With a wrenching turn that almost threw them out of control, Dennis maneuvered to avoid the beam. Again Koerber's beam lashed out, as he sank lower into the looming mass, and again Dennis anticipating the maneuver avoided it.
"George Randall!" He shouted desperately into the speaker. "Cut all jets in the rocket room! Hurry, man!" He banked again and then zoomed out of the increasing gravity trap.
"Randall! I've got to use the magnetic repulsion plates.... Cut all the jets!" But there was no response. Randall's screen remained blank. Then Koerber's lashing magnetic beam touched and the I.S.P. ship was caught, forced to follow the pirate ship's plunge like the weight at the end of a whiplash. Koerber's gunners sent one parting shot, an atom-blast that shook the trapped cruiser like a leaf.
Beneath them, growing larger by the second, a small world rushed up to meet them. The readings in the Planetograph seemed to have gone crazy. It showed diameter 1200 miles; composition mineral and radio-active. Gravity seven-eighths of Terra. It couldn't be! Unless perhaps this unknown planetoid was the legendary core of the world that at one time was supposed to have existed between Jupiter and Mars. Only that could possibly explain the incredible gravity.
And then began another type of battle. Hearing the Captain's orders to Randall, and noting that no result had been obtained, Scotty Byrnes himself cut the jets. The Magnetic Repulsion Plates went into action, too late to save them from being drawn, but at least they could prevent a crash. Far in the distance they could see Koerber's ship preceding them in a free fall, then the Planetoid was rushing up to engulf them.
III
The atmosphere was somewhat tenuous, but it was breathable, provided a man didn't exert himself. To the silent crew of the I.S.P. Cruiser, the strange world to which Koerber's magnetic Beam had drawn them, was anything but reassuring. Towering crags jutted raggedly against the sky, and the iridescent soil of the narrow valley that walled in the cruiser, had a poisonous, deadly look. As far as their eyes could reach, the desolate, denuded vista stretched to the horizon.
"Pretty much of a mess!" Dennis Brooke's face was impassive as he turned to Scotty Byrnes. "What's your opinion? Think we can patch her up, or are we stuck here indefinitely?"