Chip Warren could restrain himself no longer. For fifteen minutes he had held his ever-fiery emotions in check. Now his lips spat venomous loathing. "Why, you--you rat!" he growled. "You filthy, contemptible cur! I'd as soon form a partnership with a Venusian marsh-snake! Oh! So _that's_ your game!" He cried aloud in swift alarm as Scarface, stung by his scathing refusal, reached for his Moeller. Like a striking serpent the squat man's hands darted to his holster, but Chip, too, was in motion, and even more swiftly. The young spaceman left his feet in a diving tackle; his shoulder smashed Phipps' knees bruisingly, his clawing hand locked around the pirate's straining wrist. They hit the floor with a crash, struggled there silently, writhing like octopi locked in deadly embrace. Phipps brought his knee up hard into Warren's groin, shaking Chip with a sudden, violent nausea. But still Chip clung desperately to the other man's wrist. The adrenalin of emotion pumping through his veins broomed away his weakness; he lashed out again and yet again for his antagonist's chin, putting every ounce of power behind his blows. But somehow Phipps' hand managed to to wriggle free. In that second, death menaced Chip with flaming certainty. An instant more and the world he knew would have dissolved forever in coruscant oblivion. But once more, with desperate savagery, his fist sought his antagonist ... and this time found its mark! A sledge of pain shattered Chip's knuckles. He heard a rasping grate of bone as the scarred one's jaw collapsed. A gust of withering heat scorched past his shoulder, and Phipps flew backward across the room. His head hit the angle of a metal cabinet. There came the sickening crunch of yielding bone. Phipps' body shuddered once--and lay still. Chip pulled himself to his feet, heart pounding with furious triumph. Then suddenly the light of battle died from his eyes, and a look of horror took its place as he realized what he had done. Never in this world would he convince Blacky Jordan that Phipps' own treachery had brought about his death. The pirate's retribution for this deed would be swift and violent. The fat was in the fire now. Somehow he must warn his friends. Chip spun, stared avidly at the controls about him, found the one he sought: a telaudio unit. There was not time to single out the key which would give him a private line to Dr. Blaine's quarters. He depressed the all-circuit plunger, cried desperately, "Dr. Blaine! Salvation! Can you hear me?" An answer came back instantly in Syd's voice. "We hear you, Chip. What's up?" "Find some way to defend yourselves! And hurry! I've just fought Scarface and killed him, and the heat's on!" "The--the _what_?" "The heat's on, I said! They'll be after us in no time. _There!_" An ominous, all-too-familiar whining sound came dimly to Chip's ears. "I hear him now. Jordan's coming back. Wait a minute!"