She smiled proudly. "It was my invention that saved you. You see, I have two of them now. I told you that they are as near as we can get to making living things. And I also told you that there is much more to them than you saw. They are destroyers and they are builders. We found you dead--or nearly so. Hagen had sent volt after volt through your bodies. You were electrocuted."

"We hurried you back to the ship. And all this time, while Ato steered us back into s.p.a.ce, the Kalis and I--for that is what I have decided to call them--have been working over you. You might say that we are master electronicians, rebuilding circuits, repairing transistors and condensers--"

"You were plenty rough," Gunnar grumbled.

"We had to be. Do you remember a story about the bush-men dying from a curse? Here." She held her two precious Kalis in one arm while she tapped the base of her skull. "In here is a bulb, the old brain, not even an idiot's brain, that brought you up from the jungle. It is a simple, worrying brain. Easily frightened. Easily convinced. It was convinced that you were dead. We had to arouse it."

Odin fancied that he could hear the two Kalis purring contentedly like cats. Well, they had done a good job. Let them purr. He would like to have thanked them, but how can you thank two bowling b.a.l.l.s with scalps of cat's whisker wire?

Gunnar sat up and began grumbling anew: "Well, thanks. Now, get me some clothes. Freida would not like it if I sat here half-undressed before a young lady. And tell me where we are?"

It was Ato's turn to talk. "I threw The Nebula into the Fourth Drive some time ago. That may have helped to save your lives too. We should check on that, Nea."

"Will you please tell me where we are?" Gunnar demanded.

"Give me time, little man," Ato retorted. "We are back in Trans-Einsteinian s.p.a.ce, and Aldebaran and its worlds are far behind us. Ahead of us is Grim Hagen and the Old Ship. Maya is with him. So are at least a hundred of the white-skinned captains from the planet we just left. Also, a dozen Brons.

Maybe more, but not many. What we saw at the council that day when Rama defied Grim Hagen was just a sample of what was to follow. The people were bled white. Graft, corruption, and patronage had taken its toll. Some of the Brons were older and wanted to rest. But injustice couldn't stop until the last tear had washed away the last drop of blood. A few of the Brons and most of the slaves revolted. They won, of course. Grim Hagen should have known the result. He and his men were in flight when they found you and took Maya. They gathered at the Old Ship and took off. Meanwhile, we fought our way out of the city. We decided to have one last try for Maya.

But we found you two and a dead Bron and the head of a native. We brought you here and took off. All this time I have had a fix on Hagen."

"Can't we overtake him?" Odin asked.

"We are trying to. He seems to be heading for a huge dust-cloud. He also sent us a message. Some nonsense about having contacted some race at the edge of creation who would go with him to plunder the stars. He demanded the secret of Wolden's invention again. I think his mind is going fast."

"Not as fast as he will go if I ever get my hands on him," Gunnar promised.

"But Maya is awake now," Ato explained. "We had time on our side before.

Now, if he gets away from us he can live out his days on some obscure planet. The years will pa.s.s like a whirlwind--while we go dashing this way and that, and in a surprisingly short time our willing and unwilling fugitives will have lived out their lives. They have the vagaries of time, s.p.a.ce, and speed upon their side."

Nea laughed. "Even as I said before." She gave Jack Odin a searching look, but Odin avoided her gaze--

"Then, what have you done?" Odin asked.

"All that I could do under the circ.u.mstances. I have a fix upon him. We sapped all the energy from Aldebaran that we could. We have power enough, but there are no stars nearby. As I said before, he is heading for a dust-cloud. There, both ships can replenish their energy. After that we will have to stick close by him and see what happens. After all, we are behind him. By the old Airmen's rule of thumb, a ship with another upon its tail is a hundred percent loss."

"Only at that moment," Odin corrected. "If not destroyed, it has a chance to improve its percentage when the pursuer has made its pa.s.s."

"True enough," Ato admitted. "That is why I propose to stay close behind it. I can't seem to find that dust cloud on any map. It must be far, far away."

Nea laughed again. "What is far? What is near? You do not even have catch-words for Trans-s.p.a.ce. You are looking into the books of the advanced cla.s.ses, and you have not yet opened the primers of s.p.a.ce."

Ato flushed in anger. "Nea, I was my father's helper for years and years.

I know as much about s.p.a.ce as any man."

She shrugged. "Oh, you can cover blackboards with formulas, and I don't doubt that they will be right. But living things and living emotions demand something to cling to. A measuring stick. Grim Hagen tried to give them something substantial back there: A system of brutality and graft that worked for the last-minute Caesars. He even threw in a G.o.ddess. Did he succeed?"

She paused to caress the two things she held in her arms. "My pets know more about time and s.p.a.ce and energy than all of you, don't you, dears?"

She kissed one of them and gave Odin a mysterious smile.

The Kalis began purring contentedly, as though s.p.a.ce were no more than a huge living room, and they were beside a comfortable fireplace, looking up at their all-powerful mistress.

CHAPTER 13

The dust-cloud was farther away than Ato had guessed. Long before they reached it, his instruments began to waver.

He looked at a star-map. Meanwhile, Nea fed rows of figures into a humming calculator.

"We'll never make it this way," Ato said. "Not even the emergency storage would help us. Here," he pointed to a pinpoint of light upon the map. "A white star. We can reach it, I think."

Nea sighed. "That dust-cloud is beyond our calculations. We should be nearly there, but it's still far-off. I think it is shrinking and expanding. At the same time it's dashing off into s.p.a.ce at a terrific rate of speed. You'll have to swing toward that star, Ato. I'll try to probe the cloud some more. My father would have liked this problem--"

"I don't like the problem at all--" Gunnar complained. "Just where is Grim Hagen?"

"He must be having as much trouble beating his way to that dust-cloud as we are," Ato a.s.sured him. And then, doubtfully, he added. "But he has more energy. The Old s.p.a.ce Ship was sitting there below Aldebaran for years and years. He surely took advantage of the time to replenish his fuel. All the while, we were using ours up in an effort to find him."

Jack Odin's science did not go far enough to pursue the conversation. He knew that their power was something like a solar battery. When in gear, the current that went through the "frame" of the hour-gla.s.s-shaped craft turned it into a huge blob of plasma, a miniature nebula, and hurled it into s.p.a.ce. As for the Fourth Drive, he hadn't the slightest idea how it worked.

Ato had said that the scientists who developed it were not sure--just as men had developed generators long before they knew the laws that governed them. Ato had a theory that the Fourth Gear slid the ship from plane to plane. If a bug were crawling along a million mile spiral of wire, he might go on until he died before getting anywhere--but if he simply lumbered across the intervening s.p.a.ce to the next coil, would he have traveled a short distance, or a million miles? Ato had also told Odin that the ship took energy from the gravitational field that it created when traveling at tremendous speeds, so that the motors were 99% efficient.

Ato set a course for the distant star, and in a short while it was looming upon the screen with sheets of atomic flame leaping out like the teeth of a circular saw. One huge explosion flicked a long tongue of heat at them.

The corona of the sun gleamed and writhed like a thin band of quicksilver.

"We're going in there," Ato decided. "It's the quickest way."

Warnings were sounded all through the ship. The screens were turned off now, as no eye could have survived the sight of that flaming ball which was rushing toward them at such extraordinary speed.

The ship groaned as it hit the corona. Vast whirlwinds of flame shook it.

The motors coughed and spat. Then the gyroscopes took over. It steadied itself and went through. Like a moth fluttering through a candle-flame, The Nebula drew away from the star. But this moth was unharmed--and a million cells had drunk so much energy that the ship reeled with its power.

On and on. In zig-zag pursuit of Grim Hagen, they crashed through Trans-s.p.a.ce. The dust-cloud loomed larger now upon their screens. It was still no larger than a baseball, though it must have been millions of miles across.

Three times they had to sweep from their course to renew their energy from straggling suns that seemed to be farther and farther apart. The first was a tiny blue sun that burned its way through the emptiness.

The second was a huge nebula that pulsed and spouted flame and protean worlds into s.p.a.ce--enveloped them again as it breathed, scared them, and cast them out once more. And Odin wondered if in such a furnace and such torment his own world had been born. He had now seen as much of s.p.a.ce as any man, with the exception of Grim Hagen, and so far it had been a tumultuous creation that he had watched. Nothing was still. The forges of s.p.a.ce were white-hot. As they sped toward this sun, they pa.s.sed two planets, perilously close together, pelting each other with splashing gobs and spears of flame and slag. The third was a red sun with lonely burned-out planets circling wearily about it. As they skimmed above its surface Odin slid a dark plate over the screen and watched. Here were molten lakes of metal rimmed by red flames that looked like writhing trees. The surface was splitting and bubbling. A mountain of molten ooze swiftly grew to a height of thirty miles. Then it burst into red flame from its own weight and came toppling down.

As they hurled away from the red star, Ato turned to Odin and Gunnar and said: "I'm afraid that will be the last. Even the stars are behind us--"

The screens now showed nothing but the dust-cloud, with specks of light and coils of darkness threaded through it. It loomed larger and larger until it filled the screen.

"Ragnarok," Gunnar growled in his throat. He adjusted the shoulder strap that harnessed his broadsword to his back and looked at Odin curiously.