Outfought at every turn, the now frantically dodging Nevian leaped away in headlong flight, only to be brought to a staggering, crashing halt as Cleveland nailed her with a tractor beam. But the Terrestrials were to learn that the Nevians held in reserve a means of retreat. The tractor snapped--sheared off squarely by a sizzling plane of force--and the fish-shaped cruiser faded from Cleveland's sight, just as the _Boise_ had disappeared from the communicator plates of Radio Center, back in the Hill, when she was launched. But though the plates in the control room could not hold the Nevian, she did not vanish beyond the ken of Randolph, now Communications Officer in the super-ship. For, warned and humiliated by his losing one speeding vessel from his plates in Radio Center, he was now ready for any emergency. Therefore as the Nevian fled, Randolph's spy-ray held her, automatically behind it as there was the full output of twelve special banks of iron-driven power tubes; and thus it was that the vengeful Terrestrials flashed immediately along the Nevians' line of flight. Inertialess now, pausing briefly from time to time to enable the crew to accustom themselves to the new sensations, the _Boise_ pursued the invader; hurtling through the void with a velocity unthinkable. "He was easier to take than I thought he would be," Cleveland grunted, staring into the plate. "I thought he had more stuff, too," Rodebush assented; "but I guess Costigan got almost everything they had. If so, with all our own stuff and most of theirs besides, we should be able to take them. They must have neutralization, too, to take off like that; and if it's one hundred per cent we'll never catch them ... but it isn't--there they are!" "And this time I'm going to hold her or burn out all our generators trying," Cleveland declared, grimly. "Are you fellows down there able to handle yourselves yet? Fine! Start throwing out your cans!"