ur rays were working desperately, but disintegrator rays are not nearly so effective in space as in an atmosphere of some kind. Half a dozen times it seemed that we must crash head on into one of the flying bodies, but our speed was reduced now to such an extent that we were going but little faster than the meteorites, and this fact was all that saved us. We had more time for utilizing our rays.
We nosed upward through the trailing fringe of the swarm in safety. The great field of meteorites was now below and ahead of us. We had won through! The Ertak was safe, and—
"There seems to be another directly above us, sir," commented Correy quietly, speaking for the first time since we had entered the area of danger. "I believe your disc is not picking it up."
"Thank you, Mr. Correy," I said. While operating on an entirely different principle, his two charts had certain very definite advantages: they showed the entire space around us, instead of but a portion.
I picked up the meteorite he had mentioned without difficulty. It was a large body, about three times the mass of the Ertak, and some distance above us—a laggard in the group we had just eluded.
"Will it coincide with our path at any point, Mr. Correy?" I asked doubtfully. The television disc could not, of course, give me this information.
"I believe so; yes," replied Correy, frowning over his charts. "Are the rays on it, sir?"
"Yes. All of them, I judge, but they are making slow work of it." I fell silent, bending lower over the great hooded disc.