CHAPTER IV

Through Planetary Perils

"Mars ahead and to the left--we ought to pass it in three more hours!"

At my words Marlin nodded. "We won't be bothered much by the pull of Mars," he said.

We sat again in our chairs before the control-panel, Whitely to my left, gazing through the big window before us. Ahead and above and all around us there stretched a great panorama, stunning in its brilliance, the vast panorama of the starry heavens as seen from the airless interplanetary void. Blazing in their true brilliant colors on all sides of us, the hosts of stars were like jewels of light set in the black firmament. And as our flier throbbed on through the great gulf of empty space at terrific speed, its acceleration still pressing us down somewhat in our chairs, we could see now amid the flaming stars dead ahead the far green spot of light that was Neptune, our goal, visible now to our unaided eyes in the clearness of empty space. Nearer toward us and to the right Jupiter was like a brilliant little disk of white light, now, the four white points of its greater moons visible about it. To the left, too, yellow Saturn shone much brighter, while nearer toward us on the left, almost beside us, hung the dull-red little shield, white-capped at its poles, that was Mars.

Behind us, by this time, Earth had dwindled to a steady spot of bluish light that was like a tiny moon, the smaller spot that was Earth's moon gleaming near it. Hardly visible as Earth was in the blinding glare of the great sun that beat upon us from behind, its great corona and mighty prominences appalling in their splendor, yet it was visible enough to show how far from it out into the void our flier had already flashed. For forty-eight hours indeed, our great space-flier had rushed outward at a speed that had already reached over a million miles an hour, and that was steadily mounting still beneath the terrific reaction of our great force-ray, that great pale ray only visible at its ray-opening source, that was stabbing back with colossal power and by the reaction of that push sending us hurtling on at greater and greater speed. Out and out we had flashed, Randall and I relieving each other every four hours at the controls, and already now had almost reached the orbit of Mars, more than fifty million miles outward. Now, as Marlin and Whitely and I gazed out toward it, the red disk of Mars itself was but several million miles from us, to the left and ahead.

Gazing toward it, we could see clearly the great ice caps of the poles of Mars, brilliant white upon its dull red sphere, and could see clearly also the long straight markings upon it, a network of inter-connecting lines, that for long had been the subject of discussion and disputation among Earth's astronomers. It was with fascinated eyes that we gazed toward the red planet as we drew nearer to it, and now Randall had joined us, moving with great efforts against the acceleration-pressure inside the flier. Marlin, though, had turned the telescope by that time toward the crimson planet, was gazing intently toward it. Minutes he gazed before he straightened, shaking his head.

"There can be no doubt that those canals--those lines--are the work of intelligent creatures," he said. "I saw great geometrical forms that seemed structures of some sort, but our space-flier is moving at such tremendous speed that it's all but impossible to get a clear focus on the planet in the telescope."

We stared toward the red disk and its dark markings. "If we could but stop there--who knows what wonders Mars may hold, what science----," Whitely mused.

Marlin nodded thoughtfully. "Neptune's our goal, and we can't stop for Mars now, whatever may be there. But if we succeed in our great task, if Earth is saved from this doom that Neptune's beings are loosing on the solar system, we'll come yet to Mars--and to all the others."

"In the meantime," I told them, "Mars is pulling our flier out of its course more and more. I thought our speed would take us by it, but it seems we'll have to use another ray."

For even as we had gazed toward the red planet, I had noted from the dials before Randall that the gravitational pull of Mars upon our space-flier from the left was becoming more and more powerful as we approached it to pass it, and that it was pulling us slowly toward it out of our course toward Neptune. Our deviation to the left was not great as yet, but even the slightest deviation we could not permit, since not only must we head as straight toward Neptune as possible to save time, but it was necessary that we avoid also the colossal force-ray which was stabbing from Neptune across the solar system toward the sun's edge, which was turning that sun ever faster. That great force-ray, invisible to us, but lying away to our left, we knew; would mean death for us if we blundered into it, would drive our flier with titanic force and speed straight into the sun!

So that now, as our space-flier moved nearer and nearer toward the distant red shield of Mars, pulled farther and farther out of its path toward Neptune, I swiftly manipulated the ray-direction dials on the control-panel, then grasped and threw open another of the six ray-opening switches. At once there leaped from our racing flier's side, from one of its ray-openings there, a second great force-ray like that which stabbed from the flier's rear toward Earth. This second ray, though, vaguely visible like the first at its source, but fading into invisibility in space, shot out toward the red sphere of Mars, away to our left. And in a moment more, as that light-swift ray reached Mars and pressed against the red planet with all its force, our flier was being pushed away from it, was being pushed back to the right, back into its original line of flight! Thus we hurtled on, the great rear ray of the flier pushing back with terrific force and sending us hurtling on through space, while the side-ray, striking Mars with lesser force, was sufficient to keep us out of the red planet's grip as we flashed onward.

Within a few hours more Mars was behind us, its red sphere fading rapidly into a crimson spot of light to the left and behind. The planet's two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, we had not yet seen despite our nearness to it, but it was with something of regret that we saw the crimson world and all the strange mysteries that we felt existed upon it, dropping behind us. Neptune alone, as Marlin had said, was our goal, and on toward its calm green light-dot we were rushing. I turned off our side-ray, therefore, which was no longer needed to counteract Mars's pull, and we gave all our attention to the panorama ahead. Save for Neptune's distant green dot, the only planets now visible amid the brilliant hosts of stars before us were Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn was shining ever more brightly to the left, its strange ring-formation already becoming visible to our eyes. But it was Jupiter that now dominated all the scene before us, his mighty sphere, its oblateness plainly visible, moving in majestic white splendor at the center of his four great moons.

It was not the planets ahead that held my attention now, though, as our throbbing flier raced onward, Mars and its orbit dropping behind. "The asteroids!" I exclaimed. "We're almost into their region now--will be among them soon!"

"And they're one of the greatest perils we'll encounter," Marlin said. "Hold ready to the controls, Hunt, for if we crash into one it means our end--the end of Earth's chance!"

* * * * *

I did not need his admonition, though, to make me tense my hands upon the control-switches, gazing intently forward. I knew we were now passing into one of the most dangerous regions of all the solar system--that great belt of whirling asteroids that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. More than a thousand in number, ranging from the great sphere of Ceres, 480 miles in diameter, down to the smallest asteroids of a few miles diameter only, they whirled there around the sun between the four inner and four outer planets, their orbits a maze of interwoven circles and ellipses. The greater part of them were so small, indeed, that at the tremendous speed with which our space-flier was flashing on they could be seen only in the moment that we rushed upon them. And yet in that moment we must whirl aside from any before us, since otherwise, pulled closer by the asteroid's own gravitational power, we would infallibly crash into it and meet our doom.

Steadily, therefore, we watched now, as hour followed hour, as our flier rushed on with speed still slowly mounting, traveling finally at more than two million miles an hour. The throb of its four great generators was as steady as ever, and the pressure of its decreasing acceleration still weighed upon us, but already we had become accustomed to that pressure. So now while I gazed forth with Marlin ahead, Randall was at one of the right windows and Whitely at one of the left, keeping a similar watch. And it was Randall, a few hours later, who sighted the first of the asteroids. He uttered a swift exclamation, pointing to the right and ahead, and as we looked there we saw a small bright point in the blackness of space, a point that with the swiftness of lightning was expanding into a great, dull-gleaming sphere, rushing toward us and drawing our space-flier toward itself! A moment we saw it rushing thus toward us, a great sphere of barren, jagged rock, airless and waterless, turning slowly in space; and then it was looming gigantic just beside us!

In that moment, though, my hand had jerked open one of the six levers before me, and instantaneously had shot from our flier's side a great force-ray toward that looming asteroid beside us. The next instant the asteroid's giant rock sphere seemed to flash away from us and disappear with immense speed, but in reality it was our flier that had been pushed away from the asteroid with colossal force by the force-ray I had shot toward it! Instantly I snapped off that ray, the space-flier flashing on in its straight course as formerly. And as I did so Marlin turned for a moment from his watch at the window toward me, gestured to the right toward the asteroid from which we had so narrowly escaped. In the moment we had seen it, I had estimated that one to be a hundred miles or more in diameter.

"That would be Vesta," he said, "one of the largest. It's the only one of that size in this part of their region now."

"Large or small, I want to see no more of them that close," I said. "Especially when----"

"Hunt!--look--to the left!"

It was Whitely who had cried out to me, and as I whirled to gaze in the direction in which he pointed, I noticed another swift-expanding sphere of rock, another gleaming asteroid rushing obliquely toward us! Not as great in size as the first one, but it was approaching us with terrific speed, and even as I jerked open one of the switches before me, sent a force-ray stabbing from the flier toward the rushing asteroid, it seemed that that asteroid was touching us, its great rocky surface shutting out all the firmament as it towered there beside us! My ray, though, had been shot forth just in time, had whirled us aside from the onrushing monster's path at the last moment, and as we reeled on, it too had vanished behind us. But now I had glimpsed two larger ones ahead and to the left, and was jerking the flier away from them also.

Still we were racing onward, our great space-flier hurtling on and on through that asteroid-filled region, escaping those great rushing spheres of death, sometimes by the narrowest of margins. Hour upon hour, keeping our sleepless watch at the flier's windows, we flashed on, its colossal speed still mounting as more and more of our generators' power was turned into the great rear force-ray that pressed back towards Earth and that shot us outward. By that time Earth had become but a bright white star behind us, the sun's size and brilliance decreased by a third or more already. But it was not backward we were gazing; it was ahead. We were striving with all our powers to avoid the asteroids that hurtled about us. We saw, once or twice, families or groups of those asteroids moving together, sometimes dozens together, and strove to give these a wide berth. On we raced, veering now to this side and now to that, with Jupiter looming ever greater ahead and to the right as we approached the end of the asteroidal belt. But it was as we approached its end, at last, that our greatest peril came suddenly upon us. For I had shot the space-flier sidewise with terrific speed to avoid an onrushing small asteroid, and the next moment when it slowed its sidewise rush, found that I had unwittingly shot it into the very heart of a great family of full two-score of the little planets!

All about us in that moment it seemed were asteroids, gleaming spheres at the very center of whose swarm our flier flashed, and into which by some miracle our sidewise rush had projected us, unharmed! I heard the hoarse cries of Marlin and Randall beside me, in that moment, the shout of Whitely, and knew that only another miracle could ever take us out of that swarm unharmed. Already, in that split-second, three of them were looming great to our right, another one ahead and to the left, and to escape one was to crash upon another. There was no time for thought, no time for aught save a lightning-like decision, and in that fractional instant I had made that decision, and as our flier hurtled through the great swarm of asteroids, had shot out its great force-rays to right and left and above and beneath us, driving out in all directions from our flier as it flashed through the great swarm!

There was an instant in which the space-flier seemed to be jerking and flashing in wild aimless flight amid that swarm, as its striking force-rays pushed it now to one side and now to another, away from the asteroids about us. Were two of those rays to strike asteroids in opposite directions, balancing each other, the space-flier, instead of being pushed aside, would be crumpled to instant annihilation between the push of the two great rays, I knew, and we expected nothing but annihilation in that mad moment as we shot on. But after reeling to right and left with dizzy speed for a crazy instant, the asteroids of the swarm had vanished suddenly from about us as we shot out of that swarm! We had escaped, had escaped a death that for the moment had seemed certain to all of us, and that I had managed to evade by instinct and luck rather than by reason.

[Illustration: _There was an instant in which the space-flier seemed to be jerking and flashing in wild aimless flight amid that swarm, as its striking force-rays pushed it now to one side and now to another, away from the asteroids about us._]

"Close enough--that!" I exclaimed as we raced forward through the void on our straight course once more. "If we meet many more swarms like that, our chances of getting to Neptune are small!"

Marlin shook his head. "We seemed gone that time," he admitted. "But I think we're almost out of the asteroidal region now--we should be crossing Jupiter's orbit in another twenty-four hours."

"The space-flier's doing four million miles an hour now," I said, glancing over at the space-speed dial. "We're beginning to feel Jupiter's pull a little already."

We were, indeed, already deviating a little to the right from our straight course in answer to the gravitational pull of the tremendous mass of Jupiter, looming ever greater now ahead and to the right. We were to pass it by some fifteen million miles, more than twice the distance at which we had passed Mars, but the colossal planet, larger than all the other planets of the sun together, was already attracting us strongly despite our terrific speed and momentum. For the time being, though, we gave it but scant attention, concentrating our attention, as we did, upon the watch for farther asteroids, since we had not yet emerged from their great belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Sleepy and weary as we were from our hours upon the watch, we dared not relax from that watch, and so Whitely and Marlin and Randall still kept up their constant survey of the surrounding void, while I held the flashing space-flier's controls, turning more and more of our generators' power into the great force-ray that was hurtling us on. We had not dared to use the generators' power too swiftly upon our start, lest the too great acceleration kill us, despite our shock-absorbing apparatus. But steadily our speed, already colossal, was mounting, and we were racing on through the gulf toward the distant green spot of light that was Neptune.

* * * * *

On and on in those hours we shot, until it seemed to me, seated there at the controls, that always we had flashed thus through endless realms of tenantless space. For now but a few asteroids were sighted by our watching eyes, and the eventlessness and strange tension of our rush onward through space made it seem like a strange flight in some unending dream. On and on, with Marlin and Randall and Whitely watching ceaselessly about me, on with the throbbing of our generators beating in my ears in unhalting rhythm. Behind us Earth's bright white star was steadily growing smaller, but still our great force-ray, stabbing ceaselessly back from our flier with colossal power, was sending us racing on faster and faster with its huge reacting force. But our start from Earth, days, hours, before, the great mission upon which we were speeding outward to Neptune, these things I had forgotten, almost, as the dream-like quality of our onward flight gripped me.

But as we raced still onward, as Jupiter's mighty sphere loomed greater and greater to the right ahead of us, my bemused faculties were shaken into wakefulness by the necessities of our situation. By that time we had passed out of the dangerous asteroidal region, and with their watch no longer necessary Whitely and Randall, after preparing for us all a quick hot meal from the thermos-cans in which all our food supplies were packed, had taken to their bunks for some much-needed sleep. Marlin sat beside me as we rushed on, his astronomical preoccupation holding him to a contemplation of the great planet, despite his own weariness. And weary enough he was, and I too, since for almost forty-eight hours we had been flashing through the perils of the asteroidal belt. It was now the beginning of the fifth day since our start from Earth, and already for a hundred hours we had been flashing at tremendous and mounting speed through the airless void. Like Marlin, though, I forgot my weariness in the spectacle of giant Jupiter, to the right and ahead.

For it was a spectacle of magnificence, indeed. Swinging like a giant disk of soft white light in the blackness of space to our right, Jupiter spun amid its four greater moons, the smaller moons being of diameter too small to be seen with unaided eyes even thus close. But of the giant sphere of Jupiter, of that great sphere's surface, nothing was to be seen. For all the mighty planet's surface was covered by the colossal masses of great clouds that enclosed it, floating in its dense atmosphere and encircling it in great belts, the mighty cloud-belts that for long have been to astronomers the most characteristic feature of Jupiter's surface. So that, though Marlin with the aid of the telescope, sought to gain a glance through some opening in the clouds at the great planet's surface, he failed in the attempt.

In a moment, however, he concentrated his attention upon the one visible feature upon the mighty world's surface, the great red spot that we could plainly see now as a pink area beneath the shrouding clouds, in the planet's southern hemisphere. At sight of it, Marlin had prepared and trained his spectroscope upon it, but after observations of a few moments he raised his head, perplexed. He glanced about him for a moment, then seized the bolometer, which by virtue of its new "shielded" principle was able to record accurately the amount of heat radiating from any one point of a planet or star, as well as from the whole planet or star. But upon checking its reading for a moment, after turning it toward the pink area of the great red spot, Marlin straightened from it also, shaking his head.

"It's strange, Hunt," he said, turning toward me. "It's always been believed that the great red spot is a part of Jupiter's surface still molten and flaming, but the spectroscope and bolometer show that it can't be."

"Strange enough," I admitted, gazing myself toward that glowing pink area on the mighty planet. "If we could but stop and explore the planet--but we must keep on toward Neptune."

"We must keep on," Marlin repeated, "but some day it may be, if we can save the solar system from the doom that hangs over it now, we'll come back here to Jupiter, will see for ourselves its surface."

By this time the great planet was almost directly to our right, its giant cloudy white sphere seeming to fill all space, despite the fact that it was more than fifteen million miles from us, and its four big, greater moons revolving about it. Hours before I had shot a force-ray toward the great planet from our flier's side, to counteract its growing pull upon us, but now as we came level with it, were passing it, that pull upon us was so enormous that it was only with a force-ray of immense power that I was managing to keep the space-flier from being drawn inward. Passing thus close, Jupiter's stupendous cloud-belted sphere was an awe-inspiring sight, whirling at immense speed also, since the great planet, more than a thousand times greater than Earth, rotates upon its axis at hardly more than a third of Earth's rotatory period or day, its day being less than ten hours. And passing it thus, too, the great red spot upon its lower half was an even greater enigma, for that gigantic pink oval was, we knew, fully thirty thousand miles in length, greater by far than all our Earth.

It was with awe that Marlin and I, and Whitely and Randall who had awakened now to relieve us, stared toward the gigantic monarch of the sun's planets as it dropped slowly behind on our right. A side-ray of colossal power it had taken, indeed, to hold us out from the great world's pull, and only slowly could we decrease that ray's power as we moved farther out from it. But now at well over four million miles an hour, we were flashing out beyond Jupiter's orbit, and ahead there was gleaming brighter to the left the yellow spot of light that was Saturn, the last planet that we must yet pass before reaching Neptune, since Uranus was in conjunction in regard to Neptune, being far on the other side of the solar system from us. And as Randall now took my place at the controls, I pointed toward the little yellow-glowing, ring-circled disk of Saturn ahead and to the left.

"Keep the flier heading straight toward Neptune, Randall," I told him. "We're going to pass Saturn uncomfortably close as it is, and we don't want to take any chances with it."

Randall nodded, his gaze shifting from the steady green spark of Neptune far ahead to the growing yellow disk of Saturn. "I'll try to keep her straight," he said, grinning, "though I'm beginning to wish that, if there's to be trouble, it had come back on Mars or Jupiter."

I smiled a little as I swung back from the control-panel along the flier's inside wall. I went from handhold to handhold with the pressure of its acceleration still upon me, until I had thrown myself into my metal bunk to fall almost instantly asleep, and to dream nightmare dreams of rushing on through endless space toward a goal that ever receded from us. And in the hours that followed, in the next three days that our space-flier shot on and on with Saturn growing ever greater ahead, the nightmare quality of my experience persisted. It seemed impossible, at times, that we four were in reality doing that which men had never done before; that we were flinging ourselves out into the great void, out through the solar system toward the planet that was its last outpost. We were watching and eating and sleeping, indeed, like men in a dream, so strange and utterly unreal seemed to us this unending rush through unending space.

* * * * *

But though we slept, and ate, and watched at the control-panel like men in a dream, there were times in those hours when realization of our position, of our great mission, came sharply home to us. Those were the times that Marlin trained his instruments upon the sun, which had by then dwindled to a tiny blazing disk behind us. And with those instruments Marlin found that the sun was still spinning ever faster and faster, its rotatory period decreasing still by the same amount each day, its day of division and doom steadily approaching. And with his own recorders Whitely found that the colossal force-ray from Neptune still was stabbing toward the sun, still turning it faster and faster toward its doom and that of its universe. That great force-ray, we found, was stabbing toward the sun on a line between our flier's course and Saturn, but was on a somewhat higher level, so that in reality the great ray did not lie between our flier and Saturn but above both.

The consciousness we had of that great ray's existence and the knowledge we had of the doom it was loosing upon the peoples of our world served to prevent the dream-like lassitude of our conditions from overpowering us, and we were further awakened by the swift expansion of Saturn, ahead, as our flier neared it. For by then the great faceted ball of our flier was hurtling on through the void at five million miles an hour, slowly approaching the limits of its speed as our mighty rear force-ray drove us forward with tremendous power. And at that speed, in the next three days, Saturn loomed larger and larger ahead, until we saw at last that upon the fourth day's beginning we would pass the mighty planet. And at that our interest rose to excitement, because we would pass closer by Saturn than any of the planets in our straight flight out to Neptune, passing it indeed by no more than a million miles. So that as the last hours of those three days passed, we observed the big, yellow-glowing disk of Saturn ahead with intense interest.

And a strange sight indeed was great Saturn as it loomed greater before us and to the left, for strangest of all the sun's planets to the eye is this one. Greatest of all the planets save for mighty Jupiter, its huge sphere seemed even greater than Jupiter by reason of the colossal rings that encircled it, and by its nine greater moons that revolved about it. A solar system in itself seemed Saturn, indeed, its huge rings tilted somewhat, those great rings themselves tens of thousands of miles in width and thousands of miles from the planet they encircled. We could see, as we drew nearer toward the great planet, that those rings were in fact what had long been known by Earth's astronomers--gigantic flat swarms of meteorites and meteoric material revolving about the great planet at immense speed. Of the surface of Saturn, though, no more could be seen than of that of Jupiter, since like Jupiter the great planet was wreathed in colossal cloud-belts.

Marlin shook his head as he gazed toward the great ring-girdled planet, almost filling the heavens beside us. "It is well for us that Saturn is not our goal," he said. "Those titanic meteoric masses that are the rings--to blunder into them would mean instant annihilation."

Whitely nodded. "As it is," he said, "there must be many meteors in this region about Saturn--many that have broken loose from the rings or are flying toward those rings."

"Let's hope that you're wrong on that, at least," I told him. "We'll soon be passing within a million miles of those rings, and I want to meet no meteorites--not after our experience with the asteroids."

By then, indeed, we had drawn almost level with Saturn, its huge sphere and colossal rings almost directly to the left, the edge of those rings, but a half-hundred miles or less in thickness, being a scant million miles or more from our racing space-flier. The great maze of the planet's nine greater moons seemed crowded now upon its other side from us, Titan, largest of those moons shining brilliantly as a small white disk near the huge yellow bulk of Saturn and its colossal rings. Before then indeed, I had been forced to shoot out from the flier's side a force-ray toward Saturn, to counteract the great planet's pull upon us, but though it loomed beside us now almost as immense as great Jupiter itself, its recorded pull upon us was many times less. This was due, I knew, to the comparatively small mass of Saturn, since though of immense size and possessing a vast atmosphere, it is known to be the least dense of all the planets, being of less than 0.7 the density of water.

Even so, however, it was requiring a force-ray of great power to hold our rushing flier out from the huge planet. Though lesser than Jupiter's, its pull upon us was great, nevertheless. And now that we were passing the huge world so closely, it seemed to us with its vast rings and great family of whirling moons to be of universe-size itself, so mighty did it loom beside us. The great rings, of small thickness compared to their huge width and circle, were edge-on to us now, a million miles to the left, and we could see that they were in reality but vast swarms of countless meteors, great and small, whirling at great speed about Saturn and forming by their division three rings, the innermost a darker one. Yet despite their strange appearance and colossal size, it was not the great rings that held our interest so much in that moment as the cloud-hidden surface of Saturn itself. For even as in passing Mars and Jupiter, we were gripped with desire to veer in toward the planet and explore the strange wonders that might exist upon it, or upon its greater moons. But none suggested that thought now. All four of us knew that only the growing green spot of light, that was distant Neptune ahead, must be our goal.

* * * * *

As the flier raced on, almost passing the huge planet now, Randall uttered a swift exclamation, pointing ahead and to the left a little. At the same moment, though, I had seen the thing that had caught his eye--a small dark point growing with lightning swiftness as it rushed toward us; a great dark meteor, perhaps five hundred feet in diameter, rushing toward our flier, whirling far out from Saturn's rings in the same direction as those rings! Instantly, upon seeing it, I had turned more power into the ray that held us out from Saturn, and as we were pushed sidewise in the next moment by that increased power, the big meteor had flashed past us far to the left! And a moment later, I had caught sight of two similar meteors, one smaller than the other, rushing toward us in the same direction from ahead. But these I had seen soon enough to avoid collision.

It was evident that, as Whitely had suggested, we were encountering some of the stray meteors that might be expected to whirl here far out from the meteor-swarms of the great rings. And as we watched tensely now for more meteors, it was with something of awe that we gazed toward the huge rings, that we knew to be rushing swarms of countless similar meteors. It was well, as Marlin had said, that we were not called upon to penetrate through or around those great rings, since in their awful whirling swarms of meteors no craft would be able to live even for a moment. But our space-flier was passing the midmost point of those rings; already huge Saturn was beginning to drop a little behind us; and we breathed more freely. And, ironically enough, it was at that very moment of our relief that catastrophe came upon us. There was a wild shout from Marlin, and simultaneously I saw a huge round dark mass looming dead ahead and whirling toward us. Just as I snapped open the control-levers, that great dark meteor's mass had struck our onrushing flier with a tremendous stunning shock!

For an instant, as the flier reeled and spun there crazily in the gulf of space, it seemed the end to me, but in a moment more I realized that the great faceted walls had not been penetrated, for the air in the flier was unchanged. Had those walls been pierced, the result would have been the instant freezing to death of all of us. But that death had not as yet come upon us, and as I struggled forward in my chair I saw that the space-flier was still whirling crazily around from the shock and that the throbbing of its great generators had ceased. Beside me Marlin and Whitely and Randall were coming back to realization of their surroundings after that colossal shock, Whitely bearing a nasty cut upon his temple. And as Marlin sprang to the flier's side-window, gazed obliquely from it, he uttered an exclamation.

"That meteor just grazed us!" he exclaimed. "If you hadn't jerked the controls over at the last moment, Hunt, it would have hit us head-on! As it is, it smashed through the flier's outer wall, but didn't pierce the inner wall!"

"But the generators!" cried Whitely, who had been fumbling at their switches. "They've stopped! When the meteor crashed through the outer wall it must have broken some of our generator-connections between the two walls!"

"And the flier's falling!" I cried in turn. "It's falling toward Saturn now, with its force-rays dead--_we're falling into the great rings_!"

For as I glanced outward I had seen that was what was happening. The halting of the generators by the breaking of their connections between the flier's double walls had halted also the force-rays that had been pushing us out toward Neptune and that had been holding us out from Saturn's pull. With the halting of those rays the pull of the mighty planet had at once gripped our space-flier and now we were moving at swiftly-accelerating speed toward that planet's mighty bulk, toward the great rings but a million miles to our left! Were falling helplessly, faster and faster each moment, toward those mighty rings, toward their vast swarms of whirling meteors in which our space-flier and all within it could meet only an annihilating death!