Lucky felt the perspiration beading out upon his forehead, and suddenly he was aware of the silence. He could not remember the exact moment it had come, but it had come like the breaking of a thread. One moment there had been the yells and laughter of the pirates, and the next moment only the dead silence of space where sound could never be heard.
Had he passed beyond range of the ships? Impossible! Suit radios, even the simplest type, would carry thousands of miles in space. He pushed the sensitivity dial on his chest to maximum.
"Captain Anton!"
But it was Dingo's rough voice that answered. "Don't yell. I hear you."
Lucky said, "Call time! There's something wrong with my radio."
Dingo was close enough to be made out as a human figure again. A flashing line of crystals and he was closer. Lucky moved away, but the pirate followed on his heels.
"Nothing wrong," said Dingo. "Just a gimmicked radio. I've been waiting. I've been waiting. I could have knocked you past goal long ago, but I've been waiting for the radio to go. It's just a little transistor I gimmicked before you put on your suit. You can still talk to me, though. It'll still carry a mile or two. Or at least you can talk to me for a little while." He relished the joke and barked l^is laughter.
Lucky said, "I don't get it."
Dingo's voice turned harshly cruel. "You caught me on the ship with my blaster in its holster. You trapped me there. You made me look like a fool. No one traps me and I don't let anyone make a fool out of me in front of the captain and live very long after that. I'm not goaling you for someone else to finish. I'm finishing you here! Myself!"
Dingo was much closer. Lucky could almost make out the face behind the thick glassite of the face plate.
Lucky abandoned attempts at bobbing and weaving. That would lead, he decided, to being consistently out-maneuvered. He considered straight flight, pushing outward at increasing velocity as long as his gas held out.
But then afterward? And was he going to be content to die while running away?
He would have to fight back. He aimed the push-gun at Dingo, and Dingo wasn't there when the line of crystals passed through the spot where a moment before he had been. He tried again and again, but Dingo was a flitting demon.
And then Lucky felt the hard impact of the other's push-gun blast and he was spinning again. Desperately he tried to come out of the spin and before he could do so, he felt the clanging force of a body's collision with his.
Dingo held his suit in tight embrace.
Helmet to helmet. Face plate to face plate. Lucky was staring at the white scar splitting Dingo's upper lip. It spread tightly as Dingo smiled.
"Hello, chum," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
For a moment Dingo floated away, or seemed to, as he loosened the grip of his arms. The pirate's thighs held firm about Lucky's knees, their apelike strength immobilizing him. Lucky's own whipcord muscles wrenched this way and that uselessly.
Dingo's partial retreat had only been designed to free his arms. One lifted high, push-gun held butt-first. It came down directly on the face plate and Lucky's head snapped back with the sudden, shattering impact. The relentless arm swung up again, while the other curled about Lucky's neck.
"Hold your head still," the pirate snarled. "I'm finishing this."
Lucky knew that to be the literal truth unless he acted quickly. The glassite was strong and tough, but it would hold out only so long against the battering of metal.
He brought up the heel of his gauntleted hand against Dingo's helmet, straightening his arm and pushing the pirate's head back. Dingo rocked his head to one side, disengaging Lucky's arm. He brought the butt of his push-gun down a second time.
Lucky dropped both push-guns, let them dangle from their connecting tubes, and with a sure movement snatched at the connecting tubes of Dingo's guns. He threaded them between the fingers of his steel gloves. The muscles of his arms lumped and tightened painfully. His jaws clenched and he felt the blood creep to his temples.
Dingo, his mouth twisted in fierce joyful anticipation, disregarded everything but the upturned face of his victim behind the transparent face plate, contorted, as he thought, with fear. Once more the butt came down. A small cracking star appeared where the metal had struck.
Then something else gave and the universe seemed to go mad.
First one and, almost immediately afterward, the other of the connecting tubes of Dingo's two push-guns parted and an uncontrollable stream of carbon dioxide ravened out of each broken tube.
The tubes whipped like insane snakes, and Lucky was slammed against his suit first this way, then that, in violent reaction to the mad and uncontrolled acceleration.
Dingo yelled in jolted surprise and his grip loosened.
The two almost separated, but Lucky held on grimly to one of the pirate's ankles.
The carbon dioxide stream slackened and Lucky went up his opponent's leg hand over hand.
They were apparently motionless now. The chance whippings of the stream had left them even without any perceptible spin. Dingo's push-gun tubes, now dead and flaccid, stretched out in their last position. All seemed still, as still as death.
But that was a delusion. Lucky knew they were traveling at miles per second in whatever direction that last stroke of gas had sent them. They were alone and lost in space, the two of them.
Chapter 5
The Hermit On The Rock
Lucky was on Dingo's back now and it was his thighs that gripped the other's waist. He spoke softly and grimly. "You can hear me, Dingo, can't you? I don't know where we are or where we're going, but neither do you. So we need each other now, Dingo. Are you ready to make a deal? You can find out where we are because your radio will reach the ships, but you can't get back without carbon dioxide. I have enough for both of us, but I'll need you to guide us back."
"To space with you, you scupper," yelled Dingo. "When I'm done with you, I'll have your push-tubes."
"I don't think you will," said Lucky coolly.
"You think you'll let them loose, too. Go ahead! Go ahead, you loshing ripper! What good will that do? The captain will come for me wherever I am while you're floating around with a busted helmet and frozen blood on your face."
"Not exactly, my friend. There's something in your back, you know. Maybe you can't feel it through the metal, but it's there, I assure you."
"A push-gun. So what. It doesn't mean a thing as long as we're held together." But his arms halted their writhing attempt to seize Lucky.
"I'm not a push-gun duelist." Lucky sounded cheerful about it. "But I still know more than you do about push-guns. Push-gun shots are exchanged miles apart. There's no air resistance to slow and mess up the gas stream, but there's internal resistance. There's always some turbulence in the stream. The crystals knock together, slow up. The line of gas widens. If it misses its mark, it finally spreads out in space and vanishes, but if it finally hits, it still kicks like a mule after miles of travel."
"What in space are you talking about? What are you running off about?" The pirate twisted with bull strength, and Lucky grunted as he forced him back.
Lucky said, "Just this. What do you suppose happens when the carbon dioxide hits at two inches, before turbulence has done anything at all to cut down its velocity or to broaden the beam. Don't guess. I'll tell you. It would cut through your suit as though it were a blowtorch, and through your body, too."
"You're nuts! You're talking crazy!"
Dingo swore madly, but of a sudden he was holding his body stiffly motionless.
"Try it, then," said Lucky. "Move! My push-gun is
hard against your suit and I'm squeezing the trigger. Try.,.» it out.
"You're fouling me," snarled Dingo. "This isn't a clean.» win.
"I've got a crack in my face plate," said Lucky. "The men will know where the foul is. You have half a minute to make up your mind."
The seconds passed in silence. Lucky caught the motion of Dingo's hand.
; He said, "Good-by, Dingo!"
Dingo cried thickly, "Wait! Wait! I'm just extending my sending range." Then he called, "Captain Anton… Captain Anton…"
It took an hour and a half to get back to the ships.
* * *
The At las was moving through space again in the wake of its pirate captor. Its automatic circuits had been shifted to manual controls wherever necessary, and a prize crew of three controlled its power. As before, it had a passenger list of one-Lucky Starr.
Lucky was confined to a cabin and saw the crew only when they brought him his rations. The Atlas's own rations, thought Lucky. Or, at least, such as were left. Most of the food and such equipment that wasn't necessary for the immediate maneuvering of the ship had already been transferred to the pirate vessel.
All three pirates brought him his first meal. They were lean men, browned by the unsoftened rays of the sun of space.
They gave him his tray in silence, inspected the cabin cautiously, stood by while he opened the cans and let their contents warm up, then carried away the remains.