that time was precious, and resolved to
drive the _Violet_ so unmercifully that she would overtake that fleeing
torpedo, now many hours upon its way--the torpedo bearing news, for the
first time in Fenachrone history, of the overwhelming defeat and capture
of one of its mighty engines of interstellar war.

In a very short time, considering the complexity of the undertaking, the
conversion of the power-plant was done and the repellers, already
supposed the ultimate in protection, were reenforced by a
ten-thousand-pound mass of activated copper, effective for untold
millions of miles. Their monstrous pilot then set the bar and advanced
both levers of the dual power control out to the extreme limit of their
travel.

There was no sense of motion or of acceleration, since the new system of
propulsion acted upon every molecule of matter within the radius of
activity of the bar, which had been set to include the entire hull. The
passengers felt only the utter lack of all weight and the other peculiar
sensations with which they were already familiar, as each had had
previous experience of free motion in space. But in spite of the lack of
apparent motion, the _Violet_ was now leaping through the unfathomable
depths of interstellar space with the unthinkable speed of five times
the velocity of light!

CHAPTER VIII

The Porpoise-Men of Dasor

"How long do you figure it's going to take us to get there, Mart?"
Seaton asked from a corner, where he was bending over his
apparatus-table.

"About three days at this acceleration. I set it at what I thought the
safe maximum for the girls. Should we increase it?"

"Probably not--three days isn't bad. Anyway, to save even one day we'd
have to more than double the acceleration, and none of us could do
anything, so we'd better let it ride. How're you making it, Peg?"

"I'm getting used to weighing a ton now. My knees buckled only once this
morning from my forgetting to watch them when I tried to walk. Don't let
me interfere, though! if I am slowing us down, I'll go to bed and stay
there!"

"It'd hardly pay," said Seaton. "We can use the time to good advantage.
Look here, Mart--I've been looking over this stuff I got out of their
ship and here's something I know you'll eat up. They refer to it as a
chart, but it's three-dimensional and almost incredible. I can't say
that I understand it, but I get an awful kick out of looking at it. I've
been studying it a couple of hours, a