Up into the darkness above the vast, blue-glowing city we flashed, Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I bursting up into the pilot room and replacing our follower there whose timely action had saved us. Beneath us the whole city was rising as the alarm spread, lights flashing out here and there among its buildings, serpent-hordes pouring into the streets, while from the landing-circle from which we had just risen there shot up after us a dozen long gleaming oval ships, in close pursuit. So swiftly were they after us that before we had fully realized their nearness, their death-beams were sweeping and slicing through the darkness about us. I shouted a swift order, Korus Kan whirled the controls about and sent our ship flashing straight back into the mass of our dozen pursuers, and then we had leapt through them, our red rays striking right and left as we did so, and two of their great craft had flared there in the darkness above the great city in blinding crimson light, and we were racing up into the darkness again with the ten remaining ships farther behind, but still speeding on our track. Upward we shot with terrific speed, and in a moment the vast, turning world beneath, covered with the masses of blue force-structures, had contracted and dwindled to a mere point beneath us as we fled up and outward into space. As we flashed up from it, though, I had glimpsed rising from it a full five hundred serpent-ships, with a score of the great disk attraction-ships, and as these lifted to follow the ten that leapt close behind us, I saw that the serpent-creatures were taking no slightest chance of our escape. I turned to Korus Kan, swiftly, as our craft leapt upward, shouting to him above the droning roar of the generators that filled our craft now. "Head straight out toward the great vibration-wall--toward the opening in it!" I cried. "We'll never get through that opening--between the space-forts!" Jhul Din exclaimed. "They'll have received word of our escape, and will be waiting for us!" I shook my head. "We'll have to run between them and take our chance!" I yelled. "It's our one chance of escape from this universe!" * * * * *