r pound. Because of its
resistance to heat, it was used to line the tubes of rockets; Terra's
supply had long been used up. Here was a fortune all around him; but
that fortune was about to be destroyed, he along with it, if he did not
hurry.

If he could only reach the timing mechanism to yank from it the wires
connecting it to the other ships. It was at the other end of the line.
He started in that direction, but a surge of fatal, thick acid rolled
before him, reaching for him with hungry, questing tongues.

When it was almost touching his toes, he leaped. As he floated toward
the floor, he placed a chair beneath him so that his feet landed on the
seat. The legs of the chair sank slowly into the liquid.

Again he leaped, his moment retarded by the fluid which now reached
halfway up the chair legs, sucked and clung there. The sweetly-evil
smelling stuff was rising rapidly. But the next leap carried him into
the main cave. Abandoning the chair, he leaped once more, out through
the cave's mouth, pursued by the waving tentacles of the sensory
spheres.

* * * * *

He had lost precious minutes eluding that deadly acid. It would take
at least five minutes to get his ship away from the asteroid; he must
hurry before all those rocket motors were thrown into action, or it
would be too late.

Leap and leap again. It seemed ages, but he reached the ship, bolted
the door shut. Thumps against the door as the pursuing globes ran up
against it. A thought came to him; swiftly he opened the door,
permitted a few of them to enter, then slammed it shut. With the heat
gun he sheared off their tentacles; he could sell the zirconia in the
entities. Then he turned to the controls and the ship zoomed up and
out.

Nat had barely raised his ship from the Asteroid Moira when he saw the
small planetoid lurch suddenly, bounding off its orbit at almost a
right angle. The sudden combined driving force of all the rockets
within the cave had sent it hurtling away like a rocket itself.

The asteroid housing the monster was heading into the Flora group of
Asteroids. There the fifty-seven odd solid bodies of that group would
grind, crack, and rend that dangerous beast into harmless, dead
fragments.

"A good job," said a weak, but softly friendly voice behind him. He
whirled. The girl stood in the doorway of the pilot room, supporting
herself against the door frame. Digger rubbed thoughtfully against her