My swift-running thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the deck. At a corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our windows the figure of Miko appeared. A barrage-radiance hung around him like a shimmering mantle. His voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan, do you yield?" Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all reason of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike fist. "Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!" * * * * * I pushed him back. "Careful!" He was spluttering, and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Very well--but you will talk? Shall we argue about it?" I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?" Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was plucking at him. He turned violently. "I won't hurt him! Gregg Haljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?" He was shielding Moa. "No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to say?" I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabin with brigands guarding them. George Prince, bareheaded, but shrouded in his cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way and then retreated into the lounge archway. Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan." "No doubt," I jeered. "Alive. It is easy to kill you." * * * * * I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a trap, here in the chart-room. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was not so simple. He added persuasively: "We want you to help us navigate. Will you?" "No." "Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to yield. You are fools. We understand that Haljan has been handling the ship's mathematics. Him we need most." Carter roared: "Get back from there! This is no truce!" I shoved aside his levelled bullet-projector. "Wait a minute!" I called to Miko. "Navigate--where?" "Oh," he retorted, "that is our business, not yours. When you lay down your weapons and come out of there, I will give you the course." "Back to the earth?" I suggested. I could fancy him grinning behind the sheen of his barrage at my question. "The earth? Yes--shall we go there? Give me your orders, Gregg Haljan. Of course I will obey them." His sardonic words were interrupted. And I realized that all this parley was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive. He had made a gesture. Hahn, watching from the turret window, doubtless flashed a signal down to the hull-corridors. The magnetizer control under the chart-room was altered, our artificial gravity cut off. I felt the sudden lightness; I gripped the window casement and clung. Carter was startled into incautious movement. It flung him out into the center of the chart-room, his arms and legs grotesquely flailing. * * * * *