ning!

But he was.

Within his brain hammered a single sentence. Words he had heard Manning
speak as he watched over the television set at Manning's mocking
invitation. Words that beat into his brain and seared his reason and
made his soul shrivel and grow small.

Manning talking to Scorio. Talking to him matter-of-factly, but grimly:
"_I promise you that we'll take care of Stutsman!_"

Manning had taken Scorio and his gangsters one by one and sent them to
far corners of the Solar System. One out to the dreaded Vulcan Fleet,
one to the Outpost, one to the Titan prison, and one to the hell-hole
on Vesta, while Scorio had gone to a little mountain set in a Venus
swamp. They hadn't a chance. They had been locked within a force shell
and shunted through millions of miles of space. No trial, no hearing ...
nothing. Just terrible, unrelenting judgment.

"_I promise you that we'll take care of Stutsman!_"

* * * * *

"Craven's only a few billion miles ahead now," said Gregory Manning.
"With our margin of speed, we should overhaul him in a few more hours.
He is still short on power, but he's remedying that rapidly. He's
getting nearer to that sun every minute. Running in toward it as he is,
he tends to sweep up outpouring radiations. That helps him collect a
whole lot more than he would under ordinary circumstances."

Russ, sitting before the controls, pipe clenched in his teeth, watching
the dials, nodded soberly.

"All I'm afraid of," he said, "is that he'll get too close to that sun
before we catch up with him. If he gets close enough so he can fill
those accumulators, he'll pack a bigger wallop than we do. It'll all be
in one bolt, of course, for his power isn't continuous like ours. He has
to collect it slowly. But when he's really loaded, he can give us aces
and still win. I'd hate to take everything he could pack into those
accumulators."

Greg shuddered. "So would I."

The _Invincible_ was exceeding the speed of light, was enveloped in the
mysterious darkness that characterized the speed. They could see nothing
outside the ship, for there was nothing to see. But the tiny mechanical
shadow, occupying a place of honor on the navigation board, kept them
informed of the position and the distance of the _Interplanetarian_.

Greg lolled in his chair, watching Russ.

"I don't think we need to worry about him throwing the entire load of
the accumulators at us," he said. "He wouldn'