I could see the red glow flashing in his cockpit as the radar sent out its fence warning. Instantly, to keep from crashing, March braked, at the same time giving out with his full jet-cushioning power. That shoved him back and down, and he kept right on diving to the bottom tier to miss the jet blasts of the lower rockets.

Maruu came churning up from below, trying for the hole that Ziggy had left and was closing it up rapidly. It was suicidal driving, even for Maruu. Maybe the little Martian was expecting Ziggy to give him room. Or maybe he was so set on getting out between Skid and Steve, so they could get on with their private feud, that he tossed all caution to the winds.

With anybody but Maruu and Ziggy it would have been quick curtains right there and then. As it was, the crowd saw action that would have made the inside of a working atom smasher look like a nursery hotted up in that tube. In a moment the track was a maelstrom of skittering rockets going into fantastic little dances as the drivers fought desperately for control. The scene was all set for searing, brain-numbing disaster.

And then, suddenly, it was over. Somehow that jam uncorked itself. One instant I was gritting my teeth for the first searing pain of snapping bones, and reaching for my crash button, and the next instant I was riding all alone on the top level, with just Skid and Steve packed together a couple of rocket lengths behind, and the rest of the field streaming back toward the bend.

That knocked the last vestige of caution out of me. I really set sail.

Now it was not the kid in the big white Space Star who was seeing himself winning the Astrola. It was not the kid in the white rocket, with one or two races under his belt and the crowd noise still in his brain and dreaming of a girl in the stands. It was a guy with a face like a gargoyle, a guy with a hundred wrecks on a hundred different tracks behind him.

Just like that I forgot the long months spent in plastic braces, learning the hard way how to ride the sizzle sticks. I forgot the bitter pain and the midnight horror of waking up screaming, fighting the controls of some sluing nightmare monster. I forgot I was the only guy who ever fired his rocket off the force fence and lived to tell about it, and I went into the curve like a meteor diving into the sun.

It must have looked good from the stands. It must have picked that mass of screaming rocket fans up in one hysterical wave. But it 

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