She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... * * * * * Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the _Lachesis_ and the _Atropos_ fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the _Lachesis'_ tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the _Atropos_. It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. [Illustration: _They were diving into the sun._] The heat in the _Aphrodite's_ bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. "_Ivy!_" Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit.