THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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Behind, there was frantic firing; the rear-guard seemed to have run into
trouble, probably from some gang that had[Pg 89] come down from the
upper level. He wondered what his father was doing with the gunboats;
since abandoning the jeep, he had lost his only means of contact.

Suddenly, the men in front jumped up from their barricade and came
running toward him. Been reinforced, now they're counterattacking. His
rifle was empty; he drew his pistol and shot one of them, and then he
saw that they were throwing up their hands and yelling for quarter. This
was something new.

He looked around quickly, to make sure none of the liberated prisoners
except Jacquemont and his daughter were around, and then called to a
couple of his own men to come up and help him. While they were relieving
the pirates of their pistol belts and cartridge bandoliers, more came
up, their hands over their heads, herded by a combat car from which Tom
Brangwyn covered them with a pair of 12-mm machine guns. Tom hadn't put