With that cry I leapt forward, pressing swiftly a half-dozen of the keys before me, flashing an order for all ships behind to turn at right-angles immediately. Watching the chart, though, I saw that nearly all our mighty fleet was now moving into the heat-region, caught in the grip of the attraction-ships beyond it. As my order flashed, though, the last ships of our fleet, not more than a thousand in number, had turned immediately, just before they too had raced into the deadly grip, and were rushing clear. Then, as their occupants, too, saw upon the space-charts the attraction-ships hovering beyond the heat-region, I saw them race away and around the great glowing region's edge toward those attraction-ships, while the rest of all our mighty fleet was drawn farther and farther in toward its fiery heart. All about us now was the faint red glow of the heat-region's outer portions, while swiftly the heat inside our ship was increasing, the air in the pilot room being already almost too warm to breathe. Onward we were being pulled, irresistibly, our walls beginning already to warp and crack beneath the terrific temperatures outside. Gazing forward through the glare of the great region's fiery heart, even as we were swept in toward it, I could make out through our distance-windows a swarm of great, disk-shaped craft hanging beyond the heat-region, the attraction-ships that were pulling us on to doom. Around the great region's edge toward those disk-craft our own thousand escaped ships were flashing, but before ever they could reach them, it seemed, we must perish, so awful had the heat about us become. Then I saw our thousand ships, racing about the great region's edge, pouring down on the five hundred attraction-ships, rushing down upon them in a mad swooping charge. About ourselves the crimson glare had become all but blinding, and our walls were glowing dull red, the air about us stifling. Already Jhul Din was swaying at the controls beneath that overpowering heat, and as our walls wrenched and cracked again I knew that a moment more of the terrific heat into which we were being pulled would mean the end. But even with that realization I shouted with sudden hope, since through our tele-magnifier I had glimpsed one after another of the attraction-ships, far on the other side of the heat-region, reeling and crumpling beneath the force-shafts of our thousand attacking ships!