in tight-fitting,
iron-gray mesh, he had the characteristic wiry body, thin legs and
arms of his kind. Spiky short-cropped hair grew like steel slivers
from the narrow dome of his long hatchet head, and the taut-stretched
skin of his face was burned a deep hard brown. He looked what he was:
a bold and unscrupulous leader of his men.

"The gun in your belt," he said, "--drop it. Right on the floor.
There--better. I like you not with a gun near your hand, Carse."

The Hawk regarded him frigidly.

"And now what?" he asked.

Lar Tantril continued smiling. His ray-gun did not move for an instant
from the line it held on the metal and fabric giant. He said at a
tangent, quite pleasantly:

"Think fast, Captain Carse--think fast! Isn't that one of Dr. Ku's new
suits?--a little space-ship all your own? Why not plan a sudden sweep
for that door in an attempt to crash through my men and get free up in
the air--eh?"

"Why not?" said the Hawk.

"It might be possible," Tantril continued, "with your luck. _Unless
something went wrong with your helmet gravity-plates._"

At this the Venusian's gun moved. Deliberately it came up and aimed at
the crown of the adventurer's helmet. Tantril squeezed the trigger.

_Spang!_

A pencil-thin streak of orange stabbed between Venusian and Earthling;
sparks hissed out where it struck the tip of the helmet; and for an
instant life and strength seemed to leave the grotesquely clad figure.
Carse slumped down under a quick crushing weight. Weight! It bent him
low, and it was only with a great effort that he was able to
straighten again. For the suit's full load of metal and fabric was
upon him now, its enormous boots binding him to the ground since their
weight was unrelieved by the partial lift of the helmet plates. An
inch-wide, black-rimmed hole in the mechanism above the helmet told
what had happened.

Lar Tantril chortled, and his men, most of them only half
comprehending what he had done, echoed him.

"But even yet you've got a chance," the Venusian went on. "There's
another set of plates in the boot-soles, for attraction. If you got a
chance to stand on your head outside, you'd be gone! So--"

* * * * *

This time he lowered the gun, and carefully, accurately, he sent two
spitting streams of orange through the soles of the great boots.

The danger Carse had feared had come to pass. His one weapon had been
destroyed. He was worse than helpless; he