"Heat-screens won't take another dyne! If we go closer, we're done for."

"We're orbiting now," Jonny said huskily. "Wait!"

Harb Land was engaged in the most difficult operation of spacemanship, bringing a ship into exact balanced orbit around a celestial body.

Most difficult, even when the body was a planet. Impossible, nearly, when the body was a Titanic star!

Carlin saw the giant's face a frozen mask as he centered his dial needles, fed force with infinite delicacy, guided, changed—and changed again.

Harb reached and slammed open a switch. The hum of propulsion waves died. The "Phoenix" was without driving power. And the needle of the gravi-gauges remained constant, the ship's path around the Sun was unvarying.

"We've orbited!" Harb Land's voice was a hoarse, exhausted sound.

Carlin wanted to shout, "By heaven, there are no spacemen in the galaxy except Earthmen—none!"

The "Phoenix" was circling the Sun, deep in the corona and reversing layer and close to the photosphere or light-emitting surface which was the vague boundary of the star itself.

Their sensation was that of men suspended over a Universe of raging flame and force. The mind shook to the impact of it. They were here where no men, no life, had ever been intended to be. They were violating the sanctity of a star.

"Now—the dredge," Jonny said hoarsely. "We've not power enough to force the heat-screens like this for long. Come on, Carlin."

Carlin stumbled back with him into the stifling hold. The men around the towering magnetic dredge were like sooty devils staring with wild eyes.

The metal was so hot its touch made him cry out as he closed the circuit of the generators with the ato-turbines. The rotors began their whine, building up a magnetic field.

The whole ship suddenly shook and quivered. Harb came plunging back into the hold.

"Those Control Cruisers are starting to salvo us by radiolocator!"

"We only need a little time," panted Jonny Land. "The cooler coils, Carlin!"

Carlin felt like a man in a dream as he sweated with Jonny to get the magnetic dredge started. The field was building steadily, and the great nozzles of the 

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