is to follow the original plan--to lure them out into space at
uniform acceleration, where we can destroy them easily."

"Right," and Breckenridge turned to King, who was frowning at his
controls. "How does she work on a dead stick, Chief?"

"Maneuverability about minus ten at this speed and in this air.
She'd have to have at least fifteen hundred kilometers an hour to be
responsive out here. See anything yet?"

"Not yet ... wait a minute! Yes, there's one now--P-12 on area five.
Give us all the X10 and W27 you can, without using power--we want to
edge over close enough so that she can't help but see us when we start
the rockets."

"Be sure and stay well out of range. I'm giving her all she'll take, but
she won't take much. With these wings she has the gliding angle of a
kitchen sink."

"All x--I'm watching the range, close. Wish we had instruments like
these on the IPV's. We'll have to install some when we get back. All x!
Give her the gun--level and dead ahead!"

Half the battery of rockets burst into their stuttering, explosive roar
of power and the vessel darted away in headlong flight.

"He sees us and is after us--turn her straight up!"

A searing, coruscating finger of flame leaped toward them, but their
calculations had been sound--the hexan was harmless at that extreme
range. King, under the pilot's direction, kept the plane at a safe
distance from the sphere while the satellite grew smaller and smaller
behind them and Czuv lapsed quietly into unconsciousness.

"He's been out for quite a while. Far enough?" asked King.

"All x now, I guess--don't believe they can see the flash from here.
Cut!"

The rockets died abruptly and a blast from the side ports threw
the plane out of the beam--and once out of it, beyond range of the
electro-magnetic detectors as they were their coating of absolute black
rendered the craft safe from observation. One dirigible rocket remained
in action, its exhaust hidden from the enemy by the body of the vessel,
and Captain Czuv soon recovered his senses.

"Wonderful, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, as he manipulated the delicate
controls of his gunnery panel. "This is the first time in history that
a Callistonian vessel has escaped from a hexan by speed alone."

An instantaneously extinguished flare of incandescence marked the
passing of the hexan sphere into nothingness, and the cruiser shot back
toward Callisto in search of more prey. It was all too plentiful, and
twenty tim