Seconds in which to strike! Nord's jaw was a piece of sculptured white rock against which the sagging muscles of his face drew themselves taut. His eyes--they had to open! He had to see! Kadine would use the seconds. Holber's eyelids came up slowly, and he lifted his head, suddenly several times its weight, toward the view screen. The cabin swam before him--a confusion of grey and black shadows. He had an impression of a distorted blotch beside him, and he heard Mike cursing madly. "Can't see, Nord! Can't get my eyes open!" "Hold on, Mike!" The blacker shadow beside him lurched, and he heard his partner stumble back to a sitting position. This his eyes were focusing again, painfully, on a blurred patch of black, dotted with painful pinpoints of brilliant blue-white--on the screen. The black began to thicken, harden about the stars--it was torn to shreds by a fiery nova! Kadine's heat ray was eating into the stern of the Patrol Ship! * * * * * Behind the black nightmare that settled again over his tortured eyeballs, swift reactions prodded at Nord's muscles. His long fingers found the drive levers, and held tight as they sent the ship off in a dizzy, twisting tangent to her course. In his helmet, the valve clicked shut as outside pressure fell. Air was rushing from out through a gaping hole in the hull, but the ship responded perfectly to the controls. "He didn't do any real damage," Nord gritted. "Not yet," Again, he forced his eyelids up, and the screens swam before him in a red haze. "Kadine's down below us," his partner cried angrily. "He's running for the Belt! Saving those papers is worth more to him than our hides." Without a word, his eyes bloodshot and terrible, Nord hurled the Patrol Ship downward after the outlaw. "We're pretty close to the Asteroids," Mike warned mechanically. "Fragments may be pretty thick." His big mouth spread into a sudden grin. "Blast the fragments! We're after them anyway--if a couple come through the hull, that's a couple we won't have to fish for." He moved his big hands over the heat ray controls eagerly. "Kadine will have to slow down some before he cuts into that Belt," Holber reasoned aloud. "Get your beam on his stern jet tubes, just behind the nozzles--you'll have a better chance than trying to melt his hull again. The tubes are heat resistant, but they're plenty hot--and jet tubes have been rayed out before this!" The other nodded. "It's an old trick--as old as the one he pulled on us. Look--he's leveling off!" They were gaining rapidly, as the black craft below lost speed. It lurched suddenly, portraying the amazement of the pirate within, as the ray flashed in his screen. "You found him again, Mike!" Nord exulted grimly. "Right across the tubes!" "He can't run, for those tubes won't last seconds!" Kadine's fighter dogged frantically, in a brief, vain effort to shake the beam which followed every twist. Abruptly, the dark ship swerved off course.