et," he replied in a calm and level voice. "The end will not come
for a good many hours, as I have calculated that it will take at least
two days, probably more, to fall the distance we have to go. We have all
that time in which to think out a way of escape."

"Won't the outer repulsive shell keep up from striking it, or at least
break the force of our fall?"

"No. It was designed only as protection from meteorites and other small
bodies. It is heavy enough to swing us away from a small planet, but it
will be used up long before we strike."

He lighted a cigarette and sat at case, as though in his own study, his
brow wrinkled in thought as he made calculations in his notebook.
Finally he rose to his feet.

"There's only one chance that I can see. That is to gather up every
scrap of copper we have and try to pull ourselves far enough out of line
so that we will take an hyperbolic orbit around that body instead of
falling into it."

"What good will that do us?" asked Margaret, striving for self-control.
"We will starve to death finally, won't we?"

"Not necessarily. That will give us time to figure out something else."

"You won't have to figure out anything else, Doctor," stated Dorothy
positively. "If we miss that moon, Dick and Martin will find us before
very long."

"Not in this life. If they tried to follow us, they're both dead before
now."

"That's where even you are wrong!" she flashed at him. "They knew you
were wrecking our machine, so they built another one, a good one. And
they know a lot of things about this new metal that you have never
dreamed of, since they were not in the plans you stole."

* * * * *

DuQuesne went directly to the heart of the matter, paying no attention
to her barbed shafts.

"Can they follow us through space without seeing us?" he demanded.

"Yes--or at least, I think they can."

"How do they do it?"

"I don't know--I wouldn't tell you if I did."

"You'll tell if you know," he declared, his voice cutting like a knife.
"But that can wait until after we get out of this. The thing to do now
is to dodge that world."

He searched the vessel for copper, ruthlessly tearing out almost
everything that contained the metal, hammering it flat and throwing it
into the power-plant. He set the bar at right angles to the line of
their fall and turned on the current. When the metal was exhausted, he
made another series of observations upon the body to