juncture with the neck, was solidly sheathed with bare, hard, thick, tough bone.

Darjeeb's amazing head shone a clean-scrubbed white. But Luda's—the eternal feminine!—was really something to look at. It had been sanded, buffed, and polished. It had been inlaid with bars and strips and scrolls of variously colored noble metals and alloys; then decorated tastefully in red and green and blue and black enamel—then, to cap the climax, lacquered!

But that was old stuff to Darjeeb. All that he cared about was the tightness of the chains immobilizing Luda's every hand and foot. Seeing that they were all tight, he returned his attention to his plates. For he was not yet in the clear. Any number of enemies might be blasting off after him at any minute....

A light flashed upon his panel—something was in the ether. Behind him everything was clear. Nothing was coming from Dhil. Ah, there it was—coming in from open space. Nothing could move that fast, but this thing, whatever it might be, certainly was. It was a space-craft of some kind. And, gods of the ancients, how it was coming!

As a matter of fact the lifeboat was coming in at less than one light, the merest crawl, as space-speeds go. Otherwise Darjeeb could not have seen it at all. Even that velocity, however, was so utterly beyond anything known to his solar system that the usually phlegmatic Uhalian sat spellbound—appalled—for a fraction of a second. Then every organ leaping convulsively in the realization that that incredible thing was actually happening, he drove one hand toward a control.

Too late—before the hand had covered half the distance, the incomprehensibly fast ship had struck his own in direct central impact. In fact, before he even realized what was happening it was all over! The strange vessel had struck and had stopped dead-still—without a jar or shock, without even a vibration!

Both ships should have been blasted to atoms—but there the stranger was, poised motionless beside him. Then, under the urge of a ridiculously tiny jet of flame, she leaped away, covering a distance of miles in the twinkling of an eye. Then something else happened. She moved aside, drifting heavily backward against the stupendous force of her full driving blast!

As soon as he recovered from his shock, Darjeeb's cold, keen brain began to function in its wonted fashion.

Only one explanation was possible—inertialessness!

 Prev. P 6/24 next