g over. He twisted at the last second, jerking
his arms down to come up facing the other.

Then a new voice cut into the fracas, and there was the sound of
something landing against a skull with a hollow thud. Gordon got his
head up just in time to see a man in police uniform kick aside the first
hoodlum and lunge for the other. There was a confused flurry; then the
second went up into the air and came down in the newcomer's hands, to
land with a sickening jar and lie still. Behind, Sheila Corey lay
crumpled in a heap, clutching one wrist in the other hand and crying
silently.

Bruce Gordon came to his feet and started for her. She saw him coming,
cast a single glance at the knife that had been knocked from her hands,
then sprang aside and darted back through the parked trucks. In the
street, she could lose herself in the swarm of Nick's Croopsters; Gordon
turned back.

The iron-gray hair caught his eyes first. Then, as the solidly built
figure turned, he grunted. It was Captain Murdoch--now dressed in the
uniform of a regular beat cop, without even a corporal's stripes. And
the face was filled with lines of strain that hadn't been there before.

Murdoch threw the second gangster up into a truck after the first one
and slammed the door shut, locking it with the metal bar which had
apparently been his weapon. Then he grinned wryly, and came back toward
Gordon.

"You seem to have friends here," he commented. "A good thing I was
trying to catch up with you. Just missed you at the Precinct House, came
after you, and saw you turn in here. Then I heard the rumpus. A good
thing for me, too, maybe."

Gordon blinked, accepting the other's hand. "How so? And what happened?"
He indicated the bare sleeve.

"One's the result of the other," Murdoch told him. "They've got me sewed
up, and they're throwing the book at me. The old laws make me a citizen
while I wear the uniform--and a citizen can't quit the Force. That puts
me out of Earth's jurisdiction. I can't even cable for funds, and I
guess I'm too old to start squeezing money out of citizens. I was coming
to ask whether you had room in your diggings for a guest--and I'm hoping
now that my part here cinches it."

Murdoch had tried to treat it lightly, but Gordon saw the red creeping
up into the man's face. "Forget that part. There's room enough for two
in my place--and I guess Mother Corey won't mind. I'm damned glad you
were following me."

"So'm I, Gordon. What'll we