voice of authority.

"Silence! This is the Commander of Air! Orders for O--sixteen--L: seize
that ship! Your magnets!--disregard damage!--get your magnets on that
ship and hold her. We are coming down--"

Chet reached for the transmitter switch and opened it that their voices
might not go beyond the control room.

"Lots of company; they seem pretty certain that they're on the right
track. And the big boss himself is coming down to call. Can't you hurry
those 'chutes?"

The control room door was flung open as the figure of a young man
stumbled through and dropped two bundles of cloth and webbing upon the
floor. He clung to the door-frame as Chet threw the big freighter into
a totally unexpected maneuver that rolled them down and away from a
silver-bellied ship above. Then the levers moved again, and the ship
went hard-a-port as Chet caught again one fleeting glimpse of shadow
below that could only be the markings of a building he had known well.

"Hold her there, Spud!" he shouted. "He'll be back in a minute or two!
He'll get us next time!"

Chet was reaching for the straps of a 'chute. He had the webbing about
him when he stopped to waste precious seconds in wide-eyed staring at
the figure of Spud O'Malley.

* * * * *

Spud was pulling at a recalcitrant buckle. He had motioned the relief
pilot to take the controls, and now the bulk of a parachute pack hung
awkwardly behind him.

"Spud!" Chet shouted. "You're not stepping out too! It's no sure thing
with these old 'chutes; they're probably rotten! Stay here! Tell 'em I
stuck you up with a gun!--tell 'em I made you bring me--"

"If you must talk," said Spud O'Malley calmly, and pulled a strap tight
across his chest, "do ye be tryin to work while you talk. Get that
harness on! If I let you stow away on my ship you can do no less than
take me along on yours!"

A crashing impact drove the men to the floor in a sprawling heap; Chet
pulled the last strap tight as he lay there. The lookouts were black
above where the belly of a Patrol Ship clung close.

"Jimmy knows how to obey orders," said Chet as he came to his feet. "No
cable magnets for Jimmy! He just smashed down on top of us, ripped off
our fans and grabbed hold." He was helping Spud to his feet as he spoke.

"Mac, me bhoy," the pilot told his assistant, "the log has it all, the
whole story. There'll be no trouble for you at all."

He yanked quickly at the port-opening swi