"Answer what?" Tomisenkov said calmly.

"Why you don't cooperate with me!"

Tomisenkov grinned wryly. "Why don't you cooperate with me?" he countered with the same question.

Raskujan gasped for breath. Then he made the mistake of giving explanations in reply to Tomisenkov's question. "Because your division is wracked by dissension and rebellion."

"That doesn't make it right. You've been sent here to bring me support-and to give me moral support if that is necessary. That was indeed the case. However, instead of making an effort to locate my division and to help reorganize it, you chose to remain here and to make dozens of crazy attempts to get into Rhodan's base. And when you finally found out where I was, you had nothing better to do than to a.s.sault us! Us, to whom you were supposed to bring help!"

Raskujan barely managed to keep his composure. "As a former officer you know as well as I do how demoralizing your men would have been for my troops. I had no other choice than to draw a line between us. My regiment has nothing in common any more than your division."

Tomisenkov made such a derisive gesture that Raskujan was hard put to control his anger.

"Don't try to outsmart me," Tomisenkov interjected. "You forget that you were serving in my company. I've known you for years. Even as a young lieutenant you tried to show off whenever you had a chance. No, Raskujan, you can't get away with it as easy as that. You thought that you had the opportunity here on Venus to play the big chief. The only one who could have spoiled it for you was I, who outrank you. That's why you pulled a fast one and tried to eliminate me."

Raskujan had jumped up. It took a long time before he found his tongue again. "That's . . . that's . . . you're forgetting that you're my . . ."

At this point the buzzing of a radio set interrupted Raskujan's stammering. He turned around and hit the b.u.t.ton of the receiver with the palm of his hand.

"An unusual flash of light has been observed, sir," the monitor reported quickly. "Direction 180 degrees, distance approximately 150 miles."

Raskujan raised his eyebrows. "Describe it to me!" he demanded.

"It resembled a cone of light from three searchlights, sir," the observer answered. "However the intensity of the light exceeded ordinary searchlights."

"How many times did you notice this effect?"

"Only once, sir!"

"Alright!"

The report was ended. Raskujan made another connection. A raspy voice answered.

"Take two of your helicopters, Captain," Raskujan ordered, "and search the ocean. Determine the direction where the strange light came from through the observation post. I want to know what it is."

The captain affirmed the order. Raskujan switched off the transmitter and turned back to Tomisenkov.

Tomisenkov smiled.

"What's there to grin about?" Raskujan asked gruffly.

"I think," Tomisenkov said softly, savoring the effect his words had on Raskujan, "there's somebody on your heels who will teach a shabby colonel how to behave on Venus."

The swishing noise rose to a roar as the flying reptile swooped down. Rhodan stood slanted against the edge of the boat and stared in the direction of the sound. He saw only a giant shadow which pa.s.sed with incredible speed over the boat and disappeared again in the dark.

The sound became more distant and weaker. It remained for a few seconds at the same level, then swelled up again.

Rhodan wondered how much of a risk he could take. It was impossible to know on which one of its pa.s.ses the winged lizard would attack. Perhaps it wouldn't. But it would be too late to shoot at it if it had one of the three in its claws.

The droning grew louder.

"Fire when it flies over us," Rhodan called decisively.

They raised the barrels of their weapons in the direction of the predator. The menacing noise kept growing until their ears droned.

And then It appeared again.

A black shadow in the gray darkness, larger than before but of ill-defined shape. Rhodan followed the shadow with the barrel of his impulse-beamer and as the lizard hovered above the boat he ordered: "Fire!"

Brilliant white-blue flashes of concentrated heat rays shot from the funnel-shaped muzzles of the barrels, illuminating for a fraction of a second the horrible body of the aerial lizard covered with a leathery skin and consuming it with its full power.

The savage scram uttered by the beast must have been audible for miles around. But it didn't last long. A few hundred thousand megawatts of thermal energy killed the reptile and it fell burning into the ocean.

Rhodan dropped his weapon and grabbed the rudder. He cut straight through the huge frontal wave thrown up by the impact of the behemoth, then pushed the rudder hard to the side and steered in a wide curve to the east.

After 20 minutes Rhodan put the boat on the original course again. Moving the rudder around, done by habit with his right arm, caused the injury in his shoulder to hurt again. He cursed his helplessness and wished he had his Arkonide medicaments on hand. It would have taken no more than a few hours to put him back in shape.

Son Okura still sat at the bow scanning northward. Only Marshall seemed to a.s.sume that the worst danger had been overcome by the extermination of the flying lizard. He was lying in the center of the boat with his arms folded under his head.

"Don't be lazy, man. Better get up!" Rhodan said. "We'll soon be real busy."

Marshall was frightened. "What's up now?" he asked gloomily.

"The light effects are inseparable from the heat emission of thermal weapons and they can be seen for 300 miles in clear weather," Rhodan pointed out. "You can figure out what that means."

Marshall got up with a sigh. "Well," he murmured, "and what can we do if your expectations materialize?"

Rhodan grinned. "Keep shooting," he answered dryly.

The captain dispatched by Raskujan with two helicopters had little trouble locating the lifeboat which was quite conspicuous.

From a distance of 50 miles he detected a weak but unmistakable blip on the radar screen and from 300 feet he clearly recognized the boat with the infra-red searchlight and saw the three man crew through the night binoculars.

The captain warned his gunner to be cautious and gave the same instructions to the second helicopter.

Then he descended and prudently approached the boat.

They could hear the whirring of the rotor blades and the high -whistling of the engine jets. Son Okura saw two machines coming at considerable height from the north.

They were no surprise for Rhodan. He had expected them.

Okura suddenly flinched back from his observation post in the bow of the boat and threw his arms over his face with a startled scream. It was at the moment when the captain shined his infra-red searchlight on the boat and saw it through the filter:

Rhodan tried to outguess his antagonists.

He'll recognize the boat, he figured. He also knows that Raskujan has lost none of his helicopters. Therefore, he'll take us for Tomisenkov's men or -

Before he could come to a conclusion, the two crafts had arrived and the speed with which they were coming in left no doubt about their intention of attacking the boat.