CHAPTER XIII

My right index finger tightened on the trigger of a gun that wasn't in my hand. I'd left it lying beside the controls of the outside armament.

Skagarach's yellow mop showed behind Cuff. Like a tin soldier, mindless but destined to fight with or without weapons, I stepped toward Cuff. I saw that he had no gun either. But Skagarach held a big .45.

Nobody spoke. I knew by instinct that they realized now who their betrayer had been. They wanted to shred me up with their hands; they wouldn't use lead on Ray Rollins. I had taken two steps and was up to Bill Cuff and abruptly a rage overcame me that rivaled their vaunted primal ire. What the hell were they doing here? How dared these two things that ought to have been eons dead and turned to dust come into this room when I was telling my wife that I loved her? I saw my finish in Cuff's gray smoldering eyes and I would not stand for it. With a mad suddenness I hit Bill Cuff in the pit of the stomach while his hands dangled motionless. It should have folded him over like an axed sapling. He coughed once, and then he reached out and took me.

I had seen what he could do with those hands. But even as he lifted me free of the floor, I wrenched up a punch from my waist that caught him smack in the right eye. It was a lucky blow for it hurt him in the only vulnerable spot in all that magnificent frame. He yelled and clenched his grip tighter, but he dropped his head and shook it, squinting the injured eye. I rabbit-punched him at the base of the skull, just behind the ear. It wasn't a good rabbit-punch by any means, for I was in agony with the bite of those fingers of steel in my flesh, but it added to his pain and one of his hands left me for an instant.

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I was still dangling in midair. Now I hurled all my weight sideways, and he lost his grip and grabbed for me again. I fell to the floor and twisted between his legs, diving for the control board where my pistol lay.

Something crashed in my ear. I felt that my skull was flying apart, splintering off to the corners of the earth. I rolled like a shot hare and fought to keep my senses. I seemed to go down into red nothingness and struggle back up to the white light of the chamber, and discovered that Cuff was just turning around to me, and I had barely stopped rolling. I was against the curved wall.

Skagarach had shot at me and my head was ringing. I had lost my bearings for no more than a second.

I jumped to my feet and already the noise and pain was fading. My head must have been creased. I saw Nessa step in front of the yellow-haired beast and then almost by reflex I did what I'd have done years before on the football field. I collected my strength and hurled myself at Cuff's shins in a flying tackle.

He was a brawler, a magnificent piece of muscle, but his technique was to pick people up and tear them apart. At fighting this way, falling and being walloped himself, he wasn't so good. What I had to do was avoid being gripped by those bear-traps of his, and whittle him down. Maybe I could do it, if Skagarach would let me.

As I catapulted out of the way of a flailing paw, and gained my feet again, I saw Skagarach fling Nessa to the side, swearing in gutturals. I was standing by the control board and my heavy revolver lay within reach of my hand. I snatched it and the basic infuriated male animal was uppermost in me and I didn't even recognize what I held. It wasn't a gun, it was a heavy projectile. I threw it at Skagarach as he aimed his own weapon at me. My gun crashed into his face. He dropped as if he'd been shot.

Shot! My God! I'd thrown a loaded revolver away!

* * * * *

Bill Cuff was up and the room was too tiny for ducking purposes. I eluded one massive arm but the other enfolded me from behind and the giant hand clasped my shirt front. I aimed a kick for his groin, and saw the fist coming in time to duck and catch the blow slanting on the side of my face. I thought my cheek had been ripped off.

He still had me fast but I jammed down my heels and thrust my whole body backwards. The cloth went to hell, and I was free.

He bore down like a bulldozer. I was in a corner, unable to dive under his hands or between his legs, unable now to avoid those deadly fingers. I backed and there was a stool behind me. My groping hands discovered nothing to snatch and throw. Without reasoning I leaped up and landed on the stool, a short thing about twelve or fourteen inches high. Then the football period came back again, and I could almost see the field before me and the men pushing in to stop me from making that punt....

I swung my right foot back in a short arc and swept it forward and up, old science and old muscles responding to my need, and neatly and viciously I drop-kicked Bill Cuff under the chin.

His head jerked back and there was a report like a .22 rifle going off. He crumpled down into himself like a granite pile collapsing. I knew without looking close that he was good and dead.

I jumped off the stool, over his body. Skagarach had managed to get to his knees, holding his pistol limply and staring at me with blood trickling down his face. I leaped at him and he brought up the gun and shot wildly. Then I was on top of him and there was another shot and his foxlike face smoothed out and became loose, and his gray eyes rolled back till the yellow whites showed. I got slowly to my feet. It was all done.

Taking Nessa and holding her trembling body close to mine, I turned to the door and opened it. The three scientists were sitting in the next room, smoking and waiting for us. The soundproof door had kept our riot secret.

Howard gazed at us and smiled. "The love feast all finished?" he asked.

I nodded.