"Sure they are." Brandon did not even turn his heavily-goggled eyes from the blazing blankness of his own screen. "That was my hunch. Those snakes went about things in a business-like fashion. They didn't strike me as being folks who would pull off such a wild stunt as trying to chase us clear out of the solar system, but a gang of hexans would do just that. Some of them must have captured that ship and, already having it in their cock-eyed brains that we were back of what happened on Callisto, they decided to bump us off if it was the last thing they ever did. That's what I'd do myself, if I were a hexan. Now I'll tell you what's happening back at the home power plant of that ship and what's going to happen next. I'm kicking up a horrible row out there with my interference, and a lot of instruments at the other end of that beam must be cutting up all kinds of didoes, right now. They'll check up on that ship with the expedition, by radio and what-not, and when they find out that it's clear out here--chop! Didn't get to see much, did you?" "No, they must have switched over to their accumulators almost instantly." "Yeah, but if they've got accumulator capacity enough to hold off our entire cosmic intake and get back to Jupiter besides, I'm a polyp! We're going to take that ship, fellows, and learn a lot of stuff we never dreamed of before. Ha! There goes his beam--pay me the four, Quince." The dazzling wall of incandescence had blinked out without warning, and Brandon's beam bored on through space, unimpeded. He shut it off and turned to his fellows with a grin--a grin which disappeared instantly as a thought struck him and he leaped back to his board. "Sound the high-acceleration warning quick, Perce!" he snapped, and drove in switch after switch. "Cosmic intake's gone down to zero!" exclaimed MacDonald, as the _Sirius_ leaped away. "Had to cut it--they might shoot a jolt through that band. Just thought of something. Maybe unnecessary, but no harm done if ... it's necessary, all x--we're taking a sweet kissing right now. You see, even though we're at pretty long range, they've got some horrible projectors, and they were evidently mad enough to waste some power taking a good, solid flash at us--and if we hadn't been expecting it, that flash would have been a bountiful sufficiency, believe me--Great Cat! Look at that meter--and I've had to throw in number ten shunt! The outer screen is drawing five hundred and forty thousand!" * * * * *