bent over the television disc--one of the huge, hooded
affairs we used in those days. Widening the field to the greatest
angle, and with low power, I inspected the space before us on all
sides.

The charts, operated by super-radio reflexes, had not lied about the
danger into which we were passing--had passed. We were in the midst of
a veritable swarm of meteorites of all sizes.

They were not large; I believe the largest I saw had a mass of not
more than three or four times that of the _Ertak_ herself. Some of the
smaller bodies were only fifty or sixty feet in diameter.

They were jagged and irregular in shape, and they seemed to spin at
varying speeds, like tiny worlds.

As I watched, fixing my view now on the space directly in our path, I
saw that our disintegrator ray men were at work. Deep in the bowels of
the _Ertak_, the moan of the ray generators had deepened in note; I
could even feel the slight vibration beneath my feet.

One of the meteorites slowly crumbled on top, the dust of
disintegration hovering in a compact mass about the body. More and
more of it melted away. The spinning motion grew irregular, eccentric,
as the center of gravity was changed by the action of the ray.

Another ray, two more, centered on the wobbling mass. It was directly
in our path, looming up larger and larger every second.

Faster and faster it melted, the rays eating into it from four sides.
But it was perilously near now; I had to reduce power in order to keep
all of it within the field of my disc. If--

The thing vanished before the very nose of the ship, not an instant
too soon. I glanced up at the surface temperature indicator, and saw
the big black hand move slowly for a degree or two, and stop. It was a
very sensitive instrument, and registered even the slight friction of
our passage through the disintegrated dust of the meteorite.

* * * * *

Our rays were working desperately, but disintegrator rays are not
nearly so effective in space as in an atmosphere of some kind. Half a
dozen times it seemed that we must crash head on into one of the
flying bodies, but our speed was reduced now to such an extent that we
were going but little faster than the meteorites, and this fact was
all that saved us. We had more time for utilizing our rays.

We nosed upward through the trailing fringe of the swarm in safety.
The great field of meteorites was now below and ahead of us. We had
won through!