Oh, where was Heller now?

I quickly added it up.

Our barrage must have dislodged Krak and sent her falling to her death.

Heller would be frothing for revenge!

"Lombar!" I screamed. "Get away from here!"

The Chief of the Apparatus was looking savagely around. The lust to kill was over him like sheen. "Where is the insolent (bleepard)?" he howled. "Royal officer! Royal (bleep)! Let me at him!" he raved.

I felt a jolt.

It was as if we had run into a wall.

Yet we were two miles above the planet surface!

I looked anxiously at the throttles. They hadn't changed.

Yet we were slowing down!

Then suddenly we started up. We rose into the sky! We were in the grip of some awful force far beyond control!

The towing tractor beams!

Heller had us gripped like any other tow.

Those things could move billions of tons, thousands of these flying cannons.

Up, up we went and then began a sickening curve.

"What's happening?" shrieked Lombar.

"He's got us in the towing grips!" I cried. "Pour full throttle on and break out! DO IT QUICK!"

Lombar was looking all around. His face was getting wild.

We swung into the beginning of a circle. We were now heading obliquely at the ground.

"They've got me!" screamed Lombar, going white.

We hit the bottom of the arc and began to climb again, and all without our power. I was being pressed by centrifugal force against the side of my seat. We came around the top of the arc, the moon and stars whirring by.

Down we started once more.

Lombar was howling! He sounded like an animal!

Around we went and around and around. The tug must be pivoting in a small, tight circle. It was as if we were on the end of a mile of rope.

"Turn! Turn!" I cried. "Start shooting at the pivot point!"

Lombar hit his throttles. They made us go in the same direction we were being swung!

He hit his turn controls.

They didn't work!

Suddenly our motors died.

We were in a second field, as well, that held our engines paralyzed!

The whistling scream of air going by drove terror to my soul.

We were powerless in an awful thing. We were just a pellet in a whirling sling!

We came down the arc, pointing at the ground.

SUDDENLY THE GRIP WENT OFF!

Below us stretched the desert!

We had been released! We were hurtling down at an awful speed.

The ground, moonlit, was rushing up.

The rocks and sand and bushes were suddenly too plain!

WE CRASHED!

The impact must have knocked me out.

I came to in the sizzle of electric fire and the smell of smoke.

Something was lying on my legs.

The entire front panel of the ship had come off and was pinning me in the remains of the seat.

The flying cannon was a crumpled thing.

I wondered that I had survived at all. But maybe I wasn't going to: Electrical fires were dancing all along the panel back, right below my face. At any moment they could flare up and incinerate me!

My hands were bare. I could not reach anything. But this was a matter of life or death. Barehanded, screaming at the pain, I beat them out.

The green moonlight would not let me see the agonizing burns of the flesh, as I lay in shadow.

A shaft was shining in.

It hit the face of Lombar. He was lying there, head back, pinned in place with snapped cables and conduits. They made it look like he was lying in a nest of snakes.

The hull was split apart and above the creak of cooling metal I could hear the desert sounds. I lifted my head. Far off, there was Spiteos against the pale green moon. They would come for us. They had seen the crash, most certainly. Lombar began to groan. He moved. He opened his eyes. I had moved and the moonlight was on my face. He looked at me and memory seemed to return. His eyes went slitted. "So you were part of the conspiracy to kill me!" he said.

"No, no! I came to warn you and save your life!"

"Conspiracy to kill! You came to set me up for Heller! The two of you have been in it thick, all the time!"

"NO!" I tried to hold up my hands. "I even kept you from burning to death!"

"And all this was a ruse! You pretended to come with a warning—me, whom the angels have chosen to be king! Just so you could get me into the air and Heller could shoot me down!"

"Oh, dear Gods, no! You've got it all wrong!"

"I know who my enemies are. They are everybody. And you chose this chance to sneak up on me when I was undefended!"

Far off I could see lights dancing across the desert. Those would be ground vehicles racing to the wreck!

Lombar saw them. "As soon as they get here, that will be the end of you, Soltan Gris!"

Oh, Gods. His paranoia had him in its grip. I didn't have a chance.

Frantically I pushed at the panel that had collapsed across my legs.

I looked up at the approaching lights. They were going brighter and dimmer as they plunged over the uneven terrain. They were only half a mile away. With strength I did not know I had, I wrenched again at the panel.

IT MOVED!

I reached out with my maimed hand to grasp the door latch. The whole side of the flying cannon fell off.

My foot was caught. Something was gripping the heel. I got my foot out of the boot.

With scrapes and tears, I moved my legs sideways.

I WAS FREE!

I leaped to the ground and ran!

Bushes whipped at my legs. Sharp rocks savaged my unshod foot. I could not go far in this condition!

My plight was extreme. Two hundred miles of impassable desert lay between me and Government City. A similarly uncross-able distance lay between me and the Blike Mountains. Nobody had ever passed through this devil-whipped desert afoot and lived to tell of it!

A dark line against the moonlit sand. A gully lined with bushes!

I plunged the few feet down the bank. I landed in agony at the bottom.

The sound of motors!

I turned around, raised myself and peered through the shrubs.

That wreck was awfully near. I thought I had gone much further!

Too late. The first vehicles were arriving. Dozens of them! Lights were playing everywhere!

Hysterically I glanced up and down the gully. I saw a large, flat stone. It lay close to a slit in the bank. I dived for it. I lay in the depression and pulled the flat stone over me. I balled up in the smallest ball I could.

A roaring voice came from the wreck. "Spread out and FIND HIM!"

The thud of running feet.

They were coming closer!

I could hear the snap and slap of guns and equipment as men ran.

More engines.

Somebody was racing around in a small ground tank. The clank of treads made the stone vibrate!

More vehicles were arriving.

I expected any moment somebody would lift the rock and I would come crawling out to be stamped upon.

Bootbeats were everywhere. They almost shook the ground.

To still my terror, I tried to think of something optimistic—like I would suddenly sizzle to a crisp and vanish. And then I did think of something: In their very numbers, they were obliterating all the tracks I might have made.

Hope trembled on the brink of my death from heart failure.

Would they miss me?

Minutes ticked away, each one an eternity.

A squad came by within feet of me. "He'd be a fool to come this way," an officer said. "Nobody can cross this desert on foot. He must have doubled back for Spiteos and we passed him in the cars."

Shouted commands and some vehicles took off in the direction of Spiteos, travelling slowly.

There was nobody in my area now. At least I heard no feet.

They were having trouble at the wreck. Some officer yelled, "This cable is wrapped around him twice. There's nothing here to cut it. Speed back to the repair shops and get the biggest pair of conduit slicers they have!"