fall in the night area."

They did. They vanished, as specks against the sunlit disk. Then, minutes later, a little red spark appeared where the bulk of the banded planet faded into absolute black. The spark held and grew in brightness.

"They've hit atmosphere," Kim told her. "They're compressing the air before them until it's incandescent. They're a meteoric fall."

The spark flared terribly, minute though it was from this distance. It curved downward as the air slowed its forward speed. It was an infinitesimal comet, trailing a long tail of fire behind it. It swooped downward in a gracefully downward-curving arc. It crashed.

"Which," said Kim coldly in the Starshine's control-room, "means that two Sinabian warships are destroyed without cost to us. It's a victory. But it's very, very bad luck for us. With those two ships and transmitter drive we could end the war in one day."

CHAPTER VII

Ready for Action

Indignantly the Mayor of Steadheim bellowed from the space-phone speaker and Kim answered him patiently.

"The decoy still had a disciplinary-circuit field on," he explained for the tenth time. "You know about it! When you tried to go galumphing in, the field grabbed you and paralyzed you. When your muscles went iron hard, the relay on your wrist—you wear it to protect you from the fighter-beams—threw your ship into transmitter-speed travel.

"So you were somewhere else. When you came back you charged in again and the same thing happened. The relay protected you against our field as well as the enemy fighter-beams. That's all."

The Mayor wheezed and sputtered furiously. It was plain that he had meant to distinguish himself and his four sons by magnificent bravery.

"There's something that needs to be done," said Kim. "Those two ships are smashed but they hadn't time to melt. There'll be hafnium in the wreckage, anyhow—and metal is scarce on Ades. See what you can salvage and get it to Ades. It's important war work. Ask for other ships to volunteer to help you."

The Mayor of Steadheim roared indignantly—and then consented like a lamb. In the space-navy of Ades there could not yet be anything like iron discipline. Kim led his forces as a feudal baron might have led a motley assemblage of knights 

 Prev. P 30/42 next