the two hours it had been under the Thelmard.

He turned to Gret. "We've arrived—at least that's what this thing says." He patted the globe. "How's Heintz?"

"Okay now. I gave him some more amytal."

"Umm. That's dangerous stuff—be careful," Pell said. "We're going to fall free again—watch it!"

He cut the converter and deftly cranked up the detectors to full sensitivity. Then he held his breath as he cut the Thelmard and dropped out of hyper-space for an instant. He jumped in spite of himself as all hell broke loose. The detector alarm clamored deafeningly and its red light blinked feverishly.

Throwing up the Thelmard again, Pell turned to the girl and mopped his brow. "I don't think they caught us on their own detectors, but we almost dropped out in their laps." He grinned.

"We now have a first class, double-barreled problem on our hands. This bucket has momentum amounting to about 600 miles per second. We've got to get rid of that. But if we do it too soon the DIC boys will be able to match our speed. And if we do it too late, we'll make quite a puddle on Centaura.

"Naturally," he went on, "they've concentrated most of their strength at zenith and nadir. So we'll drop out of hyper-space in the elliptic and try to fall in free from there. They won't be able to detect us for quite a while and they won't be able to match our 600 miles per second in time to catch us. But I'm afraid we'll have to run the gauntlet of DIC cruisers already in position."

He glanced at her. Excitement burned two red spots high on her cheeks.

III

Sixty-five million miles out beyond the huge red ball of Centauri VI the small space ship suddenly dropped into normal space. It pitched drunkenly, every separate member of its construction squealing in protest. Pell realized they were all too close to mass, but it couldn't be helped.

At 600 miles per second the ship hurtled toward Centaura, steadily eating up the distance. He cut the converter and every other power source in the ship except the detector sensitives which he fastened to his wrists. On DIC radar the little Mark III would be a black speck, unnoticeable against the huge disc of Centauri VI, and the backlash of enemy radiation detectors combined with their Heisenberg Factors ruled that method out unless their ships were 

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