for just a moment. But Kenniston had been waiting for that moment. As Hugh Murdock moved his gun-arm involuntarily to balance himself, Kenniston lunged forward.
"The bridge, Holk!" he yelled as he hurled himself.
Kenniston's shoulder hit the captain and sent him caroming into Murdock. The two men sprawled on the floor.
Holk Or, with instant understanding, already had the door of the cabin open. They plunged out into the corridor together.
"Our only chance is to make the bridge and grab the controls!" Kenniston cried as they raced down the corridor. "We can keep them long enough to land on Vesta—"
Hiss—flash! The crackling blast of the atom-gun tore into the lower steps of the ladder up which he and the Jovian frantically climbed. Murdock was running after them as he fired, and there were shouts of alarm.
Kenniston and Holk Or burst into the glassite-walled bridge. Bray, the pilot, turned for a startled moment from his rocket-throttles.
Beyond the pilot, the transparent front wall framed a square of black space in which bulked the monstrous sphere of the nearby asteroid.
The World with a Thousand Moons! It loomed up only a few hundred miles away, a big, pale-green sphere encircled by the vast globuluar swarm of hundreds on hundreds of gleaming little meteor-satellites.
"Why—what—" stammered the pilot, bewildered.
Kenniston's fist caught his chin, and the man sagged to the floor.
"Bar the door, Holk!" yelled Kenniston as he leaped toward the rocket-throttles.
"Hell, there's only a catch!" swore the Jovian. He braced his brawny shoulders against the metal door. "I can hold it a little while."
KENNISTON'S hands were flashing over the throttles. The Sunsprite was moving at reduced speed toward the meteor-enclosed asteroid.
The cruiser shook to the bursting roar of power, as he opened up all the tail rockets. It plunged visibly faster toward the deadly swarm around Vesta, picking up speed by the minute.
Rocking, creaking, quivering to the dangerous rate of acceleration Kenniston was maintaining, the little ship rushed ahead. But now there was loud hammering at the bridge-room door.
"Open up or we'll burn that door down!" came Captain Walls' yell.
Kenniston didn't turn. Hunched over the throttles, peering tensely ahead, he was tautly estimating speed and direction. His eyes searched frantically for the periodic break in the outer meteors.
There was a muffled crackling and the smell of scorched metal flooded the bridge-room. A hoarse exclamation of pain came from Hoik Or.
"They got my arm through the door, damn them!" cursed the Jovian. "Hurry, Kenniston!"
Kenniston was driving the Sunsprite full speed toward the whirling cloud of meteors around the asteroid. He had spotted the break in the cloud, the periodic opening caused by the gravitational influence of another nearby asteroid.
It was not a real opening. It was merely a small area in the swarm where the rushing meteors were not so thick, and where a ship had a chance to worm through by careful piloting.
Kenniston only remotely heard the struggle that Holk Or was putting up to hold the door against the hammering crowd outside. His mind was wholly
