
and that a small, erect, and somehow jaunty figure in golden space armor
stood in the opening and watched gravely as the two men fought.

Taine cursed, panting with hysterical hate. He flung himself at Baird,
and Baird toppled because he'd put one foot past the welded boundary
between the _Niccola's_ cobalt steel and the Plumie ship's bronze. One
foot held to nothing. And that was a ghastly sensation, because if Taine
only rugged his other foot free and heaved--why--then Baird would go
floating away from the rotating, now-twinned ships, floating farther and
farther away forever.

But darkness fell, and he scrambled back to the _Niccola's_ hull as a
disorderly parade of stars went by above him. He pantingly waited fresh
attack. He felt something--and it was the object Taine had meant to offer
as a return present to the Plumies. It was unquestionably explosive,
either booby-trapped or timed to explode inside the Plumie ship. Now it
rocked gently, gripped by the magnetism of the steel.

The sun appeared again, and Taine was yards away, crawling and fumbling
for Baird. Then he saw him, and rose and rushed, and the clankings of his
shoe-soles were loud. Baird flung himself at Taine in a savage tackle.

He struck Taine's legs a glancing blow, and the cobalt steel held his
armor fast, but Taine careened and bounced against the round bronze wall
of the Plumie, and bounced again. Then he screamed, because