It gave him a weird feeling of unreality; as he hung there helplessly,
to see one of the screens on the bulkhead pick up something moving,
gleaming, metallic.

"Donna!" he shouted hoarsely. "Let up!"

"I don't dare," she gasped over the intercom. "I lost them, but they
were starting after us!"

"Let up!" repeated Phillips. "They're dead ahead of that wild shot of
ours. Let me get to the controls!"

He dropped abruptly to the deck as the acceleration vanished. One leap
carried him to the radio controls.

The metallic gleam had swelled into a huge spaceship. The cruiser was
angling slightly away from the point from which he seemed to be viewing
it. How soon, he wondered, would they detect the presence of his
torpedo? Or would they neglect this direction, being intent upon the
destruction of those who were attempting to frustrate their mad dash for
Mars?

Phillips stood before the screen, clenching his fists. There was, after
all, nothing for him to do but watch. The gleaming hull expanded with a
swelling rush. Details of construction, hitherto invisible, leaped out
at him. A crack finally appeared as a section began to slide back.

This time, however, there was no blinding flare of small rockets. The
blacking out of the screen coincided with Donna's scream. "_It hit!_"

In the silence that followed, he thought he heard a sob.

"Oh, Phillips," she said, recovering, "we did it. They're--"

"Hang on," said Phillips. "I'll climb into a spacesuit and come
forward."

He switched off the intercom and dragged a suit from the rack. It took
him a good fifteen minutes to get the helmet screwed on properly and to
check everything else. He realized that he was very tired.

He opened the exit hatch, seized the top of the ladder in his gauntlets
as the air exploded out of the turret, and climbed back to the main
deck.

Clumping forward through the airless corridor, he stopped to look into
the compartment where he had left Brecken. He quickly slid the door shut
again.

He found that Donna had sealed off the corridor just short of the
control room by closing a double emergency door that must have been
designed to form an airlock in just such a situation. He hammered upon
it, and she slid it open from the control desk.

It closed again behind him, and he entered the control room through the
usual door. The girl helped him to remove the suit and motioned him
toward the screen.

* * * * *