Seeking to vary the strained anxiety of that race for life, I went back into the engine room. Hunched gnome-like amid the strange shining bulks of his machines, Rogo Nug was chewing steadily on a wad of his _goona-roon_. He spat into a purple-stained can, and plaintively observed: "Look at that! By Malgarth's brazen bowels, Kel is making me burn the very life out of the converters!" He pointed to a crystal tube, with drops of water falling swiftly down it.--Water was the fuel of the _Barihorn_. Hydrogen atoms in the converter, were built into helium, with the "packing fraction" liberated as pure energy to activate the space-contractors. The freed oxygen renewed the atmosphere aboard. * * * * * A red light was flashing, beside it, a gong clanged at monotonous intervals. "The warning," muttered Rogo Nug. "Overload!" Tension of dread drew me back to the pilot-room. That appalling cloud of green-flickering darkness had grown against the diamond field ahead. Its spiral arms reached out as if to grasp us. I tried to comprehend its vastness: a hundred light years meant six hundred trillion miles. The pursuing cruisers drew inexorably closer. The formation changed again, so that they formed a double circle of crimson flecks, brighter than the stars. The flashes of blue came faster. Abruptly, beside us, flamed out a blue-white sun. I shrank and blinked from its burst of blistering radiation. "A stray meteor from the cloud, that a beam caught," commented the impassive dark Saturnian. "It might as well have been the ship." His face a grim-set mask, Kel Aran came down from the little ray-gun turret of the _Barihorn_. "The range of their beams is about nine times ours," he said softly. "Means about eighty times the power." He went to the telescreen. "Wonder what our friend the Admiral has to say by now!" That stolidly dark, craftily stupid face flashed on the screen again, and the great guttural voice thumped from the cabinet: "--must not escape, for he is the last surviving Earthman. I have just received a communication that should increase your interest in the chase. The Corporation offers all the revenues of the twelve worlds of Lekhan, to be divided among those responsible for the capture or death of the Falcon. And the Emperor has commanded that, if the Falcon escapes, those held responsible shall die." A sudden reckless grin lit the face of Kel Aran. His bright eyes narrowed, and a quick hand swept back his thick yellow hair. And then, while Jeron Roc made a frantic, futile snatch to halt him, he twisted a knob. In a light, taunting voice, he called: "Greetings, Admiral!" The dark, thick-featured face stared at him, first in stiff stupefaction, then crimsoned with a seething rage. "You--Earth-rat!" he choked. "You dare--" He gulped, caught his breath. "Tapping my communicator will be your last bit of insolence," he bellowed. "We're taking you, Falcon--for Malgarth!"