hes of
country. They would flee to Nu-yok and escape the punishment they
merited. It seemed to be vitally important that they should not, for the
sake of example to other weak groups among the American gangs, as well
as to prevent a crisis in which they might clear more vital information
to the enemy.

"Out to sea again," I ordered Gibbons. "They'll be less likely to look
for us in that direction."

"Easy, Boss, easy," he replied. "Wait until we get up a mile or two
more. They must have discovered evidences of our raid by now, and their
dis-ray wall may go in operation any moment."

Even as he spoke, the ship lurched downward and to one side.

"There it is!" he shouted. "Hang on, everybody. We're going to nose
straight up!" And he flipped the rocket-motor control wide open.

Looking through one of the rear ports, I could see a nebulous, luminous
ring, and on all sides the atmosphere took on a faint iridescence.

We were almost over the destructive range of the disintegrator-ray wall,
a hollow cylinder of annihilation shooting upward from a solid ring of
generators surrounding the city. It was the main defense system of the
Hans, which had never been used except in periodic tests. They may or
may not have suspected that an American rocket ship was within the
cylinder; probably they had turned on their generators more as a
precaution to prevent any reaching a position above the city.

But even at our present great height, we were in great danger. It was a
question how much we might have been harmed by the rays themselves, for
their effective range was not much more than seven or eight miles. The
greater danger lay in the terrific downward rush of air within the
cylinder to replace that which was being burned into nothingness by the
continual play of the disintegrators. The air fell into the cylinder
with the force of a gale. It would be rushing toward the wall from the
outside with terrific force also, but, naturally, the effect was
intensified on the interior.

Our ship vibrated and trembled. We had only one chance of escape--to
fight our way well above the current. To drift down with it meant
ultimately, and inevitably, to be sucked into the destruction wall at
some lower level.

But very gradually and jerkily our upward movement, as shown on the
indicators, began to increase, and after an hour of desperate struggle
we were free of the maelstrom and into the rarefied upper levels. The
terror beneath us was no