Giles Habibula stumbled wheezing over the flanges, and John Star shot at him:
“Close the valves!”
Once the air-lock was sealed and secured from within, he knew, the Purple Dream was armored well against outside danger. With the gigantic Hal Samdu close behind him, and Jay Kalam, he burst upon the narrow deck.
Two uniformed men appeared before them, gasped, started, and tried to reach their weapons.
The first of them met Hal Samdu’s fist, rebounded against a bulkhead, and crumpled slowly to the deck.
A proton gun fell spinning, and Jay Kalam scooped it up in time to meet a third attacker in the Legion green.
John Star met his own opponent, briefly.
They both had Legion combat training, but John Star fought for AKKA—and Aladoree herself.
The other snatched for his gun, and staggered back screaming, arm snapped, back broken.
Seizing his weapon, John Star turned in time to meet Captain Madlok, just emerging from his cabin.
Madlok came out crouched and snarling, a proton needle ready in his hand.
But once again John Star was first—merely the hundredth of a second, perhaps, but enough.
A white blade of electric fire stabbed out, and the Purple Dream had a new commander.
They divided, then.
Giles Habibula remained to guard the airlock.
Hal Samdu ran toward the crew’s quarters, in the stern.
Jay Kalam plunged down into the generator rooms, below the deck.
John Star darted forward, toward the Commander’s cabin and the navigation bridge.
The four were still outnumbered two to one—the full complement of the Purple Dream had been twelve; and such a crew was ample, since the cruiser was handled almost completely by automatic mechanisms, needing men chiefly for inspection and navigation.
But they had not completely lost the advantage of surprise.
John Star found two men forward.
The navigator came out of the bridge-room with a proton gun in his hands.
He saw John Star and tried to fire.
But he lacked the peril of AKKA and its keeper to nerve his urgency.
By a few fatal thousandths of a second, he was too late.
John Star flung open the door marked COMMANDER, and found Adam Ulnar in his cabin, hanging up the coat that he had worn aboard.
For a long second, the tall, white-haired master of the Legion and the Purple Hall stood quite motionless, breathless, staring at the menacing needle of the proton gun, his handsome face frozen into absolute lack of expression.
He breathed suddenly.
The coat fell out of his hands.
He sat down heavily in the single chair.
“Well, John, you surprised me,” he said with a short, husky little laugh.
“I had learned you were too dangerous to keep alive.
I was going away until you had been disposed of. But I was hardly expecting this.”
“I’m glad you value your life,” John Star snapped harshly.
“Because I want to trade it to you.”
Adam Ulnar smiled, defensively, recovering his suave self-possession.
Again he was the shrewd elder statesman of the Purple Hall.
“You have the advantage, John.
Your men, I suppose, have control of the cruiser?”
“I imagine so, by now.”
“You know, this adds piracy to your long list of crimes.
All the Legion fleets will be hunting you, now.”
“I know.
But that doesn’t save your life.
Shall we trade?”
“What do you want, John?”
“Information.
I want to know where you have Aladoree Anthar.”
Adam Ulnar smiled in faint relief, and spoke more easily:
“Fair enough, John.