s
fish-scale sides.

"Come on!" I urged unnecessarily. I kicked into several of the yielding
bodies left from our first fight, before Leider had taken us, and in a
little while the feel of cool, smooth metal under my hand told me we had
reached the gangway.

"Up you go, Captain!" I snapped, and as she clutched the slender rail of
the gangway and plunged upwards, "LeConte, you next. Koto--"

But Koto laid a firm hand on my arm.

"No, I do not go."

* * * * *

We stopped where we were. The noises of pursuit were still around us,
and I could have slugged him for making a delay.

"You fool, get aboard!" I roared.

But it did no good.

"No."

"Get the motors started!" I called to Captain Crane. "LeConte, you help
her." Then I turned to Koto and in the dark waved a fist under his nose.
"You idiot--"

"No, my friend," he laughed at me. "You killed Leider. LeConte put out
the lights. Captain Crane will pilot the ship. Now it's my turn. You
will pardon my insubordination, but you will also please to hurry up the
gangway before I knock you unconscious and throw you up. Damn it, it's
my explosive, anyway, isn't it? Who has the best right to fire it?"

With that he whirled away from me.

"Don't wait!" he called over his shoulder.

I laughed at him and sang out the order to Captain Crane to stand by. As
for myself, I remained standing on the small platform at the foot of the
gangway.

The moment Captain Crane flipped a switch which flooded the control room
and a score of ports along the hull with golden light, I thought the
yells which rose from the other room and the far side of this one would
blow the roof off. By the time we felt a quiver run through the hull,
and heard the sweet, deep-throated hum of the gigantic power plant, a
mob of Orconites had formed for a new attack. It was hideous that we
could not wait for Koto in darkness, but the light was essential to
Captain Crane's preparations, so there was nothing to be done. I felt
that Koto's chances of getting back to us were one in a thousand.

* * * * *

Yet suddenly, as I still clung to the foot of the gangway, LeConte
thrust his head from the control room door and yelled at me to hang on
tight. At once the ship moved forward, and, rolling easily on her ground
gear, swung left and lunged toward the swooping mob of Orconites.

Handling that space flier in the cavern w