Melak smiled. I could feel his body shift and tense beside me. "Sure," he said. "I double-crossed you. Why not? I planted a guy in the circus hammer gang and he crawled in the sewage lock and tried to get these punks. I'm glad now he bungled it. Kapper had guts." Beamish whispered, "You're a fool. You don't know what you're playing with. I've done research, and I do." "Too bad you wasted the time," said Melak. "Because you're through." He threw himself suddenly aside, lifting the table hard into Beamish. The curtains ripped away and he rolled in them, twisting like a snake. I yelled to Bucky and dropped flat. Beamish had drawn a gun under the table. The blast of it seared my face. The next second four heavy blasters spoke at once. Beamish's gun dropped on the floor. Then it was quiet again, and I could hear the woman screaming, outside in the beating rain. Melak got up. "Sure I double-crossed you," he said softly. "Why should I split with anybody? Nobody knows about it but us. Kapper couldn't send word from the swamps when he caught it, and he couldn't send word from here because he wasn't let. "That critter'll bring anything I ask for it. Why should I split with you?" Beamish didn't answer. I don't think Melak thought he would. The noise from outside was getting louder. Bucky groaned. "It's coming from the pitch, Jig. Trouble. We've got to...." The table was yanked from over us. We got up off our knees. Melak looked at us. He was shaking a little and his green eyes were mean. "I don't think," he said, "I really need you guys around, either." He jerked his head suddenly. "Cripes, I wish that dame would shut up!" It was getting on my nerves, too--that monotonous, sawing screech. Melak stepped aside. "Get 'em, boys. I don't want 'em dragging their outfit down on our necks." Four blaster barrels came up. My insides came up with them. I was way beyond anything, then--even panic. Gow burst in through the doorway. He was soaked to the skin, tattered, bleeding, and wild-eyed. He yelled, "Boss! Gertrude...." Then he saw the guns and stopped. It was very still in the place. Outside there was sound rising like a sullen tide against the walls. The woman's screaming became something not human, and then stopped, short. Gow said, almost absently, "Gertrude went nuts. We'd brought her cage up from the tank for the show and she--broke out. There wasn't nothin' we could do. She busted a lot of cages and then disappeared." Melak snarled something, I don't know what. The wall behind Gow jarred, buckled, and split open around the doorway. Bamboo fragments clattered on the floor. Somebody yelled, and a blaster went off. Gertrude stood in the splintered opening. She looked at us with cold, mad green eyes, towering huge and blue against the low roof, her hands swinging and her crest erect. She let go one wild, whistling screech and came straight toward the booth. Bucky Shannon touched my arm.