ive rocket controls brought no response. Would
they never finish with that ignition system?

A gleaming light-fleck segregated itself from the mass of stars ahead.
At first he thought he imagined it, but a second examination, this time
through the telescope, convinced him it was growing larger. Drawing
nearer, it was, and resolving itself into a well defined orb that was
directly in their path. Fifteen hundred miles a second, the indicator
read now! They'd never know what happened when they struck.

"Tommy!" he bellowed into the mike. "Are you fellows ever going to
finish down there?"

* * * * *

There was no reply for a moment, and the blue-white globe drove madly
toward them. He consulted the chart. Pallas--an asteroid some three
hundred miles in diameter. Not very big as celestial bodies go, but big
enough!

"Just one minute now." It was Tommy's voice coming drearily,
unnaturally through the audiophone. A minute! Ninety thousand miles! It
seemed the asteroid was that close already.

Antazzo was in the control room then, and the effect of his mental
dominance became more pronounced. Suddenly the dwarf let out a shriek
of terror when he looked through the port and saw the brilliant body
that now loomed so close. Blaine experienced a savage joy in the
knowledge that the hunchback was mortally afraid.

"Latza! Latza!" In his fear Antazzo lapsed into his own tongue. Then,
remembering, he shouted, "We're ready, Carson. Swing wide!"

The directive rockets answered to their controls now. Quick pressure on
this, a swift pull on that, swinging the energy value to maximum,
brought results. The little vessel groaned and shivered under the
strain as a full blast from the forward tubes retarded them. Her hull
plates twisted and screeched as the steering tubes belched full energy
in swinging them from their course. They were thrown forward violently,
though the deceleration compensators were working to the utmost.

Pallas swung around in their field of vision, and there was a fleeting
glimpse of sun-lit spires of mountains, shadowed valleys, and
mysterious crevasses from which clouds of steam and yellow vapor
curled. Still it seemed they must crash against one of those slender
pinnacles. Nearer it came like a flash; a dizzying blur, now, that
drove directly in their straining faces.

And then, abruptly, it was gone. Already thousands of miles astern, the
danger was past. Miraculo