he air grew
black around them and a cold as of interstellar space penetrated their
very bones. In an instant the ship had flashed up into the sun above the
zone of influence of the Martian weapon. The shouting from the palace
was suddenly stilled. Damis looked down, but nothing could be seen save
a pall of intense blackness over the ground where the building stood.

"The port motor, Lura!" cried Damis. The Jovian fleet was approaching so
rapidly that a collision with the nearest flyer seemed inevitable. There
was a roar from the air as Lura threw in the port blast with its maximum
power. Damis was hurled against the side of the ship.

* * * * *

From the hill where the Martian weapons had been placed came a second
flash of light and a beam of jetty blackness shot through the air. An
edge of it brushed the ship for an instant and Lura stiffened. A
terrible cold bit through the flyer and the side where the Martian ray
had touched crumpled into powder. The ship sped on, and the friction of
the air and the bright rays of the sun dissipated the extreme cold.
Through the terrific storm which was raging, the black ray stabbed again
and again. Back and forth it played and ship after ship of the Jovians
was momentarily caught in the beam. When the beam passed on there was
nothing left of the ship save a cloud of dust which the terrific wind
dissipated in all directions.

Damis glanced at the Earth below him. It seemed to be flying past the
ship at a velocity which he could hardly comprehend. He made his way
against the pressure of the movement to the control levers and strove to
check the speed. As the Earth ceased to revolve beneath them, the wind
rose to a terrible force.

"What has happened, Damis?" shrieked Lura in his ear.

"I don't know," he shouted in reply. "I am trying to keep away from the
neighborhood of the palace for a while until the Jovian fleet is
destroyed. Toness and your father might not be able to tell us from one
of Tubain's ships and they might turn the ray on us."

* * * * *

He bent over the control levers of the ship, but they refused to obey
his touch. The stern motor still roared with enough force to keep them
three thousand feet above the ground, but none of the side motors
responded to the controls. The ship was helpless and was tossed about, a
plaything of the terrific wind which howled through the heavens.