A brownish cloud—like chaff—that was all. It swirled astern like a streamer, in that high, frigid altitude. It scattered, so that it dissolved from view. Spreading, sinking downward.

"Not very impressive, is it?" Anna asked anxiously. It was plain that she was doubting Arne Reynaud's mysterious weapon more and more. Just chaff. What could it ever do against the Acharians, armed to the teeth, hardy, and prepared for all violence?

"Not very impressive," Ron agreed with a cynical shrug.

But he kept guiding the freighter around and around at that vast altitude until the discharge-spout had ceased to trail brown, chaffy dust. The hold was empty. The job, at least, was accomplished, now, according to exact specifications.

Not two minutes after it was completed, a shell exploded before the prow of the old freighter—a signal to halt. Many burnished Callistan war-craft were approaching.

As Ron cut the power in the propelling gravity plates astern, he looked at Anna. "Well," he drawled, "I guess this is where we stop being free Earthians."

The girl nodded, biting her lip.

Ron switched on the short-wave radio, which, over a limited distance, could function, in spite of the static barrage. Over it came harsh Callistan tones:

"You are blockade runner, perhaps. It is old trick—making ship shiny, like ours. But from very close, we recognize Earthly shape of your hull. Terrestrial resistance on Titan almost finished. Please land outside Leiccsendale."

With so many weapons trained on the unarmed Barbarian, there was little to do but obey orders. Ron guided the ship groundward. But as it came to rest on the charred soil of what had once been an orchard, he turned a control dial on which there were red marks—danger graduations, indicating the limiting point of safety. He turned the dial well past those points. The engines of the ship howled and groaned with a fearful overload for a moment. Then there was a dull, grinding, ripping noise astern, and the crackle and hiss of fire.

When the two Earthians emerged, red flames and black smoke were rising from the crumpled aft-portion of the vessel. The engines had been immersed in vats of oil to insulate their power. And now that oil was blazing. The Barbarian at least would be useless to the enemy, and the secret of its cargo, whether a dangerous secret or not, would be 

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