"Watch forward now!" Ato warned. "Sight at thirty degrees above the equator of The Nebula. Adjust for Doppler--X over Y. We have him on the screens now. This means that he can get a fix on us. Careful now--" As he watched the screen, Jack Odin saw three tiny sparks leap from Grim Hagen's ship. They danced toward them, growing as they came. At first they were blue, but as they filled the screen, almost hiding the Old Ship from his vision, they changed to amber and topaz. Bells and klaxons shrieked their warnings. Ato watched and waited. Just as the three growing lights filled the screen he touched a lever. The Nebula danced away. Breathless, Jack Odin altered the screens and watched the three globes of flame hurtle past them. Far away now, they slowed like living things, puzzled at having lost their prey. Slowed they merged together-- And turned back upon their quarry! CHAPTER 9 The three sunlets of flame merged together and dripped yellow blobs of light into the darkness. They grew into a great soap bubble that turned to topaz. Like something moving in a dream it gained upon The Nebula, until it was pacing beside them--a little larger now and still growing--dwarfing them and filling half the screen. A shadow--no, two shadows--were growing within it, Odin tried to make them out. But they were dark and wavering. Still, they looked something like a high priest standing above a prone victim stretched out upon some sacrificial altar. Odin was working the screens like mad. Keeping their entire crew before his and Ato's eyes and at the same time watching the topaz bubble. The bubble cleared. Over the loudspeakers came Grim Hagen's shriek of wild laughter. Odin turned another knob and the bubble loomed larger. Grim Hagen stood there, one lean hand rubbing his chin as he laughed at them. And the figure lying prone upon a couch beside him was swathed by a sheet which came almost to its eyes. But the shadows were leaving the bubble now. And Odin saw that it was Maya. Asleep. Statuesque. Like a carving upon a tomb--but it was Maya. Then he cried out in alarm. For upon another screen he saw Gunnar and his crew swing their weapon into action. Shell after shell of greenish fire burst about the globe. Green flame thrust out tiny rootlets that crawled over it, outlining it in garish light. Another shell seemed to burst upon Grim Hagen's chest, tearing the bubble of light apart. And as Jack watched, horrified and sick, the shards of flame came back together. And there was the globe again--with Grim Hagen and Maya as whole as ever. And a green streak of fire--one of Gunnar's misses--went careening off into space until it shrank to a pinpoint of light and then vanished. At a signal from Ato, the firing stopped. Grim Hagen was still laughing.