"Damn pretty, lover boy! Is that the way you take other men's women, too?" Damn him, Jon thought. Time's running out now. Running out. "Suit yourself on that! I think I trimmed you good!" And with that Jon kicked viciously against the ponderous mass of the tool cylinder, launched himself straight at B-Haaq! Two guns flared! The twin beams flashed straight into Jon's flying figure, then bounced harmlessly into Space! And then the two of them were drifting in the void, fighting silently and desperately for a death hold. The universe wheeled crazily as Jon fended off the other's gauntlets as they grabbed for his tank hoses, and then he struck with all the strength he could at the fragile face plate. And was parried. Then for a moment their helmets touched. "You're a real jerk, Majtech! Why do you think I didn't take any of those guns with me from the Flagship's arsenal? Hell, there wasn't one in there that worked!" B-Haaq made a desperate grab for the side-dog on Jon's helmet; caught it, began to twist! Jon clamped the suited arm, held it ... held it, twisted his body. Then fingered the suit pack into blazing life, melting a horrible, gaping hole in the Majtech's suit! For the merest fraction of a second he saw the terror stricken grimace of hatred and disbelief on B-Haaq's thin face, and then the interior of the helmet was a mass of exploding flesh and blood. He whirled. Blasted recklessly back to the Justifier, almost missed; back-blasted, slid. He grabbed Deanne about the waist of her suit, and then flicked on his space radio. "This is Kane calling Stine! Kane, calling Stine! Do you hear me, Stine?" His earphones crackled. "What the blue Jupiter is going on out there, Kane? Have you--" "Stine, you're a real dumbhead! A real Prokyman bat brain! You should have learned better who to trust by this time! The girl and I have done a job for you out here. You'll never get it fixed now, not in ten million years! Sure, a system dies; it gives its life, but so that people like you can't make other people think you're God and enslave others like it! You're through, Stine!" "Kane, you're going to die where you stand!" The earphones almost shook from their connections. And Jon pulled at Deanne, pulled her prone beside him on the smooth metal of the nearly-flat disc! "Shield your eyes!" Every gun in Stine's batteries blazed. Blazed, and smashed inward in a blinding, coruscating sea of blue-white flame that for a moment seemed to rival Procyon herself! For silent seconds, the great ship seemed to devour itself in the pent up energies suddenly unleashed in a single hell-spawned torrent of fire from its erupting bowels, then it was no longer matter but a great wraith of superhot gasses fast dissipating into the dark of Infinity. "Jon! Jon, darling--" "It's O.K., princess. It's O.K. now." "But you--" "I fixed his guns for him. He made me do it, remember? Oh, I fixed 'em good!"