The panel that was sliding in to seal the opening caught him halfway and held him in an agonizing grip. He cried out with pain and the fear of being cut in two. He could see into the round cockpit now, with the black-uniformed woman stopped in the act of sitting down at the controls, her startled face turned toward him. Then her expression became one of intense annoyance. Her hand moved toward the weapon holstered at her waist. In the same instant a warning bell rang and the sliding panel re-opened automatically. Wyatt lurched the rest of the way through, sick and dizzy but knowing that this was no time to indulge his symptoms. He was afraid to fire the gun he still held clutched in his hand, even as a gesture of intimidation. The cockpit was small and faced in metal. A ricocheting bullet could kill either or both of them, or damage the control panel so that the craft could not fly. So he threw the gun instead. It whizzed past her head close enough to touch her hair, and in the second she was busy ducking it he had crossed the tiny metal floor and grappled with her. She did not scream or claw his face or tear at his hair or do any of the things women customarily did. She fought, and she was strong as spring steel. He held her wrist so that she could not get at the weapon in her belt, and her free fist came up under his chin and made him see stars. Then her knee got him in the pit of the belly. All Wyatt's ideas of chivalry deserted him. He let go of her wrist and gambled that he could knock her out before she could get the weapon, whatever it was, out of its holster. He won, but by a shamefully tiny margin. She sagged down and he snatched the weapon himself and then retrieved his gun and stood panting, feeling very shaky at the knees. She shook her head, grunted, looked up at him with blazing eyes, and started up all ready to come back and kill him. He pointed her own weapon and his gun at her, using both hands. "Mine will kill," he said. "I don't know what yours will do, but you know." He motioned to the pilot's seat. "Get in there. We're flying to Washington." She gave him a wicked little smile with the sharp edge of her teeth and did as he told her. CHAPTER II There were places for four beside the pilot, spaced around the circular cockpit. Wyatt strapped himself into the seat nearest the girl. He imagined the take-off would be something special, and he was braced for it, but even the almost instantaneous transition from a state of sitting still on the ground to one of shooting straight up into the sky at a hell of a rate was hard to take. He jammed the gun into her back between the shoulders and said, "Not too high. We're not going to Alpha Centauri." "There are commercial air lanes," she said irritably, "and military air bases and radar installations, and ground-to-air missiles. Even in this ship I couldn't guarantee to elude every one of them."