The muscles in Shane's arms and shoulders bulged. Belt-ends still tight in his hands, he spun about, dragging the Venusian with him, elbowing the others out of the way. Faster he turned, and faster ... faster, till he was whirling like some monstrous gyro-top, the body of the _Pervod_ swinging in a giant arc beyond him, clubbing the other raiders down. They scrambled back as fast as they'd come, the laughter, the mockery, dead within them. Shane let go one end of the belt. The _Pervod's_ body shot out like a stone from a sling, the head half torn from the torso. Dizzily, the Earthman lurched to the space ship and braced himself against it. Then, very deliberately, he slung the belt about his waist and snapped the clasp. The blue eyes flamed, no longer blank. Knots of muscle stood out at the hinges of his jaws. "Who _dares_ to try take the iron belt of the asteroids?" he shouted at the rabble ring that hemmed him in. No one moved. No one spoke. Shane swept them with cold, contemptuous eyes. "Scum!" he spat. "Scum of the spaceways! Carrion, one and all!" But he swayed as he said it, and his face showed white beneath the tan. "Scum ..." he repeated in a voice gone dead, and pitched forward, unconscious, to the ground. CHAPTER II The walls and floor and ceiling and door of Shane's windowless cell all had the cold green glitter of pure telonium. So did the handcuffs and leg-irons that shackled him. But the bare metal cot hinged to one wall was of steel. Telonium rated harder than steel, seventeen point seven times harder. Its tensile strength figured nine times greater. Even so, it took Shane most of the night to tear loose one of the cot's cross-straps, using the locking lug of the leg-irons as combination pry-bar and cutter. The cross-strap measured about two inches wide by two feet long. It had the weight and striking edge to cave in the skull of a Uranian _dau_. Shane laid it down beside him on the cot, and waited for someone to open the cell door. After awhile faint whispering sounds of motion drifted in; then a clicking noise. Shane turned so that shadow half hid his face. He twisted his body in a semblance of restless sleep, and closed his eyes to lash-shuttered slits. His fingers caressed the cross-strap mace. The door opened. The doorway framed a burly, tentacled Thorian guard. Then the guard stepped aside and a woman came past him, into Shane's cell, carrying a small, cloth-draped tray. Young and straight and slim, she moved with a _tara's_ grace. Her high, firm breasts were bared in the _Malya_ fashion, and the dark loveliness of her face was _Malya_ also. Glistening blue-black hair hung clear to her waist in softly rippling waves. Closing the vault-like door behind her, she crossed the cell to Shane's side: paused there for a moment, looking down at him. Shane lay very still.