hut, the ship lifted
and drifted upwards silently towards its orbit, a shrinking darkness
against the stars.

There was just enough starlight to see the sandy wastes around them,
as wave-filled as a petrified sea. The dark shape of a sand car drew
up over a dune and hummed to a stop. When the door opened Ihjel
stepped towards it and everything happened at once.

Ihjel broke into a blue nimbus of crackling flame, his skin
blackening, charred. He was dead in an instant. A second pillar of
flame bloomed next to the car, and a choking scream was cut off at
the moment it began. Ihjel died silently.

Brion was diving even as the electrical discharges still crackled in
the air. The boxes and packs dropped from him and he slammed against
Lea, knocking her to the ground. He hoped she had the sense to stay
there and be quiet. This was his only conscious thought, the rest
was reflex. He was rolling over and over as fast as he could.

The spitting electrical flames flared again, playing over the
bundles of luggage he had dropped. This time Brion was expecting it,
pressed flat on the ground a short distance away. He was facing the
darkness away from the sand car and saw the brief, blue glow of the
ion-rifle discharge. His own gun was in his hand. When Ihjel had
given him the missile weapon he had asked no questions, but had just
strapped it on. There had been no thought that he would need it this
quickly. Holding it firmly before him in both hands, he let his
body aim at the spot where the glow had been. A whiplash of
explosive slugs ripped the night air. They found their target and
something thrashed voicelessly and died.

In the brief instant after he fired, a jarring weight landed on his
back and a line of fire circled his throat. Normally he fought with
a calm mind, with no thoughts other than of the contest. But Ihjel,
a friend, a man of Anvhar, had died a few seconds before, and Brion
found himself welcoming this physical violence and pain.

There are many foolish and dangerous things that can be done, such
as smoking next to high-octane fuel and putting fingers into
electrical sockets. Just as dangerous, and equally deadly, is
physically attacking a Winner of the Twenties.

Two men hit Brion together, though this made very little difference.
The first died suddenly as hands like steel claws found his neck and
in a single spasmodic contraction did such damage to the large blood
vessels there that they burst and tiny h