in a
bunch. When they're on the far side, I'll give the word and you leap
through that door in one bound. I'll follow. Maybe we won't be seen.
We'll overpower the guard inside, but don't shoot. We may escape being
seen by both this crew and ships above. They can't see over this wreck."

It was so easy that it seemed too good to be true. The Hans who had
emerged from the ship walked round the wreckage lazily, talking in
guttural tones, keenly interested in the wreck, but quite unsuspicious.

At last they were on the far side. In a moment they would be picking
their way into the wreck.

"Wilma, leap!" I almost whispered the order.

The distance between Wilma's hiding place and the door in the side of
the Han ship was not more than fifteen feet. She was already crouched
with her feet braced against a metal beam. Taking the lift of that
wonderful inertron belt into her calculation, she dove headforemost,
like a green projectile, through the door. I followed in a split second,
more clumsily, but no less speedily, bruising my shoulder painfully, as
I ricocheted from the edge of the opening and brought up sliding against
the unconscious girl; for she evidently had hit her head against the
partition within the ship into which she had crashed.

We had made some noise within the ship. Shuffling footsteps were
approaching down a well lit gangway.

"Any signs we have been observed?" I asked my men on the hillsides.

"Not yet," I heard the Boss reply. "Ships overhead still standing. No
beams have been broken out. Men on ground absorbed in wreck. Most of
them have crawled into it out of sight."

"Good," I said quickly. "Deering hit her head. Knocked out. One or more
members of the crew approaching. We're not discovered yet. I'll take
care of them. Stand a bit longer, but be ready."

I think my last words must have been heard by the man who was
approaching, for he stopped suddenly.

I crouched at the far side of the compartment, motionless. I would not
draw my sword if there were only one of them. He would be a weakling, I
figured, and I should easily overcome him with my bare hands.

Apparently reassured at the absence of any further sound, a man came
around a sort of bulkhead--and I leaped.

I swung my legs up in front of me as I did so, catching him full in the
stomach and knocked him cold.

I ran forward along the keel gangway, searching for the control room. I
found it well up in the nose of the ship. And it was d