urning towards Gefty, mouth twisting.

He said softly, "It is not our practice, Rammer, to share the secrets of
the Great Current with other races. I hadn't foreseen that you might
become a dangerous nuisance. But now--"

His right hand began to lift, half closed about some small golden
instrument. Gefty's left arm moved back and quickly forwards.

The service knife slid out of its sheath and up from his palm as an
arrow of smoky blackness burst from the thing in Maulbow's hand. The
blackness came racing with a thin, snarling noise across the floor
towards Gefty's feet. The knife flashed above it, turning, and stood
hilt-deep in Maulbow's chest.

* * * * *

Gefty returned a few minutes later from the forward cabin which served
as the _Queen's_ sick bay, and said to Kerim, "He's still alive, though
I don't know why. He may even recover. He's full of anesthetic, and that
should keep him quiet till we're back in normspace. Then I'll see what
we can do for him."

Kerim had lost some of her white, shocked look while he was gone. "You
knew he would try to kill you?" she asked shakily.

"Suspected he had it in mind--he gave in too quick. But I thought I'd
have a chance to take any gadget he was hiding away from him first. I
was wrong about that. Now we'd better move fast ..."

He switched the emergency check panel back on, glanced over the familiar
patterns of lights and numbers. A few minor damage spots were indicated,
but the ship was still fully operational. One minor damage spot which
did not appear on the panel was now to be found in the instrument room
itself, in the corner on which the door of the map room opened. The
door, the adjoining bulkheads and section of flooring were scarred,
blackened, and as assortedly malodorous as burned things tend to become.
That was where Gefty had stood when Maulbow entered the room, and if he
had remained there an instant after letting go of the knife, he would
have been in very much worse condition than the essentially fireproof
furnishings.

Both Maulbow's weapons--the white rod lying innocently on the wall table
and the round, golden device which had dropped from his hand spitting
darts of smoking blackness--had blasted unnervingly away into that area
for almost thirty seconds after Maulbow was down and twisting about on
the floor. Then he went limp and the firing instantly stopped.
Apparently, Maulbow's control of them had ended as he lost