Once the _Barbarian's_ hull rung and shivered like a vast, deep-throated bell, as an exploding projectile barely grazed her flanks. It was a matter of moments, now, before a direct and final hit would be made. The atomic missiles the Callistans were using, were different in their action from the silent, metal-melting darts employed in the rifles of the terrestrial colonists of Titan. But they were no less effective, in their more sudden release of atomic power, because of that! Young Leiccsen found himself looking into Anna Charles' brave, misty eyes. The pale, flooding glow of Saturn, and its sinister Rings, reflecting the sunlight, streamed through the broad observation bay of the control turret, and touched her hair, making it give back soft, golden glints. "Ron," she said quietly, "I guess this is the end of the trail. But I wouldn't like to let it be those devils from Callisto who kill us. I'd rather choose the way to die. Maybe you would, too. There's another road out of this life, Ronnie. A grander one. You're so bitter, sometimes. But I think you're like me, in a few things. Shall we go--that other way? It's so close, so easy, so swift. Look...." She was pointing through the observation bay, straight into that awesome flood of reflected sunshine. Not at Saturn itself, whirling like a giant, streaked orb that filled almost half the spacial sky. But at the Rings. No words could ever have described that incredible spectacle--perhaps the greatest natural wonder in all explored space! A tremendous, sweeping path, circling in a perfect plane, like a highway of the gods. Misty at the edges, with scattered, cosmic dust. So near, now, belting monster Saturn. So calm, so grand, so unutterably beautiful. But deadly. "A trillion-trillion little moons," Anna said softly, all traces of any resentment she may have felt for Ron Leiccsen gone now. "Or many more, even, than a trillion-trillion. Hurtling around Saturn in a sort of stream at a velocity of many miles per second. Most of them dust, as fine as powder. Steer the _Barbarian_ into the Rings, Ronnie. Instantly those countless, tiny meteors will riddle our ship--and us." For just a second Ron Leiccsen stared at that awful, dazing spectacle. It made his throat ache with awe. There was a fascination about the Rings, something unholy that beckoned suicide. But then Ron laughed, as though he was part of that miracle--a man about to use the tools of the deities for his own purposes. Two things he remembered, especially. That the _Barbarian_ was moving very fast. And that it was to the right of Saturn, considering the northern hemisphere as upward. "Thanks, Anna," he said cryptically, as more projectiles from the rapidly nearing Callistan ships blazed close to them. "Hold tight to your stanchion, because here goes! And don't blame me if you're surprised at what happens!"