Nolan might have showed a flicker of emotion in his face. Heaven knows, the blast of iron hatred that surged up through his body was powerful enough. But Woller was lighting a cigarette. The second that it took him to finish it and look up was time enough for Nolan to freeze. "Vincennes is my name," the captain was saying. "What's yours?" "Matthews. I'm sorry to have forced my way onto your ship, but I had to get to Mars." Woller looked up then, and a sudden trace of consternation flashed into his eyes. It died away, but a doubt remained. He stared intently at Nolan, then said: "Why?" Nolan smiled easily. "A lot of reasons--all of them personal. Who are you?" Woller stood up. "I own this ship," he said coldly. "I didn't ask you aboard. Now that you're here, you'll answer my question or get off." The time for a showdown had arrived. _Well_, Nolan thought, _it had to come some time._ He was strangely relaxed. He shrugged. "You've got a point there," he admitted. "Well--" He frowned and raised his hand as though to scratch his head, changed the motion in mid-air. And with the speed of a hopped-up _narcophene_ smoker, the thin-snouted pyro was in his fist, slowly traversing a lethal arc that covered both men. His voice was taut as he spoke. "It's your ship, Woller, but I'm taking it over. Woller--Alan Woller--look at me. _Do you know who I am?_" Woller stared deep into the icy eyes confronting him. The doubt flared again in his own. His jaw dropped slack. His brows lifted and he whispered, "Nolan!" Nolan didn't bother to nod. He said grimly, "Your hands--hold them where they are. You, too, Vincennes. I've come a long way for this and I don't mind killing. You taught me that, Woller. A man's life is nothing. Mine was nothing to you, when it endangered the dirty little treacheries you were working." The life seemed to have gone out of Woller and left only a hulking, pallid carcass, propped up by the internal pressure of its own fear. There was murky horror crawling in his eyes. * * * * * Steve Nolan looked at him and his thin lips curled into a snarling grin. But those were only his lips. Strangely, there was no triumph in his heart, none of the fierce pleasure he'd dreamed of all those dreary years. There was only dull disgust, and the hint of a long-dead hope for rest again. Rest, and the common things of life on the Earth which was forbidden to him. Woller could die before him now, and he would be avenged. But Woller alive could say the words that would wipe out the banishment, would return him to the green star that was home. Woller could be made to confess-- "I ought to blast you now," he said in a soft, chill tone that was like a whip to Woller, jerking him upright. "I ought to, and I will if I must. But you can live if you want to." Woller was licking his lips, his face a mask, only his panic-stricken eyes alive.