The Amethyst City. John Russell Fearn

I’ll still get you.”

      “Perhaps we had better see which promise you can fulfil,” Quorne suggested.

      He went to his machine and from it there presently projected a disinte­grator beam. It flashed to all parts of the already damaged Ultra, driving huge fissures in the massive plates, snapping off the remains of the rocket tubes, splintering the conning tower—and finally an extra savage burst sliced the nose of the vessel clean off and left half-molten, crumbled metalwork. The Amazon could not see the control ­room from her position, but she judged that it must be completely shattered, with the many connections essential to navigation melted into one common mass.

      Satisfied, Quorne ceased his wrecking activities. He returned and, one by one, picked up his guards and carried them to his ship. Then he contemplated the Amazon from a distance.

      “I am not leaving any men in case they happen to have some life in them,” he said. “They might become sentimental enough to help you. As for Relka, your Jovian servant there, I fancy he will never return to life.”

      The Amazon was in too much pain to answer. She was doing her best to stem the flow of blood from the wound the ray had inflicted. When she heard the sound of rocket exhaust, she looked up. Quorne’s machine was hurtling upward on its way back to Jupiter.

      The Amazon passed her dry tongue over lips that were salty, and tried to think straight in the blur clouding her body and mind.

      If she could reach the vessel, and the first aid equipment was still in existence, she had materials that could help her injury, if not cure it. So, set­ting her teeth, she forced herself up and stood on one leg. Then she began a series of hops—but within a few seconds, strong though she was, dizziness brought her down. She had lost so much blood she was rapidly weakening.

      She wormed her body along until she gained the side of Relka. She caught at his outflung scaly paw and pulled at it.

      “Relka!” she panted hoarsely. “Relka, help me—if you can!”

      The fallen Jovian was silent. Reaching his shoulders, she pushed them up, the light gravity helping her. He tum­bled over on his back, his torn body revealed, and it told the Amazon that Relka would never be her companion again.

      “If I ever live through this, Quorne, I’ll spend the rest of my life paying you back,” the Amazon whispered, her pain-deadened eyes staring up at mighty Jove.

      She relaxed, struggling for breath, her whole body feeling as if it were alternately bathed in fire and water. The sweat of pain had soddened her close-fitting suit; it trickled down her drawn face. Then lights began exploding behind her eyes, and her last effort to fight off unconsciousness was unavailing.

      The Amazon went down into a blackness where pain and awareness no longer existed.