Saturn bulked more and more huge in the ship's observation bay. Ron's course took him straight to the edge of those vast, arcing circular paths of cosmic dust and pebbles, known as the Rings. Seen from the Barbarian's angle of approach, the planet's northern hemisphere was upward.

There, just beyond the stupendous natural miracle of the Rings, thousands of miles across, Ron piloted his craft along, in a parallel curve around Saturn. Anna and he had gotten this far, at least, ahead of their enemies; but what good did that do?

Scarcely half a mile in front of the freighter, a terrific explosion blazed soundlessly in the voidal vacuum. Then another and another. A little nearer each time. The Acharian fleet was firing explosive atomic shells at its prey. In greater and greater numbers, as each second passed, and with better and better accuracy, as sighting instruments and ballistics calculating machines improved the aim.

There was no way for Ron and Anna to return the fire. In spite of her war-like name, the old merchantman carried no weapons. She had been sent out from Earth on her strange errand too hastily to be fitted with guns. But even had she been a battleship, her position would have been hopeless against the odds of fifty to one!

Once the Barbarian's hull rung and shivered like a vast, deep-throated bell, as an exploding projectile barely grazed her flanks. It was a matter of moments, now, before a direct and final hit would be made. The atomic missiles the Callistans were using, were different in their action from the silent, metal-melting darts employed in the rifles of the terrestrial colonists of Titan. But they were no less effective, in their more sudden release of atomic power, because of that!

Young Leiccsen found himself looking into Anna Charles' brave, misty eyes. The pale, flooding glow of Saturn, and its sinister Rings, reflecting the sunlight, streamed through the broad observation bay of the control turret, and touched her hair, making it give back soft, golden glints.

"Ron," she said quietly, "I guess this is the end of the trail. But I wouldn't like to let it be those devils from Callisto who kill us. I'd rather choose the way to die. Maybe you would, too. There's another road out of this life, Ronnie. A grander one. You're so bitter, sometimes. But I think you're like me, in a few things. Shall we go—that other way? It's so close, so easy, so swift. Look...."

She was pointing through the 

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