at breakneck speed. The lock should be somewhere a few miles beyond....

Then they saw it. They glimpsed tiny pin-points of fire as Praana blasted the rockets of her ship as a signal to them. Ric braked with the forward tubes. As it was, he came into the wall with a crashing glide that sheared half of the underhull away.

They climbed out, raced for the lock just as the first wave of onrushing air threatened to sweep them up. It became a hurricane. The full concussion would be right behind it!

Praana was waiting and ready. They piled into the ship and without a waste motion Ric was at the controls. They swept deeper into the lock ... into darkness. Unbearable heat enveloped them. Already they were feeling the concussion! There came a moment of giddy acceleration, an unbearable pressure that sent the blood pounding in their ears.

Then a pattern of starlight swept across their vision. Sharp crags loomed suddenly ahead ... they passed over them, a wild terrain dropped sheerly away, and their spacer became a fiery pinwheel of rocket blasts as they were hurled into free space!

Ric was fighting the controls, fighting the unbelievable pressure that threatened to black him out. He caught a glimpse of Phobos behind them, bursting apart in a blinding holocaust. Gradually, with alternate rocket thrusts, he managed to stop their wild spin. Then, dazedly, they turned to look.

The scene behind them now was like something on a slow-motion film. Almost lazily Phobos was expanding, as a ghastly bluish radiance enveloped the area. Then Ric came alert, as spinning, disintegrating fragments larger than their ship began hurling about them.

He blasted away, and minutes later they were looking back at the deadly area. Only a vast powdery haze occupied the former orbit of Phobos. Soon even this haze would disappear as the infinitesimal particles drew together. A few larger fragments were falling toward Mars now, where doubtless they would take up individual orbits about the planet.

Ric set his course, and on full rocket blast they headed for Earth. Tal was worried, as he scanned the visi-panel.

"Ric ... just before Gorak rushed out of the room ... when he touched that row of buttons...."

"Yes, I know. I'm sure that released the bombs. He already had the sights set for Luna!"

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