"Check the aura-chart,” he ordered Sual Av. “See if we're losing those cruisers."
The Venusian snapped on their ship's aura. The “aura” was a field of electromagnetic vibrations radiated for a million miles in all directions by a projector in the ship. The vibrations were reflected back by any object within that radius of space, and automatically plotted and recorded on the aura-chart.
The chart was a sphere of pale light, poised above the window. At the center of the luminous sphere was a black dot representing their ship. Off to right and left of the black dot moved two red sparks, cutting in obliquely toward them as all advanced.
"They're close — no more than a quarter of a million miles,” reported Sual Av.
"The Zone isn't much farther than that ahead,” Thorn declared.
"But there's a big meteor swarm in the Zone directly ahead of us!” Gunner Welk exclaimed. “We can't run into that!"
In the fore of the aura-chart sphere glimmered a cloud of very tiny crimson flecks, whirling, seething. It was the edge of a great cloud of meteors at the lip of the Zone, stretching across a million miles of space in front of their fleeing little ship.
Thorn could see the swarm in black space ahead. Not the myriad meteors themselves, but a constant winking and flashing of tiny flares, where meteors in the whirling storm of stone struck and fused every few minutes.
" Rantal reporting!” rapped the audio speaker. “Planeteers are now keeping their lead on us, and running straight on toward the Zone."
"Keep after them!” ordered the Commander's grim voice. “Swarm six-sixty-two is just ahead of them and they won't dare enter that. We'll have them boxed."