"He'd have got you, sir ..."

"Never mind that. I want that airtight door down!"

And there were other sounds clanging noises, panting, a confused scuffling. There was a scream, a human scream.

In the control room the radar officer reported. "Twelve o'clock low. Two thousand miles. Reciprocal trajectory. Two missiles launched."

"Carter!" said Grimes.

"In hand, sir," replied that officer cheerfully. "So far."

"Recall the Marines," ordered Grimes. "Secure control room for action."

The armored shutters slid over the ports. Grimes wondered how much protection the lead sheathing would give against laser, if any. But if the Major and his men were caught between the two ships their fate would be certain, unpleasantly so. And it was on the planetary side of the ship, the side from which the boarding party would return, that the exterior television scanner had been destroyed by the blast that had thrown the ship into Grimes' universe. That scanner had not been renewed. The Commodore could not tell whether or not the Major had obeyed his order; by the time that the Marines were out of the radar's blind spot they would be almost inFreedom's airlock.

Not that the radar was of much value now, at short range;Freedom was enveloped in a dense cloud of metallic motes. This would shield her from the enemy's laser, although not from missiles. And the floating screen would render her own anti-missile laser ineffective. Missile against missile was all very well, but the other warship was operating from a base from which she could replenish her magazines.

"Reporting on board, sir." It was the Major's voice, coming from the intercom speaker. "With casualties none serious and prisoner."

Wasting no time, Grimes sized up the navigational situation. The ship would be on a safe trajectory if the reaction drive were brought into operation at once. He so ordered and then, after a short blast from the rockets, switched to Mannschenn Drive. He could sort out the ship's next destination later.

"Secure all for interstellar voyage," he ordered. Then, into the intercom microphone: "Take your prisoner to the wardroom, Major. We shall be along in a few minutes."

XIII.

The prisoner, still with his guards, was in the wardroom when Grimes, Sonya and Mayhew got there. He was s.p.a.ce-suited still, and manacled at wrists and ankles, and six Marines, stripped to the rags that were their uniforms aboard this ship, were standing around him, apparently at ease but with their readiness to spring at once into action betrayed by a tenseness that was felt rather than seen. But for something odd about the articulation of the legs at the knee, but for the unhuman eyes glaring redly out through the narrow transparency of the helmet, this could have been one of the Major's own men, still to be unsuited.

And then Grimes noticed the tail. It was twitching inside its long, armored sheath.

"Mr. Mayhew?" asked Grimes.

"It . . . He's not human, sir," murmured the telepath. Grimes refrained from making any remarks about a blinding glimpse of the obvious. "But I can read . . . after a fashion. There is hate, and there is fear dreadful, paralyzing fear."

The fear,thought Grimes,that any rational being will know when his maltreated slaves turn on him, gain the upper hand.

"Strip him, sir?" asked the Major briskly.

"Yes," agreed Grimes. "Let's see what he really looks like."

"Brown! Gilmore! Get the armor off the prisoner."

"We'll have to take the irons off him first, sir," pointed out one of the men dubiously.

"There are six of you, and only one of him. But if you want to be careful, unshackle his wrists first, then put the cuffs back on as soon as you have the upper half of his suit off."

"Very good, sir."

"I think that we should be careful," said Sonya.

"We are being careful, ma'am," snapped the Major.

Brown unclipped a key ring from his belt, found the right key and unlocked the handcuffs, cautiously, alert for any hostile action on the part of the prisoner. But the being still stood there quietly, only that twitching tail a warning of potential violence. Gilmore attended to the helmet fastenings, made a half turn and lifted the misshapen bowl of metal and plastic from the prisoner's head. All of the humans stared at the face so revealed the gray-furred visage with the thin lips crinkled to display the sharp, yellow teeth, the pointed, bewhiskered snout, the red eyes, the huge, circular flaps that were the ears. The thing snarled shrilly, wordlessly. And there was the stink of it, vaguely familiar, nauseating.

Gilmore expertly detached air tanks and fittings, peeled the suit down to the captive's waist while Brown, whose full beard could not conceal his unease, pulled the sleeves down from the long, thin arms, over the clawlike hands. The sharp click as the handcuffs were replaced coincided with his faint sigh of relief.

And when to start the interrogation,Grimes was wondering,shall we be up against the name, rank and serial number convention?

Gilmore called another man to help him who, after Brown had freed the prisoner's ankles, lifted one foot after the other from its magnetic contact with the deck plating. Gilmore continued stripping the captive, seemed to be getting into trouble as he tried to peel the armor from the tail. He muttered something about not having enlisted to be a valet to bleeding snakes.

Yes, it was like a snake, that tail. It was like a snake, and it whipped up suddenly, caught Gilmore about the throat and tightened, so fast that the strangling man could emit no more than a frightened grunt. And the manacled hands jerked up and then swept down violently, and had it not been for Brown's s.h.a.ggy mop of hair he would have died. And a clawed foot ripped one of the other men from throat to navel.

It was all so fast, and so vicious, and the being was fighting with a ferocity that was undiminished by the wounds that he, himself was receiving, was raging through the compartment like a tornado, a flesh and blood tornado with claws and teeth. Somebody had used his knife to slash Gilmore-more free, but he was out of the fight, as were Brown and the Marine with the ripped torso. Globules of blood from the ragged gash mingled with the blood that spouted from the stump of the severed tail, were dispersed by the violently agitated air to form a fine, sickening mist.

Knives were out now, and Grimes shouted that he wanted the prisoner alive, not dead. Knives were out, but the taloned feet of the captive were as effective as the human weapons, and the manacled hands were a bone-crushing club.

"Be careful!" Grimes was shouting. "Careful! Don't kill him!"

But Sonya was there, and she, of all those present, had come prepared for what was now happening.

She had produced from somewhere in her scanty rags a tiny pistol, no more than a toy it looked. But it was no toy, and it fired anaesthetic darts. She hovered on the outskirts of the fight, her weapon ready, waiting for the chance to use it. Once she fired and the needle-pointed projectile sank into glistening human skin, not matted fur. Yet another of the Marines was out of action.

She had to get closer to be sure of hitting her target, the target that was at the center of a milling ma.s.s of arms and legs, human and non-human. She had to get closer, and as she approached, sliding her magnetized sandals over the deck in a deceptively rapid slouch, the being broke free of his captors, taking advantage of the sudden lapse into unconsciousness of the man whom Sonya had hit with her first shot.

She did not make a second one, the flailing arm of one of the men hit her gun hand, knocking the weapon from her grasp. And then the blood-streaked horror was on her, and the talons of one foot were hooked into the waistband of her rags and the other was upraised for a disembowelling stroke.

Without thinking, without consciously remembering all that he had been taught, Grimes threw his knife.

But the lessons had been good ones, and, in this one branch of Personal Combat, the Commodore had been an apt pupil. Blood spurted from a severed carotid artery and the claws b.l.o.o.d.y themselves, but with human blood did not move, in their last spasmodic twitch, than inflict a shallow scratch between the woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Grimes ran to his wife but she pushed him away, saying, "Don't mind me. There are others more badly hurt."

And Mayhew was trying to say something to him, was babbling about his dead amplifier, La.s.sie, about her last and lethal dream.

It made sense, but it had made sense to Grimes before the telepath volunteered his explanation. The Commodore had recognized the nature of the prisoner, in spite of the size of the being, in spite of the cranial development. In his younger days he had boarded a pest-ridden grain ship. He had recalled the vermin that he had seen in the traps set up by the ship's crew, and the stench of them.

And he remembered the old adage that a cornered rat will fight.

XIV.

Freedomwas falling down the dark dimensions, so far with no course set, so far with her destination undecided.

In Grimes' day cabin there was a meeting of the senior officers of the expedition to discuss what had already been learned, to make some sort of decision on what was to be done next. The final decision would rest with the Commodore, but he had learned, painfully, many years ago, that it is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

The Major was telling his story again: "It wasn't all that hard to get into the ship, sir. But they were waiting for us, in s.p.a.cesuits, in the airlock vestibule. Some of them had pistols. As you know, we brought one back."

"Yes," said Grimes. "I've seen it. A not very effective laser weapon. I think that our workshop can turn out copies with improvements."

"As you say, sir, not very effective. Luckily for us. And I gained the impression that they were rather scared of using them. Possibly it was the fear of doing damage to their own ship." He permitted himself a slight sneer. "Typical, I suppose, of merchant s.p.a.cemen."

"It's easy to see, Major, that you've never had to write to Head Office to explain a half inch dent in the sh.e.l.l plating. But carry on."

"There were hordes of them, sir, literally choking the alleyways. We tried to cut and burn and bludgeon our way through them, to get to the control room, and if you hadn't recalled us we'd have done so . . ."

"If I hadn't recalled you you'd be prisoners now or dead. And better off dead at that. But tell me, were you able to notice anything about the ship herself?"

"We were rather too busy, sir. Of course, if we'd been properly equipped, we'd have had at least two cameras. As it was . . ."

"I know. I know. You had nothing but s.p.a.cesuits over your birthday suits. But surely you gained some sort of impression."

"Just a ship, sir. Alleyways, airtight doors and all the rest of it. Oh, yes . . . Fluorescent strips instead of luminescent panels. Old-fashioned."

"Sonya?"

"Sounds like a mercantile version of this wagon, John. Or like a specimen of Rim Runners' vintage tonnage."

"Don't be catty. And you, Doctor?"

"So far," admitted the medical officer, "I've made only a superficial examination. But I'd say that our late prisoner was an Earth-type mammal. Male. Early middle age."

"And what species?"

"I don't know, Commodore. If we had thought to bring with us some laboratory white rats I could run a comparison of tissues."

"In other words, you smell a rat. Just as we all do." He was speaking softly now. "Ever since the first ship rats have been stowaways in surface vessels, in aircraft, in s.p.a.ceships. Carried to that planet in shipments of seed grain they became a major pest on Mars. But, so far, we have been lucky. There have been mutations, but never a mutation that has become a real menace to ourselves."

"Never?" asked Sonya with an arching of eyebrows.

"Never, so far as we know, inour Universe."

"But in this one . . ."

"Too b.l.o.o.d.y right they are," put in Williams. "Well, we know what's cookin' now, Skipper. We still have one nuclear thunderflash in our stores. I vote that we use it and blow ourselves back to where we came from."

"I wish it were as simple as all that, Commander," Grimes told him. "When we blew ourselves here, the chances were that the ship would be returned to her own s.p.a.ce-Time. When we attempt to reverse the process there will be, I suppose, a certain tendency for ourselves and the machinery and materials that we have installed to be sent back to our own Universe. But no more than a tendency. We shall be liable to find ourselves anywhere or anywhen." He paused. "Not that it really worries any of us. We're all volunteers, with no close ties left behind us. But we have a job to do, and I suggest that we at least try to do it before attempting a return."

"Then what do we try to do, Skip?" demanded Williams.

"We've made a start, Commander. We know now what we're up against. Intelligent, oversized rats who've enslaved man at least on the Rim Worlds.

"Tell me, Sonya, you know more of the workings of the minds of Federation top bra.s.s, both military and political, than I do. Suppose this state of affairs had come to pa.s.s in our Universe, a hundred years ago, say, when the Rim Worlds were no more than a cl.u.s.ter of distant colonies always annoying the Federation by demanding independence?"

She laughed bitterly. "As you know, there are planets whose humanoid inhabitants are subjects of the Shaara Empire. And on some of those worlds the mammalian slaves of the ruling arthropods are more than merely humanoid. They are human, descendents of ships' crews and pa.s.sengers cast away in the days of the Ehrenhaft Drive vessels, the so-called gauss jammers. But we'd never dream of going to war against the Shaara to liberate our own flesh and blood. It just wouldn't be ... expedient. And I guess that in this s.p.a.ce-Time it just wouldn't be expedient to go to war against these mutated rats. Too, there'll be quite a large body of opinion that will say that the human Rim Worlders should be left to stew in their own juice."

"So you, our representative of the Federation's armed forces, feel that we should accomplish nothing by making for Earth to tell our story."

"Not only should we accomplish nothing, but, in all probability, our ship would be confiscated and taken apart to see what makes her tick insofar as dimension hopping is concerned. And it would take us all a couple of lifetimes to break free of the red tape with which we should be festooned."

"In other words, if we want anything done we have to do it ourselves."

"Yes."

"Then do we want anything done?" asked Grimes quietly.

He was almost frightened by the reaction provoked by his question. It seemed that not only would he have a mutiny on his hands, but also a divorce. Everybody was talking at once, loudly and indignantly.

There was the Doctor's high-pitched bray: "And it washuman flesh in the tissue culture vats!" and William's roar: "You saw the bodies of the sheilas in this ship, an' the scars on 'em!" and the Major's curt voice: "The Marine Corps will carry on even if the Navy rats!" Then Sonya, icily calm: "I thought that the old-fashioned virtues still survived on the Rim. I must have been mistaken."

"Quiet!" said Grimes. "Quiet!" he shouted. He grinned at his officers. "All right. You've made your sentiments quite clear, and I'm pleased that you have. The late owners of this ship are intelligent beings but that does not ent.i.tle them to treat other intelligent beings as they treat their slaves. Sonya mentioned the human slaves on the worlds of the Shaara Empire, but those so-called slaves are far better off than many a free peasant on Federation worlds. They're not mistreated, and they're not livestock. But we've seen the bodies of the men, women and children who died aboard this ship. And if we can make their deaths not in vain ..."

Sonya flashed him an apologetic smile. "But how?" she asked. "But how?"

"That's the question." He turned to Mayhew. "You've been maintaining a listening watch. Do these people have psionic radio?"

"I'm afraid they do, sir," the telepath told him unhappily. "I'm afraid they do. And . . ."

"Out with it, man."

"They use amplifiers, just as we do. But..."

"But what?"

"They aren't dogs' brains. They're human ones!"

XV.

Sonya asked sharply, "And what else have you to report?"

"I ... I have been listening."

"That's what you're paid for. And what have you picked up?"

"There's a general alarm out. To all ships, and to Faraway Ultimo and Thule, and to the garrisons on Tharn, Mellise and Grollor ..."

"And to Stree?"

"No. Nothing at all to Stree."