Tarrano the Conqueror, page 188 by Raymond King Cummings
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throat loosened. His arm, swinging backward, warded off Elza's trembling, hesitant blow. The metal block, intended for his head, was knocked from her hand; it fell clattering to the floor. And reaching over, Tarrano gripped the vehicle's control lever, wrenched it bodily from its fastenings! Control of the vehicle was irrevocably lost! We were falling!
Breathless moments! Tarrano idly stood apart; his face a mask. My breath restored, I was recovering. I drew myself erect.
Death! But my confused thoughts went to Elza. Her flying mechanism was partially sustaining; my own probably was still effective. Before Tarrano was aware of my purpose, I had pushed Elza forcibly through the doorway. Into the rush of air her figure disappeared. But Tarrano gripped me as I tried to follow her. Gripped me and clung. A breathless, dizzy instant. Locked together, our bodies shifted crazily. I tried to get him out the doorway with me, but he fought against it.... Smiling--always smiling....
Elza fell safely. But they told me that Tarrano and I hovered for days unconscious on the borderland between life and death, living finally, for our vehicle had plunged into a tremendous snow-bank, to break its fall.
* * * * *
Last scene of all ... They would not have Tarrano on any of the three worlds. While still living, the very personality of him was a menace. With his woman Tara, who refused to leave him and whom he tolerated, they banished him to that tiny asteroid which pursued its solitary way between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
A lonely, barren little world, with its single, primitive race of spindly beings--timid, frail beings, half-human, half insect. We took him there--Maida and Georg, Elza and I. He anticipated his dislike of the asteroid's slight gravity, and demanded weighted shoes so that he might walk with the normal feeling of Earth and Venus.
"You give me too much freedom," he told us solemnly.
And there amid the rocks, with Tara we set him down. As we parted, he turn