They opened their eyes, both of them. "Won," said Thompson, wiping his brow. Toralen Ki inspected the Terran carefully. "You know, now?" Billy nodded. "The rest of Terra and Sol must be excited. Wait--I must order Lane and Downing to stop." The planetoid loomed larger and larger, and Downing crowded Lane closer. On approaching courses, it was becoming evident that the conjunction of courses would occur simultaneously with their arrival at the huge meteor. And yet Downing was the better off, for if he and Lane kept their courses doggedly true, Lane's ship would hit the meteor first. The carom, of course, would drive the flaming remnants of Cliff Lane's craft upward into Stellor Downing's ship, with the resulting injury to the latter. Downing jacked up the magnification of his course-scanner with a twitch of his free hand. A rounded knoll of rock covered the scanner plate, and the cross-hairs that marked Stellor's course were just above and just to the left of the top of the knoll. A full-power shot with the dymodine in the right place-- And the caroming ship would deflect sidewise instead of straight up! Stellor Downing trained the dymodine projector until the tiny circle in the course-scanner was still farther to the left of the top of the knoll than his ship's course. The course-scanner in Cliff Lane's ship told him that he was heading for the knoll of rock. It would be a slicing blow, with Cliff's ship bounding up into Downing's craft. That much he knew. Unless he did something. He could drive up into Downing's ship right now. But that would be no solution as to whom was the better man. That would get Terra two corpses, but finely divided ones. He could swerve. And give Stellor Downing the right to say that he, Cliff Lane, had been bluffed? Now if he were Stellor--? Cliff Lane's dymodine sight was centered on the cross-hair of the scanner. He trained it slightly to the right and down, and then he touched the trigger. * * * * * Both dymodines blasted at once. Both beams raved out from positions one above the other, and both beams hit the knoll of rock in slightly different places. The splatter of energy from the coruscation ahead blinded both men, and set up shock-interference in the scanners. A gout of flaming gas burst from the hit. And within a few milliseconds of the hit, Cliff Lane arrived, with Stellor Downing almost on top of him. * * * * * Downing's ship hit the gout of flaming gas, and the velocity of ship was high. It deflected upward slightly, bending the spine of the little fleeter, rending a few plates, and dazing the Martian. Lane's ship hit the flaming gas--which was almost homogenous where Lane passed through. The Venusite's nose plates dinged in slightly from the metal-to-gas impact. Right into the hit went Cliff Lane. And out through the scar on the far side went the Venusite, roaring off in a halo of gases from the explosion.