the arm of the second officer for support.

"Sorry, Frank, I tripped on the carpet."

Frank Hartley wore a bushy mustache, had thin gray hair and a long,

handsome face. He never felt the needle enter his shoulder. He looked

up from the gauges and lights of his engineer's panel and laughed

easily. "You're going to have to lay off the sauce, Dale."

"I can fly straight," Lemk replied good-naturedly. "It's walking that

gives me a hard time."

Hartley opened his mouth as if to say something, but suddenly a blank

expression crossed his face. He shook his head as if to clear his

vision. Then his eyes rolled upward, and he went limp.

Leaning his body against Hartley so the engineer would not fall to one

side, Lemk withdrew the syringe and quickly replaced it with another.

"I think something is wrong with Frank."

Jerry Oswald swung around in the copilot's seat. A big man with the

pinched features of a desert prospector, he stared questioningly. "What

ails him?"

"Better come take a look."

Oswald twisted his bulk past the seat and bent over Hartley. Lemk jabbed

the needle and pushed the plunger, but Oswald felt the prick.

"What the hell was that?" he blurted, whirling around and gazing dumbly

at the hypodermic needle in Lemk's hand. He was far heavier and more

muscular than Hartley, and the toxin did not take effect immediately.

His eyes widened in sudden comprehension, and then he lurched forward,

gripping Lemk by the neck.

"You're not Dale Lemk," he snarled. "Why are you made up to look like

him?"

The man who called himself Lemk could not have answered if he wanted.

The great hands were choking the breath out of him. Crammed against a

bulkhead by the immense weight of Oswald, he tried to gasp out the words

of a lie, but no words could come. He rammed his knee into the

engineer's groin. The only reaction was a short grunt. Blackness began

to creep into the corners of his vision.

Then, slowly, the pressure was released and Oswald reeled backward. His

eyes became terror-stricken as he realized he was dying. He looked at

Lemk in confused hatred. With the few final beats left in his heart he

swung his fist, landing a solid blow into Lemk's stomach.

Lemk drifted to his knees, dazed, the breath punched out of him. He

watched as if looking through fog as Oswald fell against the pilot's

seat and crashed to the cockpit floor. Lemk slid to a sitting position

and rested for a minute, gasping for air, massaging the pain in his gut.

He rose awkwardly to his feet and listened for any curious voices coming

from the other side of the door. The main cabin seemed quiet. None of

the passengers or flight crew had heard anything unusual above the

monotonous whine of the engines.

He was drenched in sweat by the time he manhandled Oswald into the

copilot's seat and strapped him in. Hartley's safety belt was already