at all."

There was no moment of crisis, no clean-cut moment of triumph. There was just the time speeding by, the flow of copper into the ship, and the constant reports of Jonny—"No whirl forming yet."

Salvos shook the ship as the Control cruisers far outside the sun glare fired more and more accurately. But they went unheeded. Success or failure of the most audacious engineering exploit in the galaxy's history hinged upon Jonny's muttered reports.

"No whirl yet."

Jonny Land finally raised his head, looked at them as they stood with wild surmise on their faces.

"We've done it," he said, almost unbelievingly. "We've nearly filled the bunkers with copper and there's no whirl down there, no disturbance to grow into a spot. We've made Sun-mining possible."

Tears were running down Loesser's face. Harb Land looked dazed. But Jonny walked across the hold to the wall through which the cooler coils fed into the bunkers. He peered through a quartz view-plate.

They looked with him. The bunker rooms were heaped high with shining red granules. Copper, virgin-pure, blown into the rooms and already almost filling them. Copper milked from the Sun!

"Copper for Earth!" whispered Jonny, his thin face blazing now. "Power, and new life, for the old planet!"

The "Phoenix" rocked wildly and metal screeched rendingly as they were flung from their feet by a salvo that had finally bracketed the ship.

"The feed-pipes!" screeched Loesser, scrambling to his feet beside Carlin.

Carlin saw. The ship's walls had held, but the shock had snapped strained cables and cooler coils. Two intake tubes were giving way, white-hot copper vapor forcing out through cracks in them.

"Veer-clamps on those two pipes!" yelled Jonny. "If they give, everything goes!"

Knowledge of what it meant if the pipes gave way, if super-heated metallic vapor blew out into the hold, flung Carlin in a crazy rush for the Veer-clamps and wrenches.

He got a clamp around one of the pipes, and the man Vito started spinning shut the bolts that would hold the fracture tightly. He swung round toward the other pipe.

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