"We broadside as soon as we range you unless you turn now," warned the steely voice from the communic.

Laird Carlin, only a few weeks before, would no more have dreamed of disobeying a Control Operations command than he would have of picking stars from the sky. Galaxy citizens were trained to revere the great organization that had made the Universe a place of law and order.

But the ancient independence of these men of Earth was strong in him now. They had already risked so much, had incurred certain penalty even if they now surrendered.

"Keep going!" Carlin exclaimed. "They can't follow us once you start orbiting close to the Sun's photosphere. No ordinary Control cruiser has heavy enough heat-screens to follow us into that!"

"By Jupiter, it's so!" exclaimed Harb, faint hope lighting his face. "But I daren't crowd on more speed now. I've got to start decelerating if we're to orbit correctly."

"Decelerate by plan," Jonny said grimly. "They may not range us in time. We'll soon know."

The "Phoenix," flying at a tangent toward the gigantic sphere of the Sun, was aiming to swing into an orbit around Sol as close as possible to its photosphere or gaseous surface.

It had to be so. No ship would ever have power enough to go that close to the Sun's colossal pull and hold its position by its own energy. To get that close and to stay that close to Sol without being drawn in to it, a ship had to go into an orbit around it like a tiny satellite.

The air in the "Phoenix" was already stifling hot. Jonny switched in another of the heat-screens, and the dim halo around the flying ship deepened.

Harb's fingers were flashing over the controls, decelerating, steering the ship in a closing spiral toward the Sun.

"Carlin, talk them out of this madness!" cried Ross Floring, aghast. "The cruisers will be broadsiding us in moments."

Carlin paid no attention. His eyes were on the visor-screen where the four cruisers now loomed big as they came closer.

Then it came. Silent, deadly, four blinding gouts of flame burst near the "Phoenix." Four salvos of atomic shells whose wave of force rocked the plunging ship. Loesser came tumbling into the pilot room, red face glistening.

 Prev. P 45/54 next