Down, down--our speed was dropping by hundreds of light-speeds each moment, now, as we sped down through the terrific glare of the vast white sun toward its inmost world. As we shot downward I saw that Jhul Din, now, was lying on the floor beside me, overcome by the fatigue that crowded down upon me also; only Korus Kan, of all of us, holding to the controls untiring and unaffected, the metal body in which his living organs and intelligence were cased being untrammeled by any weariness. Beneath us now lay the great masses of traffic, countless swarms of swirling ships, that had fled in to Canopus from the outer suns at the invaders' attack, and as they glimpsed our great oval craft these swarms broke wildly from before us. They took us for a raiding enemy ship, we knew, but down between them unheedingly we flashed, heading low across the surface of the great planet, still at tremendous speed. Moments more and there loomed far ahead and beneath the colossal tower of the Council of Suns, toward which we were heading. By then I felt all consciousness and volition beginning to leave me, as an utter drowsy weariness overcame me, and I realized but dimly that Korus Kan was slanting the ship down toward the great tower, until abruptly there came from him a sharp cry. With an effort I raised my gaze and saw that from below, as we sped downward, three long, shining shapes were arrowing up to meet us. They were cruisers of our own Interstellar Patrol, and as they flashed upward there suddenly leapt from them a half-dozen brilliant shafts of the crimson rays of death, stabbing straight toward us! _5. For the Federated Suns!_ Half conscious as I was, it seemed to me in that dread instant that the whole scene about us was but a strange, set tableau, racing ships and flashing rays frozen motionless in mid-air. Then another cry from Korus Kan jarred me back to realization. "The signal!" he cried. "Flash the signal of the Interstellar Patrol before they annihilate us!" At his cry a flash of realization crossed my darkened brain, and I understood that the Patrol cruisers beneath had recognized our craft as an enemy ship, that Korus Kan himself dared not leave the controls even for an instant to flash from the signal our identity. With a last summons of my waning strength I rose, staggered blindly across the room toward the switch, and then, as from beneath the crimson rays flashed blindingly toward us, grasped the switch and swept it around the dial, flashing from our ship's nose the succession of colored lights that proclaimed us of the Patrol. I felt myself sinking to the floor, then, seemed to see the three uprushing ships swerving by us at the last moment as they glimpsed the signal, and then as Korus Kan sent the ship slanting down and over the ground to land I felt a bumping shock, seemed to sink still deeper into the drowsy darkness, then knew no more.