He made the ship do a quick turn, and Alan saw Brave and Rob and Bill suck in their bellies and grimace. Mac said, "They half-crippled me then, damn them, and this is the first time I've flown since I left home. Some of the others have managed to stay a little more in practice. But by God, I'm still the best hotshot pilot my people ever produced, and I'm going to prove it today." He glanced up at the viewplate. "I'm going to let you out, you three. I want Alan and Win; they're my people now, and in a fight they can be a terrific help, for they're almost impossible to kill. I'll land now, and you can go. I oughtn't to do it. But curse you, Injun, I like you." He shot the disk toward the earth from a height of seven miles. Brave said, "We won't get out." "Don't be silly. You'll die under the 'G' load when I really get going." "Then we'll die. I won't leave Alan with you, nor Win either. You will let us all out, or kill us." "You bloody village idiot. What good will it do you to die?" "I can't leave Alan. I saw him through Argentina and I'll see him through this hell you've put him into. Besides, someone's got to clean and bandage that ear, or he'll lose the whole thing. It's a bad wound." "Not to him it's not. He doesn't feel it. The rays eliminate all danger of infection, disease--he can't even catch a common cold. His ear will be okay." "Ear, schmear," said Rob Pope. "I stick by my friends too. Maybe all I can do is die like a squashed mouse, but I _can_ do that. We don't scuttle for cover, alien." "Likewise," said Bill Thihling laconically. "Beastly blasted blue-bottomed baboons of knotheaded numbskulls!" roared McEldownie. "Do you want me to kill you, then?" "I want you to let us all go; but if you won't, then Alan's better dead than living under your influence, like a marionette." "He won't die. I tell you! No matter what happens to you, he'll go on living. He'll be my man." "I don't think so," said Brave calmly. "I don't care what sort of all-powerful rays you put him under, or how you've caught the reins of his mind. If you kill me, Alan is sooner or later going to kill you. Live with that, McEldownie, or whatever your right name is. I don't for a minute believe that you can take as good a man as Alan and murder his best friend before his eyes and have him lick your boots. Kill me and you're done, Mac." "Damn you, Lo! You're wrong, and you know it." He snarled at the viewplate. "You absolutely won't get out of the disk if I land it?" "No." "Then die, you fool," said Mac, the words half-strangled in his throat; and he sent the ship rocketing through space like a meteor. * * * * *