hand.

The ships headed first for Khiv Five, lining up for it with such precision as the separate astrogators—hurriedly trained by Kim—could manage. It was a brave small company of tiny ships, forging through space away from the sunlit little world behind them. The light of the local sun was bright upon their hulls.

Glinting reflections of many-colored stars shimmered on their shadowed sides. They drove on and on, on planetary drive, seemingly motionless in space. Then the Starshine winked out of existence. By ones and twos and half-dozens, the others vanished from space.

It was the transmitter-drive, of course. The repaired Starshine vanished from space near Ades because it went away from Ades at such speed that no light could possibly be reflected from it. It reappeared in space within the solar system of Khiv because it slowed enough to be visible.

But it seemed utterly alone. Yet presently an alarm-gong rang, and there was one of its sister-ships a bare ten thousand miles away. The rest were scattered over parsecs.

Kim drove for the banded planet on which dead men still lay unburied. His fleet was to rendezvous above its summer pole, as shown by the size of the ice-cap. There had been two guard-ships circling Khiv Five to keep account of the development of grief into despair. Dona had robbed one of them while its crew was held helpless by projectors of the disciplinary-circuit field.

A second had been on the way to its aid when the Starshine reeled away with the last morsel of energy in its equalizing-batteries. With fifty small ships, swift as gad-flies though without a single weapon, Kim hoped to try out the tactics planned for his fleet, and perhaps to capture one or both of the giants.

He picked up a third member of his force on the way to the planet and the three drove on in company. Detectors indicated two others at extreme range. But as the three hovered over the polar cap of Khiv Five, others came from every direction.

Then a wheezing voice bellowed out of the newly-installed space-radio in the Starshine's control-room. It was the voice of the Mayor of Steadheim, grandly captaining a tiny ship with his four tall sons for crew.

"Kim Rendell!" he bellowed. "Kim Rendell! Enemy ships in sight! We're closing with them and be da—"

His voice stopped—utterly.

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