The quick burst of nausea saved his life, because tortured ductless glands released a stream of adrenalin into his churning blood-stream, the miraculously adaptable body of Man rose once again above its normal limitations. Air crept into his lungs, his heart's tumultuous pounding no longer throbbed a threnody in his eardrums.
Still he could move with only the greatest of effort—but he could move! And his eyes, no longer blinded by the red mist that had drowned their sockets, saw the rocket-flares before him seem to literally stop in mid-flight, race back toward him!
A great exultation seized him. He was hardly aware that bright blood had burst from his nostrils, and that as he opened his lips to shout hoarsely the corners of his mouth drooled red. The craft he pursued whirled fiercely toward him; like flame-riding charioteers they jockeyed across the cosmic wastes. Smith knew he was there. Must know. But—Mallory's grin was the grimace of a gargoyle—he didn't have the guts to duplicate the young lieutenant's mad burst of speed.
He was depending on other weapons. Even as Mallory experienced the thought, a stabbing beam spat backward from the other rocket, a coruscating ray of silver that bore sudden death.
But Mallory had anticipated the move; his slow hand had been straining for seconds to forestall it. He pressed a lever—the ship slid into a dive. Another and the terrible pressure lifted from his limbs, his body felt suddenly light and buoyant, strength surged back to him with singing sweetness.
Again that stabbing ray searched for him. But Dan Mallory was no novice at the art of space warfare. He spun his craft into a cycloid Laegland arc, the lethal ray spent itself on indestructible space, and when Mallory came out of his maneuver he was within scant miles of his objective.
Grinning savagely, his hand sought the button that would smash Smith's ship into oblivion—then stayed! Lady Alice! He could not destroy her with Smith. Because now he knew, certainly and surely, two things. One of which was that she must be the bearer of the secret ray formula to Io. In no other way could you account for the fact that Smith had dared everything to kidnap her. She carried the secret, not in papers, but in her mind.
Were she to die—and might the gods of space forbid that his hand should destroy her loveliness!—Kreuther would still be the victor. For with her would perish the final hope of the besieged New Fresno garrison.
The other thing he realized was—
But there was no time for that now. His fingers spurned the ray button; found another. A jolt shivered the space-skiff from fore-quartz to rocket as his tensile beam reached across the closing miles, fastened its grip on Smith's craft.