ns Costigan managed finally to blast his way out, but the Nevians
had had time to assemble in force and he was met by a concentrated storm
of beams and of metal from every inimical weapon within range.

But not for nothing had Conway Costigan selected for his dash for
liberty the craft which, save only for the two immense interstellar
cruisers, was the most powerful vessel ever built upon red Nevia. And
not for nothing had he studied minutely and to the last, least detail
every item of its controls and of its armament during wearily long days
and nights of solitary imprisonment. He had studied it under test, in
action, and at rest; studied it until he knew thoroughly its every
possibility--and what a ship it was! The atomic-powered generators of
his shielding screens handled with ease the terrific load of the
Nevians' assault, his polycyclic screens were proof against any material
projectile, and the machines supplying his offensive weapons with power
were more than equal to their tasks. Driven now at full rating those
frightful beams lashed out against the Nevians blocking the way, and
under their impacts her screens flared brilliantly through the spectrum
and went down. And in the instant of their failure the enemy vessel was
literally blown into nothingness--no unprotected metal, however
resistant, could exist for a moment in the pathway of those iron-driven
tornadoes of pure energy.

Ship after ship of the Nevians plunged toward the speedster in
desperately suicidal attempts to ram her down, but each met the same
flaming fate before it could reach its target. Then from the grouped
submarines far below there reached up red rods of force, which seized
the space-ship and began relentlessly to draw her down.

"What are they doing that for, Conway? _They_ can't fight us!"

"They don't want to fight us. They want to hold us, but I know what to
do about that, too," and the powerful tractor rods snapped as a plane of
pure force knifed through them. Upward now at the highest permissible
velocity the speedster leaped, and past the few ships remaining above
her she dodged; nothing now between her and the freedom of boundless
space.

"You did it, Conway; you did it!" Clio exulted. "Oh, Conway, you're just
simply wonderful!"

"I haven't done it yet," Costigan cautioned her. "The worst is yet to
come. Nerado. He's why they wanted to hold us back, and why I was in
such a hurry to get away. That boat of his is bad medicine, g