as far out from Jupiter as Jupiter itself had
been from the Sun. This meant that the trip would be as long for the
_Magellan_ as the distance they had already traveled to get to Jupiter.
Fortunately the A-G drive was a remarkable thing--it was possible to
accelerate to fantastic speeds--in theory, probably right up to the
speed of light. And so, where great distances were concerned, the ship
simply rushed its fall through on Saturn's line of gravitation.

Boulton had fully recovered and showed no lingering signs of the strange
electronic charge. Because of the limited size of the crew, Lockhart put
the Marine captain back on full duty--he would participate in future
landings as if nothing had ever happened.

At the same time, Lockhart cautioned Haines, Burl and Ferrati to keep
their eyes on him. It was always possible that the foe's weapon had made
some more lasting mark.

Haines had his group make a new inventory of their weapons. Burl,
working with them in a space suit, in the partially protected region of
the cargo hull, was surprised at the variety. There was a second rocket
plane, a two-man outfit. In addition, they had a large store of
offensive weapons, including a small but formidable supply of atomic
explosives.

Haines gave Burl and Ferrati--who were new to military weapons--brief
introductory lectures on their use. Burl saw just what a hand-sized,
tactical atomic shell looked like and how it worked. He learned how to
operate the heavy-caliber rocket gun which hurled this tiniest of atomic
bombs.

And so the time passed, and the amazing disc of Saturn began to grow in
their viewplates. It was banded, much like Jupiter, and its brilliant
rings surrounded it with a mystic halo that set it apart from all the
other worlds of the Sun's family.

Burl was watching Saturn through the largest of the nose viewplates when
he thought that he saw a black dot crossing its face. He had located the
known moons of Saturn and this was not one of them. Excited, he called
Russell Clyde. "Could it be a tenth satellite?" he asked, pointing out
the tiny dot.

Russ squinted his eyes; then, calculating mentally, he shook his head,
"I don't think so. It looks to me more like something that's in space
between us and Saturn. In fact--it must be fairly close to us for us to
see it at all." He turned to Lockhart who was at the control panel with
Oberfield.

"You'd better have a look. Could be a giant meteor coming in our
directi