e intercom
with readings from her instruments. He corrected his courses
accordingly.

Then he saw the image of their target centered on one screen, so he
concentrated on steering the other missile. He made the nose yaw, but
was unable to locate anything on its screen.

"You're sending one of them too far above, I think," Donna reported.

"I have something wrong," he shouted. "I can't spot them at all for that
one. The jets must be out of line and shooting it in a curve."

Nevertheless, he fired a corrective blast on the weight of the guess,
before returning his attention to the first torpedo.

This one was right on the curve. He could see the massive hull of the
cruiser plainly now. It was almost featureless until, as he watched,
several sections seemed to slide aside.

The screen showed him a momentary glimpse of a swarm of small,
flame-tailed objects spewing forth from one of the openings. Then the
view went dark. "Interceptor rockets with proximity fuses," he muttered.
"They'll be after us next, crazy-mean and frantic!"

Over the intercom, he heard Donna exclaim in dismay. He caught a
fleeting sight of her face and realized that the situation must be
torture for the girl, as for himself or any normal person of their
civilization.

Cursing himself for an optimist, he raised two more of the missiles
from the magazine. Hopping about like a jet-checker five minutes before
take-off time, he made them ready. It seemed like hours before he got
them into the launching tubes and blew them out into the void.

Again, he watched the other vessel appear ahead of his torpedoes, this
time on both screens. Before the gap narrowed, he had a better
opportunity to see the defenses of the cruiser in action.

A whitish cloud of gas was expelled from his target's hull, bearing a
myriad of small objects which promptly acquired a life of their own.
Both screens were filled with flashing, diverging trails of flame.
Then--nothing.

"They're heading at us!" called Donna. "Hang on!"

Phillips had already pulled the switches to bring up a new pair of
torpedoes. Hearing the urgency in Donna's tone, he leaped toward a rack
of spacesuits and grabbed.

* * * * *

The next instant, he was pinned forcibly against the rack by
acceleration, as Donna made the ship dodge aside. From one side, he
heard a screech of grating metal. The fresh missiles must have jammed
halfway out of the storage compartment.