. "Take him below and see if you can't get some different
answers out of him." The hardened spaceman turned his back and walked to
the viewport.

"Why, you dirty space rat!" screamed Barret. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, wouldn't he!" retorted Roger. "Listen, pal, he figures we owe you
plenty for what you did to us, and he's just giving us a chance to pay
you back!" He faced Barret grimly. "Mister, you're going to get the
works! Come on, Astro!"

As the giant Venusian advanced on Barret, the man shrank back in his
chair, eyes widening in sudden fear. When Astro stretched out his huge
hand and grabbed him by the front of his jacket, he screamed in fright.

"All right, all right!" he cried out. "I'll talk! Devers did it! He made
me do it! He's responsible for the whole thing!"

"Turn on that audiograph, Corbett!" shouted Connel.

Tom snapped on the machine and brought the microphone over to Barret,
holding it in front of his trembling mouth.

"All right, talk!" Connel growled. "And tell it all."

Barret had hardly uttered the first stumbling words when Roger let out a
shout of alarm. "Hey! The scanner!" he cried.

They all turned to the teleceiver screen. To their horror, they saw a
menacing shape blasting toward them. They recognized it instantly--a
space torpedo!

Astro dove through the power-deck hatch while Roger raced for the
radar-bridge ladder. Tom hurled himself into the copilot's chair, and
with Connel beside him in the command position, he waited for Astro to
supply power. Suddenly the ship trembled violently and then shot forward
as, far below, the jet exhausts screamed under the full thrust of all
the atomic reactors. Tom rode the controls hard and kept his eye on the
scanner screen.

"It's a magnetic gyrofish!" he cried as he saw the torpedo curve after
them. "Roger, can you plot her for me?"

"Working on it now, Tom!" yelled Roger over the intercom.

"How in blazes did that thing get out here?" muttered Connel.

"We'll have to worry about that later, I'm afraid, sir," replied Tom.
"We're going to have our hands full getting away from her. With that
magnetic warhead, she'll follow us all over space unless we can throw
her off."

"Which will take some doing!" grunted Connel, frowning in deep concern.

"Hey, Tom!" Roger's voice called over the intercom. "It's blasting on
maximum thrust now. We have a pretty good chance. Use that idea we
worked out. Make a series of left turns and always on the u