w invisible through several layers of cloud
formations.

Gibbons brought the ship back to an even keel, and drove her eastward
into one of the most brilliantly gorgeous sunrises I have ever seen.

We described a great circle to the south and west, in a long easy dive,
for he had cut out his rocket motors to save them as much as possible.
We had drawn terrifically on their fuel reserves in our battle with the
elements. For the moment, the atmosphere below cleared, and we could see
the Jersey coast far beneath, like a great map.

"We're not through yet," remarked Gibbons suddenly, pointing at his
periscope, and adjusting it to telescopic focus. "A Han ship, and a
'drop ship' at that--and he's seen us. If he whips that beam of his on
us, we're done."

I gazed, fascinated, at the viewplate. What I saw was a cigar-shaped
ship not dissimilar to our own in design, and from the proportional size
of its ports, of about the same size as our swoopers. We learned later
that they carried crews, for the most part of not more than three or
four men. They had streamline hulls and tails that embodied
universal-jointed double fish-tail rudders. In operation they rose to
great heights on their powerful repellor rays, then gathered speed
either by a straight nose dive, or an inclined dive in which they
sometimes used the repellor ray slanted at a sharp angle. He was already
above us, though several miles to the north. He could, of course, try to
get on our tail and "spear" us with his beam as he dropped at us from a
great height.

Suddenly his beam blazed forth in a blinding flash, whipping downward
slowly to our right. He went through a peculiar corkscrew-like
evolution, evidently maneuvering to bring his beam to bear on us with a
spiral motion.

Gibbons instantly sent our ship into a series of evolutions that must
have looked like those of a frightened hen. Alternately, he used the
forward and the reverse rocket blasts, and in varying degree. We
fluttered, we shot suddenly to right and left, and dropped like a
plummet in uncertain movements. But all the time the Han scout dropped
toward us, determinedly whipping the air around us with his beam. Once
it sliced across beneath us, not more than a hundred feet, and we
dropped with a jar into the pocket formed by the destruction of the air.

He had dropped to within a mile of us, and was coming with the speed of
a projectile, when the end came. Gibbons always swore it was sheer luck.