A guard shouted in brief anger, his ray searing a burning streak of agony along Curt's side. Then the Falcon whirled, dropped to one knee on the metal flooring, and his gun sang a song of death that didn't cease. Rays lanced from the patrolling guards, and their cries were startled angry sounds. One went down from the Falcon's ray; another lined his gun with a deliberate slowness. A thrown spanner-wrench crushed in the side of his head, and Benton raced up the catwalk's steps. He waved two more wrenches at the Falcon. "Let's go, Varga," he shouted. The Falcon rayed the last two guards to death with a single sweeping shot that cut them down as though before a scythe. Then he was running toward the exit. "Stay here and organize the men," he yelled back. "Follow as quickly as possible, and mop up the smugglers still alive." * * * * * Then he had plunged through the door and was racing down the corridor. He gagged in sheer horror when he saw the bodies of the smugglers in the hall and adjacent rooms. They were sere and brown, withered mummies dressed in clothes sizes too large. Some still twitched feebly in their last throes. _Smothalene_ had dropped them with their first deep breaths of the virulent drug. He raced on, his feet pounding deafening echoes from the floor, his gun gripped tightly in his hand. He prayed silently as he ran. And then he was at the control cabin, skidding to a stop, his gun swivelling to menace the room. It was empty, except for the sere mummy of a man at the astrogation table. "Damn!" the Falcon swore, swerved about as a footstep sounded at the door. Then he was holding Jean in his arms, soothing the shaking of her slender shoulders. "Ringo escaped!" the girl cried. "He was making me broadcast a ransom demand to my father, when I got your message. I grabbed a mask, and ran. He must have suspected something, for he didn't chase me. I hid, and watched him running toward the escape hatch. He was wearing a bulger." She glanced at the mummified man at the table, shuddered, tears flooding her eyes. The Falcon shoved her aside, sprang to the control board. He flicked a switch, grinned tautly when a needle leaped to instant life. He sat in the seat, laid his gun aside. Flicking on the vizi-beam, he sent its scanner ray swirling about outside the dead ship. Almost instantly he found the tiny cruiser boring toward the outside of the clot of space debris. His hands darted to two levers on the board, drew them back. Tractor rays leaped into sudden life, spun in pursuit of the fleeing cruiser. Secondary rays fended off the rubbish that tended to be sucked into the tractor beams.