I heard an exclamation from Gor Han, an answering shout from Najus Nar, and then my cruiser and all the cruisers behind us were dipping steeply downward, plunging into the vast and faint-glowing tail! The next moment was one of blind, utter confusion, for as we plunged into the terrific currents our cruisers were whirled up and backward as though by gigantic hands, thrown helplessly like leaves in a terrific wind, cruiser smashing against cruiser and destroying each other there by dozens in that wild moment. Then as the pilot beside me clung to the controls, bringing its bows around to face those mighty currents, heading toward the coma, our ship steadied, while those about it steadied likewise. We had lost half a hundred ships in that first terrific plunge, but neither my own nor those of the three Sub-Chiefs had been injured, and now we were moving slowly up the great currents of the tail toward the coma. The tail about us was to the eyes but a great region of faint light, but far ahead of us there glowed like a crimson wall of light across the heavens the mighty coma, and against it we could make out the dark square shapes of the cube-ships we pursued, likewise fighting their way toward the coma through those terrific currents. * * * * * I think now that the moments which followed, as we struggled in pursuit of those cubes, were almost the most terrible I ever experienced, moments in which it seemed impossible that our ships could breast such awful currents and live. About us the currents roared deafeningly, thrilling through every portion of our ships, sweeping against us with titanic power. On and on we struggled, veering to take advantage of weaker currents, blundering into great maelstroms, swaying, plunging, fighting on, with the coma's glowing wall looming ever closer ahead. I heard Gor Han's anxious comments from the instrument before me, glimpsed cruisers here and there behind my own collapsing and sweeping backward, knew that not for long could we fight against those currents and live. The coma was very near, now, a giant wall of crimson light across the heavens, and now I made out a dark circle within that glowing wall, a circular opening rapidly largening to our eyes and toward which the flying cubes ahead were struggling. "The opening!" Gor Han was shouting, his voice coming to me even above the awful din of the currents about us. "Straight toward it after those cubes!" I cried. "Our ships can't stand this much longer!"