"Keep giving her all you got," Greg urged Russ. "We've got plenty of power for braking. We can overhaul him and stop in a fraction of the time he does." Russ nodded grimly. The distance indicator needle on the mechanical shadow slipped off rapidly. Greg, leaping from his chair, hung over it, breathlessly. "I think," he said, "we better slow down now. If we don't, we'll be inside the planetary system." "How far out is Craven?" asked Russ. "Not far enough," Greg replied unhappily. "He can't be more than three billion miles from the star and that star's hot. A class G, all right, but a good deal younger than old Sol." * * * * * "We'll let them know we've arrived," grinned Greg. He sent a stabbing beam of half a billion horsepower slashing at the _Interplanetarian_. The other ship staggered but steadied itself. "They know," said Russ cryptically from his position in front of the vision plate. "We shook them up a bit." They waited. Nothing happened. Greg scratched his head. "Maybe you were right. Maybe they don't want to fight." Together they watched the _Interplanetarian_. It was still moving in toward the distant sun, as if nothing had happened. "We'll see," said Greg. Back at the controls he threw out a gigantic tractor beam, catching the other ship in a net of forces that visibly cut its speed. Space suddenly vomited lashing flame that slapped back and licked and crawled in living streamers over the surface of the _Invincible_. The engines moaned in their valiant battle to keep up the outer screen. The pungent odor of ozone filtered into the control room. The whole ship was bucking and vibrating, creaking, as if it were being pulled apart. "So they don't want to fight, eh?" hooted Russ. Greg gritted his teeth. "They snapped the tractor beam." "They have power there," Russ declared. "Too much," said Greg. "More power than they have any right to have." His hand went out to the lever on the board and pulled it back. A beam smashed out, with the engines' screaming drive behind it, billions of horsepower driving with unleashed ferocity at the other ship. Greg's hand spun a dial, while the generators roared thunderous defiance. "I'm giving them the radiation scale," said Greg. The _Interplanetarian_ was staggering under the terrific bombardment, but its screen was handling every ounce of the power that Greg was pouring into it. "Their photo-cells can't handle that," cried Russ. "No photo-cell would handle all that stuff you're shooting at them. Unless ..." "Unless what?" "Unless Craven has improved on them." "We'll have to find out. Get the televisor." * * * * * Russ leaped for the television machine. A moment later he lifted a haggard face. "I can't get through," he said. "Craven's got our beams stopped and now he has our television blocked out."