"There it is!" Mark breathed. "Luhor's carried his plan through! He's made a rogue asteroid of it, moved it clear out of the belt--" Words ceased, as they watched the preliminary maneuvers. The asteroid's slashing saber of white touched the disintegrating power of the green. But it was the green that disintegrated! Slowly, almost carressingly, the pale beam moved across the advancing blanket of light. Where it touched, the green dissolved magically as though it had never been. "That's what I meant. The etheric inertia ray!" Aladdian's murmur was tinged with exultation, as she sensed Carston standing beside her taut with surprise. Still the Earth Fleet moved forward in battle formation, in staggered horizontal tiers. Impelled by the terrific momentum, it depended upon maneuverability to escape the impending danger. But, inexorably, the asteroid moved forward also, as if hungry to meet its enemy. Limned behind its own ghastly light, it was revealed as a leisurely rotating mass of rock and mineral, with jagged pinnacles reaching out and deep black gullies agape. A blinding lance of electric blue lashed from Earth's Flagship, like a probing finger searching for a weak point. It stabbed Luhor's white ray and ended in a corruscating upheaval of incandescent light. The asteroid was very close now; it seemed as if nothing could prevent that sidereal mass, some ten miles in diameter, from plowing through the tiers of Earth Spacers. But in that veritable moment when disaster seemed certain, Earth's massed fleet executed one of the most spectacular feats of navigation the Universe had ever witnessed. The units literally _broke apart_ and moved outward into a perfect cone-like formation, with the base, or open end, toward the asteroid. Again the green radiance, from all sides now, went out to envelop the asteroid in a glaucous sheath, as the dark mass drifted into the trap. "This is it!" Carston gloated hoarsely. "Now watch your asteroid crumble!" The others said nothing. All were tense, as the tiny ten-mile world entered the open end of the cone to what seemed certain destruction. Now the white etheric inertia ray lashed out savagely again, sweeping in swift arcs, but failed to dispel the concentrated waves of green fire. Then from the surface of the dark world, Luhor's own space fleet arose--six cruisers only, dwarfed in size by some of Earth's larger ships. With blinding speed, the six allotropic cruisers headed for the closing jaws of the trap. * * * * *