the intercom and began
barking orders to his new crew.

* * * * *

Tom Corbett sat in one corner of a cargo compartment that had been
converted into sleeping quarters, watching the celebrating prisoners.
Someone had broken into the galley stores and mixed a concoction of
fruit, alcohol, and reactor priming fluid to make a foul-tasting rocket
juice. The men sat about in various stages of undress as they changed
from the white prison coveralls to the black uniforms of the merchant
spaceman, and drank heavily from a huge pot of the liquid.

One of the men, short and stumpy, but with shoulders like an ape, was
standing on a table boasting about his strength. He was stripped to the
waist and Tom could see the powerful arms and chest beneath the black
hair that covered his body. As he continued to brag, the prisoners
laughed and jeered, calling him Monkey. The man's face reddened and he
offered to fight anyone in the room. A short, thin man with a hawk nose
sitting next to Tom yelled, "Monkey," and then darted behind a bunk. The
man turned and looked angrily at Tom.

"You there!" the man on the table called, looking at Tom. "You call me
Monkey?"

Tom shook his head. Since the blast-off he had stayed away from the men
as much as he could, certain that sooner or later someone would
challenge him and discover he wasn't a prisoner. He hoped to remain
aboard the ship long enough to plant a signal for the Solar Guard to
follow. Tom felt almost certain they would be heading for Wallace and
Simms' hide-out. And so far, the men had been so excited over their new
freedom they hadn't bothered him. He had managed to sit quietly in the
corner of the storage compartment and watch them.

"I'm talking to _you_!" shouted the hairy man, looking straight at Tom.
"You called me Monkey and then lied about it! Maybe you're scared, eh?"

He slipped off the table and advanced toward Tom. The young cadet tried
to figure a way out of the threatening fight. He wasn't afraid of the
man, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself. And one of the
surest ways of letting Wallace and Simms know he was aboard ship was to
get into a fight. He couldn't risk discovery. He had to signal the Solar
Guard before he was caught. But how to get around the hairy, drunken
criminal now standing over him?

Tom looked up and saw that the man would not be put off. He would have
to fight. He took notice of the powerful arms and sh