The thunder of the engines filled the control room. For days now that
thunder had been in their ears. They had grown accustomed to it, now
hardly noticed it. Ten mighty engines, driving the _Invincible_ at a
pace no other ship had ever obtained, except, possibly, the
_Interplanetarian_, although lack of power should have held Craven's
ship down to a lower speed. Craven wouldn't have dared to build up the
acceleration they had now attained, for he would have drained his banks
and been unable to charge them again.
"Maybe he won't fight," said Russ. "Maybe he's figured out by this time
that he's heading for the wrong star. He may be glad to see us and
follow us back to the Solar System."
"No chance of that. Craven and Chambers won't pass up a chance for a
fight. They'll give us a few wallops if only for the appearance of
things."
"We're crawling up all the time," said Russ. "If we can catch him within
four or five billion miles of the star, he won't be too tough to handle.
Be getting plenty of radiations even then, but not quite as much as he
would like to have."
"He'll have to start decelerating pretty soon," Greg declared. "He can't
run the chance of smashing into the planetary system at the speed he's
going. He won't want to waste too much power using his field as a brake,
because he must know by this time that we're after him and he'll want
what power he has to throw at us."
Hours passed. The _Invincible_ crept nearer and nearer, suddenly seemed
to leap ahead as the _Interplanetarian_ began deceleration.
"Keep giving her all you got," Greg urged Russ. "We've got plenty of
power for braking. We can overhaul him and stop in a fraction of the
time he does."
Russ nodded grimly. The distance indicator needle on the mechanical
shadow slipped off rapidly. Greg, leaping from his chair, hung over it,
breathlessly.
"I think," he said, "we better slow down now. If we don't, we'll be
inside the planetary system."
"How far out is Craven?" asked Russ.
"Not far enough," Greg replied unhappily. "He can't be more than three
billion miles from the star and that star's hot. A class G, all right,
but a good deal younger than old Sol."
* * * * *
"We'll let them know we've arrived," grinned Greg. He sent a stabbing
beam of half a billion horsepower slashing at the _Interplanetarian_.
The other ship staggered but steadied itself.
"They know," said Russ cryptically from his position in front of the
vision plate. "We shook them up a bit."
They waited. Nothing happened.
Greg scratched his head. "Maybe you were right. Maybe they don't want to
fight."
Together they watched the _Interplanetarian_. It was still moving in
toward the distant sun, as if nothing had happened.
"We'll see," said Greg.
Back at the controls he threw out a gigantic tractor beam, catching the
other ship in a net of forces that visibly cut its speed.
Space suddenly vomited lashing flame that slapped back and licked and
crawled in living streamers over the surface of the _Invincible_. The
engines moaned in their valiant battle to keep up the outer screen. The
pungent odor of ozone filtered into the control room. The whole ship was
bucking and vibrating, creaking, as if it were being pulled apart.
"So they don't want to fight, eh?" hooted Russ.