Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 and turned to face Hulgruv’s suspicious eyes. “You are braver than I thought,” he growled. : The admission had the desired effect. Hulgruv tossed his head and laughed arrogantly. There was an instant of relaxa- tion. The heavy automatic wavered slightly. Roki backed against the transmitters and cut the power switch. The hum died. “Ten seconds, Hulgruv! Toss me’ your weapon. Shoot and you shatter the set. Wait and the tubes get cold. Toss it!” Hulgruv bellowed, and raised the weapon to fire. Roki grinned. The gun quivered. Then with a choking sound, the Solarian threw it to him. “Get it on'” he howled. “Get it on!” As Roki tripped the switch again, the signals were already chirping in the loud- speaker. He darted aside, out of view from the corridor. Footsteps were already racing toward the control room, The signals stopped. Then the bleat of an answer! Another key had been set up in the adjoining room! With Daleth answering the challenges. The pistol exploded in his hand as the first crewman “came racing through the doorway. The others backed out of sight into the corridor as the projectile-weapon knocked their comrade back in a bleeding sprawl. Hulgruv made a dash for the door. Roki cut him down with a shot at the knee. “The next one takes the transmitter,” he bellowed. “Stay back.” Hulgruv roared a command. “Take him! If you can’t, let the trap spring!” Roki stooped over him and brought the pistol butt crashing against his skull, mean- ing only to silence him. It was a mistake; he had forgotten about the structure of the Solarian skull. He put his foot on Hulgruv’s neck and jerked. The butt came free with a wet cluck. He raced to the doorway and pressed himself against the wall to listen. The crewmen were apparently having a parley at the far end of the corridor. He waited for the next signal. When it came, he dropped to the floor— to furnish an unexpected sort of target— and snaked into view. He shot twice at three figures a dozen yards away. The answering fire did something to the side of his face, blurring his vision. Another shot sprayed him with flakes from the deck. One crewman was down. The others backed through a door at the end of the corridor. They slammed. it and a pressure seal tightened with a rubbery sound. ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Roki climbed to his feet and slipped toward a doorway from which he heard the click of the auxiliary key. He felt cer- tain someone was there besides Daleth. But when he risked a quick glance around the corner, he saw only the girl. She sat at a small desk, her hand frozen to the key, her eyes staring dazedly at nothing. He started to speak, then realized what was wrong. Hypnosis! Or a hypnotic drug. She sensed nothing but the key beneath her fingers, waiting for the next challenge. The door was only half-open. He could see no one, but there had been another man; of that he was certain. Thoughtfully he took aim at the plastic door panel and fired. A gun skidded toward Daleth’s desk. A heavy body sprawled across the floor. The girl started. The dull daze left her face to be replaced with wide-eyed shock. She clasped her hands to her cheeks and whimpered. A challenge bleated from the radio. “Answer!” he bellowed. Her hand shot to the key and just in time, But she seemed about to faint. “Stay on it!” he barked, and dashed back to the control room. The crewmen had locked themselves aft of the bulkhead, and had started the ventilator fans. Roki heard their whine, then caught the faint odor of | gas. His eyes were burning and he sneezed spasmodically. “Surrender immediately, blared the intercom. Roki looked around, then darted toward the controls. He threw a damping voltage on the drive tubes, defocused the ion streams, and threw the reactcrs to full emis- sion. The random shower of high-speed particles would spray toward the focusing coils, scatter like deflected buckshot, and loose a blast of hard X-radiation as they peppered the walls of the reaction chambers. Within a few seconds, if the walls failed to melt, the crewmen back of the bulkhead should recognize the possibility of being quickly fried by the radiant inferno. The tear gas was choking him. From manthing!” — the next compartment, he could hear Daleth coughing and moaning. How could she hear the signals for her own weeping? He tried to watch the corridor and the reaction-— chamber temperature at the same time. The needle crept toward the danger-point. An explosion could result, if the walls failed tc melt. Suddenly the voice of the intercom again: GCOmicbooks (c@) ALA