tterly. A small, round hole marred the
bridge of her nose: the back of her head was gone.

He leaped to the controls and the fleet little ship screamed skyward. He
cut in transmitter and receiver, keyed and twiddled briefly. No soap. He
had been afraid of that. They were already blanketing every frequency he
could employ; using power through which he could not drive even a tight
beam a hundred miles.

But he could still crash that missile in its tube. Or--could he? He was
not afraid of other Norheiman fighters; he had a long lead and he rode
one of their very fastest. But since they were already so suspicious,
wouldn't they launch the bomb _before_ seven o'clock? He tried vainly to
coax another knot out of his wide-open engines.

With all his speed, he neared the pin-point just in time to see a trail
of super-heated vapor extending up into and disappearing beyond the
stratosphere. He nosed his flyer upward, locked the missile into his
sights, and leveled off. Although his ship did not have the giant
rocket's acceleration, he could catch it before it got to Atlantis,
since he did not need its altitude and since most of its journey would
be made without power. What he could do about it after he caught it he
did not know, but he'd do _something_.

He caught it; and, by a feat of piloting to be appreciated only by those
who have handled planes at super-sonic speeds, he matched its course and
velocity. Then, from a distance of barely a hundred feet, he poured his
heaviest shells into the missile's war-head. He _couldn't_ be missing!
It was worse than shooting sitting ducks--it was like dynamiting fish in
a bucket! Nevertheless, nothing happened. The thing wasn't fuzed for
impact, then, but for time; and the activating mechanism would be
shell-and shock-proof.

But there was still a way. He didn't need to call Artomenes now, even if
he could get through the interference which the fast-approaching
pursuers were still sending out. Atlantean observers would have lined
this stuff up long since; the Officer would know exactly what was going
on.

Driving ahead and downward, at maximum power, Phryges swung his ship
slowly into a right-angle collision course. The fighter's needle nose
struck the war-head within a foot of the Atlantean's point of aim, and
as he died Phryges knew that he had accomplished his mission. Norheim's
missile would not strike Atlantis, but would fall at least ten miles
short, and the water there was ver