effect kept it warm enough for human beings to colonize the island chains that surrounded the equatorial belt.

The HC-36 was braking in when the odds-against coincidence happened. Near planet six, which just happened to be at its nearest approach to Therbis, a spaceship came into range of the instruments of the HC-36. At first it was thought to be a meteor; that was what the instruments were meant to look for, and that's what they expected.

But no meteor is a smooth prolate spheroid, like a football with smoothly rounded ends. And no Earth ship was ever shaped like that, either.

It was visible on the plates of the HC-36 only a few seconds—then it vanished.

Orders were already snapping over the robot control system as Parmay charged for the main salon. He had heard the alarm and came running.

Tallen was slapping his hands over switch plates with lightning movements of his wrists. "Alien ship!" he shouted. "As soon as our radar touched her, she hit hypersee. That was about thirty-five seconds before our own equipment registered the echo, so she's had better than a minute to arrange herself nicely to blast us!"

"Won't she have to come out of hypersee to do it?"

"Sure, but where?"

"I'd—"

He was cut off by a hum of power from Fire Control; at the same instant, he saw the football shape of the alien on the screen. It was less than eight miles away.

The Earthship's beam blazed momentarily on the alien vessel, then vanished. The alien dodged suddenly ahead, and something flickered on her side. All hell broke loose in the Thirty-six. From the engine section came a faint thudding vibration of overload switches cutting out. The ship shivered and hiccoughed like a drink-deprived alcoholic.

Again Fire Control beamed out, and again the alien ship flared. But there was no answering blast.

Parmay, shaken, watched the weird battle on the screen. Behind the enemy ship loomed the vast bulk of planet six, a gigantic ammonia-methane globe, a Jovian monstrosity that outlined the darker form of the alien ship.

Slowly, the enemy vessel began to shrink; it was falling toward the giant planet.

"Her drive's out!" Tallen shouted gleefully.

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