Page:Amazing Stories Volume 16 Number 06.djvu/147

Rh lonely, lovely recluse? Was he willing to commit murder for that? Vannie Conniston would be a prize, even worth killing for; but was there something else?

"You're married, I suppose?" the girl asked him.

"Not me. If I were, this space-wedding your father's going to slosh down our throats wouldn't take. What kind of a wife would you turn out to be, Miss Vannie?"

She shook her tawny head, and smiled ruefully. "Probably a shrew. You've seen the kind of father I have. And on my mother's side, I inherit the temper of Rixon Powell—"

"Rixon Powell!" exploded Harpe. "Head of the Powell Explosive Trust on Ganymede? That Rixon Powell?"

"The same. You've heard of him?"

"Who hasn't? Call your father. Our troubles are over, and you don't have to hide to keep from being stolen. Your grandfather died the day before we cleared from Ganymede. He left no relatives to hunt you down or—"

A chuckle from the door to the entry-port. Conniston loomed there, grinning in mockery.

"Still lying yourself out of this jam, Plessner—I mean Harpe?" he sneered. "My father-in-law's conveniently dead, so that everything will straighten out—eh? You surpass yourself. If there was any lightning in interstellar space, it would swat you dead for the champion liar of the universe."

Harpe scrambled to his feet, which the robots had not bound. "And lightning should strike you," he growled, "for the champion pighead and coward. You insult a tied man who could plaster all these bulkheads an inch deep with you if he was free!"

The giant head nodded. "I recognize that perfectly. I seem to have grown a bit too old for fist-fighting. So I leave it in the hands of my robots. Harpe, you'll marry my daughter? Yes or no."

Harpe shook his head, not trusting the savage words that filled his throat.

HE's lovely. Decent. A good bargain," said Conniston.

Harpe glared at him. All those things were true. If only—

Vannie put her hand on his shoulder. "He means it, Captain Harpe. You'd better agree to what he says."

"Miss Vannie," replied Harpe, "you're very kind, but I never feared the eye-color of any type of death. He speaks this much truth: You'd probably make a wonderful wife, temper-heritage and all. But I don't fancy that kind of a wedding. It would be a rotten trick on both of us." He faced back to Conniston. "I dare you to throw me out into space."

Conniston's big teeth stripped in a grin. "I never took a dare in all my life, Harpe. You've had your chance. Well, my robots will slide you back into that leaky space-overall, and set you right out where I found you."

From a pocket of his tunic he drew the flute-whistle that governed his metal servitors. Putting two fingers of each hand on certain note-holes, he raised it toward his lips. But, before a blast sounded, Conniston's broad face went blank, his mighty body quivered and slumped forward. The whistle, falling from his hands, clattered across the floorplates to lodge between Harpe's feet.

Just behind him stood a slim, smiling man known both to Harpe and to the girl. They chorused his name:

"Manfred Plessner!"

VEN in his space-overall, from which the helmet was unshipped and dangling, the mate was sleek,