It was uphill all the way as the tremendous mass of the Tane Jewel dragged at their flagging steps. Niala fell a half a dozen times from the smashing shocks that shook the discoid. Glayne helped her to her feet, only to be thrown down himself the next instant by the concussion of an energy torpedo. Huge seams opened in the tough beralloy sides of the mono-rail passage as the mammoth support beams fractured. Panting, they finally reached the point where the air-lock had fallen in place automatically. Glayne pushed at the port, expecting it to dilate. It didn't move a fraction of a centimeter. A rapid examination showed that it was sprung. Feverishly he felt for his torch to cut it down. But it was gone! He suddenly felt sick, realizing that he had lost it in the struggle with Bro-Doral. Now he would never be able to find it again. They were trapped. Waves of defeat swept over him as he crouched in the darkness. Suddenly he heard a new sound in the mad cacaphony of destruction that raged about them. It was the tortured scream of rending, snapping beralloy. And along with it came the sensation of increased weight. The Tane Jewel! The huge beams which had anchored it in place had evidently collapsed under the impact of the assault and now the Jewel was falling freely through space, crashing through everything that stood in its path. And it was falling toward them! Glayne's weight grew unbearable as it approached. Vaguely he could make out its steady gold brilliance behind him in the passage. Grimly he clung to a projection in the wall with one arm and hung onto Niala with the other. Then the miraculous happened. The air-lock door which had been sprung now dilated under its own tremendous weight and the air pressure which remained in the passage flung Glayne and Niala through the lock. Summoning the last reserves of his diminishing strength, Glayne put his arm around her body and half-supported her, half-dragged her up the few remaining steps of the mono-rail passage to the landing dock. Forty meters separated him from the emergency lock of the _Algol_. Thirty meters. His straining muscles groaned in anguish. Twenty meters. Niala was unconscious and her slight form was an unbearable weight to him as he dragged her with painfully slow steps. Ten.... Five ... he reached the lock. [Illustration: _The battle raged on across the stars!_] He heaved her bodily into the lock and clambered in himself. Then through the inner door. Across to the elevator. His muscles were a symphony of agony. Slowly, slowly the elevator climbed. The discoid was splitting and breaking up around the _Algol_--or was it wedging the cruiser more firmly than ever in the vise grip of the beralloy outer portals? The elevator door quivered for a moment, then dilated in a series of little shudders. Ever so slowly Glayne crawled across the bridge deck, dragging the girl. A shock seat ... a surette of verchromynal into the blue vein inside her elbow.