somewhere outside. The Starsong was shaken as though by a great wind. Both Kirk and Garstang had weathered enough fire to know that she had taken no hurt. But the Orion cruisers were in range now, bearing down on them in normal space at planetary speeds. The next shell would likely be a good deal closer. They dared not wait for star-room to go into overdrive.

"Hit it!" yelled Kirk. Garstang threw the relays open. Sirens shrilled and the lights went dim. The Starsong shuddered vertiginously.

And then they were in overdrive and racing out toward the twin red suns that guarded the entrance to the Dragon's Throat.

The scanners and ultra-speed radar came into play, replacing normal instruments, making an illusion of sight. And the voice of the radarman said dismally,

"They're still with us, sir. F-Type cruisers, heavy-armed and plenty fast."

For the next quarter of an hour the Starsong gained velocity at a suicidal rate, but the Orion cruisers would not be left behind. The radarman called their coordinates in a steady sing-song and Garstang ordered more power and more power, keeping one eye on the stress indicators and the other on the overhanging star-cliffs of the Throat that seemed to be leaping toward the ship.

There was a limit. You could not take the Throat too fast. In that swarm of suns a ship's fabric could be torn apart in some swift tide of gravity, or vaporized in collision. Garstang had already passed the limit. But the Orionids were refusing to be bluffed.

Kirk said nothing. This was Garstang's job, and he let him do it. But he watched the indicators as closely as the captain. Under his feet and all around him he could feel the Starsong quiver, wincing and flinching like a live thing now and again as some wild current wrenched at her. His gaze flicked upward to the nebula, like a fiery thundercloud above the Dragon's Throat, and then to the shoaling suns below, with the narrow pass between them. The twin red stars of the binary flashed by and were gone.

Suddenly, in the screen that mirrored space astern, a tiny nova flared and winked away. The Starsong trembled, like a running deer that hears the hunter's gun.

"Wide astern," said Garstang. He looked at the cleft of the Throat and shook his head. "But we'll have to slow down for that, and they know it. They'll have time to range us before they come in 

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