They heard him. The whistling in his ears ceased for one second, then returned, but now it was the sucking sound of air going out. He got hold of the outer door handle, leaned his weight back against it. His glazed eyes were on the pressure dial. He knew the men in the ship were watching its counterpart. The pointer came back around slowly and each jump brought blessed relief as the pressure slackened. It was like a tremendous weight being lifted from every square inch of his body. When the pointer hit zero, he heard the lock click in the door behind him and the door against which he was pulling swung suddenly open. He almost fell backward, then managed to struggle forward through the door. "Stop him! He's trying to get into our ship!" He heard feet clattering through the chamber after him. He slammed the door against a beefy blurred face. Stumbling through the double doors of the police plane's air chamber, he managed to close and lock them against his pursuers. Then he staggered over to the control panel. He cut the switch, pressed the starter. The jets roared behind him as he shot away from his own plane. * * * * * The jets had left a vapor trail miles long before he could look back. He saw the flare of his own ship as it started in pursuit but he knew they'd never overtake him with the busted fuel pump and he wasn't worrying now about their following his trail later with a blast analyzer. He wasn't worrying about anything that would happen later. All he was thinking about now was Greeno and the girl. His own ship was no longer in sight when he swept into the outskirts of the Ring. He remembered to step up the air pressure to avoid the bends. Then, a little grimly, he smiled. There on the control panel was his ice pistol where the patrolman had left it. He stuck it in his empty holster. His luck was turning. Whipping in and out of the rough-hewn worlds, the police clock had ticked off only ten minutes when in the distance ahead he could see the sagging cable between the two little globes that were Greeno's domain. He remembered Greeno's words that very day, "You, my friend of many seasons." He remembered the way Karen Vaun looked with her hair trailing on her shoulders, her blue eyes.... If only it wasn't too late. He flashed over the twin planetoids, circled around their far side. It was easy to tell the bat had been there. For miles around, the jungle was criss-crossed with splintered tree tops where its wing tips had brushed them like a hurricane. Then, coming round to the spot where Greeno's shack was, Flint saw the real scene of violence. What had been a small clearing in the brush, not even large enough to land on, was an area big as a football field. And in the center of it lay the bat.