d slowly passed to be
following by Earth, to be followed by a blank stretch of starry space,
and here again was Hot Rod.

Carefully he tracked another of the supporting tubes.

And fired.

And again a spectacular, writhing collapse--and this time, the mirror
fell free, supported by only two tubes, and permanently out of focus,
incapable of aiming the monster beam.

This time, Hot Rod was definitely secure from the misapplication of
Security.

"Three minutes," he spoke into the radio. "Your weapon is dead. My
next shot will be through the nitrogen tank at your air-lock. I
wouldn't advise you to be there."

The wheel turned once more, as the radio came alive from the other
end.

"Mr. Blackhawk, do you realize that what you are doing constitutes
mutiny in space and will be dealt with accordingly on Earth? I have
officially taken control of Hot Rod at the command of my superiors in
the new U.N. Security Control Command."

Mike didn't bother to answer. As the wheel turned him towards Hot Rod
again, he said into the radio, "Two minutes."

Elbertson's voice came again. "With this new weapon we control Earth.
Don't you realize that you can't stand up against the new people's
government of Earth?"

The wheel came around. Mike replied: "One minute."

The lock on the Hot Rod control room opened. Frantic tiny figures
burst forth, activated scuttlebugs, and started on the five-mile trek
back towards the big wheel.

Mike worked his way back through the clinging net to the catwalk,
failing completely to see the tiny figure that dodged beneath the rim
as he approached.

Glancing around he carefully scanned over the entire inner rim before
stepping out into the sunlight of the catwalk itself. Nothing.

Then a blink caught his eye, and he glanced up toward the observatory.
There. In the observatory.

He thought for a minute it was someone signaling, but it was only a
touch of sunlight on the shiny surface of the automatic tracking
telescope, which was poked out of the open shutters of the airless
observatory, still doing its automatic job of recording solar
phenomena in the absence of the astronomers.

* * * * *

Instead of re-entering the lock as he had intended, Mike linked his
safety line to one of the service lines that lay along the nearest
spoke, and kicked up it.

On Earth, he could have jumped maybe four feet with that motion. But
here, it carried him the full distance to t