Chapter II

The Falcon landed in a sprawling heap, cramped with vertigo, his mind numb with the shock of the shot that had slapped at the side of his head. He groped blindly for support, felt the skin ripping from his hands on the rough metal of the pipe. For seconds, he fought to retain his senses, finally forced the black shadow of unconsciousness back from his mind.

His eyes focused slowly, made out the glow cast through the open manhole. Only a moment could have passed, for he still heard the excited calling of his pursuers, and felt the vibrations of men climbing the outside of the pipe.

He went at a staggering run down the pipe, guiding himself by the beam of the radi-light torch he fumbled from his belt. Echoes drummed along the metal tube from his running feet, and the dull pounding in his head raced with the sound. He whirled around a bend in the pipe, stopped, braced himself momentarily on the curved wall. Then, the ringing in his head slowing, and his mind clearing, he ran again at a faster pace.

The yells of his pursuers rocketed through the tube, slowly gaining. But a thin smile twisted the Falcon's mouth; he had a bolt-hole or two that were unknown to any but him, holes that had saved his life before.

He slipped now and then in the greasy seepage at the pipe's bottom, came again to his feet, feeling strength draining from him, realizing that the shot had almost put a partial stasis on his nervous system.

He ran slower now, utterly unable to keep up the headlong pace. His breath was hot and dry in his throat, and a heart-pain in his side cramped his belly. He staggered again and again, until at last he could move only at a fast walk.

The agents gained, crying their pack call like Martian _ganths_ running a lowland creature to death in a canal bottom. Their boots slammed driving echoes from the pipe, growing louder with each passing second.

The Falcon knew that he could run no further; he leaned against the wall, checked the charge in his gun. A mirthless laugh grated in his throat, and he felt futility beating at his heart for the first time in years.

"_Make it a good world, Curt!_" Val had said.

Curt Varga fought then, fought the dizziness in his mind, struggled with the defeat he felt in his heart. He had a task to do; not for himself, not for his martyred brothers and father--but for a dozen worlds to whom he and his brood had become a symbol of hope in a blackened century.

* * * * *

He spun about, seeking a manhole opening, saw none. He did not know where he was, for there were no identifying marks in the tube. He thought swiftly, but his thoughts seemed to move with a treacly slowness. Then he lifted his gun, flicked it to full force, blasted a hole through the side of the conduit.

Metal flowed in a crimson stream, grew turgid, hardened with the queerness of the native iron. Great blisters reared on the Falcon's hands as he clawed his way from the tube. He fell to the ground outside, blinked, tried to find his directions by some distinctive landmark. He gasped, whirled back to the pipe.

He had come squarely into the parking plaza at the rear of the spaceport at the edge of the city. Before him, guards had whirled, were running toward him, already clawing for the guns at their waists. And even as he turned, he heard the excited cries of the agents inside the conduit pipe.

He ran at a zig-zag pace, hugging the shadow of the pipe, toward a fleet tiny cruiser rolling into its parking place. Darting across a cleared space of ground, he tugged at the inset port-handle.

The port surged open from the weight of the air-pressure inside, and the Falcon dived through, pulling the port shut again. Still in a crouch, he spun the gun in his hand, jammed it into the side of the single passenger.

"Get out of here," he snarled. "Gully-hop this ship--and do it fast."

"Listen, you--" the pilot began.

"Either you do--or I do. Now, get going." The Falcon's face was utterly bleak and cruel, his eyes blazing with the trapped lust of a cornered wolf.

Shots slammed against the impervium hull, bounced harmlessly away. The vizi-screen glowed greenly, and the reflection of the Port Authority appeared.

"_Take off, and we'll ray you down._"

The Falcon growled deep in his throat, slammed into the dual control seat, snapped the control-switch to his side. With a single twitch of his right hand, he sent the ship flipping skyward.

The cruiser whipped through the night, inertia momentarily pinning its passengers to their seats. A beam lanced out from the spaceport, instantly winked off. The Falcon's hands made lightning adjustments on the board, and the ship scooted back toward the ground, fled, barely a hundred feet above the rusty sand.

The vizi-screen was dull now, reflecting the interior of the port office--and the Port Authority's voice sang through the speaker.

"Five IP ships take off. Catch that pleasure cruiser. Use tractors to bring it down; it isn't armed. Watch out for the man aboard--he's the Falcon."

"_The Falcon!_" Fear was in the voice; the words were barely breathed.

Curt Varga smiled savagely, glanced around, fully saw his companion for the first time. He felt a certain sense of amazement; but so much had happened to him in the past hour, he no longer had the capacity for complete surprise.

She was tiny, and the synthesilk dress gloved the soft curves of her body. Her nose was impudent against the red of her mouth, and fright was in her bluish-green eyes momentarily. Then she stiffened, and her eyes were hard with a calculating coldness.

"I thought kidnaping went out with the dark ages," she said quietly.

"Miss, this is _shipnapping_." Ironical humor softened the brutal harshness of Curt Varga's jaw for the moment.

And then there was no time for talk, for he was weaving the ship in a manner that only a space-master could do, flipping the cruiser about until metal sang in a dozen tones, evading the bluish rays that fingered from the ships behind.

He gained the night shadow, circled about on muffled jets, watched the IP ships flash past him in hot pursuit of their quarry. Then he sent the cruiser straight back toward the city, angling after a time toward the mountains to the north. Not a word was spoken until after he had landed the cruiser close to his own rocket hidden beneath the overhang of a rusty bluff.

"Now what?" the girl asked.

The Falcon killed the rockets, turned about on the seat, conscious for the first time that he still held his dis-gun against her side with his left hand.

He thought fast then, made plans and discarded them with a speed that raced them kaleidoscopically through his mind. He could leave the girl tied in the cruiser--but she had seen him, could identify him to the IP men. Or he could--he shrank from the thought; he was brutal in a dispassionate way, but he was no murderer.

"Get out," he snapped.

Color surged into the girl's face, then faded, leaving the skin a sickly white. She shrank from him, pressing against the far wall.

"I read it in your eyes," she whispered. "You were thinking of _killing_ me!"

The Falcon flushed angrily, more at himself than at the girl, hating himself for thinking such thoughts, hating the twisted years that had warped him to the point that he acted like the scum he had weeded from among his men.

"Get out," he said again, and his voice was softer. "I mean you no harm." He flicked a glance from the port, toward the sky where the violet beams of mass-detectors probed the sky and earth.

She slid from the seat, took the two steps to the port, opened it with a surge of lithe strength. She dropped to the ground, followed by the Falcon. There was a puzzled fear in her eyes, a fear that grew by the moment as she saw the sleek Kent-Horter quiescent on the sand.

The Falcon stepped lithely about his prisoner, whistled with a queerly distorted note, and the port came automatically open. He gestured with the gun, impatience flaming in his eyes as she hesitated.

"Walk--or be carried," he warned grimly.

* * * * *

The girl scrambled into the pirate ship. Curt Varga stepped in behind her, dogged the door shut with almost casual flicks of his right hand. He urged the girl before him with the gun, waved her into a sleeping cubicle, then pulled the door shut, locked it.

Holstering the dis-gun, he raced to the pilot room, slid into the pilot's seat. He warmed the rockets with brief twitches of his fingers on the control studs, then pulled the drive switch a third of the way back.

He felt the thrust of the rockets against his body, saw the brief flicker of the girl's ship whipping past the port. Then his ship was fleeing with accelerating speed into the tenuous atmosphere.

A dis-cannon rolled the ship, almost sent it on beam's end. He straightened her, poured the power into the Kent converters, flicked out of range with amazing ease. Air whistled through the purifying-system, and he cut the rheostat down a bit when the reading gave an Earth-norm.

Then, and only then, did he relax. He set a reading into the calculator, flicked on the robot control, and walked slowly back to the sleeping cubicle he had momentarily made into a cell.

"Come on out, now," he said, swung the door fully open.

She had been crying, and the defiant gesture with which she tried to hide that fact built a tiny warm glow in Curt Varga's heart. But he didn't permit that feeling to show; he knew he had to keep the girl more or less cowed, if he were to have no trouble with her.

"Come on," he said again. "We'll declare a truce for the time."

She stepped past him, walked toward the pilot's room. He followed, liking her unconscious swagger which matched his own. She refused to sit, and he took one empty seat, regarded her quizzically, as he rolled a _pulnik_ cigarette.

"Who are you?" he said at last.

Puzzlement kindled in the girl's eyes, was as quickly erased.

"I'm Jean--Harlon," she said slowly. She gestured about the ship. "Why did you kidnap me?"

The Falcon laughed, and youth was in his face again, some of the bitter lines softening and erasing utterly away.

"It wasn't planned," he admitted. "I was being chased--I saw your ship taxiing into a parking place--and I commandeered it." He shrugged. "You just happened to be the ship's pilot."

Amusement lifted the girl's mouth for a moment, then concern deepened the blue of her eyes. She glanced at the calculator, saw that a course had been set, and a tiny muscle twitched in her throat.

"I'm going with you!" It was a statement.

Curt Varga nodded. "Sorry," he said, "but that's the way it has to be. Only two men knew my identity--and they're dead. The few IP's who saw me tonight are also dead. It's a safety measure."

Jean Harlon stiffened slightly. "I could give my word," she said slowly.

The Falcon shook his head. "Sorry, but the stakes are too big for me to risk another's word." He nodded at the empty seat. "Sit down," he finished kindly. "In some ways, I'm not quite as bad as I am painted."

Curt Varga tensed, felt the probing finger of thought digging at his mind. He threw up a mind-shield almost casually, grinned mockingly.

"A _telepath_?" he said conversationally.

* * * * *

Irritation colored the girl's cheeks; then reluctant admiration came into her eyes. She accepted a _pulnik_ capsule, deftly rolled a cigarette, before answering.

"Not many could dismiss me that easily," she asserted. "I had five years at NYU, on Earth." She accepted a light for the cigarette.

Curt Varga nodded. "Old habit," he disclaimed. "I used to play space-rocketry with the thought-men of Pluto; the guy with an unshielded mind never had a chance."

Jean Harlon's gaze was speculative. "What happened?" she said. "Or am I stepping on your toes?"

The Falcon's face was twisted then with a show of emotion that brought a glance of disbelief from the girl. And then resolve flared in the set of his shoulders, and his voice was steady.

"I was making agent-contacts. One of my men must have tipped the IP, for they came into my 'headquarters' and made a quiet search. I would have got away, but for the fact they used that diabolic paralysis beam on a friend of mine. He pointed me out." Curt shrugged. "I had to fight my way from the trap. My brother was killed. I escaped through the conduit system, came out on the spaceport. You know the rest."

"Your brother was killed!" Loathing was in Jean Harlon's eyes. "And you can sit there, and talk calmly about it?"

Anger and grief unsteadied the Falcon's voice for a moment.

"What the hell should I do--beat my chest and swear vengeance! Val knew the cards were stacked against us; he knew that both of us had lived past our appointed times. He played the game as he saw it, and died with few regrets. Hell, yes, I can talk calmly; now I've got a job to do, I've got to finish the thing for which he and hundreds of thousands of others have died!"

He turned to the space-scanner, saw that the Kent-Horter had escaped the IP ships, felt the burning of unshed tears in his eyes. He sat silently for a moment, then whipped about as the girl's words caught at his mind.

"--dreaming fools," she was saying. "What _more_ could they ask than they already have. They eat, they sleep, they have amusements and medical care. Their lives are as perfect as science can make them."

"_Science!_" Curt Varga's tone flicked like a whip-lash. "You can't run people's lives as though they were bits of unfeeling machinery. Every man has the right to control his own destiny."

Anger was in Jean Harlon's face then, too. "You blind atavistic fool," she blazed, "people cannot rule themselves! Read your histories, find in them the truth about self-government. Why, until science took the reins of power, millions died in ghastly wars for fanatical leaders whose greed for world dictatorial power was an insane fixation."

The Falcon's face was like chiseled granite. He silenced the girl with a brief motion of his hand. His voice was grave with the strength of his heart-felt belief in the thing he had made his life.

"I have no desire to convert you," he said quietly. "Conversion comes to but a few. You've got to know deep in your heart that what I say is the truth. There were wars, holocausts started by the mad dictators of the Twentieth Century. But when they were over, then democracy began to win the long struggle that had always been hers. And although other wars came through the years, always life became better for all peoples. But then science became a _master_ instead of a _servant_, and the few rulers of science became the rulers of the universe. That would have been all right, had the rule been a beneficient one--but it was twisted and distorted by the descendants of our hereditary Food Administrators until it throttled and murdered all initiative and ambition and free-thinking. It strangled God-given _freedom_."

Curt Varga went suddenly silent, feeling the red creeping upward from his collar. He avoided the girl's eyes, crushed out the still butt of his cigarette.

"Sorry," he said. "I guess speech-making is getting to be a habit."

Jean Harlon did not move, but her eyes searched every plane of the pirate's face.

"You really _believe_ that, don't you?" she said wonderingly.

"I do!" The Falcon's voice was calm. "And so do millions of others throughout the planets. And soon the day will come when all peoples shall rule themselves. I'm not the man who will bring about the change; I am but the nucleus, that about which the change is centered. When I am gone, another will take my place, and another, and another, until people shall be free, their eyes to the sun."

Jean Harlon moved slowly, breaking the Falcon's words. There was neither belief nor disbelief in her eyes; there was only the warm awareness that before her sat a man whose heart held an ideal and his mind a plan.

"You are a strange man, Falcon," she breathed. "But you're not quite the same as I had pictured you in my mind. Oddly enough, I am not afraid of you now."

* * * * *

Curt Varga grinned. "That's a point in my favor, anyway," he said. "I've never kidnapped a girl before; I wasn't certain just what I'd have to do to calm you." He shrugged. "You will go through a certain amount of discomfort," he finished, "but you will be safe--and I'll notify your family of your safety."

Jean Harlon's eyes were suddenly hooded. "I have no relatives," she admitted. "So I'll just string along with you, until you realize I'm perfectly harmless and permit me to return to Earth or Mars."

"That will be--" the Falcon began, then whipped about to the port, as the ship rocked as though shaken by a gust of wind.

"What's wrong?" Jean asked anxiously, peered out, too. "Why, it's a tractor beam--coming from that bare asteroid!"

"Watch!" the Falcon said quietly.

The pale-green beam lanced like a misty cone from the rough surface of a craggy boulder that sprang upward from the asteroid like a towering skyscraper. The pocked, rubbled surface of the asteroid glittered metallically in the faint sun-glow, great rocky spires rearing fantastically, mountainous boulders perched in reckless confusion over the pitted surface of the ground.

Weight was almost instantly doubled in the ship, as the tractor beam caught the ship in its grip. Curt adjusted the gravity shield to counteract the beam's force on himself and Jean. The rockets had stopped their steady drumming, and the Falcon explained.

"It's a variation of the standard inertia-tractor beam. Energy of flight is nullified by the inertia beam, which neutralizes all rocket power. And the tractor beam is swinging us toward the asteroid."

Jean shivered. "It happened so fast!" she said slowly.

The seconds slipped by, and there was the sensation of falling. The cruiser swung more and more toward the great boulder, descending swiftly. There was no sound, only the steady dragging of gravity on the ship from the pale beam. Absently, the Falcon cleared the board before him, cutting all switches.

And then a giant hole flowed open in the top of the huge boulder, and the pirate ship was whisked into a slanting radi-lighted tunnel.

"_Hollow!_" Jean said. "So this is the Pirate's Base!" She frowned. "But if it is hollow, why doesn't gravitic stress rip it to pieces?"

The Falcon still peered from the port. "We use a neutron-weld invented by Schutler. Using the weld, the skin of the Base could be but a foot thick, and still would not rupture nor permit the atmosphere to leak."

"Schutler! But he was executed five years ago."

Curt Varga shook his head. "No, Schutler is still alive; his twin brother took his place before the firing squad."

Horror was in the girl's eyes. "You mean that you _forced_ him to sacrifice his life?"

The Falcon's tone was grimly brooding. "A man does what he thinks is right."

"But such a thing _isn't right_," Jean Harlon said defiantly.

Curt Varga turned, his face like chiseled granite. "Do you know why Schutler was sentenced to be executed?"

"Of course--treason."

The Falcon's grin was raw savagery.

"He invented a growth-stimulator which brought plants to full maturity in five days from seed-planting. The Food Administrators' empire might have toppled."

Jean Harlon stepped back, anger in her face. "I don't believe it," she declared. "I happen to know the true factor."

The Falcon shrugged, glanced again through the port. Slowly the anger fled Jean's face--and a brooding puzzlement remained.

The cruiser settled with a tiny jar, lurched slightly, came to rest. Metal rasped outside, and the entrance port began to open. The Falcon came from his seat, nodded toward the port.

"Was that the truth?" Jean Harlon asked.

"Of course! I have no reason for lying. Now, let's get out of here; I've a report to make."

* * * * *

Three men waited outside the open port; and the first, a massive bearded giant, caught Curt in a casual hug that whitened his smeared face.

"You lucky devil!" he roared. "Been in another scrap--and got away by the skin of your teeth. Damn, but I'd like a good fight!"

The Falcon grinned, shoved his way from the giant's arms.

"Damn it, Schutler," he snapped affectionately, "you'll kill me some day with those hugs of yours!"

Schutler laughed, tugged at his beard. "Come on," he said. "I've got an experi--"

"Wait a minute, squirt," the second man said. "Now, listen, Curt, did you make the contacts you--"

The negro brushed the others impatiently aside, tugged at Curt's arm. He smiled, and his teeth were a solid bar of white across ebony.

"Come on with me, Boss," he ordered. "You've got some cleaning up to do."

"Dammit, Curt--" Schutler began petulantly.

"Curt, those reports mus--" the second man said impatiently.

The Falcon gestured wearily. "That can wait for a time, Crandal. Right now, I need food and a bit of medical care." He grinned. "Anyway, I've a guest to show around the Base."

"A guest?" Schutler asked.

"Come out, Jean," Curt Varga called. Jean Harlon stepped from the lock, utterly lovely and feminine. She stared with puzzled eyes at the men standing with the Falcon.

"Why do you _permit_ such liberties with the men you rule?" she asked.

Schutler laughed delightedly, the sound rolling and booming. "A new convert, Curt?" he said, then laughed again, and swept the startled girl into the circle of his arms. "Welcome to the snake's den," he finished happily.

Jean gasped in amazement, fought unsuccessfully to free herself from the burly arms, then subsided in a gale of infectious laughter. The Falcon grinned, tugged her free.

"You've met Schutler," he said. "This bald-headed old space-buzzard is Crandal, better known as the Encyclopedia. And this other is Jericho Jones, my number one mate."

The wizened man bobbed his head nervously. "Glad to know you, Miss," he said. "Now, Curt, about those reports."

"Howdedo, Miss," Jericho said, smiled toothily.

Schutler shoved forward. "How was the kid brother, Curt? Is he still dishing out the--" His voice trailed away, his gaze flicking about the group. "Sorry, Curt," he finished gently. "He was a good man."

The Falcon swallowed painfully, forced a smile, wincing a bit from the hands of the men where they touched his arms.

"He made his choice," he said slowly, and the words were like an eulogy.

He shrugged. "Take Jean to the women's quarters, Schutler," he finished unemotionally. "Later, she and I will dine together." He made an almost imperceptible gesture with one hand, and the giant's eyes widened in surprise.

"Sure, Curt," Schutler agreed. "We'll walk part-way with you."

"I don't think--" Jean began, then fell silent.

The Falcon grinned. "Everything's under control," he said reassuringly. "There are plenty of Earth women there. They'll fix you up with clothes or whatever you need."

"Thank you, Falcon," Jean said, but fear was flickering again in her blue-green eyes.

They walked down a gentle ramp, crossed on a suspended walk to a web-tier that hugged one wall of the gigantic room. Jean peered about in quiet excitement, open amazement in her face when she saw the hundreds of fighting ships cradled in rows. She watched the men that worked with a methodical thoroughness upon the gleaming hulls, fitting the coppery muzzles of space-cannon into place. Carts darted here and there on soundless wheels, carrying supplies to piles that never grew, because other men immediately and without hurry emptied the piles in steady streams into the holds of waiting ships.

Long radi-light tubes striped the ceiling three hundred feet overhead, filled the room with the clear yellow glow of Earth sunlight. There was an air of competence and efficiency about the scene that was compellingly impressive.

"A _throg_!" Jean gasped in sudden terror.

* * * * *

Curt glanced down at the spider man who minced daintily along on his fragile hairy legs. His double-facetted eyes glanced toward the suspension-walk, and two of his legs lifted in salute. A piercing vibrational whistle followed. Curt grinned, whistled an answer in a series of flatted notes, waved.

"That's Lilth," he explained. "He's a good guy, even if he is a Ganymedian. His family starved to death because they could not mine enough _xalthium_." He gestured toward a gigantic slug inching along the floor, pulling a loaded cart. "That's a Venusian _gastod_," he finished. "He is utterly helpless and harmless. He is also the only _gastod_ not in captivity. His race exuded pure vitamin K from their bodies, so the Food Administrators imprisoned the entire race. He is a pirate here and does what he can--for oddly enough he has a brain and a soul."

They had crossed the bridge and walked slowly down a lighted tunnel. The tube debouched into a great amphitheater, at the mouth of which the group halted for a moment. Shouts, whistles, hissings came from the groups of men before them. In a gigantic pool of steaming water, Venusian reptile-men swam with loud splashing. On the field at the right of the pool, Earthmen played space-ball, their tiny hand-tractors lancing pale-green rays at a floating gravity-neutralized sphere. The beams made a network of power that spun the copper ball like an air bubble in a whirlpool.

Spider men sat side by side, curling their legs beneath their globular bodies, then nipping them out again, a few at a time. Gravely they compared the numbers flipped out, then paid their wagers from piles of money at their sides.

Cat men from the tombs of Mars played Martian chess with their traditional enemies, the big-chested Upland _boiloongs_ whose tentacles were like living ropes of steel. Creatures from a dozen worlds watched or played or rested, singly and in groups, about the gargantuan room.

"They're my men," The Falcon said proudly, feelingly. "And regardless of body-form, each is a _man_. They're the Falcon's Brood."

He led the way again, returning hearty greetings in a dozen tongues, waving, laughing, answering a hundred questions. At the edge of the room, near a tunnel's mouth, he turned to the girl who was strangely silent.

"I'll meet you for dinner in an hour," he promised. "Then I'll show you through the gardens."

"Fine!" Jean smiled, turned to follow the solicitous Schutler.

Crandal watched her go. "So she is not a convert," he said. "Then why bring her along?"

"She recognized me," the Falcon said simply, nodded good-bye, followed Jericho down another tunnel to his living quarters.

He walked into the three-room apartment, strode directly to the vocoder. Flicking a switch, he spoke quietly.

"A trap on Mars was set for me; have you heard any reports."

A voice answered with the methodical thoroughness of a trained agent. "Yen Dal died an hour ago of nerve shock caused by an IP's paralysis beam. The man who informed the IP was executed by our Martian agent thirty minutes later. That is all."

"Good!" the Falcon said grimly, closed the switch. He turned to the silent negro. "A _cahnde_, Jericho," he finished tiredly. "Then we'll doctor me up a bit."

He sagged in a chair, utterly spent and tired, worn from the constant strain that was his life every hour of the day. He was no longer the debonair flashing Falcon; he was only a man to whom life became grimmer and more danger-filled day by day; a man whose life was in no way his own.