“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “You must be getting drunk with your Skygor friends.”
“They don’t have any kind of liquor, only some sort of sniff-powder I wouldn’t touch. And you’re a cheerful liar, Planter. You know all about those girls, and you’re probably good friends with them. Don’t be a fool, I’m offering you a slice of my empire!”
“Empire!” echoed Planter, honestly scornful. “You really think you’ll go through with this idea of grabbing Venus for yourself?”
“I know all the angles. Back on Earth I was boss of quite an organization.”
“And ended up in jail, buying your way out by gambling your life on this voyage!” Planter rushed those words into speech, but made them clear, biting and passionate. “You’re a case for brain doctors, not jail wardens. I don’t know why I listen to you.”
“I know why,” hurled back Disbro. “Because I’m already quite a pet among these Skygors. I can kill you or save you. Meanwhile, we’re changing the subject. I want you to lead me to these wild girls, and after we’re solid with them, a bunch of Skygors will come—”
“Nothing doing!”
“In other words, you now admit that there is such a group! And you’ll take orders, Planter. I’m still chief of the expedition.”
Planter shook his head. “I can give you arguments on that. You’ve betrayed the trust of the Foundation back home. That lets you out. You don’t have authority over me.”
He rose abruptly. “Send me back to the basement, Disbro.”
Disbro, too, jumped up. He held something in his hand. It was a gun, not a Skygor curiosity but a Terrestrial-made automatic.
“You don’t get off that easy, Planter. I need you badly. And you need your insides badly. Knuckle down, before I blow them out!”
Planter smiled, broadly and rather sunnily. Suddenly he lifted a toe. He kicked over the table against and upon Disbro. Down went the elegant, lean figure, and a bullet sang over Planter’s head as he dived in to grapple and fight.
Disbro, the lighter of the two, was wondrously agile. Almost before he struck the concrete floor, he was wriggling clear of the table. Planter’s weight threw him flat again, but he struck savage, choppy blows with the pistol he still held. Half-dazed, Planter could not get a tight grip, and Disbro got away and up. Planter, shaking the mist from his battered head, staggered after him, caught his weapon wrist and wrung the gun away. It clanged down at their feet.
“All right, Planter, if you want it that way,” muttered Disbro savagely, and took a long stride backward. He got time to fall on guard like the accomplished boxer he was.
Planter sprang after him. Disbro met him with a neat left jab, followed it with a hook that bobbed Planter’s head back, and easily slid away from a powerful but clumsy return. When Planter faced him again, he stood out of danger, smiling and lifting a little on his toes.
“How do you like it?” he laughed. “Didn’t know I was a fancy Dan, eh?”
Planter charged again. Disbro slipped right and left tries at his jaw, returned a smart peg to Planter’s belly, and then let the bigger man blunder past and fetch up against a wall. Planter was forced to lean there a nauseous moment, and Disbro hooked him hard under the ear. A moment later, Planter was crouching and backing away, sheltering his bruised head with crossed arms. He heard Disbro laugh again. “This is fun,” pronounced Disbro. “I’ve been taught by professionals, Planter. Good ones, not washouts like poor Max.”
Planter clinched at last, but Disbro’s wiry body spun loose. The two faced each other, and Planter felt some of his strength and wit come back.
He realized that he was being beaten. He must change tactics. He remembered what he could of fist-science, and abruptly crouched. Again he advanced, but not in a rush. Inch by inch he shuffled in, head sunk between his shoulders, hands lifted to strike or defend.
“You look like a turtle,” mocked Disbro, and tried with a left. It glanced off of Planter’s forehead, and Planter sidled to his left, away from Disbro’s more dangerous right. Bobbing and weaving lower still, he baffled more efforts to sting him. A moment later, Disbro was backing, and Planter had him in a corner, close in.
He struck, not for Disbro’s adroit head, but for his body. His left found the pit of the stomach, just within the apex of the shallow, inverted V where ribs slope down from breastbone. Disbro grunted in pain, and Planter put all his shoulders behind a short, heavy peg under the heart. Again to the belly, twice—thrice—he felt Disbro sag. A hook glanced from Planter’s jowl, but it was weak and shaky. Disbro managed to slip out of the corner, but Planter was now the stronger and surer. Across the room he followed his enemy, playing ever for the body—kidneys, abdomen, heart. Disbro was hanging on, his breath came in choking grunts. Planter struggled loose, and sank one clean, hard right uppercut.
Disbro spun off of his feet, fell across the overturned table, and lay moaning and gasping.
“Had enough?” Planter challenged.
Disbro was crawling on the floor, trying to grab the pistol. Planter sprang in, stamped on Disbro’s knuckles. Disbro had only the strength and breath for one scream, and collapsed.
Abruptly Skygors entered, Skygors with hard eyes and leveled weapons. “What,” demanded one, “is this?”
Disbro, helped to his shaky feet, pointed to Planter. “He—he—refused,” he managed to wheeze out.
Disbro nodded, and Planter felt a sudden rush of joy. They would drive him forth, as they used to drive forth unprofitable female slaves. And he would find the Nest again, and Mara.
He was being herded along a passage, upstairs. The Skygors who guarded him kept their weapons close against his ribs. “No escape,” they promised him balefully.
He wondered at that, but only a little. Now they had brought him out upon an open, railed bridge between two buildings. Below was water, above the
