his men were kicking at the helpless man's body wherever they could reach him.
At the sight of this brutality the other prisoners, forgetting for the moment their own cowed condition, set up such a bedlam of noise that the guard began to look furtively up the passage, and to shout at the ruffians.
Suddenly he was whirled aside, and a figure in uniform, moving with uncanny speed for a man so massive, appeared upon the platform and bounded down the ladder. He was among the struggling men on the floor in a moment, and became a maze of flailing arms and legs. Like ten-pins the pirates scattered, and the giant pulled off the mate. Gore could not see, but as he writhed he knew he was in the grip of the pirate captain. Captain Strom's harsh, ascetic face was dangerous, and his steely gray eyes compelling. The men managed slovenly salutes.
'Gore,' Strom snapped, 'have your men get some water and mop up this blood. How many times have I told you to quit mauling the prisoners? D'ye think I'm in this business to provide amusement for you? Henceforth keep out of this hold. Hear?'
'Yes, sir,' Gore muttered sullenly.
'Took five of you bums to handle him, did it?' Strom remarked sardonically, stooping to pick up the unconscious Quirl. He carried him easily, up the ladder. As they disappeared Strom's voice boomed out:
'Dr. Stoddard! Stoddard! Messenger, have Stoddard report at my cabin.'
The mate was wiping the blood off his face with a rag.
'I tried to call yer,' the guard whined.
'That tears it!' Gore exclaimed fiercely, bursting into a string of abuse. But one of his henchmen nudged him.
'Keep yer tongue in yer face, Gore, till the time comes.'
Gore said nothing, but glared savagely at the prisoners.
'Get the buckets and mops!' he snarled at his men, and they fled precipitately.
A long, wailing noise came through the hatch:
'Soopson! S-o-o-pson!'
'Here comes yer grub, damn you,' Gore growled at the prisoners in general. A shuffling sound followed the singsong call, and then a 'galley boy' of forty years or so, badly crippled by club-feet, shuffled up to the hatch and laboriously let himself down to the platform. The huge bowl of stew he was carrying was far too heavy for him, and his strained, thin face was beady with sweat.
'Get a move on, Sorko!' Gore bellowed up at him. 'Get your swill down here. Some o' these swine are goin' short this time, anyway.'
Sorko set the big bowl down at the top of the steps and began to descend backward. Then he resumed his burden.
But he was nervous, and had barely started when his crippled feet, far too big for his thin shanks, became entangled. He gave a giddy shriek and fell over backward, landing on his back, and lay still. His pale, freckled face became greenish.
But the bowl, filled to the brim by its greasy, scalding hot contents, flew in a sweeping parabola, tipping as it fell, so that the entire contents cascaded on Gore, drenching him from head to foot. Howling with rage and pain he danced around. He was utterly beside himself. When he was able to see he rushed for Sorko, who was moaning with returning consciousness, and picked up the frail body to hurl it against the floor.
'Stop, or you're dead!'
That voice, so incisive and clear, was a woman's. Gore found himself looking into the little twin funnels of his own ray projector. They were filled with a milky light, and the odor of ozone was strong. The girl had only to press the trigger and a powerful current would leap along the path of those ionizing beams. And Gore would murder no more.
Stupidly, he let Sorko slide to the floor, where the poor fellow recovered sufficiently from his paralyzing fright and his fall to scuttle away.
Looking past the menacing weapon, Gore saw the girl, Lenore Hyde. Her limpid eyes under their straight brows were blazing, and he read in them certain death for himself.
'Up that ladder!' she ordered sharply, 'and stay out! Guard, when this beast is gone I will give you this weapon. Now, connect up your skipper.'
Too surprised to disobey, the guard threw the televisor switch, and in a moment Strom's stern face appeared on the screen. He comprehended the situation immediately.
'Do as she says,' he ordered brusquely. 'Stoddard is coming to take care of that man of hers that Gore beat up.'
A few minutes later she was tearfully assisting the ship's doctor to put the man with the dislocated shoulders on a stretcher.
'Your husband?' asked Stoddard, who resembled a starved gray rat.
'My brother,' she exclaimed simply.
'Want to take care of him?' And at her eager assent, he said, 'Can't afford to let him die. Your family got money?'
'Yes, yes! They will pay anything — anything — to get him back safely.'
The doctor grinned with satisfaction.
Memory returned to Quirl with the realization that he was lying on a metal bunk in an outside stateroom, where he could see the orderly procession of the stars through the floor ports as the ship rotated. His body was racked with pain, and his head seemed enormous. His sensation, he discovered, was due to a thick swathing of bandages.
As he stirred something moved in an adjoining bunk, and Dr. Stoddard's peaked face came into view.
'How do you feel?' he asked professionally.
'Rotten!'
'We'll fix that.' He left, returning a few minutes later with a portable apparatus somewhat resembling its progenitor, the diathermy generator. He disposed a number of insulated loops about Quirl's body and head, connecting them through flexible cables to his machine. As a gentle humming began, Quirl was conscious of an agreeable warmth, of a quickening all over his body. A great lassitude followed, and he slept.
When he awoke again Captain Strom was standing beside him. He had taken off his coat, and his powerful body filled the blouse he was wearing. He had evidently just come off duty, for he still had on his blue trousers, with the stripes of gold braid down the sides.
'It may interest you, Mr. Finner, that I have selected you as one of the chosen,' he remarked casually.
'One of the chosen what?'
'The chosen race. You didn't take me for an out-and-out damned pirate, did you?'
'Excuse me if I seem dumb!' Quirl hoisted himself on his elbow. 'Yes, I figure you're a pirate. What else?'
Strom's stern face relaxed in a smile. It was a strange smile, inscrutably melancholy. It revealed, beneath the hardness of a warrior, something else; the idealism of a poet. When he spoke again it was with a strange gentleness:
'To attain one's end, one must make use of many means, and sometimes to disguise one's purpose. For instance, it is perfectly proper for an officer of the I.F.P. to disguise himself like a son of the idle rich in order to lay the infamous 'Scourge' by the heels, isn't it?'
Quirl felt himself redden. And a cold fear seemed to overwhelm him. He realized that Strom was a zealot, and he knew he would not hesitate to kill. This prompt penetration of his disguise was something he had not bargained for.
'What makes you think,' he asked shortly, 'that I'm an I.F.P. man?'
'The fight you gave Gore and his men. Do you expect me to think that a coupon clipper could have done that? I know the way of—'
He checked himself. Quirl said:
'My people have money. I don't know what you mean about—'
