er.

There were only two other people in the Golden Satellite: the fat,
mustached bartender and a short, square-built man at the bar. The latter
swung around at the pistol-like report of her slap, and she saw that,
though no more than four and a half feet tall, he was as heavily muscled
as a lion.

His face was clean and open, with close-cropped blond hair and honest
blue eyes. She ran to him.

"Help me!" she cried. "Please help me!"

He began to back away from her.

"I can't," he muttered in a deep voice. "I can't help you. I can't do
anything."

* * * * *

The dark man was at her heels. In desperation, she dodged around the
short man and took refuge behind him. Her protector was obviously
unwilling, but the dark man, faced with his massiveness, took no
chances. He stopped and shouted:

"Kregg!"

The other man at the table arose, ponderously, and lumbered toward them.
He was immense, at least six and a half feet tall, with a brutal, vacant
face.

Evading her attempts to stay behind him, the squat man began to move
down the bar away from the approaching Kregg. The dark man moved in on
Trella again as Kregg overtook his quarry and swung a huge fist like a
sledgehammer.

Exactly what happened, Trella wasn't sure. She had the impression that
Kregg's fist connected squarely with the short man's chin _before_ he
dodged to one side in a movement so fast it was a blur. But that
couldn't have been, because the short man wasn't moved by that blow that
would have felled a steer, and Kregg roared in pain, grabbing his
injured fist.

"The bar!" yelled Kregg. "I hit the damn bar!"

At this juncture, the bartender took a hand. Leaning far over the bar,
he swung a full bottle in a complete arc. It smashed on Kregg's head,
splashing the floor with liquor, and Kregg sank stunned to his knees.
The dark man, who had grabbed Trella's arm, released her and ran for the
door.

Moving agilely around the end of the bar, the bartender stood over
Kregg, holding the jagged-edged bottleneck in his hand menacingly.

"Get out!" rumbled the bartender. "I'll have no coppers raiding my place
for the likes of you!"

Kregg stumbled to his feet and staggered out. Trella ran to the
unconscious Motwick's side.

"That means you, too, lady," said the bartender beside her. "You and
your boy friend get out of here. You oughtn't to have come here in the
first place."

"May I help you, Miss?" as