"You'll regret this day!" snarled the captain. "I'll be in the front row of spectators when you sniff the death gas in the glass execution cage on Mars. Hundreds have tried this sort of thing before you, and every man of them has come finally to the cage." "You're only delaying us, Captain Robers," replied Winford coldly. "I am in a hurry to be on my way. Kindly move down the ladder and join your men. Your hand weapons and food supplies will be dropped by parachute as we leave. I might add that in a short time I expect to be in a position to broadcast an S O S message for you which should bring rescue ships here to Callisto for you. Good-by." He turned away, leaving the officer to descend the ladder in baffled fury to the ground below, where his men huddled together in the unfamiliar cold, and stared half fearful at the far-away sun glowing like a yellow arc-light in the depths of space half a billion miles away. When the rising ship reached the thousand-foot level, the weapons and food were dropped by parachute, and the port-hole closed and locked. Winford hurried forward to the control room where the two navigators, who had signed with him for a hundred and twentieth share of the iridium each, were already pointing the nose of the ship up through the purple heavens toward Ganymede. "Open her up! Use the emergency propulsion beams!" ordered Winford. "We are overdue now for my tryst with this new governor at New Chicago!" The officers gazed at him in awe, wondering what desperate thing he planned at the new colonial capital. * * * * * Winford was poring over the maps of New Chicago six hours later in the chart room when one of the navigation officers touched him on the shoulder. "Battle sphere rapidly overhauling us from sunward, sir," said the man. "Approaching us against the glare of sunlight until it was so close when we discovered it that escape is now impossible. I'd say it is one of the new 4-Q heavies of the Interplanetary Council patrol fleet." Winford hurried to the telescope. As his anxious eye took in the spherical outline of the battle craft, showing as a silvery crescent to the rear and starboard of them, he recognized it as one of the heavily armored spheres of the Interplanetary Council's fleet with the new long range K-ray disintegrator guns. Winford seized a telescope speed calculator. The sphere was coming up far too rapidly to permit the _Golden Fleece_ to pick up speed soon enough to escape--although he was confident the freighter could do it now, since Agar had changed its propulsion machinery. Perhaps the commander of the battle sphere was merely curious about the _Golden Fleece_ since it appeared to be an ordinary tramp freighter with no distinguishing emblems or other identification, and was coming close to give her a better look. Or perhaps he was hurrying to some destination and his nearness to the _Golden Fleece_ was merely accidental.