"No," said Chambers, "you're wrong there. Manning wouldn't do that. He'll come to get us." "I don't know why he should," snapped Craven. "Because he's that sort of man," declared Chambers. "What you going to do when he does get out here?" demanded Stutsman. "Fall on his neck and kiss him?" Chambers smiled, stroked his mustache. "Why, no," he said. "I imagine we'll fight. We'll give him everything we've got and he'll do the same. It wouldn't seem natural if we didn't." "You're damned right we will," growled Stutsman. "Because I'm running this show. You seem to keep forgetting that. We have power enough, when we get those accumulators filled, to wipe him out. And that is exactly what I'm going to do." "Fine," said Craven, mockingly, "just fine. There's just one thing you forget. Manning is the only man who can lead us back to the Solar System." "Hell," stormed Stutsman, "that doesn't make any difference. I'll find my way back there some way." "You're afraid of Manning," Chambers challenged. Stutsman's hand went down to the heat pistol's grip. His eyes glazed and his face twisted itself into utter hatred. "I don't know why I keep on letting you live. Craven is valuable to me. I can't kill him. But you aren't. You aren't worth a damn to anyone." * * * * * Chambers matched his stare. Stutsman's hand dropped from the pistol and he slouched to his feet, walked from the room. Afraid of Manning! He laughed, a hollow, gurgling laugh. Afraid of Manning! But he was. Within his brain hammered a single sentence. Words he had heard Manning speak as he watched over the television set at Manning's mocking invitation. Words that beat into his brain and seared his reason and made his soul shrivel and grow small. Manning talking to Scorio. Talking to him matter-of-factly, but grimly: "_I promise you that we'll take care of Stutsman!_" Manning had taken Scorio and his gangsters one by one and sent them to far corners of the Solar System. One out to the dreaded Vulcan Fleet, one to the Outpost, one to the Titan prison, and one to the hell-hole on Vesta, while Scorio had gone to a little mountain set in a Venus swamp. They hadn't a chance. They had been locked within a force shell and shunted through millions of miles of space. No trial, no hearing ... nothing. Just terrible, unrelenting judgment. "_I promise you that we'll take care of Stutsman!_" * * * * * "Craven's only a few billion miles ahead now," said Gregory Manning. "With our margin of speed, we should overhaul him in a few more hours. He is still short on power, but he's remedying that rapidly. He's getting nearer to that sun every minute. Running in toward it as he is, he tends to sweep up outpouring radiations. That helps him collect a whole lot more than he would under ordinary circumstances." Russ, sitting before the controls, pipe clenched in his teeth, watching the dials, nodded soberly.