The girl with the musical instrument, cutoff in midflight, bowed stiffly forward and fell heavily to the floor at his feet. Her accompanist swayed sideways and toppled like a wooden doll from his low seat. A cold chill bit into Thorne, numbing him from neck to heels, but leaving his brain only too clear. Sodden thuds behind him as members of the Chanler party fell to the floor only confirmed his dread. If it were not the Avitt paralysis, it was a starker ray he had never known. A more dreadful fear which had been nagging at his subconscious for days bit deep and, as he turned his head with painful slowness, came to horror-stricken realization. "Be silent, Captain Thorne," came a cold hard voice. "No sound, or you die." It was the voice of Iris Chanler. III For a long minute he studied her, over the barrel of the small Blandarc she had whipped up from the cushions of her lounge seat. And at last he saw what it was that had been troubling him so long. Her hair was dark and her color and figure warm and sultry, but the hard grey eyes were flinty pale and glinting. Killer's eyes.... "So you _were_ a pirate, after all," he breathed, slowly. Her icy laugh crawled over his twitching skin. "Did you think I had my wealth from my father's dribbling salary? He left me a better legacy, Captain Thorne." "The family business, apparently," he returned, his dry lip twisting. For much was only too painfully clear. Her eyes narrowed, but she did not move. "In a way. But I branch out." "What's the deal?" he asked roughly. He had recovered full use of his faculties moments after the first paralyzing shock, but to her he seemed as immobile as all who lay sprawled unconscious about the saloon. If she had prepared for his partial resistance to the effects of the ray, due to the unusual condition of his t'ang-soaked nerves, she had fatally underestimated his powers of recovery. But he remained motionless. At the moment, helpless under her Blandarc, he could see the pirate vessel swinging along-side. "Your friends?" he added, glancing through the door at the growing bulk of the raider. She smiled. "My partners, rather." "How do you work it, Senator?" "As my father did, Captain Thorne. Years ago the outlaws banded together and made up an annual purse for the member of the appropriation committee who controlled the funds of the Planet Patrol. To obstruct and cut down the bill was his only duty. My father took it over from Senator Denton and I managed to take over from him after his death." It was so simple. And had been so effective, hamstringing the Planet Patrol in its own bases. "And now, open piracy. You destroy yourself, Senator. What does it get you?" He watched her, brows knit. She shrugged. "You, Captain Thorne. Just you."