THE YEAR AFTER TOMORROW

An Anthology of Science Fiction

THE  YEAR AFTER TOMORROW

THE YEAR AFTER TOMORROW

An Anthology of Science Fiction Stones Selected hy

LESTER DEL REY CECILE MATSCHAT CARL CARMER

Foreword hy Lester del Rey Illustrated hy Mel Hunter

THE   JOHN   C.   WINSTON   COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA      •      TORONTO

Copyright, 1954, by THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

Copyright in Great Britain and in the British Dominions and Possessions Copyright in the Republic of the Philippines

FIRST   EDITION

Made in the United States of America L.C. Card #52-8976

FOREWORD

Q

V—JCIENCE FICTION is both the oldest and the newest form of literature. The ancient Greeks were writing it before the birth of Christ, and the famous Cyrano de Bergerac wrote a story about a man who went to the moon long before there were cowboys or detectives.

Science fiction will always be new, however. It is the only type of fiction which can never grow stale, because there are absolutely no limits to it. There are millions of years and probably billions of worlds still waiting for us in the future. No matter how much we learn or accomplish, there will always be something left to discover or to do.

Literally anything can happen. Many of the wildest guesses made a hundred years ago have already become history. And the very things in science fiction which seem furthest from us may be cold fact before another fifty years have passed. We are only in the kindergarten of science, and we haven't yet begun to explore the universe around us.

Old as science fiction is, it didn't really start as a regular form of literature until about twenty-five years ago. Jules Verne and H. G. Wells had written books, but there were no magazines in which such stories appeared regularly. Then, almost overnight, magazines sprang up, writers began to write such stories, and a whole body of readers turned into fans. They collected such stories, organized societies and conventions, and even began printing their own fan magazines.

Most of the readers were boys in their teens. The older

people laughed at their reading such tommyrot about trips to the moon, atoms being broken to give power, and television in every home. It was all nonsense, as everyone knew!

But the boys went ahead reading it and believing it could come true. It didn't seem to poison their minds; in fact, a large number of those who read it became genuinely interested in the real science that lay behind those stories. Those same boys went into the shops and the laboratories and had much to do with making the fiction they had read become reality.

The events and things predicted in the fiction of twenty-five years ago were supposed to happen in a hundred years or so—but many have already happened. We have television today; we have already cracked the atom, though not for the useful purpose most people had wanted; and rocket ships are flying, even though they haven't yet reached the moon.

Science fiction still belongs to the younger readers. That is natural, even though the older groups now enjoy it more with each year. After all, it will be the boys of today who fly on the first ships to the moon, and to Mars—and someday even to the stars. They will be the ones in the laboratories of tomorrow who bring about the miracles that science fiction is still predicting. And, because most of their lives will be in the future, they are the ones who have the greatest interest in that future.

Unfortunately, though, most of the magazines of today have grown too far away from their audience. They have lost the sense of wonder and enthusiasm which first captured the imagination of the readers of the older stories. They don't give the happy mixture of real science and stirring adventure which science fiction should always have. They speak of speeds faster than light and the workings of sociology and psychology, but they often neglect the romance behind the development of new things.

This isn't always true, of course, and there will probably be some writers to carry on the old tradition. But it's a genuine pleasure to turn back the clock and read again the stories that caught our imagination a decade or more ago in the science fiction magazines—such as those included here from Astounding Science Fiction; or to go back twenty years to the time when The American Boy was publishing an amazing number of stories about the future —most of them still fine tales of what is yet to come.

We still haven't caught up with those stories entirely. The paper on which they were printed is brittle now, and they are hard to find, except in the back files of the libraries. But they should be part of the reading experience of every young American who can dream of the world that is to come and the science that will lie behind it.

Some of the things in the stories are no longer imagination. We have ships that fly by rocket power and go faster than sound. But our civilization hasn't adjusted itself to them—we don't have the world ready to go all out, where everyone thinks that a trip from San Francisco to Paris is just a week-end jaunt. We haven't explored the fourth dimension yet, if we ever will. And we haven't reached the moon, although many of us will live to see that happen.

Until we can do all those things, these stories will remain tales to read with excitement and to dream about. Even after we've done all that has been predicted, most of the stories will still be well worth re-reading.

They are, after all, good stories. They are stories of action and excitement, about real people in a world where things can happen that haven't yet happened. They are the type of stories which can't be started without being read through to the very end. Even when they are finished, they will stick in our imagination and leave a sense of excitement and wonder.

We all need those qualities, whether we are just beginning to read about the world of the future or are already helping to build that future.

In the past twenty years, the world has changed a great deal, and will change even more in the next twenty. But good science fiction will always go on giving something just a little more than any other fiction can give.

These are stories that have that "something" extra.

LESTER DEL REY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful appreciation is extended to the following authors and publishers for use of copyrighted material:

Lester del Rey and Astounding Science Fiction, for "The Luck of Ignatz," copyright, Street and Smith Publications, Inc., 1939; reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction; and "Kindness," copyright, Street and Smith Publications, Inc., 1944; reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction.

Carl H. Claudy, for "The Master Minds of Mars," "The Land of No Shadow," and "Tongue of Beast," which appeared originally in The American Boy.

Peter van Dresser, for "By Virtue of Circumference," "Plum Duff," and "Rocket to the Sun," which appeared originally in The American Boy.

Robert Moore Williams and Astounding Science Fiction, for "The Red Death of Mars," copyright by Street and Smith, Inc. Reprinted from the monthly magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, of July 1940.

CONTENTS

Foreword......................................................................... V

The Luck of Ignatz....................................................... 1

By Lester del Rey

The Master Minds of Mars......................................... 46

By Carl H. Claudy

By Virtue of Circumference........................................ 145

By Peter van Dresser

The Red Death of Mars............................................... 165

By Robert Moore Williams

The Land of No Shadow............................................. 204

By Carl H. Claudy

Plum Duff....................................................................... 257

By Peter van Dresser

Kindness......................................................................... 277

By Lester del Rey

Tongue of Beast............................................................ 298

By Carl H. Claudy

Rocket to the Sun.......................................................... 316

By Peter van Dresser

THE LUCK OF IGNATZ

By LESTER DEL REY

M AYBE it was superstition, but Ignatz knew it was all his fault. For the last three days, Jerry Lord had sat in that same chair staring into space, and there was nothing Ignatz could do about it.

He grunted and grumbled his unhappiness, dug his tail into the carpet, and shoved forward on his belly-plate until his antennae touched the Master's ankle. For the hundredth time he tried to mumble human words, and failed. But Jerry sensed his meaning and reached down absently to rub the horn on his snout.

"Ignatz," the Master muttered, "did I tell you Anne star-hops on the Burgundy tonight? Bound for South Venus." He sucked on his cold pipe, then tossed it aside in disgust. "Pete Durnall's to guide her through Demon-fire swamps."

It was no news to Ignatz, who'd heard nothing else for the last three days, but he rumbled sympathetically in his foghorn voice. In the rotten inferno north of Hellas, any man who knew the swamps could be a hero to a mud-sucker. Even veteran spacemen were usually mudsuckers on Venus, and Anne was earth-bound, up to now.

Ignatz knew those swamps—none better. He'd lived

there some hundred-odd years until the Master caught him for a mascot. Oh, the swamp animals were harmless enough, most of them, but Anne wouldn't think so when she saw them. She'd screamed the first time she saw him—even a Venusian zloaht, or snail-lizard, was horrible to an Earthman; the other animals were worse.

But the memory of the swamps suggested heat to Ignatz. He crawled up the portable stove and plunked down into a pan of boiling water. After a few minutes, when the warmth took full effect, he relaxed comfortably on the bottom to sleep. Jerry'd have to solve his own problems, since he couldn't learn zloaht language. What was the sense of solving problems if he couldn't boast about it?

There was a thud and clank outside, and a chorus of shrieks rent the air. By the time Ignatz was fully awake, a man was pounding on the door, grumbling loudly. Jerry threw it open, and the hotel manager plunged in, face red and temper worse.

"Know what that was?" he shrieked. "Number two elevator broke the cable—brand-new it was, too. Stuck between floors, and we've got to cut through with a blowtorch. Now!"

"So what? I didn't do it." The old weariness in Jerry's voice was all too familiar to Ignatz. He knew what was coming.

"No, you didn't do it; you didn't do it. But you were here." The red face turned livid, and the fat chest heaved convulsively. He threshed his fist in front of Jerry's face and shrilled out in a quavering falsetto: "Don't think I haven't heard of you! I felt sorry for you, took you in for only double rates, and look what happens. Well, I'm through.  Out you go—hear me?  Out, now, at once."

Jerry shrugged. "Okay." He watched with detached interest as Ignatz climbed out of the pan and dropped over onto the manager's leg. With a wild shriek of confused pain, the man jerked free and out. He went scurrying down the hall, his fat hands rubbing at the burned flesh.

"You shouldn't have done that, Ignatz," Jerry remarked mildly. "He'll probably have blisters where you touched him. But it's done now, so go cool off and help me pack." He put a pan of cold water on the floor and began opening closets and cTlagging out clothes. Ignatz climbed into the water and let his temperature drop down to a safe limit, considering this latest incident ruefully.

Not that there was anything novel about it; the only wonder was that they had been in the hotel almost a week before it happened. It was all his fault; he never did anything, but he was there, and trouble followed blissfully after. Of course, Jerry Lord should have known better than to catch a snail-lizard, but he did it, and things started.

The luckiest man in the star fleet, the Master had been head tester for the new rocket models until the Old Man decided he needed a rest and sent him to Venus. Any normal man would have been killed when the ship cracked up over the swamps, but Jerry came walking into Hellas with two hundred ounces of gold under one arm and Ignatz under the other.

Naturally, the Venusians had warned him. They knew, and had known for generations, that it was good luck to have a zloaht around in the swamps, but horribly bad outside. The members of Ignatz' tribe were plain Jonahs, back to the beginning. Ignatz knew it, too, and tried to get away; but by the time they were well out of the swamps, he liked the Master too well to leave.

To any other man, Ignatz would have spelled personal bad luck with general misfortune left over. But Jerry's personal luck held out; instead of getting trouble himself, others around him were swamped with it. The test ships cracked up, one after another, while Jerry got away without a scratch. Too many cracked up, and the Old Man gave Jerry another vacation, this time a permanent one.

His reputation waxed great, and doors closed silently but firmly before him. "Sorry, Mr. Lord, we're not taking on new men this year." They weren't to be blamed; hadn't something gone wrong by the time he left the office—not just something, but everything? Nowadays, an ambulance followed casually wherever he went walking with Ignatz, and some innocent bystander usually needed it.

Then Jerry met Anne Barclay, and the inevitable happened. Anne was the Old Man's daughter, and as cute a girl as ever strode down the training field of the Six World Spaceport. Jerry took one look at her, said "Ah," and developed a fever. He still had some of his money left, and he could dance, even if the orchestra always missed their cues when he was on the floor. By the time he'd known her three weeks, though, she'd lost the ring her mother had given her, had tooth trouble, sinus trouble, and a boil on her left shoulder, all since she met Jerry. With the Old Man helping her imagination along, she did a little thinking about what this might lead to; they decided that a little trip to Venus, with Pete Durnall, the Old Man's favorite, was just the answer, and that Jerry could cool his heels and rot.

Not that they were superstitious, any more than all star-jumpers and their daughters were; Ignatz understood that. But when too many coincidences happen, it begins to look a bit shady. Now she was gone, or at least going, and Jerry was going out on his ear, from her life and from the hotel. Ignatz grumbled lustily in lizard language and crawled out of the pan. He rolled over in a towel, then began helping Jerry pack—a simple thing, since most of Jerry's wardrobe rested comfortably in old Ike's pawnshop.

"We'll go to the dock," Jerry decided. "I'm practically broke, fellow, so we'll sleep in a shed or an outbuilding if we can slip past the watch. Tomorrow, I'll look for work again."

He'd been looking for work for months, any work, but the only job he knew was handling the star-jumpers, or space-ships; and they had enough natural bad luck without adding Luckless Jerry to the crew. Ignatz wondered what the chances of finding open garbage pails around the dock were, but he followed meekly enough.

A raw steampipe led around the shed with the loose lock at the rear. It happened to be superhot steam, so Ignatz' sleep was heavy and dreamless, and daylight came and went unknown. The first thing he knew was when Jerry knocked him down, and dipped him in a cold puddle to wake him up. At least it smelled like Jerry, though the face and clothes were all wrong.

The Master grinned down at Ignatz, as the water fizzed and boiled. Overnight, apparently, he had grown a beard, and his straight hair was a mass of ringlets. Over one eye a scar ran down to his mouth, and pulled his lips up into a rough caricature of a smile; and the face was rough and brown, while his clothes might have been pulled off a refuse truck.

"Pretty slick, eh, Ignatz?" he asked. "Old Ike fixed me up for my watch and ring." He picked the zloaht up and chucked him into a traveling bag. "We can't let them see you now, so you'll have to stay under cover till we hit berth."

Ignatz hooted questioningly, and Jerry chuckled. "Sure, we've got a job—keeping the bearings oiled on a space-hopper. Remember that old tramp who was sleeping here last night? Well, he'd been a star-jumper till the space-bends hit him, and his papers were still clear. I got them for practically nothing, had Ike fix me up, and went calling today. Our luck's changed again. We're riding out tonight, bound for Venus!"

Ignatz grunted again. He might have known where they were bound for.

"Sure." Jerry was cocky again, banking on his luck. "Not another grunt from you, fellow. I can't take any chances on this trip."

The zloaht settled down on the clothes in the bag and chewed slowly on a piece of leather he'd found outside. Anything might happen now, but he had ideas of what that anything might be. The bag jerked and twisted as the Master slipped past the guards and out onto the rocket field where the hiss of rockets told Ignatz some ship was warming up, testing her exhaust. He stuck his eye to a crack in the bag and peered out.

It was an old freighter, but large and evidently well-kept. They were moving the derricks back and battening down the hatches, so the cargo was all aboard. From the smell, he decided they were carrying raisins, peanuts and chocolate, all highly prized by the spore prospectors on Venus. Venus grew little that equaled old Earth foods, and only the most concentrated rations could be carried by those wandering adventurers.

As he watched, Ignatz saw a big tanker run out on the tracks and the hose tossed over to fill the tanks with hydrogen peroxide to be burned into fuming exhaust gases by the atomic converters; the isotope plates were already in, apparently. Mechanics were scurrying around, inspecting the long blast tubes, and the field was swarming with airscrew tugs ready to pull the big freighter up where her blast could shoot out harmlessly and her air fins get a grip on the air.

These big freighters were different from the sleek craft that carried passengers; the triangles were always neatly balanced on their jets, but the freighter was helpless in the grip of a planet unless buoyed up by tugs until she reached a speed where the stubby fins supported her.

Evidently the Master had made it barely in time, for the crew plank was being unhitched. He ran up it, presented his papers, and was ordered to his berth. As he turned to leave, there was a halloo from below, and the plank was dropped again. Blane, the freighter's captain, leaned over.

"Supercargol Why can't he take a liner? All right, we'll wait for him twenty minutes." He stumped up the stairs to the conning turret, and words drifted down sulfurously. "Every dratted thing has gone wrong on this trip. I'm beginning to think there's a Jonah in the crew."

Jerry waited to hear no more, but moved to his berth— a little tin hole in the wall, with a hard bunk, a pan of water, and a rod for his clothes. He tested the oxygen helmet carefully, nodded his satisfaction, and stretched out on the bunk.

"You stay there, Ignatz," he ordered, "and keep quiet. There might be an inspection. I'll let you out when I go on second shift. Anyway, there isn't a steampipe in the hole so it wouldn't do you any good."

The port above was closing with a heavy bang. "Supercargo must have come up early. Wonder who he is? Must be somebody important to hold Blane waiting for him— friend of the Old Man's, I guess." Jerry grinned comfortably, then wiped it off his face as a shout came down the stair well.

"Hey, down there! Bring up some tools, and make it snappy. The crew port's stuck, and we're taking off in five minutes."

Jerry moaned, and Ignatz turned over with a disgruntled snort. "Well," the Master reflected, "at least I won't get the blame for it this time. But it's funny, all the same. Darned funny!"

Ignatz agreed. This promised to be an interesting voyage, if they ever reached Venus at all. If the Master had to keep a zloaht for a pet, he might have stayed on the ground where their necks would have been safe, instead of running off on this crazy chase.

Jerry let Ignatz out when he came back from shift. The Master was tired and grouchy, but nothing had gone wrong in particular. There had been two minor accidents, and one of the tenders had his foot smashed by a loose coupling, but a certain amount of that had to be expected. At least no one had accused him of causing trouble.

"I found out who the supercargo is," he told the zloaht. "Nobody but the Old Man himself. So you lie low and I'll keep out of his way. The old buzzard has eyes like a hawk, and nobody ever called his memory bad."

The works of Robert Burns were unknown to Ignatz, but he did know the gist of the part that goes: "The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley." He waited results with foreboding, and they came when Jerry's next shift was half through.

It was the Old Man himself who opened the door and turned to a pair of brawny wipers. "All right, bring him in here, and lock the door, I don't know who he is, and I don't care. We can find that out later; but I do know he isn't the man his card says. That fellow has been rotten with space-bends for ten years.

"And Captain Blane," he addressed the officer as they tossed Jerry on the bunk, "in the future inspect your men more carefully. I can't make a tour of inspection on every freighter, you know. Maybe there's no harm in him, but I don't want men working for me on fake cards."

As they locked the door and went down the hall, the captain's voice was placating, the Old Man raving in soft words that fooled nobody by their mildness. Ignatz crawled out from under the bunk, climbed up the rail, and nuzzled Jerry soothingly.

Jerry spat with disgust. "Oh, he came down, pottered around the generator room and wanted to see my card; said he didn't know any oiler with a scar. Then Hades broke loose, and he yelled for Blane. Anyway, he didn't recognize me. Thank the Lord Harry, you had enough sense to duck, or my goose would have been cooked."

Ignatz rooted around and rubbed the horn on his snout lightly against the Master's chest. Jerry grinned sourly.

"Sure, I know. We haven't sunk yet, and we're not going to. Go on away, fellow, and let me think. There must be some way of getting off this thing after we reach Venus."

Ignatz changed the "after" to "if" in his mind, but he crawled back dutifully and tried to sleep; it was useless. In half an hour, Captain Blane rattled on the door and stalked in, his face pointing to cold and stormy. There was an unpleasant suggestion in the way he studied Jerry.

"Young fellow," he barked, "if the Old Man didn't have plans for you, I'd rip you in three pieces and strew you all over this cabin. Call that zloaht of yours out and take off those whiskers, Jerry Lord."

The Master grunted, as a man does after a blow to the stomach. "What makes you think I'm Lord?"

"Think? There's only one Jonah that big in the star fleet. Since you came aboard, every blamed thing's been one big mess. The Old Man comes on board as supercargo, the port sticks, three men get hurt fitting a new injector, I find Martian sandworms in the chocolate, and the Old Man threatens to yank my stars. Don't tell me you're anyone else!" He poked under the bunk. "Come out of there, you blasted zloaht!"

Ignatz came, with a rueful honk at Jerry, who pulled his false beard anxiously. "Well, Captain, what if I am? Does the Old Man know?"

"Of course not, and he better hadn't. If he found I'd shipped you with the crew, I'd never draw berth again.

When we hit Venus, I'll try to let you out in a 'chute at the mile limit. Or would you rather stay and let the Old Man figure out ways and means?"

Jerry shook his head. "Let me out on your 'chute," he agreed hastily. "I don't care how, as long as I get free to Venus."

Blane nodded. "I'll catch the dickens anyway, but I'd rather not have you around when we land. I never did trust my luck when a ship breaks up." He pointed at Ignatz. "Keep that under cover. If the Old Man finds out who you are, I'll put you off in a lead suit, without a 'chute. Savvy, mister?"

Jerry savvied plenty. He motioned Ignatz back under the bunk and moved over to the shelf where his grub lay. Blane turned to go. And then everything broke loose.

There was a sick jarring, and a demon's siren seemed to go off in their ears. The shelf jumped across the room; Jerry hit the captain with his head. For half a second, there was complete silence, followed by bedlam, while the ship jerked crazily under their feet. Acting on instinct, both the captain and the Master dashed for the oxygen helmet, and a private war started before either realized what had happened.

Jerry straightened up first. "That was the control engine," he yelled in Blane's ear. The man couldn't hear, but he caught the idea. "Get out of here and find out what happened."

There was no thought of prisoners. Jerry pounded along at the captain's heels, and Ignatz had only time to make a convulsive leap and slide down Jerry's neck under his jacket. Men were swarming down the stair well and up from the main rocket rooms. A babble of voices blended with a shrilling of alarms and a thud of feet on cuproberyl decks.

The Old Man was in the engine room before them. "Blane! Blane—Hey, somebody find that lunkhead before these fools wreck the whole ship!"

Blane saluted roughly, his mouth open, his eyes darting about the wreck of the steering engine. "Hu-whu-what happened?"

One quick glance had told Jerry. "Which one of you oilers let the main bearings run dry?"

A wiper pointed silently to a shapeless lump of bones and mangled flesh. While eyes turned that way, Ignatz slipped out and pushed from sight between a post and wall that were still partly whole.

Jerry Lord's mouth was set as he swung to Blane. "Got a spare engine? No. Well, dismantle one of your gyro-stabilizer engines and hook it up. Send men to inspect what damage was done the controls. Get the doctor up here to look over these men who are still in one piece. Wake up, man!"

Blane shut his mouth slowly, wheeled back to the man and began shouting instructions, until some order came out of the milling mass of men. In the confusion, the Old Man hadn't noticed Jerry, but he swung to him now.

"Who let you out? Never mind; you're here. It's a good thing somebody has some sense, or that yellowbelly'd still be dreaming! Captain Blane, get that wreck out of here, put this prisoner to work. We can't waste time or men now. I'm going back to the control co-ordinators to inspect the damage."

Now that the shock of his first major accident was over, Blane snapped briskly into it. He glared at Jerry, but postponed it for later. Ignatz knew this was to be held against the Master, as all the other troubles were, and he mumbled uncomfortably.

With the engine in scattered parts, little dismantling was necessary. The men were cleaning the parts away, cutting such few bolts as were left in the base, and preparing the space for the new engine. The stabilizer motor came in, one part at a time, and Jerry oversaw its placement and assembly, set its governor, and hooked the controls to it as rapidly as the crew could cut away the bent rods and weld new ones in their place. In an emergency, no group of men on Earth can do the work that a space-crew can turn out in a scant half-hour, and these were all seasoned star-jumpers; to them the lack of gravity was a help rather than a hindrance in the swift completion of the work.

By the time the Old Man was back, the walls were being welded over, the new engine tuned, the controls hitched, and the captain was sweating and swearing, but satisfied that the work had been well done. Jerry came back from the stabilizer hold to report the motors retuned and set for the added load given by the loss of one of the five engines, with the juice feeding in evenly.

The Old Man motioned silently, his face blank and expressionless, and Blane gulped as he turned to follow. Jerry strung along without invitation, tucking Ignatz carefully out of sight under his clothes.

Back in the nerve center of the ship, the control integrators were a hopeless mess. The main thrust rods that coupled the control turret to the engine were still intact, but the cables and complex units of gears and eveners that formed the nearly human brain of the ship were ruined beyond possibility of repair.

The Old Man's voice was almost purring, but his eyelids twitched. "Have you repairs, Captain?"

"Some. We might be able to jury-rig part of it, but not enough to couple the major rockets to the control panel. That looks to me like a one-way ticket to death." Under the stress of danger, the man had relapsed into a numb hopelessness.

"How many hours to Venus, and where's the danger point?"

"Sixty hours, and we either get control in ten, or we fall straight into the sun. We're in Orbit C-3 now, and we'll miss Venus entirely."

"Not a chance to get repairs sent out in time," the Old Man muttered. "Well, I guess that's that."

Jerry pushed past the captain, saluted the Old Man quietly. "Beg pardon, sir, but it might be possible to control the ship manually from here, with observations relayed from the control turret."

Momentarily the Old Man's eyes brightened, but only for a split second. "Not one man in a thousand knows the layout of the cables, here, and the job would be physically impossible. I don't know whether this rod should be forced back or that one forward. When the old manual controls were still in, we had them arranged logically in banks, but this is uncharted confusion."

"I know the layout," Jerry offered evenly. "It's simply a question of being able to move around fast enough to co-ordinate the thrust rods." Yet he looked at the mass of rods, levers, and cables with doubt large in his heart. It meant covering an eight-foot wall, and keeping the tangle of eveners clear in his mind every second of the time, though it might be done.

There was a snort from Blane, but the Old Man silenced it. "We have to believe in miracles now. It's our only chance. Are you sure you can do it, mister?"

"Fairly sure, sir."

"How many helpers?"

Jerry grinned sourly. "None; it's easier and surer doing it than telling others how to do it, and maybe having them mess things up. Has to be a one-man job."

"Right." There was grudging approval on the scowling face. "Blane, you take orders from him; get the wrecked parts out, uncouple the remaining automatics. You and the navigators will take turns relaying the chart data to this room—and it'd better be right. Get a phone hooked up at once, and put this man to work. If we get to Venus, he's free, no questions asked, and a good job waiting for him. If we don't, he won't need the job."

When the Old Man was gone, the captain shook his fist under Jerry's nose. "Jonah! If you hadn't been along, this wouldn't have happened. You'd better be good, Mr. Lord." He stopped suddenly, a new thought hitting him. "Do you realize that means sixty hours of steady, solid work down here?"

"Naturally, since your navigators never learned more than they had to." Jerry shrugged with an entirely false optimism. "And you'll remember that hereafter every man on this ship will take orders from me, sir? I must insist on absolute co-operation."

"You'll get it, Jonah or not." Blane stuck out a hand. "I don't like your reputation, Lord, but I do like your nerve. Good luck!"

In making an impressive exit, the captain forgot the oil on the floor and executed a jerky half-twist before his back hit the deck. Ignatz backed further out of sight and prepared for the worst.

"Jonah !" said Blane, and it covered everything with no wasted syllables.

With the wreck carted out, the communications man came in, hooked up a phone and coupled it by a spring reel of wire to sponge-covered earphones. He handed over a chart of present position and estimated orbit, then cleared out.

Jerry cut in on the phone. "All clear?"

"Waiting for orders, sir. Stern rocket seven has a point-oh-six underblast you'll have to counteract, and the stabilizers only work three-five. Venus now in position—" The navigator rattled off his co-ordinates, and Jerry set them up in his head as he reached for the main blast rods.

"Okay. Leave orders I'm not to be bothered by anyone but the mess boy." He pulled Ignatz out, patted his back, and grinned. "The room's yours, fellow. Stand to blastl"

"Clear to blast, sir. All-11 positions set! Trim-mm and stow all-11!" The time-honored call rang down the stair well as Jerry threw the manuals and braced himself for gravity-on.

The freighter shook like a cat coming out of a bathtub, groaned and bucked sullenly, as the controls were thrown one at a time; reluctantly she settled down to business. For a bottom-blaster, she was a sweet old bus, put out with the craftsmanship of men who longed for the stars and took out that longing in building ships to carry others. Even with the overworked stabilizers and slight underblast, she answered her helm better than some of the new triangles.

Jerry bit into her levers savagely at first, then gently as she became part of him, hard to reach, yet swift and honest.

The navigator was shouting down co-ordinates, drift ratios, and unnecessary pep talk, and the Old Man's voice came through occasionally, sounding almost pleasant. The crusty old scallawag had what it took, Jerry conceded; no hysteria or nonsense about him. Under such an example, the captain and first navigator took heart, and the second navigator was jaunty with hope when he came on. Faith was dirt cheap in the conning turret at the moment; Jerry could have used more of it himself, but was careful not to show it in his voice.

The first ten hours were no worse than steady attention and driving work could make them, and he began to get the feel of the ship. His mind tuned in on the creaking of her girders, the sway of her deck, and the strange harmony that couples flesh to well-built metal. The pattern of the controls etched itself indelibly into his brain, short cuts came, and ways of throwing his combinations in less time and with less effort, until he became a machine integral with the parts he handled.

When food was brought down, he grinned confidently at the mess boy and snatched it in mouthf uls as the coordinates sent down to him and the ship movement he felt sent him dancing across the room. Watching him, the boy grinned back, and snapped his fingers gleefully. Hop to Venus with ruined controls? A cinch!

Ignatz waited doubtfully, but nothing more seemed likely to happen. He honked hopefully—and an answering bark came out of the vent tubes. The exhaust blower went on noisily, but the current of cool air stopped.

Jerry cut in on the phone. "What happened?"

"Dust explosion in the filter chamber, sir. I'm afraid it'll take some time to fix it."

It did. While the hours passed, heat leaked in from the engine and refused to go out. Normal perspiration gave way to rivulets of sweat that tried to get in the Master's eyes and made his hands wet and slippery.

Ice and water, brought down at hourly intervals, helped, but did not alleviate, the temperature. Men were working on the air ducts, but it promised to be a long job. Ignatz had secretly crawled up the vent pipes to find the obstruction, nearly got lost, and came down without success.

When the twenty-hour period was up, Jerry was rocking on his heels, hating the heat with every labored breath. He wore ice packs on every safe place, and still couldn't keep cool. The blowers were working again, keeping a steady current of air moving, but it was hot. Under the Master's shoes were heavy pads of rubberoid, and he wore stiff mittens on his hands, but still the heat came through from the hot floor and control rods. A few more degrees would spell the limit.

Then the temperature reached a mark and held it. The heat seeping in and the air going out balanced, and Jerry settled down to a regular routine of ice packs and heat; even the air he breathed was filtered through an ice mask.

The phone buzzed and the Old Man's voice came over. "One of the refrigerators overheated and burned a bearing. You'll have to cut down to half rations of ice."

"Okay." The Master stared thoughtfully at Ignatz, then caught him up and draped him over his shoulders. "Not enough ice, fellow. You like heat, but you'll have to cool me off. Come on, pal, show your stuff."

Ignatz did his best. He had the finest heat-regulating system on nine planets, and he put it to work, soaking up the heat from Jerry's sweaty body, dissipating it out into the air. Jerry never understood how it was done, but he knew Ignatz could absorb heat or radiate it off at high efficiency; now the zloaht was absorbing on his flexible belly-plate and radiating from his back.

Jerry sighed with relief. "Ah, fine, fellow. You've got the ice packs beat three ways from Sunday." His eyes pulled shut and he relaxed against the control bars. Ignatz prodded him with the sharp end of his tail, waking him to his duties.

"Regular two-man crew we've got, fellow," the Master muttered. "You'll make me win this thing through yet, maybe." His beard was peeling off in the humid heat, and he pulled it away, along with the scar. The brown pigment had gone hours before.

But now things were letting up a little. The freighter had settled into the groove of her orbit, was balanced nicely, and required little more attention until they reached Venus. Jerry had an insulated chair rigged up and dropped into it when the pressure of the work would let him, while Ignatz listened for the opening buzz of the phone or watched gravely for a flash from the extension feed indicators. Fifteen minutes here, twenty minutes there, once even a whole hour; Jerry's overworked system grabbed greedily at each minute, sucking up relief and rest like a dry sponge. If only the drugging, tiring heat would lift.

And then, miraculously, a shot of cold air whooshed out of the vent ports, and Jerry jerked up from his stupor. "They've got it, Ignatz, it's fixed!" He shivered gratefully under the draft, drew back from it while his body begged for coolness, afraid of too sudden a drop in temperature. "Now you can forget the heat, fellow; just wake me when I need it."

The air was dropping down smoothly, a degree every five minutes, and life seemed to flow back into the Master. Ignatz muttered softly and relaxed. The two-way heat control had been a nervous strain on him, requiring hard mental discipline; he was thankful to fall back to normal.

The three-quarters mark came and went, with only fifteen hours ahead—and the hardest part of the job still to do. Under his breath, Jerry was talking to himself, ordering his muscles as he might a crew of men, trying to forget the dull ache that found every muscle of his body, the hot-acid pain in his head, the feeling of an expanding balloon against his brain. Another five hours, and they'd be teetering down through the heavy gravity zone, where every tube would have to be balanced until the tugs came to take over.

Old Man Barclay came down in place of the mess boy, a serious, worried Old Man, but with a smile on his lips— until he saw Ignatz and Jerry's normal face. Then something hard shot into his eyes. He whistled.

"I had a hunch," he said softly. But his voice was even, his face relaxed. "You always were a fool, Jerry, even if you happen to be the best man that ever rode a star-hopper. This and our cursed luck should have told me. What is it—Anne?"

Jerry nodded, patted Ignatz back into place as the zloaht moved to avoid the Old Man's look. "Anne," he agreed. He thrust back into the machinery as the navigator sent down fresh data, backed out, and faced the other quietly. "Well?"

"Of course." The old face never moved a muscle. "What I can't understand is how your luck can reach out ten million miles and hit another ship, though. Never mind, I'll tell you later—maybe."

Jerry dropped limply back into his chair, and the other moved over with a drink. Noting the trembling hands that lifted the glass, the Old Man's face softened. "Too much work for one man, son. I used to be pretty much up on the layout here. Maybe I can spell you."

"Maybe. It's routine stuff now, Mr. Barclay. All you need are the feed controls and gyro-eveners banked together there." The Master pointed them out, one by one, while the Old Man nodded. "I'll have to take over in four, five hours though. Sure you can do it till then?"

"That much, yes." The Old Man tossed a blanket over the younger man and then moved over by the projecting feed bars. "Ever strike you as funny I came on this trip?"

"Didn't have time to think," said the Master.

Barclay squatted down on a beam, his eyes on the controls. "I don't do things without a purpose, Lord. Venus needs radium—needs it bad. They offer double price for three million dollars' worth, Earth price, when delivered at Hellas. But they want it quick, so it has to be sent in one load. You can't get insurance on that for a one-shipment cargo; too much risk. And no private company will ship it without insurance."

"So?"

"So I bought the radium on the market, had it stowed secretly with the chocolate—mutiny never happened, but it might—and came along to watch it. That represents my entire personal fortune. If it reaches Venus, I double my money; otherwise, I won't be there to worry about it."

He stopped, then went on in the same even voice. "That's why I could cheerfully kill you for putting a jinx on this voyage. But I won't. I have reasons for reaching Venus in a hurry. Put this ship down in one piece on the surface of Venus, and one-third of the profit is yours—one million dollars, cold cash, in any bank you want it."

Ignatz honked softly—for him—and Jerry blinked. He swung off at a tangent. "You spoke of my luck hitting another ship across ten million miles; and now you've got reasons for reaching Hellas quickly. Anne?"

The Old Man repeated Jerry's earlier answer. "Anne. Saw it from the conning turret. The Burgundy broke a steering-tube bank, had to make a forced landing. We got the start of an S O S, but it faded off—must have ruined the radio as they hit."

"Where?"

"Latitude 78° 43' 28" south, longitude 24° 18' 27" west.SOS mentioned something about twin mountains. Know where they are?"

"Minerva's Peaks, in the middle of Despondency. I camped near the north peak. Worst spot on Venus, that isn't too hot for life."

"Exactly. We radioed Hellas, but in that jungle it may take weeks to find them. So there's a million in it for you —and my place in New Hampshire where your darned luck won't bother anyone but yourself—but not Anne, definitely not!"

But Jerry was dead to the world, and Ignatz, curled up in his lap, was deciding to sleep while he could, now that everything was settled.

They were only eight hours out from Hellas when Ignatz stirred and looked up. The Old Man was a frenzy of action, a scowl of concentration etched across his forehead, but he was still doggedly at the controls. Again the zloaht prodded his master awake, and Jerry sat up, some of the bleariness gone from his eyes. He reached out for a caffeine capsule, to help him stay awake, and tapped Barclay's shoulder.

"You should have dug me up hours ago, sir. I'll take over now; fresh as a daisy." That was a lie and the other knew it. "You've done a beautiful job, but I know the controls better."

The Old Man mustered a smile and looked up casually enough—even patted Ignatz—but he relinquished the job gratefully. "I couldn't have held on much longer," he agreed. "These controls are beyond me. Have to extend the navigator's knowledge in the future."

Jerry looked his thanks. "I didn't expect the relief, you know. But don't think what you said about Anne means anything to me!"

"So you did hear that? Look, son, I don't hold anything against you, personally—always liked you. But unless you give up that animal and get rid of your hoodoo—"

Jerry's backbone stiffened visibly. "Ignatz stays."

"I thought so. In that case, I don't want you around. Nothing personal, but I'm not taking chances."

"Nothing personal, of course, sir." The door closed softly as the Old Man slipped out, and Jerry chuckled. For a second there was a sparkle in his eyes before the ache in his body cut it off. "Imagine the old boy taking over diat way. Some guy, eh, fellow?"

They hadn't landed yet, Ignatz thought. There was heavy doubt in his grunt, which Jerry interpreted correctly. But the Master was busy with his own thoughts.

Now that the fingers of Venus' gravity were reaching out harder for them, the lack of full efficiency from the stabilizers made itself felt. The long, cigar-like shape put the center of gravity above the rockets and the old ship suggested that it would be so much nicer to turn over and let gravity do its work; the suggestion was mild at first, but the freighter grew more positive with each mile, shimmying sidewise toward the planet like a girl edging toward her first crush.

"Easy, old girl," Jerry pleaded. "We've got to swing you in line with Venus' rotation and let you ride down with her." He babied the ship along, coaxed her into the new path, and performed mathematical magic in his head as the plot of the new orbit came down with corrections. The navigators were taking half-hour turns now, with the captain overseeing their work. Fast talk and absolute accuracy would have to be continuous until the tugs took over.

But she came down smoothly, arcing in toward the south pole, held up by sheer nerve and stimulants. A thousand miles up, relative speed was nine miles a second, fall-rate three. Five hundred up, frontal speed checked to coasting, fall-rate down to normal landing curve. And then they hit the mythical cushion height, where the air was thick enough to support her on her fins, and the stabilizers purred pleasantly again. From there on they would coast into Hellas and let the tugs snag her.

"Your luck!" The Old Man cut in crisply. "Just got a radio that tugs are on strike at Hellas. You'll have to coast to Perdition on North Venus instead of Hellas. Can you hold her up?"

"111 ride her. Navigator, I want co-ordinates for latitude 78° 43' 28" south, longitude 24° 18' 27" west."

"But Perdition—" The navigator was cut short by a burst of language from Barclay.

Jerry barked wearily. "Shut up! Were not going to Perdition—nor Hellas! We're going to Minerva's Peaks! Navigator, you heard my orders. Give me data, and see that it's right. Get scared and blunder, and you'll never know what happened."

"But the tugs are in Perdition."

"Blast the tugs! I'll set her down on her taill" Gulps came over the phone, and Ignatz could hear the teeth of the navigator chattering. The Old Man was yelling about insanity, but he checked his raging and there was a muttered consultation too low to hear. Then Barclay's voice cleared.

"You're all in the hands of a lunatic, but your only chance is to give him his data. We'd be dead by the time we could dig him out. Take orders from Lord!" He spoke directly into the phone. "Jerry, 111 break you like a dry stick if I live. Not one tail landing out of three works with whole controls. Listen to reason, man! We can't help her if we're dead."

The junior navigator seized the phone, his nerves steady with desperation, his voice crisp and raw. Slowly the ship settled down, driving forward through the heavy air. Finally the navigator reported destination, and Jerry tipped the ship up cautiously. She protested at such unorthodox treatment, but reluctantly answered her controls.

"Eighteen thousand feet, directly over your destination. Weather quiet, no wind—thank God, sir! Fourteen thousand. You'll have to slow up!"

Ignatz prayed fervently to his forest and swamp gods, but they seemed far away. And the ground was rushing up while the ship swayed first to one side, then the other. Jerry was dancing a war jig in front of the balance-jet bars; his eyes were glassy, his hands shook on the controls, but he fought her down, foot by foot, while the sickening speed slackened.

"Four hundred feet, level ground. Now the blast strikes; we can't see. Instrument at 300—200! Slower!"

She slowed grudgingly, but listed sidewise sharply; Jerry cut power for free fall, and she righted. Power boomed out again.

"Forty feet—God help us!"

That loss of power, short as it was, had been too much. She was all out now, but falling too fast. No, she was checking it. But another sway came. Ignatz groaned, saw that Jerry had deliberately swung her sidewise to land horizontal—at forty feet! There wasn't power enough in the laterals to hold her up. The speed picked up as she wobbled on her axis, slowed, and she righted. Jerry cut the controls, grabbed a girder, and slumped. Ignatz went flaccid.

It sounded like a heavy scrunch, with attendant yells. She bounced slightly before settling. Then there was silence, and they were down. Jerry picked himself up, felt Ignatz carefully. "You're tough, fellow, not even scratched. If I hadn't been limp from exhaustion, that ten-foot free fall probably would have messed me up a little; but the others should be all right. This section took most of the shock."

Half a minute later there were groans and shouts over the ship. The Master scooped Ignatz up.

"Come on, fellow, we've got to go down and stoke up on provisions."

The afterhold was crowded with miscellaneous items for the comfort and safety of the spore hunters, and he located a ready-packed kit of provisions, ample for three months' trek if the bearer could carry the load. He adjusted it carefully, felt to make sure of the feverin bottle, and took down three pairs of mud hooks, like skis crossed with canoes; the light beryllium frames would support a man's weight on slimy mud or water and let him shuffle forward through the ooze of the swamps without sinking.

"Durnall's fool enough to go off in the mud," the Master told Ignatz. "That guy never did have good sense, so I've got to take three sets." He swung out to the emergency port, opened the inner seal, and pulled it shut. The outer one gave slowly, and opened—not on Minerva's Peaks but on the flat, sandy expanse of the Hellas landing field! The Old Man had obviously had false data given to Jerry.

The old freighter had berthed neatly in the center of the rocket dock, and crowds, who'd heard or seen the landing, were streaming out. Mechanics were working on the crew port, which seemed to be giving trouble again.

Heavy hands reached up suddenly and dragged Jerry out onto the ground. "This way, fellow." Three dock flunkies held him securely, grinning as they felt him over for a concealed weapon. Then the leader motioned the others to lead him toward a waiting spinner.

"Smart guy, eh?" He looked at Jerry appraisingly. "You gotta be up early to catch old Barclay. We got a radio you'd be coming out of the emergency port, so we waited for you. Got a nice little reception hall fixed up for you."

Jerry stopped struggling long enough to ask the obvious.

"Where to?" They grinned again, the three of them holding him firmly as they seated him in the spinner. At the motion of the leader, the pilot cut the motor in, and they rose and headed toward the outskirts of Hellas, but in the opposite direction from the jail.

"You'll be nice and comfortable, you and your pet," the headman volunteered. "The Old Man's putting you in one of the private suites belonging to Herndon, our branch manager. Says you're to have a nice long rest, where nobody'll bother you—or t'other way around."

No use questioning these dock flunkies, who probably knew less about it all than he did. Jerry slumped back silently, and Ignatz curled up to wait for the spinner to meet with an accident; but even misfortune refused to smile on them. They landed smoothly on the roof of one of the company's apartment buildings, and the men dragged the Master down through the roof entrance, across a hall, and into a well-fitted apartment.

"Make yourself to home," the big husky invited generously. "Herndon probably won't come here, so it's all yours. You'll find the walls and doors made of steel, the windows transplon, and locks that stay locked." He pulled the visi-phone plug out and picked up the instrument. "Anything you'd like?"

The Master shrugged, estimating his chances. But they were all strong, young, and alert. He gave up any foolish ideas. "You might send up a diamond mine, or a dozen oil wells."

"That's Herndon's specialty—diamonds. See him about it." The flunkies grinned and began backing out. "The Old Man says he'll be down tomorrow, probably." The door closed and the key in the lock made a positive and unpleasant click.

• Jerry turned in disgust toward the bedroom. "Sometimes, Ignatz," he muttered, "I begin to think—" He cut it as he saw that zloaht's expression. "Never mind, fellow. I'll turn the heat on low in the oven, and you can sleep there tonight. We both need shut-eye."

Sunlight was streaking through the translucent transplon windows when Ignatz awoke. His investigation showed that the Master was still sleeping, and he had no desire to awaken him. Muttering in disgust at the world in general, he turned to the library in search of information on the peculiar disease with which humans seemed afflicted.

The dictionary defined love, and the encyclopedia gave an excellent medical and psychological version of it; but none of the sober, rational phrases gave any key to the idiocies Ignatz associated with that emotion. Other books bore gaudy titles that hinted at possibilities. He selected three at random, waded through pages here and there, honking and snorting loudly. They only served to confirm his preconceptions on the subject, without making things any clearer. Compared with men in the books, Jerry was a rational being.

Still, books had their uses. Ignatz sniffed them over thoughtfully and found the usual strong glue had been used in binding them. Since the dictionary and encyclopedia were useful, he put them back with some difficulty. Then he tipped down half a dozen other books whose titles indicated they were on the same subject and began ripping the covers off methodically. A most excellent glue, well-flavored and potent; of course, the paper insisted on coming off with it, but that could always be spit out. What was left, he pushed into the incinerator closet.

With his stomach filled and the sleep out of his system, there was nothing left to do but explore. Sometimes these human habitations proved most interesting. He sampled a jar of petroleum jelly, examined the workings of an electric mixer with some interest, and decided to satisfy his curiosity on another matter which had bothered him for months.

Jerry Lord awoke with Ignatz' doleful bellow in his ears, mixed with sundry threshings and bumpings, and the jangling of an uncertain bell. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with hands that were sure and steady again, and looked down, to grin suddenly. "I told you to let those spring alarm clocks alone, fellow. Suppose they do go tick-tick instead of purring like the electrics—do you have to see why?"

Ignatz had found out "why" with details. Jerry untangled the zloaht's tail from the mainspring and various brass wheels, and unwrapped the alarm spring from his inky body. Once that was done, they both prowled around until satisfied that escape from the apartment was completely impossible.

Jerry tried the stereovisor while eating breakfast, but there was no news; only the usual morning serials and music came over. He dug out a book on rocket motors to kill time, while Ignatz succeeded in turning on the hot water in the bathroom and crawling into the tub. If the Old Man ran true to form, he'd show up when it suited his own convenience.

It was noon when Barclay unlocked the door and came in, leaving a couple of guards outside. "Crazy young fool!'1

Jerry grinned ruefully. "A nice trick, your fake data; I actually thought you were following my orders and that I was landing at Minerva's Peaks. Well, I didn't ruin your darned freighter."

"Didn't even wreck the radio. Sweetest tail landing I ever saw, and I made a couple myself." He chuckled as the Master stared. "Sure, I used to pilot them, back when it took men. That's how I was able to fool you with the data you got. But I never tried a horizontal, though I've heard of it."

He fished out an envelope. "Here, I keep my word. Deposit book. Prospector's Commercial, one million dollars. And the deed to the house in New Hampshire, if you ever get back there—which you won't on any of my ships. You can save your thanks."

Jerry took it calmly. "I didn't intend to thank you; I earned it." He stuffed the envelope in the prospector's kit he'd brought with him. "What word from Anne? And when do I get out of here?"

"I've made arrangements to have you leave today." Seeing Jerry's look, he shook his head. "Not to jail, exactly— just to the new detention house they've erected since you were here last. I've booked you as a stowaway to be held for convenient deportation, and I'll make the charge stick. Judging from last night, I don't want you in any of my employee's quarters; they get hit by sudden bad luck."

"Well?"

"Herndon left me in the lurch last night, when I most need him."

"That looks like your bad luck, not his," Jerry pointed out. "Though I suppose you fired him."

"He quit—to lead the glamorous life." The Old Man smiled wryly. "He decided to go diamond prospecting on Mercury."

Jerry nodded; any man who tried that was courting an early death. He steered the conversation back to Anne. "You know I could locate the Burgundy in a couple of hours if you'd let me out of here. I didn't spend two months in Despondency for nothing. And Ignatz is supposed to bring good luck out there."

Barclay shrugged. "Good luck for you; that's what I'm afraid of. It so happens we've located the Burgundy already, without your help. Now we've been sending out searching parties on mud hooks for Anne and Pete; the captain had to take orders from her and let them go." His face was momentarily bitter. "I thought Durnall had better sense than to go lugging her around the swamps where even the compass is cockeyed."

"I was afraid of that. You made a mistake, sir, in making me land at Hellas instead of the Peaks. I should be searching for her out there now!"

Barclay grunted, and let it pass. They all knew there was about as much chance of one man finding her in the steaming swamp jungle as the proverbial needle. "If I thought you could find her, I'd probably be fool enough to let you go. Better pack up your luggage. These men will take you over to detention house."

The detention ward was comfortable enough, and Barclay had arranged for all the Master's ordinary wants. But it was no nearer Anne. He paced the room endlessly until

Slim, the flunky, brought his supper. Bribery had failed before, but he tried it again.

The guard grinned. "Here's your supper, such as it is. We found the food's mostly turned sour since you moved in this noon. And your check's no good; Prospector's Commercial closed its door until a new shipment of gold can come through from Earth."

Ignatz grunted, but the Master refused to give up. "But the check will be good when it opens."

Slim hunched his shoulders. "Not with your money in it; it won't open."

"You don't believe that superstition, do you?" Jerry's voice was not particularly convincing.

"Huh? Look, mister, since you come here, I got word my wife just broke her leg—and me a poor man! I don't want nothing to do with you or yourn." He shoved the food in and swung on his heel.

Jerry called after the jailer. "Hey, wait! Can you get a message to Manager Barclay? Tell him I know how he can find his daughter. Tell him I want to see him tomorrow morning!"

Slim nodded glumly and went on. Jerry turned to his meal, refusing to answer Ignatz' inquiring grunts. The zloaht watched his master finish and begin the endless pacing again, smoking incessantly on the pungent Venusian cigarettes. He picked up a butt and honked curiously.

"Nerves, fellow," Jerry answered. "They're supposed to calm you when something bothers you, like my pipe that I left back on Eardi. Want to try one?" He placed one between Ignatz' sharp lips, and lit it. "Now, you puff in, take the smoke into your lungs, then blow it out. Sure, like that."

Ignatz coughed the smoke out and bellowed hoarsely, grumbling heatedly at the Master. An odd sensation stirred in him somewhere, however, and he regarded the cigarette thoughtfully; sometimes a thing was better after a time or two. Dubiously, he picked it up with his antennae and tried again, with slightly better success. It didn't taste so nauseous that time. And the third try was still better.

"Better go easy on it, fellow," Jerry advised. "I don't know how it'll affect your metabolism; coffee had no re-suits with you, but this might."

Ignatz heard vaguely, but didn't trouble his head about it. There was a nice warm feeling stealing along his nerves and down toward his tail. He'd been a fool to think life was hard—it was ducky—that's what. And this room was beautiful, when it stood still. Just now, it was running

around in circles; he pursued the walls in their crazy rotation, but gave up. They were too fast for him.

Jerry giggled for no reason Ignatz could see. "Ignatz, you're acting ridiculous. And that butt's going to burn you if you don't spit it out."

"Hwoonk!" said Ignatz. Still, it was a little warm; laboriously he removed the burning thing and tossed it away. "Hwulp!" Now why did his tail insist on jerking him up like that? "Hwupp!" If it insisted, he'd be the last one to stop it. He gazed up at the light and the bare ceiling of the room. The light seemed to nicker like a bright star. Starlight! Such a lovely night! Must make a song about the lovely night. Lovely song.

His foghorn voice creaked out in a quavering bellow, rose to a crescendo wait, and popped out with a sound like a starting rocket. Lovely song—lovely! Jerry stuffed him in a pillow and tried to silence him, but without immediate success. If the men in detention wanted to sleep, what of it? Anyway, they were making too much noise themselves.

Who wanted to sleep? Too nice a night to sleep. He executed a remarkable imitation of a steam buzz saw. Jerry gave up and crawled in beside him, growling unhappily. Ignatz honked reproachfully at the Master, rolled over and snored loudly.

The next morning he awoke to see the guard let the Old Man in, and tried to climb down from the bunk. Something lanced through his head, and he fell back with a mournful bellow. He hadn't felt like that last night.

Jerry grinned at him. "Hangover—what'd you expect?" He turned back to Barclay. "The flunky delivered my message, then?"

"He did." The Old Man hadn't been doing much sleeping, from the look in his face. "If your plan involves letting you out, don't bother telling me."

"It doesn't. I've found from experience there's no use trying to change your mind." He jerked back the package of cigarettes as Ignatz dived for it. "But the semiannual mud-run is due any day now, and Despondency is rough then. You've got to get her out."

The Old Man nodded; he'd been thinking the same. Jerry went on. "All right. A man can't locate anything smaller than a rocket-ship up there. But a zloaht can. Well, thirty miles north of Minerva's Peaks—the compass points south by southeast in that neighborhood—there's a village of Ignatz' people built out in a little lake. They've dammed up Forlorn River there, and built their houses on rafts, working with their antennae and practically no raw materials. They grow food along the shores, and they've got a mill of sorts to grind it with. Of course, they're not human, but they'll be up alongside us yet, if we don't kill them off first. Highly civilized now."

The Old Man snorted, glanced at Ignatz hunting for butts. "Civilized! Sounds more like beavers to me."

"Okay, have it your way." Jerry was used to man's eternal sense of divine descent—or maybe the word was ascent. "Anyway, they've developed an alphabet of sorts and have tame animals. What's more important, I taught them some English, and they'll do almost anything for chocolate and peanuts."

Barclay caught the idea. "You mean, I'm to send up diere, get in touch with them, and have them look for Anne? Sounds pretty farfetched, but I'm willing to try anything once."

Jerry began sketching a crude map. "They can't talk to you, but when one of them comes for the chocolates, you'll know he's found her. They're honest about bargains. Then all you have to do is follow."

The Old Man took the note and started toward the door. "I'll let you know how it works," he promised. "If they find her, I'll even risk shipping you back to Earth." Jerry grunted and turned back to Ignatz, who was rumbling unhappily on the cot, his foot-and-a-quarter body a bundle of raw nerves.

It was three slow, dull days later when Slim brought another note in. "Mr. Barclay sent this down to you," he said briefly. Slim had as little to do with the Master as possible.

Jerry opened it eagerly, to find the wording terse and to the point:

Three spinners, trying to make your lake, broke down. Rescue crews out for them now. I'll have nothing more to do with any of your fool plans.

He passed it to Ignatz, who read it glumly, then watched hopefuly as Jerry shook out a cigarette. Seeing the pack returned to its place, beyond his reach, he snorted his disgust and retired to the corner in sulky silence.

The silence was broken by a reverberating boom that rocked the detention house like a straw in the wind. The floor twisted crazily and the transplon window fell out with a brittle snap. Then the noise quieted and Jerry picked himself up from the floor, grabbed Ignatz and the prospector pack. He wasted no words, but dived toward the open window.

Slim came racing down the corridor. "Air-conditioner motor exploded right below," he yelled. "You all right, Lord?" As he saw the two climbing out the window, he grabbed for his needle gun, then rammed it back. "I ain't taking chances with this thing; it'd explode in my hands with you around. The farther you two get, the happier I'll be!"

Sometimes a bad reputation had its uses. Jerry dropped ten feet to the ground, spotted a spinner standing empty and unlocked to the rear of the building, and set out for it. He dived through the door, yanked it shut, and cut in the motor as the guards began streaming out. Ignatz looked at the fuel gauge and was surprised to see it full.

Before the gun on the roof could be lined up, the spinner was rising smoothly and speeding away. Jerry swung in a half-circle and headed north, with the rheostat clear over, and the little ship cut through the air with a whistling rush. Hellas dropped behind, five miles, ten, then fifteen. Ten miles ahead lay the muck of Demonfire, beyond that Despondency.

"Only let me reach the swamps, fellow," Jerry begged. "Don't get us in any funny business now." Ignatz had his antennae curled up in a tight knot, trying by mental concentration to oblige.

Two miles short of the swamps, the engine began to stutter, starting and stopping erratically. Jerry fussed with the controls, but the ship slowed, moving along at an uncertain speed. The first line of the Demonfire verdure rose through the thin mists as the motor stopped. Jerry's teeth were clenched as he tried to hold the spinner in a flat curve that would carry them clear. But the ground came up steadily as the ship crawled toward the swamp.

By a hair-thick margin they cleared the tangled swamp growth, and were over Demonflre. The little motor caught, purred softly, and drove the vanes steadily against the air, lifting them up easily. Ignatz relaxed and Jerry reached over to pat him softly. Now, according to the legend, luck should be good.

It was. They glided along across Demonfire smoothly, passed over the wreck of the first spinner sent out by the Old Man, and headed on. The compass began to waver and twist without good reason, and Jerry was forced to rely on Ignatz' sense of direction. The zloaht held his antennae out as a pointer toward his home village, and the Master followed his direction confidently.

Demonfire drifted by under them, and gave place to the heavy tangle of Despondency. Looking down, they could see the slow crawl of the mud-run that made the swamp even more impassable twice a year, and Jerry shook his head. If Anne were out in that, unless she stayed on a high hummock, there was little hope of finding her. They swept between the Peaks and saw the temporary camp, established as a base for searchers, being dismantled; the men would leave before the mud crept higher.

Then Ignatz hooted, and Jerry looked down to see the little lake glistening below them. Floating rafts covered it, neatly laid out in rows, and thatched over with fine craftsmanship. Zloahts like Ignatz were busily engaged in the huts and canals between them. On the shores of the lake, others were driving their tame zihis, twenty times as large as they were, about the fields. Now and again, a foghorn yelp across the lake was answered from the largest raft.

Jerry let down the pontoons and dropped the spinner lightly on the lake. Ignatz ducked out and across the water to the chiefs building, dragging a waterproof package of chocolate with him. He was back inside of ten minutes, hooting shrilly, a small bundle in his mouth.

The Master took it. On the coarse papyrus he made out a roughly executed picture of a man and woman, pulled on a narrow raft by two of the zihis. Under it, there were two black squares with one white sandwiched between them, and inside the drawing was a bar of chocolate of a different brand from that which Jerry had sent them.

The Master snapped the rheostat over. "So she left a day and two nights ago, with Durnall. Traded her chocolate for zihis and raft. Know what direction she went?"

Ignatz hooted and pointed south and east, along a sluggish stream that fed into Forlorn River. Jerry turned the spinner and headed that way, searching for signs of them. Zihis travel should average twenty or more miles a day, which would place them some seventy miles out. He slowed up after fifty, noting that the stream was narrowing. If it ended before he reached Anne, it meant hours of scouting, probably hopelessly, in search of her. There were a hundred different courses she could take once she left the Little Hades.

But.he sighted her before the stream ended in its twisted little feeders. She had stopped, probably picking her course, and he could see her look up at the sound of his motor and begin signaling frantically. He set the spinner down sharply, jerking it to a short stop within a few feet of the raft and opened the door as she headed the zihis toward him. Durnall was lying on the raft, covered by a poncho.

"Jerry Lord!" Her voice was shrill, tired; her eyes red and sleepless. "Thank heaven! Pete's got the fever—red

fever—and we had no feverin in our packs." She grabbed the bottle he handed her, poured three tablets down Dur-nall's throat. "Help me load him in and the duffel—and take us to the hospital, pronto!"

Jerry grabbed Durnall and loaded him in the back as quickly as he could. Ignatz was giving orders to the zihis to return to the village with the raft, while Anne gathered the duffel and climbed in back. She sank beside the sick man, whose face had the dull brick-red of an advanced case of swamp fever.

"Your father's been worried sick—so have I."

"Have you?" Her voice was flat. "Jerry, how soon can we reach the hospital?"

He shrugged. "Three hours, I guess. How'd you find the village? I've been trying to get a chance to help you, but I was afraid you'd be lost in the mud-run."

She looked up, but went on fussing over Durnall. "When we couldn't find the Burgundy, I remembered your story about getting lost yourself, and how you found the village. We headed the way you said the compass pointed, and holed up there, till I found they understood me. Then I bartered some supplies for their raft and animals. With what you'd told me helping us, we'd have made out all right if Pete hadn't come down with fever; I was lucky, myself, and didn't catch it."

Durnall was groaning and tossing uneasily, and she turned her attention back to him. Jerry bent over his controls, and drove silently south toward Hellas, watching Despondency change to Demonfire. Then they were out of the swamps, and he turned back to assure Anne that they were almost there.

But his head jerked back sharply. The rotor, which had been circling sweetly overhead, now twanged harshly and dragged back on the motor. Ignatz ducked back to avoid the Master's look and groaned. One of the rotor vanes had cracked off, and the others were unbalanced and moving sluggishly. The ship was coming down much too fast. Jerry cut the motor off, tried to flatten the fall, and failed. He yanked the shock-cushion lever out, and a rubber mattress zipped out behind him, designed to save the passengers from a nose collision in the fog. Before he could reach the pilot's cushion lever, the ship's nose hit the ground and buckled in.

Ignatz saw the Master slump forward over the controls, and then something tore sharply at the zloaht's snout horn, and little lights streaked out. Blackness shot over him hotly.

He swam up through a gray haze, tried to snort, and failed. When he opened his eyes, he saw yards of gauze covering his snout, and Jerry was propped up in bed watching him.

"Major operation, fellow. The doc says he had to cut out half your horn because of something that splintered it. You had me beat by half a day, and the doc says I was out for forty-eight hours." He wiggled in the bed. "I'm still solid enough, though, except for a couple of bones, and a bump on the head."

Ignatz looked around slowly, conscious from his sluggish reactions that they must have given him drugs. He was in a small room, and his bed was a miniature replica of Jerry's. But it wasn't a hospital.

Jerry grinned. "They were afraid you'd be a jinx in the city, and I kept yelling for you, so they put us both up here in a house the Old Man owns just inside Demonfire. I've been waiting for them to bring you to before we entertained visitors." He raised his voice. "Hey, nurse, tell them all clear here."

With his words, the door burst open and the Old Man hurried in. "Well, it's about time. Look fit as ever."

"Yeah, fit to go back to your lousy detention house."

The Old Man was pleased with himself. "Not this time. I figured out something else. Got the deed to the New Hampshire house still? Good. Well, I'm taking it back, and putting this deed to the swamp house in its place. That pet of yours should be harmless here. And I'm advising you to invest your money in our stock."

"So you won't ship me back to Earth, eh? Afraid I'd get your ship smashed?"

Barclay shook his head. "I'm not worried about the ship. What I'm worried about is a branch manager, and you're it—if you want the job."

Jerry took it calmly. "What's the catch?"

"None. Bad luck or not, you get things done, and you know rockets. That's what I need, you impudent young puppy. Just keep your pet out here and things should go swimmingly." He got up brusquely. "You've got another visitor."

"Don't forget what I said about—" Jerry started to shout, and then Anne was framed in the door.

"Hi, Jerry.You two both four-oh again?"

Ignatz grunted, while Jerry stared. "Durnall?"

"He's doing all right." Anne took a seat beside him, held out her hands. "Now that he's safe, let's forget him. Pete isn't a bad guy, but I don't like the kind of men who get me into messes like the last one, even when it's half my fault."

Jerry digested it slowly, and Ignatz growled at his bandages. Now was the time for the zloaht to slip back into the swamps, where Jerry could never make the mistake of taking him out again. He could see where the Master was going to need decent breaks with all the responsibility coming up. But the bandages held him securely.

Anne hauled the little bed closer and ran warm fingers over Ignatz' back. "You'll have to live out here and commute by spinner, of course, Jerry, but I'll take care of Ignatz while you're gone. He owes us a lot of good fortune, and we're going to collect it, after we're married."

"I—huh?" Jerry gulped, and then glanced at Ignatz. "But your father—you know how he feels about Ignatz ..."

Anne smiled impishly. "Dad figured it out himself, after he found how stubborn I can be. You see, I brought something back from the swamp, and I won't give it up." She reached into a little bag and hauled out the snooty head of another zloaht. "Meet Ichabod!"

Jerry gulped again, and suddenly grinned. "Well, I'll be—" Then he turned back to Anne, and his face was the happiest Ignatz had seen.

Ignatz snorted softly and turned toward the new zloaht. Maybe with two of them now, they could figure out what made people carry on like that. But he doubted it.

THE MASTER MINDS OF MARS

By CARL H. CLAUDY

IN the anteroom of his private laboratory, Dr. Isaac Lutyens, Aberdonian professor of physics and higher mathematics, looked under heavy brows at two young men. The shock-head of white hair, the huge, beaked nose, and the enormous eyebrows were well-known in scientific circles. There was in his intent gaze an almost predatory quality until one noticed that his brown eyes were, in reality, mild. His ability to concentrate was a legend; it was said of him that he might lose a leg while demonstrating a mathematical theorem and not notice the loss.

"You—" the professor spoke in a slightly Teutonic accent to the younger, slighter man— "are an orphan, graduate und postgraduate in science at the university. You hold three degrees und say you are willing to risk your life for great reward!"

The eyes of the youth lit up, and his brown head nodded.

"You—" Now he spoke to the other man, larger-framed and less eager in manner— "You also an orphan und you 46 say you can cook. You are strong like an ox und have been an adventurer in many lands. You are not college-trained, but you say you care less for life than for great adventure?"

"I want to know about it before I commit myself," answered the man.

"You are the choice out of one hundred and thirty-seven who answered mine advertisement!" The professor's brows drew together in a slightly irritated frown; he didn't like to be interrupted. "Brains und brawn! Alan Kane, Theodore Dolliver."

Kane, the slender university graduate, looked interestedly at his companion-to-be on the unknown adventure promised by the professor. He saw a thick-set young man about thirty years old, with reddish hair, freckles, keen blue eyes, and a face that seemed impassive until it lighted with a smile. Great strength was apparent in the broad shoulders and long arms. His hands were broad and stubby-fingered. He was carelessly dressed. Alan read him as independent, good-natured, courageous.

"Name is Dolliver—Ted for short." The adventurer shook hands with Alan unsmilingly; Alan felt he resented the implication that brawn might not possess brains.

"But you have yet to say you are willing to go with me on a so dangerous expedition!" continued the professor to Ted. "Come with me."

The two young men rose with alacrity and followed Professor Lutyens through the university laboratory, a large room filled with apparatus, coils of wire, a humming dynamo, and strange machines of glass and brass. The professor unlocked a door at the end of the laboratory, and they passed into a private room beyond.

A stout table covered with metal occupied the center of the room. A tangle of wires beneath the table suggested shadowy coils. There were glass plates and rods connected somehow with the wires. The professor carefully closed the door and locked it. Then he turned and pointed to a pair of large iron dumbbells in the corner.

His carefully schooled and precise English became slightly confused. The young men soon learned that under pressure his scholarly phrases sometimes turned to excited and involved Teutonisms.

Ted Dolliver swung both bells easily to the table.

"Shades of Sandowl" gasped Alan. "They must weigh a hundred pounds each!"

Ted looked momentarily pleased; then his expression took on a careless indifference. Alan guessed that he was proud of his strength, even if he were resentful of having it overemphasized.

The professor touched a lever in a quadrant on the wall, and a faint humming sound filled the air. The two young men looked curiously at the table and the wires under it.

"Now each pick up a bell from the table," the professor ordered. "Be careful not to lift it beyond the edge of the table. It is dangerous!"

This cryptic statement brought a puzzled stare from Ted. Grasping a bell in his right hand, he heaved it upward. The heavy dumbbell flew from his hand, ascended to the ceiling, floated a moment, then descended to the table as gently as a feather. Ted held his pose, one arm upraised. He was paralyzed with surprise.

Knitting his brow, Alan placed two hands on his bell and prepared to raise it with a slow, steady pull, instead of a yank. To his mystification, the heavy bell left the table as though it weighed only an ounce. Suspecting some hidden trick, he drew the iron to him to look at it more closely. The professor's sharp cry of warning was too late. As the bell passed beyond the table edge, it fell with the complete weight of its hundred pounds. Alan pulled his foot out of the way just an instant before the iron hit the floor with a room-shaking jar.

Ted stepped forward with panther-like grace and picked up the dropped bell. As he carried it over the edge of the table, it flew up toward the ceiling. But Ted held on to it. Then he laid it softly down.

"Know any other tricks like that?" he asked. "You'd be good in vaudeville!"

The professor looked at Alan. He too experimented with the bell, finding it heavy when not over the table, but light as a feather when upon it.

"Screen for gravity?" asked Alan, his brows knit.

"Goot, goot!" cried the professor. "It is not exactly a screen. It is—but watch, watch!"

Motioning to Ted to place both bells in the center of the table, he again moved the lever in the quadrant. To the uncomprehending amazement of both observers, the heavy iron dumbbells rose in the air like balloons, caromed gently off the ceiling, bouncing down and up, much as a rubber ball might bounce on the floor.

"I play no trick! It is real, what you see. You must believe; otherwise you will not go."

Both men sensed an impending revelation of awesome importance. Something big—startling. Ted recovered first.

"Go where?" he asked.

"As Kane guesses," the professor went on, ignoring Ted's question, "I know how gravity to control. I turn the lines of force back upon themselves, so they work in the opposite direction. I make the dumbbell fall up, instead of down. It was a simple discovery, so simple I cannot understand why others have not stumbled upon it. But with it . . ." he drew himself up, frowning, his English growing more and more accented, ". . . with it, I do what no man have efer done! I see what no man efer saw! I am of the solar system master!"

The excited man turned to the quadrant, moved the lever, and the dumbbells floated easily down to the table. Ted moved close to Alan.

"The old boy crazy?" he whispered.

"So they called Galileo," responded Alan.

"Come!" commanded the professor. "You shall see—ach! But you shall see!"

They followed their guide up a small, winding stair of iron to a penthouse atop the university building. Instead of opening to an empty roof, the doors of the penthouse revealed a roofless, walled enclosure, in which was a spheroid of shining steel and aluminum some eighteen feet in diameter. It rested upon a flattened segment. It was slightly flattened at the top.

"Some football!" Ted commented, apparently unsurprised.

"Behold the Wanderer!" The professor pointed dramatically. "The key to the solar system! Will you go, will you?"

Knowledge burst on Alan in a blinding light. Gravity controlled—key to the solar system—see what no man had ever seen before—

"Mars!" he gasped. "Mars!"

"Yah, yah! Mars! What marvels may we not see! What animals, plants, minerals! What people may we find! I tell you, young men, if we get there, und if we get back, the whole world is yours und all the kingdoms in it! What you want, shall you have—fame, und fortune, und knowledge."

"How do you know it'll work?" objected Ted, apparently unimpressed. "Hadn't you better try it out, say, with a little hop to the moon or something?"

The professor paused dramatically, his eyes gleaming.

"I have been around the moon," he answered, growing more calm. "I see what no human efer see—the far side of the moon—und I know it work!"

Alan suddenly sat down, feeling rather helpless. It was a dream, of course. Dumbbells didn't get light or heavy at the throwing of a switch. People didn't go to the moon, except in stories or in lunatic minds. That great "football" was an illusion.

"Come inside!" The professor unfastened a door in the side of the spheroid, a door about four feet high, and crawled in. They followed him eagerly, and found themselves standing upright in a low-ceilinged circular room, its walls lined with bins, behind the bars of which was a miscellaneous hodgepodge of ropes, tools, food, cans, bags, boxes, hardware, pulleys, lanterns, blankets. The floor was knee-deep in chests and barrels, except for a small space in the center. Alan wondered why the bins had bars.

"Regular country store!" said Ted, interestedly looking around.

"Supplies!" explained the professor. "Come up some more!"

With unsuspected agility, the professor mounted the iron rungs of a ladder that led upward through a crescent-shaped hatch in the flat ceiling of the room. Ted followed, and Alan came after him.

"Ah, now we get to it!" exclaimed Ted, quite unabashed,

when they had reached the upper room. "Three beds. Kitchen stove. Lights, dining table, chairs, bookcase. All we need is a cook and a cat and we move right in!"

"You are the cook. You said you could cook. Sit!" The professor indicated chairs.

Trying to move one, Alan found it fastened down. As he sat down, he found himself growing more confident. These familiar things, the beds, the chairs, stove, somehow made a trip into space seem possible. You could believe in chairs and stoves. They were real, and the trip, too, began to seem real. He imagined himself sitting here, while the spheroid shot through space.

"I go!" The professor's eyes glowed with the fire of a crusader. "It is dangerous. I deceive you not. If we strike an asteroid—zutl One flame—all is kaput. We are dust. If we lose our way; if the batteries give out; if the insulation of my spheroid is not goot; if we find forms of life inimical to ours; if Mars has not enough air; if there is not enough water; if mine gyroscopes fail to act always; if, if, if, a thousand ifs, und we are dead!"

Alan visualized each danger as the professor phrased it. Though he understood most of it, the reference to batteries and gyroscopes was obscure. Ted stirred impatiently.

"I've fought a tiger shark with a dagger and wiggled by. I should worry about danger!" He grinned at the professor.

It is doubtful that the scientist heard him, so rapt was he in his plans.

"I turn back the lines of force of gravity. I fall up as a stone falls down, with constant acceleration. You know Einstein's theories. A certain drag is needed for control und not yet have I completely turned back gravity. But I have speed enough—speed enough—"

THE  MASTER   MINDS   OF   MARS                             53

"Mars is thirty-five million miles at his nearest," murmured Alan. "It will take years to get to Mars!"

"So? I go the moon around und back between sunset und sunrise," answered the professor, quietly. "The sphere gather speed und more speed. I fall up from the earth und down on the moon, und again I get more und more acceleration. There is nothing to stop! No air, no friction— ah, you think of asteroidal dust! But the same reversing of gravity that makes me fall up, turns aside the dust! Unless a larger asteroid have too much mass for the small antigravity-radiations, we are all right." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Why can't you use enough antigravity to make sure?" Ted's question won a smile from the professor, pleased that the less technical man was following his conversation.

"Too much retard. Alan Kane say we take years. We go fifteen, twenty miles per second after we are twenty-four hours getting up speed, perhaps more—1830 Groombridge go two hundred. We get to Mars in four weeks, maybe less!"

Alan shook his head.

"Incredible!" he muttered. "You can't create energy like that! You—"

"I create nothing!" interrupted Professor Lutyens, violently. "A water wheel creates nothing, but it has power. A windmill creates no power, but it runs! I use only gravity, working against the globe, not toward it. It takes but a leetle power. In two hundred six-volt storage cells— under the main floor—is ample power for a year's travel among the planets. After half a day, we travel only by momentum!"

"What's 1830 Groombridge mean?" asked Ted.

"Star with greatest observed proper motion," explained Alan, a bit impatiently.

"Oh!" Ted shook his head resignedly. "Well, when do we start?"

"Impatience for results is sign of a man of action!" The professor put a thin hand on Ted's mighty arm. Then he turned to Alan.

"Think!" he warned. "For years I work. Everything is here—all supplies, all possible contingencies I have thought of. Pneumatic suits und heavy insulation for the terrific cold of space. Diving helmets und oxygen if air on Mars is rare. Food und water enough for a year. But I do not—what is it my pupils say? I do not kid mineself. My life I wager against such fame as no man has had— first man to visit a sister planet. Would you have money? Go und come, und the world will you mit gold shower. Fame? No ruler, no general, no conqueror efer has so much. But your lives you risk. If you come—come knowing!"

Ted grinned as he said once again, "When do we start?"

"December 20!" the professor answered, his eyes agleam. "On January 25, Mars is nearest—sixty-one und a half million miles. We cannot wait until it is thirty-five million. That is too long. At twenty miles per second, we go in thirty-five days!" The professor shook with excitement. "Nobody knows what we shall see! But it will be stupendous, I promise you. Und if we come back, the world und the fulness thereof are ours—ours!"

Alan crossed to stand beside them. His mind was made up. Professor Isaac Lutyens' fame was world-wide. He wasn't insane. And if he said he had been to the moon, incredible as it seemed, Alan knew that he had been there.

They could start out, at least. It was always possible to turn back.

"We might all just as well be crazy together!" he said. "I choose the bed nearest the cookstove."

At 10:30 P.M., December 20, Ted and Alan met outside the laboratory, each with a small grip. Baggage was strictly limited as to size; weight the professor had told them was unimportant.

Alan started up the steps immediately, but Ted laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Just a minute," he said. He pointed upward. "Do you really believe he will ever get there—or back again?"

"There's a fair chance of it, I think," Alan said slowly.

"It seems phony," Ted said. "How did the professor do all this work without the university learning about it?"

Alan understood that. Professor Lutyens had received an international scholarship for research. He had been given generous space in the physics building, including the roof, for his work. He had told nobody because he wasn't ready to tell anybody. The workmen who had built his machine didn't know what it was all about. The university authorities were told by the professor that he was working on a new type of aircraft. Nobody knew of the tremendous possibilities of the machine except the professor, Alan, and Ted. All this Alan outlined briefly to his broad-shouldered companion.

"Well," Ted said, scratching his head. "I never saw anything as neat as that dumbbell stunt. And nobody cares if I come back or not."

"I'm a bit frightened!" Alan confessed. "It looks like a hundred-to-one shot that we freeze, starve, or blow up in smoke!"

"Why go, then?" retorted Ted.

"Same reason you're going!" answered Alan. "Come on!"

Up the stairs to the laboratory.Through the laboratory to the anteroom. A knock, and a guttural voice: "Who is it?"

Alan answered and the door swung open. The professor nodded and smiled. After matter-of-fact greeting, he locked the door and led them up the staircase into the penthouse.

In the starlight they crossed from the penthouse to the shining sphere, dark and shadowy in the night. It looked heavy, substantial, immovable. How could such a heavy mass of metal and supplies, machinery and weighty batteries fall up?

As for the predicted speed—well, many heavenly bodies traveled with inconceivable rapidity. Alan knew that Mars swung at an orbital speed of fifteen miles a second; the earth, at nearly nineteen. Many stars greatly exceeded such velocities. Without friction there is no limit to velocity until the unthinkable speed of light is approached. But the world-bound conception of speed and distance is hard to shake off. Alan believed with his reason, but not his imagination. He found himself growing tense.

Snapping on a center light in the ceiling of the supply room of the sphere, the professor led through the crescent-shaped opening to the second floor. But he did not stop.

"We go to the pilothouse," he stated. "Leave your bags here."

Alan and Ted deposited their bags beside a bed. Up another ladder they climbed through another crescent-shaped opening to a smaller room in the top of the sphere. Here, many shutters sliding in metal grooves covered small portholes closed with heavy glass. A sort of electric apprehension flashed between Ted and Alan as they realized that the adventure was near.

"Why so small and so thick?" asked Ted, pointing to a porthole.

"Kane, explain to him!" The professor nodded to Alan.

"Air pressure from within—fifteen pounds to the square inch," Alan said promptly, controlling the tremor in his voice. "Beyond the earth's atmosphere, no pressure compensates from without. That's why the Wanderer is a sphere, or nearly so. Then, too, the cold of space is absolute zero or near it. These glass portholes should be made of several pieces, with an insulating air space between—"

"I picked right!" muttered the professor. "He does know. But we will not keep our atmosphere at normal pressure. We will gradually reduce it, to accustom ourselves to the rarer air of Mars. Attend!" His tone changed. "I am old, und Gott has appointed my days that I cannot pass! You are young! We go into unknown dangers." His mild eyes grew big with something more like exaltation than fear. "You understand? It is freely you come?"

Alan nodded. Inside, he felt suddenly cold as though he were caught in some inescapable, intangible menace. Ted, shaking off his doubt, refused to be serious.

"Oh, can the chatter and start the hike!" he proposed. "I don't believe this thing will work!"

It was the touch that relieved the tension. Alan smiled.

"It will work!" assured the professor. "See!" He pointed to wheels and levers. "This switch starts six gyroscopes spinning. Two control the sphere laterally, two horizontally, und two vertically. Thus we govern the movement of the sphere. The gyroscopes act like the steady mass of the seismograph that earthquakes measures. It stays still while the earth moves under it. The gyroscope keeps its axis in one plane. We can push against it to direct the sphere!

"So! This hundred-point rheostat controls power from batteries to gravitation circuits. At minus twelve, the sphere have no weight! At minus twenty she falls up, like a stone. At minus a hundred all her weight falls up mit constant acceleration.

"These are light switches. Here is air pump. There is water. Here is tube und valve to the space outside the sphere."

He turned to Ted as he pushed the rheostat lever over. A faint humming became audible. "Dolliver doubts. Get me that box!" The professor pointed across the little circular-domed room.

Ted took one step. Then his feet left the floor. He wiggled, suspended in mid-air, weightless. He tried to get back to the floor, but movement simply threw him into a more contorted position. He swung upside down, arms and legs working like pistons. The professor's hand moved the lever slightly and Ted descended slowly.

"You cut it off just as I was getting the hang of it," protested Ted.

"I put it on/" answered the professor. "You did not descend really, but the floor came up to meet you!"

Ted scratched his head. Alan sprang to a porthole. Only stars were to be seen through the thick glass, but the whole firmament was moving slowly across his field of vision!

"We're off!" he cried, a chill of excitement chasing goose flesh up his back. "But we have weight now. I feel normal!"

"Constant acceleration!" explained the professor. "Every second we go faster. The sphere fall up faster than you do; it pressed on our feet und we have weight. Later we swim in the air—we stretch ropes. Come now, we go down!"

"Doesn't someone have to steer?" asked Ted. "All the airplanes I ever saw needed a pilot."

"Ach, no!" cried the professor. "We fall up but slowly —five, six miles a minute, until we pass the atmosphere— one, two hundred miles—who knows? If we go too fast, we become as meteor and burn up with air friction. Nothing disturb the Wanderer s course—unless we strike an asteroid!" He muttered the last words.

"I want to see out!" demanded Ted. But the professor shook his head.

"Wait!" he commanded. "We are but a hundred miles up. In another half-hour we beyond the atmosphere are, und I show you a miracle. I pull the rheostat over und we go! When we pass the earth's shadow you can look. Und we must our pneumatic suits put on until we get the sunlight. It chilly grows."

"I thought I was shivering with excitement!" cried Alan. He spoke cheerfully; yet he wondered. The cold of outer space—minus 460° Fahrenheit—would make a differential of almost four hundred degrees between the space outside of the sphere and lowest temperature at which human life could be maintained. How could the professor keep the sphere warm enough? How could they possibly live when they plunged into the space between the stars?

As if catching his thought the professor spoke: "It will be cold—cold. But with no air to diffract the rays, the sun's heat on our shell will be fierce. With air suits we shall be warm enough—you see! I know; I have tried!"

Alan no longer doubted that Professor Lutyens had gone to the moon, incredible though it seemed. Had any doubts remained, they must have evaporated when, aften an hour, the professor beckoned them to the storeroom.

In the cleared space in the center, a trap in the floor opened with a lever.

"Waste e|ector,M explained the professor. "Put garbage und cans in, close, pull this lever, und air pressure within shoots the waste out."

"And that lever?" asked Alan, touching another handle.

"It opens upon a miracle!" answered the professor, solemnly. "I show you a wonder no one haf seen, save old Isaac Lutyens." He paused.

Then, reverently: "Und Gott. He sees it always so— ivunderschon!"

Professor Lutyens cut off the bulbs in the storeroom. He pulled the lever covering the port. Then he turned to them with a strange exaltation glowing in his eyes. "Lookl" he commanded. "Brawn first!"

Ted lay flat in the cleared space, his eye to the hole. His body motionless and rigid, he looked and looked.

The professor touched him on the back after a minute or two. Alan glimpsed his face in a golden, glorious moonlight that streamed through the port as Ted rose, a curious awe on his normally impassive face. Then Alan stretched flat to look.

There lay the earth, filling half the horizon, a gigantic half-moon. Continent and ocean, familiar from map study, here glowed in reality. Polar caps gleamed white, oceans were dark, continents golden with sunlight. The awesome-ness of the world as no other man had ever seen it filled his mind.

"As God sees it.** He repeated the professor's words with surging thoughts as impossible to speak as to describe the vivid glory of this enormous moon-earth.

Ted looked embarrassed. Again a chill chased up Alan's spine. Incredible, impossible, marvelous, past belief all— a hallucination, a nightmare, a vision—and yet it was true.

And it was dangerous; dangerous with the unknown, the unthinkable menace of empty space and incredible speed, bearing them swiftly from the world they knew to one different, perhaps inhospitable, possibly cruel. Alan shivered. The golden glory beneath their feet was suddenly very dear.

Ted hung his few possessions in their proper places in the living room. The little lavatory disclosed a rack for each toothbrush; for each man, a compartment for shaving materials. A drawer for each held underwear and incidentals.

Producing three, queer-looking, baggy suits from a closet, the professor ordered them to dress. He himself put on a suit and when they were laced up, he gave them helmets that fitted neatly into the suits. Then he connected each suit with a rubber hose and turned a switch. A hum told of an air compressor at work. Alan felt the pressure against his body growing and felt a sense of panic at the slightly suffocating sensation that went with it. A little later, the professor turned off the compressor. Alan looked interestedly through thick, glass eyepieces at the other two men, bulging in their inflated suits. At last the professor motioned them to turn a valve in the front of the suit where the pressure could be released, and in a few minutes they had the suits off, much to Alan's relief.

"Just so you will be used to them," the professor said. "If the air on Mars is too rare, we wear those suits."

"You looked like the rubber-tire man in the advertisement!" Ted grinned at Alan.

"Better fat in the body than in the head!" retorted Alan cheerfully.

They made their first meal from fresh meat, although Ted grumbled at cooking over red-hot wires instead of a flame.

"Suppose we mustn't waste oxygen," he admitted grudgingly. "Will Brains condescend to take the steak bone and dishes to the garbage can?"

He was referring to the paper plates from which they ate. Water was far too precious to waste in dishwashing; hence the picnic equipment.

Climbing after the professor into the pilothouse, Alan found him gazing through the heavy windows in rapt contemplation of the firmament. Alan gasped at the marvelous beauty of a heaven full of starlight unobscured by the earth's atmosphere. Thousands of pin points never seen save with great telescopes on earth added their jewels to the glow.

The professor pointed to the rheostat lever. It stood at ninety! Ten points less than the maximum. That meant they were getting up to full speed! The chilly feeling in Alan's backbone returned. Ten, fifteen miles per second? Suppose they struck an asteroid?

"You would not hear the crash nor feel the heat." The professor read his thoughts. "You would be vapor before a nerve message could travel to your brain! Call Ted! I show you the heavens as you have nefer seen them before!"

When Ted climbed up beside them, the professor explained: "I tip the Wanderer to one side, for a little while. Many would give their lives to see what I show! Not for long—even five minutes put us thousands of miles off our course!"

He turned the wheel which applied pressure on the axis of the vertical gyroscopes. Alan felt a change in physical sensation as if he were in a railroad car going around a curve.

"Now, put on these!" The professor handed each a pair of spectacles, thick and black. "Be careful!" he warned. "To look without them will blind you!"

The electric lights winked out as Ted and Alan crowded to the portholes. They gave involuntary, strangled cries of amazement. They looked upon the sun, the corona filling half the heavens. Leaping columns of red- and white-hot gas streamed millions of miles in space. The chromosphere glowed as a few astronomers hope to see it on those rare occasions when an eclipse takes place in a cloudless sky.

"It doesn't, somehow, seem right that we should see that and live," Ted mused.

Alan found himself beginning to like the citizen of the world with the cynical and irreverent eyes. Underneath his cynicism, he did have a sense of the poetic—an appreciation of the majestic.

The professor swung the sphere again on her course, and then insisted that Alan and Ted turn in.

But Alan couldn't sleep. He was thinking that somewhere below them was the roof of the laboratory building at the university, and all the familiar things he knew. He thought of the rooming house where he lived, and the landlady who had looked so reproachful when he had told her that he was leaving on an indefinite trip. He looked over to find Ted staring wide-eyed at the flat, circular ceiling.

"Can't you sleep either?" he asked.

"Nope," replied Ted laconically.

"What are you thinking about?"

"My landlady."

Alan laughed. "What did you tell her?"

"Told her I was going to take a little trip to Mars."

"You did!" For a moment Alan was aghast.

"She almost kicked me out of the house," Ted went on. "Said that was no way for a guy to kid a lady who'd been just like a mother to him."

For a moment Alan was silent. Then the humor struck him and he started to laugh. After all, that was the safest thing to say because no one would believe it. Ted joined in the laugh and for a minute the two were convulsed.

"Better not laugh too much," Alan said at last, calming down. "It eats up oxygen, and we may need all we've got before we're through."

For a long while, the two lay staring at the monstrous fact that they were above air, roaming through the impalpable ether, in the limitless home of the planets. And gradually the fact became dim, and they slept.

Alan woke first, to see a network of ropes stretched through the homelike, circular living room and the professor swimming through the air, apparently weightless! Throwing off the blankets to sit up, Alan floated to the ceiling! Frantically he grasped a rope, and for a moment found himself in contortion, until he realized that an ounce of pull was enough to send him from one side of the room to the other. At last his mind grasped the reason for his weightlessness, and he turned triumphantly to look at the professor.

"We have passed the point of constant acceleration!" he cried. "We're at our maximum speed of fall!"

The professor nodded, pleased. Alan kicked himself off the ceiling to land on both hands on Ted's broad chest.

"Wake up!" he cried. "Here's a new adiletic stunt for you!"

Ted opened sleepy eyes to look amazedly at Alan above him, and the professor on the ceiling. Then he too sat up —and floated out of bed!

"What the—" he began.

"Constant speed.Twenty miles every second, more than a million and a half miles a day!" Alan shouted. "We're partaking of the motion of the sphere; there is no more acceleration to keep our feet down—"

"And that makes us a flock of dumbbells," Ted growled, grabbing for a rope. "Like those dumbbells in the laboratory."

They moved about the Wanderer partly by the ropes stretched across it, partly by gentle springs from ceiling, wall, or floor. Ted laid his can opener upon nothing, and if it was undisturbed it stayed there until he wanted it. But everything not held down gradually gravitated to the floor.

"More mass below—the storeroom and batteries. That's why the chests and boxes and barrels are all fastened down and why the bins have bars," explained the professor.

They slept strapped in bed, lest an unconscious movement send them slowly floating to the ceiling. Ted amused himself with "aerial swimming," and all three of them found it convenient to dive up and down through the hatchways between floor and floor. But weightlessness was also inconvenient. A too-sudden lifting of food to mouth and the diner found himself halfway to the ceiling, whence he must either be pulled or find a rope by which to haul himself back to the table. Had the furniture not been fastened down, the living room would have been quite unlivable.

Routine was soon established. During the "night" one watched while two slept; from six to ten, ten to two, and two to six. All remained awake during the "day," taking turns at the porthole and piloting, although there was nothing to do. A variety of canned goods provided a balanced menu and Ted cooked well. Waste was shot out once a day. Air was kept fresh by releasing compressed oxgyen and nitrogen and absorbing carbonic acid gas by chemical purifiers. The whole atmosphere was changed every week.

The earth grew smaller and smaller; the moon soon be-/ came a mere pin point of light. As the second week began, they saw Mars from the upper ports.

"Why haven't we steered for him from the beginning?" asked Ted as the professor pointed to a great red "star" far to one side. "Why don't we point straight for it now?"

"The earth's revolution was a part of our motion," explained the professor. "By making a sweeping curve from earth to Mars we add a thousand miles per hour to our speed. Had we kicked against the curve with the gyroscopes, we could have traveled a straighter path and taken a longer time."

Alan had forgotten much of the astronomy he studied in college and Ted frankly confessed ignorance, but both soon became familiar with the facts of the red planet known to science.

Ted learned that Mars, being much smaller than the earth, does not attract objects to its surface with the same weight.

"For every hundred pounds you weigh at home, you'll weigh thirty-eight on Mars," explained Alan.

Ted calculated silently. "I'll be quite a jumper on Mars," he mused. "I ought to be able to jump three times as far."

The miles between Mars and earth vary from thirty-five and a half millions when both planets are nearest to two hundred and thirty-four millions when they are farthest apart. Mars has a year of 687 days, each day 37 minutes longer than those of the earth.

"Mars' inclination to his orbit is so similar to that of earth that seasons seem inevitable," explained the professor. "We observe clouds, and we can see the polar caps increase and decrease as if ice and snow were melting and being renewed. Two distinct colors—blue-gray and red— seem to change shape, and that ought to mean vegetation. We see canals too straightly artificial to be haphazard. Everything points to intelligent inhabitants—"

"Wonder what the people are like," interrupted Ted.

"I didn't say there would be people!" The professor dropped this verbal bombshell without a quiver. "I said inhabitants! They may be intelligent insects or crustaceans or mammals or birds or fish or some form of life unknown to earth."

"Think intelligent insects could dig those canals?" asked Alan incredulously. "They'd be too small—"

"With gravitation a third as powerful, flesh and blood, or the horny chitin of insects, may grow to much larger dimensions than ours," suggested the professor. "Insects may grow to great size."

It was a difficult thought. Alan found himself growing uneasy.

"Intelligent wasps six feet high," Ted said. "Imagine a regiment of 'em waiting for us. Got any machine guns, professor?"

The professor shook his head. "Only small arms. We do not come to make war." He looked untroubled, but Ted grew thoughtful.

Daily the red planet grew larger; the earth, smaller. Routine became monotonous. Get up, eat, look out, talk, go to bed. Shoot the waste, test the atmosphere, mix the proper amount of oxygen and nitrogen, reduce air pressure a little daily. Overhaul the suits, innate and deflate them.

"Why don't we feel the cold more?" Ted asked. "You say it's absolute zero outside, but it averages fifty in here!"

"The terrific heat of the sun," answered the professor. "After leaving the earth, we had to pass through the earth's shadow, and it was colder then. Now we have perpetual day. No atmosphere protects the sphere from the sun's rays. Without those rays we should be frozen solid in half an hour!"

Visiting a strange planet may seem enjoyable to a person safely on earth. But when a man is actually approaching the unknown with its terrific possibility of weird and inhuman though intelligent beings, it seems quite different. Alan found Ted poring over the supply book. Looking over his shoulder, Alan saw the title "weapons." Alan followed the pointing finger: "Automatics, .38's, 3. Ammunition, 900 rounds. Knives, belts, 3. Dynamite, small cartridge, 1 case. Large cartridge, 2 cases. Portable battery and switch, 1. Fuses, one box."

"Should have machine guns," Ted grumbled. "Automatics are no good against an army of wasps. What would we do on earth with a man-sized, intelligent wasp with his dander up?"

"But we're going on a peaceful mission," answered Alan.

"True enough!" retorted Ted. "But will your Martians know that?"

The thought haunted Alan. Who knew what undiscovered forces they were butting their heads into? During the latter half of their journey he became more and more obsessed with the fact that no earthly experience could help them on Mars. Each new danger would be unknown, hitherto unfaced.

Ted said nothing to comfort Alan. Perhaps he wasn't aware of Alan's growing bewilderment. But the professor seemed to feel Alan's depression. "When we get back," changed insensibly to "if we get back." The professor no longer explained when asked questions. Ted was referred to Alan. And when Alan asked questions, the professor put him off with, "Some other time when I can mine mind upon it put."

But none suggested turning around.

From a point, the red planet became a circle, a fifty-cent piece, a saucer, a cart wheel. No longer did they sleep in regular watches. They ate only when hunger drove them to it. Three pairs of eyes watched constantly from the top ports, calculating, imagining. Even Ted, practical and unimpressionable, felt that the Wanderer was tense with a sense of something impending; of hidden threats on that red surface. For they were drawing closer—closer—

At last, just when Alan's electric feeling of fear became unendurable, the professor snapped him out of it with one announcement. Reclining in the air at the port, and measuring with a sextant the diameter of the planet toward which they sped at the pace of the planet itself, he ordered:

"Alan, move the lever to zero. We are close enough to decelerate. No—" as Alan dived for the lever, hooking his hand in the quadrant to get a purchase—"get on the floor and hold on. Ted, too. I'm going to turn the sphere. When I do, move the lever back again. We'll begin to decelerate, und then we will weigh more than normal, instead of less!"

The next few hours were swift with portent. After a month of weightlessness, they felt sluggish. Having exerted little muscular energy for weeks, even a small bit of exertion now brought weariness. As they observed it through the bottom porthole, Mars filled the horizon. It was no longer a globe but a red surface with bluish-gray markings. Most of the surface was crossed with darker fines.

"Giant railroad tracks?" asked Ted.

"Schiaparelli's canals!" explained the professor. His assistants smiled at his first normal word of explanation in days.

Deceleration was completed more than a hundred miles from the surface. Very gently and slowly, the professor let the sphere float down to within a mile of the surface. He climbed to the pilothouse, bidding them follow. There he turned to a valve at the end of the small tube leading to outer space. Then he turned to them, and on his face was the expression of a man facing his greatest crisis.

"If the air comes in, our pressure—it is seventeen inches on the barometer—is lower than Mars. If air whistles out, it may show too low a barometer there for us to live without rubber suits und helmets."

Grimly, Ted and Alan waited. The professor turned the valve. Apparently nothing happened. The professor put his face to the end of the tube.

"Air!" he cried. "Cold but not too cold! It comes in slowly! We can open the hatch!"

Alan felt like shouting. Ted's face broke into a grin.

"Open the hatch," the professor repeated, "but at the first feeling of fainting close it. That will mean insufficient oxygen."

For a moment, the three breathed carefully before the open hatch, waiting for the first indication of reeling senses. Nothing happened. In the cold air, a faint odor was perceptible.

"Smells like seaweed!" guessed Ted.

As the sphere slowly descended, they looked through the open hatchway at a world fair in the sunlight, faint red here, gray-bluish elsewhere—the colors rapidly taking on the appearance of vegetation. Of habitation, of moving objects, there wasn't a trace. Yet Mars didn't give die impression of a dead world; rather it seemed to be a quiet spot, a countryside. Apparently there were no high hills or mountains on this part of Mars.

Down, slowly down they floated.

Alan's mind was busy with the wonder of the moment. They were farther from all they called home than any man had ever been before, facing such an unknown as no explorer had ever faced. . . .

Ted nudged him. "First hundred years are the hardest," he grinned.

"Do you feel kind of funny?" Alan asked.

"Kind of—but I can't think of any jokes," Ted replied.

They floated down. The vegetation resolved itself into

treelike ferns or fernlike trees—some reddish, some blue-gray. Between the fernlike trees, a rank kind of grass.

The last slow hundred feet seemed interminable. Then came a slight jar, the coils ceased to hum, and the sphere sagged, settling under its weight. They had arrived!

Three men stared through a square hatch at an unnatural world. They saw great ferns growing seventy feet high. A gentle, cool breeze stirred the fronds from which, apparently, came the odor of seaweed. Dropping through the hatchway, Alan picked up some dirt, apparently similar to that of the terrestrial sphere.

Ted and the professor climbed down to stand beside him. For a moment they were motionless, unbelieving. Then, all at once, it struck each one of them that they had accomplished their mission.  They had arrived. The air was good. There was vegetation. They could walk about. They were alive!

Ted and Alan laughed aloud a bit hysterically and did a dance. Even the professor smiled.

"Columbus," said Ted, "was a piker. He paddled across a bathtub full of water back there on a little ball so small we can't even see it."

"At least," said Alan, "we didn't get seasick!"

"Where's the welcoming committee?" asked Ted, looking about him. "Can't these Martians realize that this is a red-letter day? Think of the money a good chamber of commerce could make."

He paused. From somewhere in the distance came a muffled sound, like the beat of a tom-tom.

"Over there!" Alan whispered. "That grove of ferns!"

Ted climbed back into the sphere to return with three automatics. The professor protested.

"We come not for war—" he began.

"Brawn is better than brain, and bullets than brawn, in a scrap!" Ted said, passing out the guns.

"I think it's unnecessary," answered Alan, but he took a gun.

The unknown sound from an unknown source in an unknown world made their hearts beat hard. None knew what lay beyond the grove—it was scarcely a hundred yards from them. After a moment's hesitation, Ted led the way into the "woods," but he hadn't gone fifty feet into it when he cried out in wonder. Alan and the professor, a few paces behind, hurried up to look. They found themselves standing at the edge of a huge canal. At their feet was a steep slope going fifty feet down to the bottom of the canal. In it, sluggishly moved many—somethings!

For a moment the three thought the things in the canal were animals. Snatching glasses from his hip pocket, Ted focused on them.

"They're bugs or machines!" he cried. "Look—look! Machine bugs!"

He handed the glasses to Alan. The professor already had his glued to his eyes. Alan saw moving, leglike struts, pistons that flashed back and forth, frameworks obviously containing motive power, queer, domelike structures in the center of each framework, suggesting nothing Alan had ever seen, until Ted said, "They look like spider-legged lighthouses walking around!"

"But where is the pilot—the engineer? Look at them digging and hauling dirt! There's no place for a man inside those domes! They're nothing but frames and pistons and struts and—"

They watched the queer structures at work. Clawlike hands lifted scoops of the substance of Mars, pouring it into boxlike containers. Other machines picked up the boxes, carried them to the far bank of the cleft on the edge of which they stood—possibly a canal—and dumped them. As far as the eye could reach labored an army of machines apparently without directions.

"Martians must be little enough to fit in those domes!" cried Ted. "They are!   Look, look at that!"

A speck in the far distance approached at incredible speed. It looked to Alan like a huge ostrich. It ran as an ostrich runs on legs forty feet high. It had neither neck nor head—a mere egg-shaped bulb of metal, shining in the sunlight, supported by enormous, stiltlike legs. At a speed of at least five miles a minute, the mechanism flashed up the canal floor to stop not fifty feet from them. Three horrified faces saw in a sort of cockpit a something that might be a magnified ant, a man in a diving suit, or a gigantic cockroach! A six-foot being, looking down at them from a cockpit forty feet in the air.

"There's your wasp!" cried Ted, gasping.

At his voice the horror in the mechanical ostrich gave a raucous cry. It must have been a command, for down in the canal fifty machines stopped digging and began to move toward the side of the cleft. The watchers expected them to stop at the bank, but the buglike machines ran up its side as easily as if it were level. With one accord, the three men turned and ran.

But not soon enough! A clinking, clanking sound, growing momentarily louder, told them that the machines of Mars ran faster than a man. Fifty yards from the sphere, a pair of huge, pincer-like jaws caught Alan about the wrist. Another pair tripped Ted and flung him to the dust. A third grasped the professor about the waist.

With incredible dexterity, the machines shifted the grasp of the mechanical hands, set the captives on their feet, and held them. Even in that moment of panic, Alan noted that the heavy serrated jaws that clasped his wrist did not hurt him. Obviously their power was sufficient to squeeze his arm into pieces. But the machines only held them motionless, uninjured.

The great machine-ostrich stalked up and the antlike rider, as large as a man, climbed to the edge of his cockpit and uttered another curious cry. An enormous strut protruded from one of the nearby machines and swung up to the Martian. Standing in the jaws of this strut, the being had himself lowered gently to the ground in front of the three men. They looked into motionless, unblinking eyes;

eyes like the lights of a diving suit; eyes devoid of any feeling or humanity, but obviously intelligent.

A long and snakelike antenna extended from the center of this Martian beast, bug, or man. Three finger-like claws protruded from its end. Curling gracefully through the air, the fingers fastened upon Alan's free hand velvet-like and gently, but with a coldness of touch that made him quiver and jerk his hand away. The strange being uttered a sound. Pincer-like claws of the strange machines captured both of Alan's arms and held him motionless.

The buglike face with the great, motionless eyes approached his own. With a sick horror, Alan saw a slit that might have been a mouth and a beaklike jaw that reminded him of a parrot.

"Ted! Ted!" he cried despairingly. "Save me! He's going to . . ."

Alan strained desperately to reach his automatic. But it was in his left-hand pocket, and his left hand was held by the pincer-like jaws of the mechanical arm; his right was gripped by the half-velvet, half-rubbery fingers on the end of the proboscis that came from the chest of the Martian beast.

His thoughts raced. A thousand details crowded before his eyes in a fraction of a second: the great beak approaching his face—horny, open, cadaverous; the teeth of the pincer-like clamp tightly holding his left hand; the strange, eyelike structures in the central domes of the two machines that pinioned his companions; the professor's horrified face; Ted's mouth, set and savage and—could Ted help? Ted was held only about the waist; his hands were free. . , ,

"Hold hard, Alan!" yelled Ted. "I'll be with you in a moment,"

His great shoulders set. His strong hands fastened to the jaws of the terrible engine that gripped him. Despairingly Alan knew that even if Ted broke that confining pressure, he couldn't prevail against the forces arrayed against him. If Ted waited, he might yet save himself and the professor.

"No, no!" Alan screamed. "Wait! I'm done for. Wait! Save yourself! Save the professor!"

"Got guts, haven't you?" Ted grunted.

In that moment of hideous fear, Alan felt his courage flow back at Ted's praise. He listened to the professor crying out in German, French, and Spanish, in an effort to communicate with these impossible creatures. In spite of himself, Alan smiled.

The moment passed, and there was no attack. The strange Martian bug paid no attention to the professor's flow of words. The hand on one of his short arms fingered Alan's arm, then prodded gently at his head.

Alan jerked his head away. That thing might put out an eye! His heart raced with excitement and fear. If the creature attacked him, helpless as he was, would Ted think to shoot him! The hand felt his clothing, dived into a pocket and brought forth a handkerchief, dropped it, examined his shoes and tugged at his trousers. All the while the two protruding eyes bored into Alan's.

In other circumstances Alan might have smiled at the ridiculous figure. The Martian stood upright on two thin, horny legs, innocent of clothing. The short body, Alan saw with a gulp, was jointed like the belly of a beetle. A long and narrow head joined the body with no indication of a neck. Bulbous eyes, at least two inches across, sticking out on either side of his head, gazed impersonally at every new object his fingers brought forth. The antenna obtruded from his chest. Two thin, weak-looking arms hung at the queer being's sides.

The general effect was grotesque and unreal. Yet the general expression of the face, if horny features could be said to have an expression, was as impersonally benignant as that of a happy horse.

Three kinds of beings surrounded the earthmen. The ostrich-like running machines with legs forty feet high. The machine-like digging bugs. And the beetle-like Martian. Obviously the latter was the brains of the assembly. He, alone, showed curiosity.

Five long minutes passed during the examination. The creature was thorough and methodical. Certainly he was intelligent. There was purpose in every movement. After he had finished his examination, he proceeded to something incomprehensible. A croaking that might have been words came from the beaklike mouth. Immediately one of the machines standing motionless galloped off in a waddle of six jointed, mechanical legs, to return in a minute with what appeared to Alan to be a tape measure!

The creature raised his mechanical-looking arms, each of which was supplied with three of the rubbery projections such as terminated the antenna. With the help of the machine, the Martian proceeded to measure Alan's head from front to back, and then around forehead and neck. The Martian then measured the professor.

"You can't measure me, you insect!" Ted raised his gun.

"Use your head, Ted!" begged Alan. "If you resist, he'll make that machine hold your hands. He doesn't know firearms."

"I don't like him!" responded Ted. "I hate bugs."

But he submitted to the measuring process, meanwhile holding the gun in his hands. The strange creature paid no attention to it.

The measuring finished, the Martian uttered a word. It sounded like "iklackic." The long trellis-like strut of one of the machines wavered down, the Martian stepped upon it, and was swung to the cockpit of his huge machine-ostrich. Here he uttered a few more syllables in the unknown tongue, then was gone, with a sputter of dirt spurned by mechanical feet. In a minute he was beyond the horizon!

Alan was free for a moment, but before he noticed it one of the bugs had seized him.

"I ought to have shot him!" grumbled Ted. "Where do we go from here?"

As the thing in authority disappeared, the three machines that held them brought other pincer equipment with arms into action, picked up the three men and set each down on a small platform next the dome that formed the center of each machine. They started forward in a queer, waddling gallop of six metal legs, each man on the platform of a separate machine.

"Stop it, stop it!" cried the professor. "If we lose the Wanderer—"

If we lose the Wanderer! It was their only method of getting back, and if it were destroyed, they were on Mars for life. Even if it weren't destroyed, these creatures might take them so far they could never find their way back to it. That, Alan thought, would be the ultimate horror.

Discretion flew to the winds. The terror of these few minutes might be nothing to what was to come. With a sudden jerk, Alan freed a hand from the jaws that held him and leaped from the little platform. He would race to the sphere, and in it, follow his companions over the surface of Mars. Whatever happened they must not lose their only connection with earth.

Swift as light the machine whirled in its tracks, sunlight flashing on its four whiplike mechanical arms. They caught him before he had run twenty feet. He fought viciously for an instant, but how can flesh fight against metal? Four serrated, metal jaws held Alan's arms and legs, and carried him through the air ten feet aboveground to slam him back upon the platform. The jaws bit cruelly into his flesh. Involuntarily, he cried out in agony.

To Ted, that cry was a plea for help. He thrust his gun against one of the glasslike eyes in the little dome of the machine that held him, and pulled the trigger!

Glass—if it were glass—flew in all directions. The machine stopped instantly, to sink slowly to the ground, its six jointed legs spraddling helplessly. The jaws about Ted's wrist relaxed. The machines carrying Alan and the professor whirled about at the shot and stopped before their stricken companion.

Alan lay on his side, held as securely as if he'd been in handcuffs and leg irons. The inflexible metal hands hurt him horribly. He tried to stifle his groan, but Ted heard it. With a cry of rage, Ted leaped at Alan's machine, swung himself up to the platform, and tore desperately at the metal jaws that held Alan. His shoulders strained, his great arms swelled. Slowly but surely he pulled the jaws apart. Alan got one arm free. He searched wildly for the automatic. Why didn't Ted shoot this living engine that tormented him? Why didn't—

But the freedom lasted only a moment. The metal jaws broke from Ted's hands with a snap, opened, and caught Ted around the throat. Ted gasped, but the pincers choked off the gasp. Even his iron strength couldn't get purchase to tear them loose. A short struggle and he sank down on Alan, helpless.

Alan thought, "This is the end!" The pincers would squeeze the life from Ted, after which, doubtless, they would tear him limb from limb.

But the Martians in the machines—how could living beings be inside those domes?—evidently were not vengeful. With relief Alan felt the metal which clamped his arms and legs relax. Ted groaned—he couldn't groan if he were being choked to death! Ted groaned again. The great metal arms lifted both and stood them on their feet, still holding tightly.

"Some squeeze!" gasped Ted, feebly trying to loosen the teeth which held his neck.

"Some man!" cried Alan. "Owe you one for that—"

"Are you both alive?" cried the professor anxiously from his platform. "I am held. I cannot come. See, see! He shot it und it bleed!"

From the bullet hole in the "eye" of the helpless mechanism dripped a thick, blue-gray liquid, suggesting blood, the more horribly that it was not red.

"I knew he lived in there," gurgled Ted. "Now I'll shoot this baby and we'll get back to the sphere. I've had enough of Mars to last me some time, thank you."

But before he could aim the weapon, a lightning swift mechanism arm swept him off his feet, two other pincer jaws held him fast and plumped him down beside Alan. The two machines, one bearing both boys, one the professor, set off as before.

"Something about this machine thinks!" cried Alan. "But only a tiny dwarf could live in this thing—" he pounded emphatically against the dome. It was perhaps twelve inches round and twenty-four high. Then he cried out in pain as the pincers about his free hand squeezed deeply into his flesh.

The god in the machine did not like its dome pounded.

"Better kill this one, too!" begged Ted, imperturbable as ever. "Then we'll kill the doc's and get back—"

"No!" called the professor. "No! we come not to kill. How can we learn if we destroy that which may teach us?"

"But the sphere—the sphere! If we lose the sphere—" cried Alan, aghast at mercy under such circumstances. Brawn, not brain, was wanted here.

"I can find the sphere!" answered the professor. "Do not fire again. Instead, observe the mechanism of this— this living machine!"

"He's the doctor!" agreed Ted, thrusting his gun into his pocket with one free hand. "Boy, this thing pinches!" He regarded narrowly the serrated jaws which held him. "Did you ever see such a machine! Those ropes, cords, chains, whatever they are, work like muscles."

Apparently the motive power of the mechanism was in a dozen or more round containers below the platform. From these circular boxes, each perhaps a foot in diameter and four inches thick, came ropelike members attached to the six legs and the "four hands." The "legs" were jointed metal, polished like steel and moved by the "muscles."

Watching them extending and retreating out of and into their housing, Alan grew sick at his stomach. The outward ends of those "muscles" might be hemp or rubber or wire, or all three, but the inner portion which would recede into the boxes had the texture of thick black flesh.

A dome too small for intelligent beings, which bled when shot; "muscles" half-metal, half-flesh; machines which obeyed words of command and showed intelligence—what was the answer to such a puzzle? Could a mechanism be alive?

"Nonsense!" cried Alan aloud, to keep up his courage. Cautiously he changed his position, leaning against the dome. "If those glass things are eyes, then—"

He put his free hand against one of the glass eyes. A metal arm grasped his hand and pulled it away. Alan cried out in pain at the squeeze.

"Better behave," grinned Ted. "Lucky it doesn't know what I did or—"

"How do you know it doesn't?"

"Because I'm still alive!" answered Ted, simply. "Those derricks it uses for arms could tear you to pieces like a scrap of paper."

Conversation was difficult. The two machines galloped over the country thirty feet apart. Whatever their purpose, passenger carrying was evidently not one. The jolting was severe, and the words they could cry to each other were fragmentary and disjointed.

"Think Doc's—all wrong!" Ted muttered in Alan's ear. "Kill this brute and the one that's got him, get back to the sphere and—let's see 'em catch us then!"

Alan felt uncomfortably diat Ted was right. Brawn here was better than brains! He did not want to disobey the professor, but he wished Ted would, and was ashamed of the thought. Strength and a pistol had saved his reason, if not his life. He could not have stood that terrible torture much longer. His arms and legs were numb; why his bones were not crushed he did not understand.

Keen rare air, jerky motion, a fearful curiosity made recovery quick. With less chaotic thoughts came wonder at the queer machine-animals, or animal-machines, which carried them; the unknown power which moved them; the beetle-like creature in the huge mechanical bird which had commanded, measured, and fled.

"Curious how little noise they make!" The words jolted from Ted. "Is there a road, can you see?"

Alan looked. He was more favorably held for observation than Ted.

"No. Just country. Except for a sort of red grass it looks much like earth. Wonder where we are going?"

They had not long to wait. Approaching a cliff, rising precipitately from the rolling plane over which they were borne, Alan expected the machine to turn aside. They hurtled toward it at a speed Alan estimated to be about thirty miles an hour. He saw a black spot which grew in size, became a hole, enlarged—a tunnel!

The machine scrambled through an opening in the rock twenty feet wide and high. Transition from brilliant sunlight to semidarkness blinded them for a few seconds; then they saw that the underground passage down which the machines ambled, more slowly now, was illuminated by a peculiar blue glow from certain parts of the rocky ceiling.

"Seems to go downward," Ted noted. And "see-eee-eeems to-o-o g-o-o down-n-n-ward" echoed in ghostly reverberations from wall and ceiling, from side passage and curve.

The passage obviously led to lower levels. It seemed a longer journey than it was. Alan learned later that it was less than a mile. They passed many rooms on either hand, in which mechanisms flashed, their curiously unreal silence lending a touch of the macabre to their motions. In one room, the man-machines were lugging out some huge glass cylinders. In another, they seemed to be storing away more of these great jars. The boys saw no sign of understandable life until—

"Jumping Joseph! Look at that!"' gasped Alan. Ted grunted in amazement; from behind, they heard the professor's choked cry of wonder.

TheNpassage spread into a great, domed chamber three hundred feet across and one hundred high. Blue illumination made every detail plain. But neither size of room nor quality of light had brought the wonder to their lips; it was the gathering in the center.

Upon a platform perhaps four feet high, looking like a Chinese throne, sat a Martian just like the commander of the machine-ostrich—just like him except in size. Alan estimated his height at eight feet. Around him were a dozen others, smaller.

"Behold the Lord High King Bug!" chuckled Ted. "Now we're in for it."

The words chilled Alan. "Say, Ted!" he said, quietly. "If we—we—well, if we don't get through, thanks for what you did. That was swell."

"Brawn, my boy!" Ted's grin took the sting from the words. "We'll get through."

The machines slithered to a stop just outside the circle.

Alan felt the grips on hands and feet tighten, and he was lifted and laid gently on a floor apparently hewn from solid rock. It felt cool through his clothing. Ted was swung down beside him. The professor came running up and they stood shoulder to shoulder, a part of the circle of strange, beetle-like men.

One stepped forward—it might have been the rider of the machine-ostrich, but it might too have been any other —and evidently spoke about them. The words reminded Alan oddly of the clanking of machinery; the language seemed largely made up of the sounds of k and c. The speech was short. Then the figure on the throne spoke, its rising inflection obviously asking a question. The first speaker answered. The figure on the platform cried a raucous command, and a rather awkward but swift-moving something—machine or Martian—paddled across the room on three swift feet which sounded metallic on the stone floor.

It had a general resemblance to the creatures around them, but was oddly different.

"It's not alive. It's a machine!" gasped Ted. "Same dome, same glass eyes—"

Alan looked at the thing in horror. Ted was right. It was an imitation of the living creatures, except that it had no proboscis and proceeded on three legs instead of two. But its legs and arms moved by means of "muscles" like those on the bug-machines, and its body was of a different texture.

Yet it proceeded in a business-like manner—seemed to know just what it was about. Alan discovered, as it stopped in front of him, what its business was. One of its hands held a metal tape measure, and, the expression in its protruding eyes utterly blank, it commenced to measure his head!

"They must want to give us crowns or something," suggested Ted. "The first hatter didn't measure us right!"

They submitted with as good a grace as possible to the proceeding. But it was harder not to protest by resistance when the "King Bug," as Ted insisted on calling the central figure, obtruded his antenna and proceeded to repeat the investigatory process to which the machine-ostrich rider had subjected them. He—it—was much more thorough. He dived into each pocket, examined each piece of clothing, felt gingerly of hair and caps, and would have poked tentative velvet-like "fingers" into their eyes had they not jerked their heads around.

The examination lasted perhaps ten minutes, during which the dozen or so Martians chattered in low tones, with clucking, clanking, clicking words. It seemed to Alan that he heard often that metallic sound, "iklackic"!

Then came danger, sudden and terrible.

The eight-foot chief up on the throne droned a clanking command. From the side appeared another machine-man like the one who had just measured their heads. But his short arms gripped a spear with a glittering point, and he held it at the charge, its shaft parallel to the floor.

Terror seized Alan as the figure placed itself directly opposite him. Cold sweat stood out on his forehead, and his hand moved lightning fast for his automatic. But even faster moved the hands of the first robot, and his arms were again gripped and held motionless. Then strength left him, for the robot with the spear had launched into a run, and the spear was coming straight at his breast!

That was an age-long moment for young Alan Kane. He had a dim impression of the blank faces of the Martians, the choking gasp from Ted, the horror in the deep-set eyes of the professor. He found himself unable to shout, to move a muscle, even to breathe. The spear point was only a yard away— Crash!

That was Ted's automatic. With inspired speed and accuracy, the "brawn" of the professor's team had acted. And his bullet had sped straight at the head of the machine. With a metallic clatter, the figure fell to the floor, its spear jangling beside it. The other robot still held Alan, and the earthman saw that no Martian paid the slightest attention to the fallen machine-man.

Danger was not over. For the Martian who had first spoken seized the spear, and awkwardly was poking it in his direction. Alan found his voice.

"Ted! Can you—"

Again the automatic roared, and the Martian sank to the floor, crying thinly. A thick, blue-gray fluid flowed from the huge rent in his chest—sickening, ghastly.

Then Alan tore himself loose from the robot which held him; Ted shoved the professor against Alan; and the three stood back to back, at bay.

"I shoot, now!" cried the professor weakly. "I come in peace and they make war! We kill many before—before—"

"Hold your fire, Doc!" commanded Ted. "They still don't know what's happened! They never saw firearms! Wait—wait—"

It was good advice. Obviously the Martians were puzzled.

It seemed grimly odd that they were not instantly killed. The very indifference of the strange beings to the damage that had been done one of their machines, to the killing of one of their number—he was very dead, indeed—was inhumanly horrible. Not a look or a glance was given the figures on the floor. . . .

A great, booming bell-sound filled the air. As if it were a signal, the Martians ceased their clicking to each other and walked—waddled more nearly expressed it—away from the tense group that was waiting, pistols ready, for attack. The greater one turned and flung a few syllables into the air; three more robots approached and beckoned!

"Huh! The machines are more polite than the bugs!" grunted Ted, forgetting the manhandling the machines had given them. "Now we are invited to—well, your guess is as good as mine."

"We go. It is better we go!" advised the professor.

The robots fell into line with them—one ahead, two behind—and the queer procession walked across the great hall in the bright blue light to one of many openings, vaulted and round, that led from it. Through a short passageway, they were led into a big chamber. The leading robot stood aside to let them enter. Something clanged with a jar as the professor, bringing up the rear, passed the portal. Turning as one, they saw a grating had fallen behind them.

They were caged!

The prison chamber, thirty feet wide, was round. In the center squatted a table-like structure of metal polished to rubbed-copper sheen but paler in color. Half a dozen smaller platforms with ends carved and raised, suggestive of couches, lined the wall. A number of small standards about four feet high ending in crossbars, much like parrot perches, stood here and there. A polished gray area on the wall, covered with what might be letters, figures, or hieroglyphics in red formed the only decoration. The ceiling, some ten or twelve feet high, glowed with pale-blue light radiating from spots forming a regular pattern. The air was fresh.

"Ach, writing!" cried the professor as he caught sight of the "blackboard." Oblivious, then, of all else, he dragged one of the couches to the wall and sat in rapt contemplation of the inscription.

Alan stood by the dais in the center, narrowly examining the room. Ted ambled around it, looking closely at wall, floor, and "blackboard" while the professor made an impatient exclamation as he passed in front of it. Ted picked up the standards and examined them curiously. He shook the bars on the doorway. He was, Alan thought, a curious cat in a strange garret.

He stopped suddenly beside Alan.

"Could you find your way out of this?" he asked.

"I doubt it," answered Alan. "I'm all mixed up."

"I don't often forget a trail I've been over, but I couldn't find the sphere," said Ted. "I was flat on my back most of the time and couldn't see—"

Alan started. "He said he could!" He turned swiftly to the professor.

"Can you really find the sphere again?" he asked, shaking the engrossed man gently by the shoulder.

"What is it? Oh!" The professor came back to reality. "I tore up some paper und let the bits scatter as we came."

"Good boy!" commented Ted. "Never would have guessed it of him! I should have thought of it myself."

But how they might use the trail was not evident. Between them and safety stood bars of heavy, shining metal, a short passageway, a trip across the great domed hall, a mile-long corridor, and then a distance in the open anywhere from five to fifteen miles.

"Let's get scientific," suggested Ted, "and count our supplies. I've got a knife, a wrist watch, my automatic, and three extra clips of ammunition."

"What's your contribution, Doc?" he asked the professor.

The professor did not answer. They heard him muttering. "If this is X then that must be an invariable und N square must—but if it is not, then—why, oh, why did I not bring a book of logarithms!"

Alan emptied his pockets of his automatic, fifty-seven cents, a small bunch of keys, a box of matches, two clips of cartridges, a pocket compass, an engineer's slide rule and a watch.

"Is there sense in that gibberish?" Ted wondered.

The professor had picked up a piece of what appeared to be red chalk and was making figures on the floor. He dropped to his hands and knees; the equations grew under his fingers too fast for Alan to follow. Again he touched the old man on the shoulder.

"Let's see what's in your pockets, Professor!" he begged.

Absently the professor turned out his pockets. A flashlight, a watch, an automatic, the supply book of the Wanderer, a small pair of pliers, a pencil, half a dozen envelopes covered with figures and algebraic formulae, half a stick of chocolate ...

"We seem to have everything we don't need and nothing that we do!" commented Ted. "If that slide rule were a file, now—"

"Slide rule? You have a slide rule?" At that word, the professor awoke eagerly from his prepossession. Ted picked

Alan's tool from the little pile of resources and handed it over.

"Good, good! I make me mine own logs!" cried the professor. Instantly he was figuring again.

"That may be swell mental exercise, but it's no help!" grunted Ted. "What do we do next?"

There was nothing to do but sit and imagine—a deadly operation, for imagination held too many horrible possibilities. Three men with three automatics could account for perhaps thirty Martians or robots. After that—what? Alan looked at his bruised wrists, black and torn. He saw again the spear about to strike home.

Yet mechanical marvels they had seen proved these beings intelligent. The machine-ostrich, the queer, digging machines which had captured and carried them, the oddly Martian-like robots which walked and acted like their masters, the excavated halls, the smooth floors, the metal furniture, the polish and finish to everything—even the precision with which the pinkish metal bars at the door fitted in their sockets—all testified to a high degree of scientific skill, craftsmanship, superior brains, and thought.

"Why didn't they kill us out there?" asked Ted. "I wish I thought they were scared of the gun. But they didn't give a hang, either about the noise or the dead bugs."

"I don't know," Alan was just as puzzled. "They're so blasted cold, just about as interested as if somebody had busted a nickel vase. Gosh, Ted, it's got me down."

Ted wore a frown on his broad face. "It's getting me, brother. The difference is that they're so—so impersonal. They're all machines, even the living ones."

"... absolutely beyond comprehension!" came in a low voice behind them. "Einstein's theories are child-simple compared to it. If that is X, it does not good sense make." Alan followed the professor's pointing finger to a character formed of a circle with a line across it. "If it is not X und is a figure, I do not know calculus, und—" his voice trailed off.

"It's up to us to get out of this!" growled Ted. "He's no good at this sort of thing. Brains may be swell on a blackboard, but—"

Alan came to the scientists defense. "He dropped a trail of paper—that's practical enough!" he said. "And it's going to take brains to plan our escape. You can't fight rock and metal or an army of machines just with big biceps—"

Ted shrugged his shoulders. Alan flushed. All the fighting so far had been done by Ted. "If you hadn't shot we'd not have been jailed, maybe," he said hotly. "He told you not to—"

"If I hadn't shot, you'd be dead!" answered Ted. Which was so true that Alan shut up.

He wandered away to press his face against the bars. Presently he called to Ted in a low voice, "Come here."

"Look! They don't pay any attention," he whispered.

Back and forth through the passageway hurried a strange procession of buglike creatures. Here and there a robot waddled jerkily. Occasionally one of the four-armed, six-legged machines jerked along like a thousand-legs. Many passed within touching distance. But no eye was turned their way, no curiosity displayed, no interest taken. The living and the machines passed by, each intent on some secret purpose of its own, apparently too busy, too intent to care about what could only have been, to them, strange creatures behind the bars. . ..

Ted reached out suddenly and caught at the thin arm of one of the buglike Martians as he strode hurriedly by. The jerk was sufficient to spin the creature half about. He snapped his wiry arm to his side, continuing without a glance.

It was worse than unflattering; it was uncanny. Had there been curiosity or resentment, had there even been threats, the pair might have feared less than when faced with this supreme indifference.

Ted tried the experiment a dozen times. Sometimes he could touch; sometimes he could only shout for attention. But touch and sound were alike ineffective.

Exasperated, Ted grabbed up one of the little standards. Watching his chance, he thrust it suddenly through the bars and between the legs of. a robot galloping by. The obstruction tripped the machine; it fell heavily. Then it got up exactly as a man might rise after an unexpected tumble and ran on its way without a glance.

Ted tried the same experiment with a living Martian, with unexpected results. Like the machine, the creature fell to the floor of the passage. But he did not rise, and they saw one tiny leg bent back sharply above the joint they were compelled to call a knee.

"Now you have done it!" cried Alan. "His leg's broken."

He gasped, amazed at the next move of the creature on the floor. He showed no sign of pain or distress but spoke in the peculiar, clinking syllables to the next robot which passed. The machine stopped, and the injured Martian twined his antenna about the "body" of the machine, which picked up the living creature and helped him hobble away. Neither the injured nor the rescuing mechanism so much as turned their heads toward the cause of the accident!

"There's a key somewhere!" pondered Alan. "If I could get a clue. There must be a reason. They were interested enough in the great hall to use a spear. That biggest Martian examined us carefully enough, too. If I could only get a hint."

The muttering behind them grew louder. The professor crept across the floor still writing equations. "Harmonic analysis is child's play. It is not infinitesimal calculus und it cannot be; but why not? Bessel's automorphic functions und—no! Now I try to figure a trigonometric continuity—"

Ted pulled Alan out of the professor's way. "Let him alone," he whispered. "He's at least lucky enough to forget where he is."

Alan wandered again around their prison. There was nothing to do. A dozen times he examined the fine workmanship of the chamber, its smooth stone floor, the oddities of the parrot-perch standards. Ted sat on the floor looking out through the bars. The professor crawled about, oblivious, making mathematical demonstrations, running to the "blackboard" every now and then to look, trotting back to place—

Four hours elapsed before anything happened. Ted wondered when they'd eat; Alan was getting thirsty. Then a noise whirled all three heads; even the professor forgot his absorption.

The bars at the doorway slid back. Six robots stalked in. Ted drew his automatic. "No, no!" cried the professor. "It is no good, resistance. We must communicate with them. We cannot fight!"

There was nothing to resist. The robots merely formed a rank behind them and pressed slowly forward. The inference was inescapable. They were to go somewhere.

"Anything's better than this," gritted Alan. "Come on, professor."

They walked together through the doorway. The robots herded them back up the passage and again into the great hall. It was no longer occupied by only a few. A great concourse of Martians was assembled, and the use of the little standards about which they had been puzzled was made plain. Each of the strange beings was draped over a standard, his thin arms hooked over the crossbars.

"Martian chairs!" grinned Ted. "One on me. I never guessed that!"

They were led to the center of the hall, before the platform. "The King Bug again," whispered Ted. The space about the platform was clear for a circle of forty feet; behind that, rank on rank, the Martians rested motionless on their standards. Here and there a clicking word or two was heard; in general the assembly was silent. The King Bug said a few words in his metallic voice. As one, the assembled creatures raised thin arms above long and narrow heads.

The three stood in a group in the center. Ted turned his back to the platform; the others faced it. "Don't want any spears in my back!" he stated.

"I don't believe they mean harm—" began the professor.

"Guess again!" interrupted Ted suddenly. "He's on his way, spear and all."

Alan and the professor whirled, to see just what they had seen a few hours earlier. Coming at them, spear leveled, emotionless eyes staring blankly, was a slow-moving robot. Ted, half-crouched, had his automatic in hand.

"Ted! Do not shoot!" That was the professor. "We do something else."

But, when the time came, it was Ted who did the something else. The robot advanced, slowly, purposefully. Fifteen feet away it increased pace; its spear aimed directly at Alan. Alan, panicky, tugged vainly at his automatic. Ted flew into action.

Watching narrowly, he sprang just as the spear all but touched Alan. He grabbed it in both hands and twisted it from the grasp of the machine to fling it to Alan with a hasty, "Hold everything!" Then he dived at the mechanical legs, a clean football tackle. Machine and man went down together.

It was a strange contest. The pale-blue light, the impassive ranks of spectators, the clicking and clanking of the metallic monster with which Ted strove—all gave an air of nightmarish unreality to the moment. Alan's automatic was out now, ready, but the professor's restraining hand kept him from shooting.

The mechanism knew nothing of wrestling. But neither hammer lock nor toe hold avail much against metal. Apparently Ted was nearly as strong as the unknown power which motivated the robot, and much quicker. Alan gained the peculiar impression that the robot was not really fighting; it seemed only trying to do a job in which Ted was interfering. It attempted merely to get up, not to carry the offensive to Ted. His face savage, Ted strained and strove with the weird opponent.

Suddenly he broke loose from it and bounded to his feet. The mechanism rose to its "knees" but that was all. With memory of the protest of the other machine against having its dome thumped, Ted grabbed at the metal body, threw it over heavily, banging the domelike head viciously to the stone floor with a clang which rang through the hall. Three times he raised the now supine machine and three times struck the stone floor with the dome. Then he arose, dusted his hands and contemplated his adversary.

"Better than wasting a shot!" he observed, panting.

The machine lay quiet, arms and legs sprawling.

Not a sound from the motionless ranks of those who watched with bulbous eyes. No change of expression, no exclamation of surprise at this strangest contest Mars could ever have seen—a wrestling match between a robot and a human being in which the machine was worsted. The silence was dreadful, menacing. Alan had visioned a dozen, a hundred, spear-armed robots closing in, knowing that automatics would be useless against an attack in force. But the Martians did nothing, said nothing, draped motionless on their perches.

Ted breathed quickly from exertion; Alan from premonition, the more awful that he could not guess what was to come.

The great Martian on the platform spoke at last, a single slow word. It sounded familiar, the curious word they had head before—"Iklackic."

And the assembly echoed it softly, "Iklackic—iklackic."

As if it were a signal, or a command, the Martians un-draped themselves from their standards and left the hall in orderly procession. In five minutes, the great dome was empty, save for the King Bug; the prostrate machine, now feebly stirring on the stone floor; the three adventurers and—Alan saw with renewed foreboding—at least fifty robots standing motionless around the walls. It was some relief that they were not armed.

"Better shoot his nibs and finish it!" Ted spoke sharply, his voice thin with the strain. "I'm a little tired of doing all the scrapping!" He turned a face to Alan that held as near a sneer as his good-natured features would permit. "Next time it's your turn!" he said. "And I'll hold a watch on you!"

Alan started to reply, but the professor interrupted.

"Shame, Ted!" he said. "You do well with your strong body und your courage. But we must not fight among each other. I want no fighting. We come in peace."

"I had my automatic ready to blow his eyes out if I needed to," observed Alan, his voice cool. "You didn't seem to need help."

Ted flushed. "I—oh well! I don't mean—"

Suddenly Alan laughed. He had to laugh or scream.

"Okay, old chap!" he grinned. "You're a good scrapper and it was a good fight. The old brawn won. But brains have got to get us out of this. It's idiotic for us to quarrel."

That was that. Meanwhile, the King Bug observed them silently. Now he called a command and a dozen robots against the wall stirred to action. Forming in a rank behind the three, they guided the earthmen out of the hall and down a passage. Not to the prison they had so recently quitted, however; through another, larger tunnel, deserted except for the four who lived and the twelve who clanked along behind, faint clicking from their hidden mechanism sounding like subdued Martian speech.

The passage was short. Apparently the great central hall was surrounded by many rooms hewn from the solid rock, each reached by a separate passage. This one ended in another large hall, but not an empty one. Its walls were lined with jars of transparent, glasslike material, many filled with liquid in which were specimens of strange creatures. The professor cried out in surprise, passing from one to another, immediately absorbed.

A label over each jar, written in peculiar characters, explained the meaning, of the room. They were in a museum.

Alan and Ted followed the professor—the robots did not interfere—and the King Bug stood motionless, watching them with great eyes. They saw creatures with many legs, creatures furred and creatures bare; one looked like a thin cat, another something like a frog with six legs. Many specimens were small; a few were larger than the greatest Martian.

Interested in these queer examples of the fauna of Mars, so they supposed them to be, Alan and the professor looked and looked; Alan at the specimens, the professor at the labels. At the fifth specimen the scientist cried out in delight.

"See, see!" he pointed. "Circle und a line. It is a letter, not a figure!"

Drawing a piece of the red chalk from his pocket, he dropped to the floor to begin again his interminable calculations in an attempt to translate what he believed to be mathematical formulae on the "blackboard" in their first prison.

Ted, more interested in what was to be than in what had been, was frankly disgusted with the professor's calculations. He heard the King Bug give a command, saw six robots pass through a small door. They returned, bearing each a shining metal cylinder. Ten trips they made; when they had finished, sixty gleaming metal cans were ranged in two ranks on the floor.

Some of them leaked a little about the caps; a strange and pungent odor stole through the air. It was reminiscent of the seaweed smell of the foliage near the sphere, but had also the penetrating, nose-stinging quality of alcohol, or ether, or chloroform.

"Reminds me of a hospital," declared Ted, his nose in the air. But to Alan the scene carried a different significance, and he shrank in horror as he realized it. The next act of the robots convinced him that his horrible guess was right.

Nine of the man-machines, at a command, left the room. They returned in groups of three, each group carrying a huge glass cylinder—a cylinder seven feet high, two feet in diameter. These they laid on their sides on the floor, and detachable tops were removed. Alan gazed from a white face, unable to believe his eyes. Ted looked on with interest, uncomprehending. The professor scribbled red equations on the floor, lost in his calculations. Suddenly, before Alan could give warning, four robots seized Ted by anns and legs, lifted him methodically but irresistibly from the floor, carried him toward one of the cylinders.

"Hey!" Ted shouted. "What the—what goes on here?"

Still he* did not comprehend. Alan had regained control of himself by this time, and his hand stealthily sought his gun in his trousers' pocket. The professor looked up, and an ejaculation escaped his lips.

"Ach! What is it you do, Ted?"

Then he too realized, and a shrill scream split the close air of the room as Ted was thrust feet first into one of the open cylinders. The cap was clapped on and the cylinder upended. Even in that instant, Alan had time to note the astounded, uncomprehending look on the big fellow's face. But he couldn't laugh. He turned to the professor, a very hollow feeling at the pit of his stomach.

"Alcohol!" he gasped. "Glass jars! They're going to preserve us in cans, just as we do bugs in a laboratory!"

Already Alan imagined himself suffocating inside one of those hideous jars. First, Ted. Next the Martians would imprison Professor Lutyens and him. The horror of it, the sickly sweet odor of the Martian equivalent of ether, or alcohol, or chloroform combined to nauseate him. He felt faint.

Then he saw the stark terror in Ted's eyes, and a flood of courage coursed through him. Ted had done all the fighting so far. Now it was his turn.

"Hold hard, Ted!" he cried. "Get your gun, professor!"

His own automatic was out and he was backing slowly away from the three robots approaching him. He was next! Well, by jingo, they'd be sorry.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. The eight-foot Martian uttered a single word: "Akluk!" The robots stopped dead, and Alan saw the Martian seize from the professor the red chalk, turn to the mathematical scribblings on the floor, and start to write an equation with his proboscis.

It was a tense moment, and Alan stared in amazement. But the professor seemed to understand. He ran long, nervous fingers through his white hair, but his deep-set eyes gleamed, and he uttered an exclamation:

"Ah! My figures—"

He beamed at Ted, obviously forgetting Ted's plight; he smiled happily at Alan, standing with drawn gun. Then he turned to the scribblings on the floor.

"Ach, ja, ja!" he cried. He seized the chalk from the rubber fingers of the proboscis and, his hand moving like lightning, he completed the equation the Martian had left unfinished!

Again the giant, expressionless, took the chalk and wrote. Alan drew closer. The symbols that grew rapidly under the chalk strokes were strange, but evidently they formed familiar mathematical formulae. For a second time, the professor completed the line when the proboscis stopped.

Alan was amazed to see that, apparently, Professor Lutyens had decoded the Martian characters and was able to use them effectively. Not so dumb, that old boy! He muttered happily as he wrote: "Ach—so! Square root of minus one—nine X und tangent—differential und infinite series—aber that amazing is! Und now—"

The Martian draped his proboscis around the professor's shoulders; Alan had the distinct impression that it was a friendly gesture!

"Hac iklackic!" he said gutturally. "Hac iklackic!"

Alan had heard the strange word so often now that he felt he ought to understand it. Whatever it meant, the robots understood. Four of them tipped the glass cylinder on its side, and one helped Ted to crawl out. The others commenced removing the cans of spirits. The instant he was free, Ted grabbed up his automatic, a grin on his square face.

"We communicate!" cried the professor. "The universal language—"

"You mean you know what the King Bug wrote?" demanded Ted. He drew a long breath as he fondled the gun.

Alan envied the aplomb which allowed Ted to stand rescued from a hideous death and enter into a conversation without a break.

"He makes equations. I make equations!" cried the professor. "His letters und symbols—they are strange. But what matter if X be X or a circle und a dot? Mathematics is the same on earth and Mars!"

"But what did you say?" queried Ted. "How can algebra talk?"

That the professor did not explain. He erased one or two of his chalk symbols, substituted others. Then he grabbed the great Martian by a thin arm and pointed excitedly.

"Never knew a bug could smile," murmured Ted. "But look!"

The impassive face did seem more kindly. The creature's proboscis added some symbols which made the professor scratch his head. But the Martian apparently had other things to do than give lessons in Martian mathematics.

Much against the professor's will, they were herded out of the museum and down several corridors, branching this way and that and finally entering a chamber furnished with couches and "chairs" much as was their first prison. A peculiar apparatus occupied one side, separated from the rest of the cave by bars of the faintly pink metal.

The robots clicked gently away at the word of the giant. After addressing half a dozen sentences to the machine behind the bars—at least he faced it while uttering his clicking metallic words—he also seemed about to leave. But Ted ran to the doorway and blocked it, rubbing his stomach and raising an imaginary cup to his lips.

The Martian regarded him impersonally, and Ted finally stood aside with a grumble. "I ought to shoot him. He wanted to pickle me," he observed. "But he looks like the best bet for something to eat."

They could make nothing of the peculiar machinery behind the bars. A dome, much like those that formed the heads of the robots, occupied the center of the apparatus. On either side were flaring horns, not dissimilar to those of old-fashioned phonographs or very large loud-speakers on earth. Half a dozen smaller domes surrounded the larger central structure, some of them with "eyes" and some without. Structures which might be rods or pipes ran from dome to dome. The horns tapered to metal boxes, circular and flat. Above hung a huge shell-like corrugated cone.

"Looks like a giant ear," suggested Ted.

Immediately in front of the central dome, four metallic arms protruded from a concealed mechanism, their ends resting on a yellow sheet that looked like some form of paper. This paper appeared to come from a roll within the machine, pass over a desklike structure, and retreat again within the mechanism. The four jointed arms ended in what looked amazingly like fountain pens!

The arms were in motion, the pens making strange symbols on the paper as it rolled slowly across the desk.

"What's your guess?" Alan asked the professor. But Dr. Lutyens was again deep in red-chalk calculations.

And Ted couldn't be bothered. He was indignant—not at the attempt on his life, but because he was kept thirsty and hungry!

"I don't care what the thing is. But if I don't get bread and water pretty soon, I'll shoot it up!"

"That ought to help a lot," returned Alan sarcastically. "Better save your fire."

"Like you saved yours when they canned me?" grunted Ted.

Then he grinned, and continued, "But if I shoot that thing up, maybe we'll get some attention. I want to eat!"

"It wasn't a gun that got us out of that mess!" Alan retorted.

"There you have me, brother," chuckled Ted. "Got to hand it to the doc. Don't know what he and the King Bug wrote to each other, but it sure did the business. Now if he'd only written fried chicken."

A sound at the bars in the doorway cut him off. Three robots came in, bearing huge bowls; a fourth carried a very good substitute for a table, spread with square plates and octagonal cups.

Ted fairly grabbed a bowl out of a robot's mechanical hands. He smelled it, poured a little into a cup and tasted it. Then he filled the cup and took it to the professor.

"Tastes like weak barley water—but it's wet!" he said. "Hope it isn't poison. That's an idea!" He drew it back as the professor reached for it, and drank deeply.

"Don't mean to be impolite," he apologized. "But if this stuff is poison you mustn't drink it."

The professor smiled gently.

"I do not think we must worry," he declared. "These men, they are now our friends."

"Oh, yeah?" grinned Ted. "And they like us so much they want to preserve us for their grandchildren!"

Ted was right, in spite of the professor's childlike trust, Alan thought. They must by all means guard their leader. If their expedition was to do anybody any good, for one thing, it was vitally necessary that he get back to earth. Anyway he was the only one who understood all about the Wanderer.

"Though I believe I could operate the bally ball," he told himself slowly. "Still, I hope I don't have to!"

Meantime he had gingerly tasted the lemon-colored, jelly-like substance in another bowl, and he was still alive!

"Tastes like guava," he announced, filling plates for Ted and the professor. "I'll take a chance."

They ate and drank ravenously. Wild excitement, hours of sustained danger, the psychological effect of a thousand new impressions every minute had worn them down more than they realized. If the flavor were strange, the food value was evidently high, for their appetites were satisfied with a second helping and the "barley water" quenched thirst almost instandy.

Alan woke from a dream of home, stretching. Ted snored lustily. The professor squatted on the floor, pondering on equations. "Older," thought Alan, "and needs less sleep." The couches were hard, and Alan winced at protesting bones and muscles, but with a full stomach and what he supposed to be a night's sleep—though pale-blue illumination gave no indication of sunlight or darkness—he felt a new man.

Then commenced a routine, interesting though monotonous, fascinating, and dreadful. Interesting, because the ceaseless procession passing beyond the barred doorway, as beyond that of tiieir first prison, was a never-ending source of speculation to Ted and Alan; monotonous, because there was nothing to do; fascinatingly dreadful, because of the ominous feeling of unseen danger.

The "eyes" of the machine watched winklessly, its arms working eternally. Alan watched it, enthralled, unable to forget it. What was it doing? Was it really writing?

Ted planned endlessly on methods of escape, and cheerfully discarded each idea for a new one. He gave no indication of fear, but Alan noted that his hand was seldom off his automatic.

The professor, oblivious to the machine and danger alike, worked for twenty hours at a stretch at Martian mathematics!

There was no manifestation of real danger. Robots brought the curious jelly and "barley water" to them twice daily. The professor covered the floor and the walls with red-chalk symbols; when his chalk gave out, new sticks were brought by the attentive robot with the next meal. Occasionally he gave brief attention to the mechanism behind the bars, but until Alan made a discovery, he was only casually interested.

The machine wrote with four arms at once, Alan saw. The yellow paper slowly unrolled and rolled up under the pens "like the telautograph they use in banks," he told Ted. The arms speeded up, he noticed, as he spoke. But they stopped as he finished his sentence, and he turned to Ted again.

"Curious it doesn't maintain constant speed. Suppose it is a stenographer?"

And immediately the arms got to work at top speed!

"Seems to speed up when we talk, all right," suggested Ted. But it didn't move as he said these words.

"My boy, its inactivity refutes you," stated Alan pompously, and pens flew over the paper!

"Uh-hunh!" chuckled Ted. "It's calling up disciples of Ananias!"

The machine wrote furiously, and Alan's eyes blazed. "Idea!" he shouted. "Now, watch. Yes, no, I guess so, perhaps, what is it, the professor, bars, robots, eat, drink."

Ted gazed at him with puzzled eyes. The machine arms rested quietly on the paper.

"Now," warned Alan. "Astronomical, pachyderm, World War, ichthyosaurus, Interstate Tariff Commission, contraband, eeny, meeny, miney, mo!"

As if touched by some secret spring, the mechanism responded immediately and speedily!

For five minutes longer, they talked at its "ear." Simple words evoked no activity. Words out of the ordinary provoked rapid writing. But when they repeated any of the unusual words to which the machine had at first responded, nothing happened!

"Beats me," Ted scratched his head. "Got any clue?"

Alan beamed.

"Notice that 'clue' made it write?" he queried. "There's the answer. That was a new word—a word the machine hadn't heard before. So it wrote it down. If it had been an old word, one we'd used, it wouldn't move. Watch!"

He stopped, thought a moment. Then: "Ted, Alan, Doc, sphere, robot. See? No action." He paused again, then again started speaking: "Aileron, infinitesimal, hypochondriac, bugger factor, Newtonia laws of momentum, expanding universe . . ."

Now the machine "took dictation" at top speed!

Even the professor was interested at Alan's discovery, and all three of them experimented until they were tired. They watched the endless procession of Martians and robots in the corridors; they ate and they slept; the professor worked at his problems—often with Alan looking on—until he had writer's cramp. Time seemed endless, for there was no night. They lived by their watches, automatically, wearily.

Finally a day arrived when, utterly bored in spite of the nameless fear, the horror of a ghastly death that was always in the background, they sat morose and silent on the couches. For hours no word was said. The strange machine moved never an arm.

Then, suddenly, the room was filled with a sharp, crackling noise—a noise like the electric sputter of a ship's wireless. For seconds it continued, while the three sat up, stared at each other in quick alarm. As suddenly, then, the sputter ended. For a moment dead silence hung in the room. Only for a moment.

"Talk! Talk more!"

From no place came that command—booming hollowly, sepulchrally. Alan leaped to his feet, eyes staring from his lean face; Ted's hand clutched his ever-ready gun!

"Talk!" said the voice. "Speak—words—say many words!"

It was the professor who recovered first from the shock the booming tones caused. He almost stuttered in his excitement.

"Die Machine! It is the machine that speaks!" Again those booming tones filled the chamber, precise and slow.

"Yes. It is the machine. Andund you must say many new words!"

It was uncanny. But it was a relief, for it was the only thing that had happened in their prison for days. Alan got over his amazement to try to question it.

"Who—what's in there? Are you another Martian?"

But the mechanism, patient and steady, volunteered only a puzzling explanation.

"It is the machine andund a brain. Many brains. You must talk."

Talk they did, excitedly and rapidly. What was this? How could a machine talk English if phonograph records hadn't been made for it? And not only talk, but answer questions? Alan made the first satisfying explanation.

"It sounds crazy, but this is what I think: the thing has been taking down all our words and sounds and sorting them out, all this time—studying them. Now it's using what it's got, but it wants more. More words, new words—"

"Yes," interrupted the hollow voice. "New words."

"—and if we talk enough, maybe it can carry on conversations with us, and—"

"—and teach us to jabber in iklackics," chuckled Ted.

"Not iklackic," said the machine. "Talk!"

So they talked. They became animated dictionaries, using all the words they could think of. They discussed every thing from physics to phrenology, baking to baseball; and the machine wrote busily and tirelessly. Occasionally it broke in.

"Doesn't it ever get tired?" demanded Ted, after many hours.

"Tired," said the machine. "Explain—tired." "Weary—worn-out—need sleep—exhausted—" answered Alan.

"Explain—explain!"

So Alan tried pantomime. Slouching across the room, he slumped wearily onto a couch. "I am tired," he declared. "Need sleep."

"Yes," responded the deep voice. "Tired andund fatigued mean alike."

Alan jumped up delightedly. "You've got it," he shouted. "But not andund.' Just 'and.' Ted and I say 'and.' The professor says 'und.' They mean the same thing."

The machine didn't make that mistake again. It made no mistakes twice, once an error was corrected. After the three found that it could see as well as hear, they started anew in its "education." For hour upon hour they kept at it, in word and pantomime. Some words—abstractions, such as "love" and "generous" and "moral"—they found they could not make clear to it. Concrete words the machine took in rapidly. Though the three finally dropped exhausted on their couches, to sleep, the machine proved to be quite tireless. It allowed them to sleep as long as they wished; but when Alan stirred and awoke, the boom of the big voice filled his ears.

"Sleep," it said. "Explain sleep."

"Well," began the youth slowly, "when you're tired out, you—" But the professor broke in.

"Sleep is a physiological state in which the conscious mind is in abeyance, the subconscious mind being in control of the living body und to some extent of its metabolism," he declared. "During sleep, the waste products of muscular activity are removed from the tissues and bodily repairs are made by the blood stream—"

"Hey, Doc," interrupted Ted, "talk sense. If I can't understand you, how can the machine?"

But he was wrong. The machine seemed to have made immense progress during the time they had slept.

"Known to Martians 100 by 30 years before," it said.

"Hundred by thirty—3,000," explained Alan. "One thousand is 10 times 100. I have 10 fingers." He held up his hands, taught the machine how to count.

So it went. The machine was omnivorous. Alan and the professor tried in vain to get it to talk of Mars, however. "Not yet," it always said. "Talk new words."

On and on—travel, college, mathematics, adventure, mechanics, relativity, art, athletics—they omitted nothing. Usually they found the machine understanding and intelligent. It was only when they got to those abstract ideas, those words that described emotions and sentiments, that they found it puzzled. They were to learn horribly and fearsomely, not long afterward, why the machine showed this deficiency.

It was when Alan started enthusiastically to tell about the Wanderer that Ted stopped him suddenly, his hand upraised. He leaned over, whispered to the professor. The professor nodded his head, and spoke to Alan in French.

"Do not say where we left the sphere!" he commanded. Alan, understanding quickly, nodded. Mustn't lose their one means of escape.

It was toward the end of the second day that, abruptly, a furious clanging like a giant alarm clock filled the chamber, and the machine sharply gave up writing and speaking. The men looked at each other in surprise; and almost at once there appeared at their barred doorway, a pair of robots, each bearing what looked like a big fire extinguisher.

While the men looked on curiously, the robots entered the room, opened a door in the bars that shut off the big machine, and attached hoses to the snouts of the "fire extinguishers" and to plugs in the machine's large central dome. Then they started pumping the handles on the devices. Oiling the machine, apparently—

"Or feeding it," suggested Alan aloud. "There must be something alive in there!"

That must have been right, he decided in an instant, for after the big dome was supplied, the robots repeated the procedure at each of the smaller domes. As the last dome

114                                              THE  YEAR   AFTER  TOMORROW

received its quota, the arms started writing again, and the huge voice repeated its unvarying demand: "Talk more!"

They talked until throats were sore, until it seemed that subjects and ideas would run out. Occasionally they slept, or paused for jelly and "barley water"; but mostly they talked. Finally Ted rebelled.

Tm done!" he announced. "I'm all talked out, and I don't care who knows it."

The machine was calm and undismayed.

"Talk," it commanded simply, "for the good of the whole."

Ted stared. "For the what?"

"The good of the whole. You are hoc iklackic"

Hac iklackic—those words again. "What's hac iklackic?" Alan demanded.

"Hac—not. Iklackic—below the permitted intelligence level," translated the machine. "Ask no questions. Words!"

"Hunh!" exclaimed Ted. "Even the robots are hac iklackic I suppose. Well, we're as smart as they are."

The supreme intelligence, the insatiable desire for knowledge, astounded them all. They could not stop. The machine would not let them. As long as they talked among themselves, it merely wrote; when they ceased, it demanded "more words."

"Notice that it never says T?" said Ted once. "Wonder why?"

"There is no T.' Good of the whole!" came the answer. "Talk!"

"Can you beat it!" grumbled Ted.

"You cannot," responded the machine calmly. "Good of the whole—good of the whole. If you are iklackic, you cannot comprehend good of the whole."

Ted scratched his head sadly. "One of us," he muttered, "is loony!"

And back came the machine: "Explain loony!"

After ten long hours, the machine at last desisted again. "Sleep," it commanded. "Then wake tomorrow—for the good of the whole."

So they slept. But Alan tossed and dreamed, and in waking spells he knew the others were not sleeping well either. Fear filled the air, fear of the unknown. What was this "good of the whole"? What would tomorrow bring? And how much longer could they stand the grilling through which the machine was putting them?

Hollow tones boomed through the room. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

Alan woke with a start, to see Ted sitting on his couch and rubbing sleepy eyes. He grinned.

"The machine's a polite alarm clock," Alan declared. "It learns fast."

Ted rose and made a sweeping bow. "Good morning, your honor," he said in the general direction of the big metal ear. "Except for the lack of a mattress, I slept well. And you?"

The machine boomed stolidly. "In diese domes there is no sleep. After you have had sustenance, you may ask questions."

Alan groaned inwardly, and Ted audibly. "Gosh!" he said. "I've answered all the questions there are. I hain't got none to ask!"

The sleep and Ted's attitude, however, made life look more cheerful. The jelly and "barley water" that arrived shortly helped too. The table was barely removed when the machine, silent while they ate, broke forth again.

"Three days have been spent in learning your language. Doubtless much remains to be learned, but enough is known to communicate. Little time remains, but the good of the whole is best served by instructing you. What do you wish to know?"

Ted's eager question came first: "Where do we go from here?" Alan and the professor took a bit longer, and Alan spoke while the professor was scribbling an equation on the floor.

"Are you alive? Is there a Martian in that dome?"

Alan's question the machine chose to answer first.

"In this central dome is a living bud of the Great Brain. In the smaller domes are buds of the Lesser Brain. Brains living in mechanism have not what you call ego, individuality, personality. They live, they think, they require sustenance. Eventually they wither. Some operate machines, like those in these domes and in the mechanisms you call robots.' A few are from the Great Brain. Most are from the Lesser."

That was the first of a long series of astounding explanations. Alan and the professor sat enthralled, shooting question after question at the big ear, listening in rapt attention to the answers. For four hours they learned, the professor more and more leading the questioning as the explanations became more and more scientific. Ted, whose practical queries drew only brief answers, obviously became bored. Suddenly, Alan's enthrallment was broken by a gentle snore. Ted was asleep!

The machine apparently noticed it as soon as did Alan, and there was almost scorn in its next remark:

"Your Ted is tired. You may rest."

"Aber no!" objected the professor. "I wish to know—*

"You may rest," repeated the machine with finality. "Perhaps the professor does not need it; the lesser brains do."

Alan grinned ruefully. Certainly the professor was miles ahead of him, but he was far from being uninterested. Still, he was glad of the chance to digest what he'd heard, and for an hour, while Ted snored, he went over Martian history.

The earth's civilization, it appeared, was at least fifty centuries behind that of Mars. The machine had spoken of the ancient day when Mars, too, had known emotional creatures—when the glorification of the individual, and not the good of the whole, had been the motivating force of the planet.

"Long ago," the machine had said, "Mars knew two races. One was fleshy and tender, and it came to live wholly underground, in these warm chambers you call caves; the other, hardier and less intelligent, lived on the surface, where it is very cold most of the year. There was warfare, and there was interracial trade; for the race above-ground had the red vegetation you have seen, from which comes all sustenance, and the race in the caves had factories where materials were fabricated.

"There came to be a great leader, Okokyok, in the hardier race you call beetle-like. He envisioned a unification of the two peoples, and he led a horde of his creatures into the caves, subjugated the softer race and made Mars a world of one people. He was great enough to take advantage of the biological and mechanical knowledge of the underworld dwellers, and he saw the possibilities of Mars' greatest feat—the perpetuation of the living brain.

"So, eventually, all the underworld race, as individuals, had disappeared; there remained only one hundred of their best brains, kept alive and made to bud by the very process the brains themselves had discovered. Followers of Okokyok developed the theory of the good of the whole— the theory on which Mars has lived for many centuries. They kept alive the Great Brain, a consolidation of the best brains they had saved, and produced the Lesser Brain which they learned to put into machines.

"Now we know that brains may be more potent in metal than in what you call life,'" the machine had gone on. "Thoughts are clearer when the brain has no concern with the mechanism which it rules. The brain which controls this 'loud-speaker' has nothing to do but speak; the other brains designed the machine itself. The brain in the central dome has nothing to do but think of language and its recording. Brains may be taught one thing only; that one thing they will do superlatively. Or, if they are buds of the Great Brain, they may know all things."

Alan smiled as he noted the professor's excitement. The professor certainly was nearer to understanding it than he was! But he was as glad as Dr. Lutyens when the machine abruptly asked for more questions. The professor had one ready.

"May we see the Great Brain?"

"That has not yet been decided. You are to see the Lesser Brain—all of you. Perhaps you alone, as the best brain of the three, may see the Great Brain."

On and on the catechism went. Usually the things the machine told them were scientific; but occasionally—and the occasions were often in response to Ted's questions— the big voice gave them hints about the actual life of the planet.

"Which of the brain buds do you use for fighters?" Ted demanded at one time.

"We do not fight," the voice answered calmly. "Fighting would oppose the good of the whole. We outlawed it hundreds of years ago. Since the day of Okokyok we have had no Martians who have disputes."

"You don't have much fun, then," chuckled Ted. "Don't the robots want to fight sometimes?"

"Never. Your brain is perhaps too nearly iklackic to understand it, but brains in the machines are educated to do only what they are told."

"No wonder I could lick that robot," Ted broke in. "I noticed that he didn't try to get me down. He simply seemed to want to get up and keep on doing the thing he had started."

"Exactly. That is a characteristic of the hac iklackic brain. The Martian theory of the good of the whole requires that any iklackic brain be destroyed, or used for the promotion of the general good. It was planned to destroy your brains because measurements showed what you call your heads to be below the required dimensions. But the mathematical ability of the professor proved him to be of sufficient intelligence, and so it was decided to permit him to live in his present form."

"Him! What about us?"

The words fairly burst from the young scientist. In his panic, his voice shook. What did the machine mean? Alan was afraid he knew only too well. He glanced at Ted, and saw the square jaw set, the right hand fingering the automatic. . . . Well, he could die fighting, too, if they had to die.

"What about us? What about Ted and me?" he repeated.

The machine evaded the question. "Time presses," it said. "You will be told, in time, of plans for you. Meanwhile, there are many questions to ask—"

The voice trailed off suddenly, and the warning bell clanged. As before, robots appeared, with cans of "sustenance" to feed the domes. While they were working, the three drew together in low-voiced conclave.

"Look here," demanded Ted, "what's this all about? It's got me stopped. This bodyless brains business—nobody on earth will believe it—"

Then he stopped suddenly, halted by the solemn look on Dr. Lutyens' face and the ironic grin on Alan's. Alan broke in.

"Do you really think," he whispered, "that you're ever going to see the earth again?"

Ted's jaw sank. The professor spoke slowly.

"If I were—the chief Martian," he pronounced, "I should see that visitors from the earth never returned."

Alan nodded. That was logical. But he discovered suddenly that he wanted terribly to return. He was far from ready to give up life.

"I see what you mean. But, before they keep me from going, they have to deal with the old automatic!"

Ted's head nodded grimly. "Attaboy. There'll be some pretty sick brains around here."

"We have come in peace," muttered the professor. But there wasn't conviction in his tone, Alan noted.

As they sat in silence, the youth's thoughts raced to what might come. Unknown horrors might be just around the corner. A race of people who knew no emotions, had no compassion, might do anything in the name of science. Already they had been almost preserved like a new kind of insect. What might be in store for them now?

The robots had finished their job, and Alan turned suddenly to the big ear.

"Look here! Do—do Martians suffer pain?"

The hollow voice boomed forth.

"Biological chemistry destroyed pain thirty centuries ago," it said. "You will suffer no pain."

Which wasn't reassuring. They would suffer no pain, but what else might they suffer?

Already, however, Dr. Lutyens had forgotten the unpleasant hints and was asking questions anew. For another hour it continued, with Alan sitting tensely listening and Ted wandering restlessly about the chamber. Suddenly, then, Ted broke in.

"I've heard enough! I want to see! When do we get to see the Lesser Brain!"

As if in wait for the question, there came suddenly from the door a volley of clicking Martian syllables. Whirling, Alan saw the King Bug, and listened to him conversing with the machine. Shortly he turned and left; then the machine spoke in English again.

"You will be conducted as you desire," it said, "when a guide has been prepared."

There followed, then, the most amazing "operation" the eyes of man ever viewed.

The bell of the machine rang. Two robots which appeared received instructions, left, returned at once with a third. With tools they proceeded—to the horror of the three men—to detach the dome of the third robot, as calmly as though they were removing the lid of a can. Next they took one of the small domes from the speaking mechanism of the machine.

And then, fascinated, Alan saw them place the second dome on the body of the robot. He saw the thick, blue-gray fluid inside the domes, the masses of what looked like fleshy tissue within each, the half-hundred tentacles that must be nerves. Transferring brains—as calmly and easily as though they were placing new spark plugs in an automobile motor!

The whole procedure took only five minutes. Then, the work completed, the machine spoke as the newly domed robot stood silent.

"This robot," it said, "speaks your language. It does not speak Martian, for it has not been educated in the Martian tongue! It is your guide; it will conduct you to the Hall of the Lesser Brain. Are you ready?"

As easily as that! No wonder, Alan thought grimly. These creatures had no sympathy, no pity, no ambition! They were, after all, little more than machines. There was something forbidding, ominous about it all. The utter coldness of it, the dimly veiled threats . . . What would they find in the Hall of the Lesser Brain?

Ted started them off.

"When do we commence?" he asked impatiently.

"When you will, you go," answered the robot, in precise, metallic syllables.

Down the long, underground corridors, then, their little procession went—went at a speed which soon had the professor puffing. For men and robots alike moved at a breakneck pace on Mars. Every place they passed busy creatures, living or machine-like, hurrying to get some place else or stolidly, efficiently at work at strange jobs. And in no place did any of the creatures pay them any attention.

They were ushered at last into a gallery overlooking a big circular hall. As in all this underworld, it was flooded with pale-blue light. In the center of the hall was what they had come to see.

Alan observed first what looked like a huge glass bowl, ten feet high and twice as broad. Affixed to countless openings around its sides were metal domes—domes that, they knew, would someday become "heads" for robots or other machines. Inside the bowl was a quivering, thick, blue-gray fluid; apparently it covered a more solid mass which, Alan knew, must be the Lesser Brain.

A hundred robots attended the great bowl—robots taller and slenderer than their guide; scarcely more than arms, legs and domes, these creatures. Half a dozen beetle-like Martians moved among them. Towering over them all was the King Bug, obviously the director of proceedings.

As the men watched, two robots went to one of the domes at the side of the bowl and detached it. Carefully, but with efficient speed, they placed it on the headless body of a robot at the side of the chamber and fastened it in firmly. Then the King Bug, supervising the operation, spoke clicking orders; and the brand-new robot hurried off to work as though it had for years been accustomed to its job.

"They turn 'em out like dollar alarm clocks!" marveled Ted.

"And they perform even better," added Alan. "But— what is it? How do they keep it growing? Doesn't it ever run out?"

Pedantically their robot-guide answered.

"It is the Lesser Brain," he began. "It grows eternally, a bud in each dome. When the bud has reached maturity, the dome is removed and attached to a machine. A new dome is placed—"

"Yes—that I see," interrupted Dr. Lutyens, his eyes sparkling. "But how does one feed it? That I cannot understand."

"Watch!" answered the robot simply.

They watched, and saw. What they saw was so astounding, so revolting that even Ted turned white.

Above the great bowl stretched a slender runway of pinkish metal, supporting a platform and a huge, coffin-like metal box with dials and control switches directly above the gray-blue mass. Down the runway from the gallery where they stood waddled a Martian—one of the living beings. A robot, standing beside the metal box, opened a kind of door, and they saw the Martian enter and stretch himself out on a kind of cot inside. Then the door closed, and the robot touched one of the control switches.

As the men gazed, there was the hum of machinery—it lasted but a few seconds. From an opening beneath the box, there dripped a blue-gray liquid, to fall into the bowl and mix with the mass there. Two robots approached down the runway, opened a door in the end of the box, and pulled out of it the stretcher-like cot. As they bore it away, Alan saw that the body of the Martian lay on it—

But the body had no head.

"Holy smoke!" breathed Ted. "A slaughterhouse—" But the professor was still the scientist. "Yes, yes," he

said eagerly. "Living brains feed the Lesser Brain. But—" The professors calmness was a relief to Alan, and he

broke in himself.

"He didn't object!" he exclaimed to the robot. "He went in there without a murmur."

"Certainly," said the robot. "It is for the good of the whole,"

Alan had seen enough.

"Let's get out of here," he said. He was halfway to the door when he felt a rubbery hand on his arm. He turned to face the huge, staring eyes of the King Bug.

"Kup imakrel" spoke the horny beak. And the hand drew him unmistakably forward.

If Alan had been able to hold back, he might have done so. He didn't care to see more of that kind of thing just then! But a strange fascination gripped him, and he followed the huge back of the King Bug; Ted and the professor followed at his heels. He heard whispered warnings from Ted as they went through the door.

"Get your gun ready!"

There was nothing startling about the sight shown them in the small chamber to which they were led. There was nothing in the room, in fact, beyond a metal stand in its center, a stand with something concealed under a metallic cloth on its top. As they entered the room, they heard the clang of bars behind them—prisoners again. But Alan forgot that in watching the King Bug.

For the huge bug strode to the stand, seized the metal cloth in the fingers at the end of his proboscis, twitched the covering away. On the stand the three men saw—two busts in pinkish metal—human busts.

"It's me," gasped Ted, clutching Alan's arm. "It's me— and you, Alan!"

There could be no doubt of it. The likenesses were photographic. But it was not the excellence of the sculpture that shocked Alan. Rather it was a fact that flashed to his mind the instant he saw the busts.

The skulls of the models were hollow, and they were cleft so that the back half was removable. That meant, he realized in a sickening flash, that they were left so that brains could be inserted.

"For Ted and me!" he gasped to the Big Keeper. The robot, understanding, replied:

"For Ted and you. In domes like these, your brains will live for ages. In their present puny shells they would wither in a short time. The purpose of Mars is to keep brains whole, alive, working, as long as possible."

Then another thought flashed at Alan.

"But the professor—where is his?"

That the robot could explain too.

"It has been decided to keep the professor as he is. His brain is superior to both of yours, and will be able to give to Mars much information about the science of the earth. For the good of the whole, he is to live unchanged; you two—"

He did not finish the sentence, for metallic syllables came then from the doorway. The bars lifted, and a dozen robots filled the room, stolidly coming through the door. The professor, his face pale, turned wildly as though looking for escape. Alan's hand sought his automatic, jerked it from his pocket, as he saw Ted backing to the wall, his gun already trained on the King Bug.

"The King Bug's mine," growled Ted. "You watch the robots."

Tensely they stood there, automatics trained on the "enemy." Alan almost grinned, in spite of their danger, as he saw the complete indifference of the great Martian. One thing these fellows couldn't learn—that automatics might cause "accidents."

The robots advanced, and Alan's finger trembled on the trigger. But suddenly his gun wavered, fell; for the robots, following clicking syllables from the King Bug, were paying no attention to the three men. Instead, they picked up the pink metal statues of Alan and Ted and stolidly carried them away.

As quickly at that, another moment of seeming peril passed.

The Keeper of the Lesser Brain pointed to the doorway. "Erk kap!" he commanded.

Alan looked to their robot for interpretation, but the motionless figure brought back to him the fact that the robot could understand Martian no more than he could. He looked at Ted.

"Guess the old boy wants to take us for a ride. Well, let's go. But—" he lowered his voice to a whisper—"keep your gun handy!"

Ted grumbled. "We're taking things too easy! What we ought to do is go back to the Hall of the Lesser Brain and shoot it up."

Alan spoke sharply.

"Shut up, Ted! The robot can understand what you say! That wouldn't do us any good anyway."

"We have come in peace," murmured the professor doubtfully. "Let us do no harm."

"Swell idea for you!" grunted Ted. "But they're not going to can you in a monument!"

They were walking back through long, blue corridors now, the Martian, Alan, Ted, Dr. Lutyens, the robot; and Alan was thinking at top speed. Slowly a plan was taking shape in his head; they couldn't fight their way out, so they'd have to use brains. Well, they'd try.

At length they found themselves back at the chamber where reposed the great talking machine. Once there, the King Bug spoke rapidly to the machine. It responded briefly, then boomed forth with a translation.

"It is necessary to have more information," it declared. "For two days you are to be questioned. Then the professor will be taught to speak Martian, while the other two will be used otherwise for the good of the whole."

The cold-bloodedness of it sent shivers down Alan's spine, and he saw Ted's furious scowl. But the professor, as delighted as a child with a new toy, had entirely forgotten his companions in his joy over his intellectual adventure.

"I will be the first man to speak Martian," he declared, his deep eyes gleaming. "Und the first to understand their secrets."

Ted grunted angrily.

"If you'll pardon my French, professor, that's boloney! What good'll it do you or anybody else, if you never get back to earth? I think we ought to start shooting, and do it now."

His big chest swelled, and he shot his square jaw forward belligerently. But Alan spoke calmly.

"I want to get back as badly as you do, old man. But shooting isn't the way to do it."

"I suppose you know a better way!" Ted was bitter.

"Maybe. I haven't it all worked out, but we'll see. Not now, though." He sank his voice to a whisper. "The talking machine wants to ask us things, and we've got to keep our plan secret from it. From the robot, too."

So, while Ted chafed and Alan planned, the inquisition opened anew. The two of them let the professor do most of the talking, and that seemed to satisfy both him and the machine. There was three hours of it that day. Then the machine announced as it had done before, that it was time for them to rest. Food was brought, and the bars of the doorway clanged shut for the night.

Ted demanded explanation. Alan, at last, was ready to give it. Sitting close together on a couch in the far corner of the room, the three went into executive session. The robot stood near, as inanimate as the couch they sat on. Alan looked at it in puzzlement for an instant. Then:

"Go over to the other side of the room. Wait there!" he commanded.

The robot obeyed, as docile as a pet pup! Alan's eyes gleamed, and spots of color flamed in his lean cheeks.

"That's the secret of my plan," he explained eagerly. "The robot understands only English, and the robot brain is trained to accept commands and carry them out. It doesn't plan, nor use judgment. It merely does its job."

"Yes," said Ted. "But how does that help—"

"Here's the scheme," broke in Alan. "Tomorrow we'll be questioned some more. We'll answer at length, of course. But maybe you noticed this. While they're questioning us, the bars at the doorway are open! That means that, under the right circumstances, we can simply walk out of here! Doesn't it?"

"Sure," said Ted, his tone doubtful. "But where to? We have to cross the Great Hall, and do about innumerable miles of corridors, and we're sure as thunder to get lost."

"That's where the robot comes in!" interrupted Alan. "We'll tell him to lead us to the entrance to the underworld, and he'll do it!"

"By gosh!" murmured Ted. "I believe you're right. Still, there are thousands of Martians and robots around to stop us—"

Here the professor took up the story, nodding his head approvingly.

"You have planned well, young Alan," he declared. "We have noticed, many times, that the creatures here pay to us no attention. They think of nothing but the good of the whole. They will let us pass without a question. I believe you can get to the Wanderer."

Alan interrupted sharply, his face suddenly drawn.

"You! What do you mean? We can get away—all three of us!"

Dr. Lutyens nodded apologetically. "Achy ja—we, of course. We can pass them by with as little notice as we have many other times. But if—well—" Ted was staring at him, questioningly. "If what?"

The professor examined his slim fingers.

"You boys are but boys. You have your lives ahead of you. I am old. I have lived my life. You can return to the earth, und, there, perhaps can build another und greater Wanderer. Alan knows its workings. But I—I have dreamed all my life of Mars. Und they will treat me well. They do not wish to kill me. So perhaps—"

Ted broke in angrily. "If you think we're going to go away and leave you here, you're crazy!"

The professor smiled.

"Of course. That is what I expect you to say. Und I promise to go with you if I can. Alan's plan, it is a good one. Aher a plan that may require running—und I am old. I cannot run as young men can. So if there is running, you must go on if I falter. Some of us must get back to earth."

"Nothing doing! We all go, or nobody goes!"

That was Ted, excited and protesting. But Alan looked sober.

"Perhaps the professor's right, Ted. Some of us must get back to earth, or the whole trip won't mean a thing. Maybe we better agree this way—that if any one of us gets left behind, and rescuing him would prevent the other two from getting to the Wanderer, the other two should go on. Is that fair?"

Eagerly Dr. Lutyens broke in.

"]a, ja—that is very fair. We will all try to escape— all three. But if two can make it, shall we not say that it is their duty to go on?"

Alan nodded his head slowly, and Ted was silent for an instant.

"Well," he said at last, "maybe that's the dope. It sounds all right. But I have never yet left a comrade in the lurch."

"It is for science!" argued the professor excitedly. If two could get through to the sphere, they must not sacrifice their chances too much to the third. An unpleasant alternative, but all became convinced that it was the right decision.

Then came sleep. "We need plenty of it," Alan warned. "Tomorrow's a big day."

He found himself so tired that, in spite of the nerve-racking prospects of the "big day" ahead, he slept like a baby.

He grinned when he awoke to find the robot standing exactly where it had been sent the night before. It hadn't moved a joint! The professor was already awake, lying on his cot with his eyes staring into a land of imagination. Ted snored heartily. Alan gave a command to the robot! "Bring us food!"

At once the machine-man went to the barred door. It was impassable. Then the talking machine gave a booming command to the Martians in their language and robots outside at once opened the bars.

When the robot returned with a big bowl of jelly, then left again for "barley water," Ted, now awake, pointed out another favorable feature. "He has to do the whole job himself. He can't ask any of these other robots to help him."

But the appearance of the giant King Bug soon cast a damper over their hopes, for he draped himself over one of the Martian "chairs" and commenced an inquisition of his own.

For hours then, the questioning went on. The Martian's desire for information was insatiable. ITe clicked out questions in Martian; the machine translated them; one of the three answered; the machine re-translated. "What are those things you call clothes? Why do you wear them? If the professor is a mathematician, and Alan, a physicist, what is Ted? An explorer, an adventurer—what do you mean by those terms? Explain traveler. Explain Jack-of-all-trades."

More and more he questioned. He demanded information about the sphere, its operation and its location, and Alan grinned at the misleading answers the professor slyly gave him. That was smart. Everything depended on the Wanderer s being where they wanted it, in working order, when they wanted it. The King Bug kept on: medicine, biology, surgery, astronomy seemed to be child's play to him. He forgot nothing, and the directness and intelligence of his questions frequently astounded Alan.

While the professor talked—and it became necessary for Dr. Lutyens to answer most of the questions—Alan worried. His plan did not contemplate the presence of the King Bug, and with the big Martian there, they might have difficulty. Ted, too, was becoming restless. Time was becoming short.

"Let's shoot the big boy!" begged Ted in a whisper. "We've only got today."

Alan shook his head. That might ruin everything.

"We'll have to think of something else," he returned. "Give me a little time . . ."

For half an hour he thought hard. Then, determined on a desperate stroke, he rose to his feet.

"Ready?" he demanded of his two companions, his voice tense.

"Ready!" gritted Ted. From the professor came a doubtful "ja." The machine at once translated the words for the Martian; but this did not worry Alan, for he counted on the King Bug's not understanding. The moment had come.

He went to the robot and asked a question in a very low voice.

"Can you lead us to the Great Hall?"

"Yes," said the machine-man calmly.

"Take us there, then!" commanded Alan. "Come on!"

While his heart beat desperately, he marched out of the chamber behind the robot, Ted and the professor following in his wake. The King Bug remained draped on his chair, watching calmly. It would be next to impossible for him even to think of trying to escape, Alan hoped. He could think of nothing but the good of the whole.

So out into the corridor went the little parade. As always, there were dozens of robots and a few Martians hurrying through the blue light; but they paid no attention to the men.

The first step had been taken!

Down the corridor they went. The robot led with business-like stride, swift to follow command. After him, Alan followed, his heart beating high with hope, yet the hand on his gun trembling with fear. Next Ted, muttering a plea for speed. Finally Dr. Lutyens, taking short little steps to keep up with the procession.

Down the corridor they went. They brushed elbows with Martians on two legs and robots on three; they were as little noticed as though they had been invisible. They rounded a corner, and Alan saw ahead of him the circular vault of the Great Hall. In its blue light he glimpsed dozens of big-eyed Martian creatures, draped on their pedestals. A council meeting.

He thought rapidly. So far everything was all right. They might get through the big hall and they might not. If they did, and no alarm were given—if once they got headed up that last, long, sloping corridor that led to fresh air—their chances would be good.

The robot stopped as they entered the hall, its duty done. None of the Martians saw them.

"Do you know the corridor that leads to the outdoors?" he asked.

"Yes," returned the metallic voice.

"Lead us there!"

At once, unquestioning, the robot started off. The three men followed, hoping—

But hoping vainly! For suddenly, there rang from behind them the clanging gong of the talking machine, echoing through the vaulted chambers like a many-tongued monster. After it, there sounded the clacking of the King Bug's high-pitched voice.

"Kop iklackic!"

At once the crowd in the big room stirred. Here it was—

"Faster!" Alan ordered the robot. Lucky the thing didn't understand Martian!

Faster it went, skirting the edge of the room and apparently headed for a wide opening opposite the big dais. Martian voices were clicking and clacking now; from the corridor they had just left, came that call again: "Kop iklackic!" And there came also the pad of running metallic feet. The King Bug was after them!

They had reached the entrance to the long corridor now, and the robot hurried around the turn. But Ted called a halt.

"If we can stop them here a second—" he said. "Wait!"

The robot halted dead, and Alan was forced to stop. Ted was standing in the big opening, facing back along the way they had come; with one hand he was pulling the professor back into the entrance.

"I'll get the King Bug!" he cried, his voice vibrant. "That ought to hold them awhile. Professor, you hustle on. Alan, you watch the rest."

The King Bug had appeared now, waddling at amazing speed on his thin legs. As he approached, his orders galvanized the crowd to action. The Martians rose from their perches, and robots around the wall started to close in on the three men. The Keeper of the Lesser Brain was now only a few feet away, and Ted was holding his automatic steadily.

Twice it roared. The big Martian sank to the stone floor without a sound, a huge rent in his horny chest.

The shooting, for an instant, had the effect Ted wanted. The Martians, at least, halted to observe this "accident." Not the robots. They had been given instructions, and were bent on carrying them out. On they came, swiftly, methodically.

"Let's go!" cried Alan. "Outdoors! And make it fast!"

At once the robot sprang into action, and the three men went tearing in its wake. They were only a few feet ahead of the pursuit now. And these three-legged machine-men possessed not only speed but endurance, Alan knew.

A plan formed in his head. He stepped aside, let die others pass. Whirling, he faced the oncoming rush of robots. His automatic spoke six times, and the three lead-ing robots crashed to the floor.

"That'll stop em!" he gritted. "Keep going!"

From the corner of his eye he saw the robots behind the leaders stumble and fall on die fallen creatures. That was what he wanted! He put on a burst of speed to catch Ted and the professor, and as he reached Dr. Lutyens, he realized that the pace was already telling on the older man.

"Can you make it?" he asked.

"I am—all right!" gasped the little professor. "About me you—must not worry."

On they went. How far they had to go Alan did not know—the corridor had seemed miles long when they had come down it. But the pile-up in the corridor had given them a precious fifty yards, and things looked brighter.

Not for long. Though Alan speeded up the robot again, though the three men ran valiantly to keep up, the pursuers gained. Alan and Ted were almost even with the robot, the professor a pace or so behind. Even so, the two younger men were breathless. Alan had strength to think of little but himself.

Then, suddenly, the pursuit seemed to have lessened. Rushing on up to the corridor, past smaller passages to right and left, Alan suddenly realized that they had gained ground. And with a flash he realized something else.

The professor was no longer behind them!

"Ted! The doc—"

He halted instantly, and Ted called a command to the robot. Looking back along the corridor, they could see in the dim light, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards away, the pursuers streaming around a corner into a side corridor!

"Doc—he got lost!" That was Ted.

But Alan, somehow, knew differently. Dr. Lutyens was not lost. Falling behind, knowing he could not keep up the pace, he had turned off the main passage. He had made of himself a decoy, so that Alan and Ted could get away!

"He went there—to save us!" Alan gasped. "We must save him!"

Together they started back. Then Ted's hand caught Alan's arm, held him.

"We can't do a thing, old man. To go back there would mean we'd be caught like rats. And we promised—"

There was no time to ponder. Like lightning, thoughts flowed through Alan's head. The Martians would not kill the old man. They knew no revenge. They wanted him alive for science. The two of them could do nothing—and they had promised... .

"Okay," he growled. "I hate leaving—but—" So another command started the robot off again, and again they ran up the blue corridor. They started none too soon. Apparently a Martian had discovered the ruse, and again a stream of robots was after them. How long could they last? Alan asked himself. Ted had an inspiration.

"Grab the robot's arm," he gasped. "I'll get—the other—" That suggestion was a lifesaver. For their weight, dragging behind, seemed not to hinder the robot in any way, and they were able to make almost as good time as the machine-man.

On and on they raced. Ever upward the corridor led. It seemed to Alan that they must have climbed five miles. His own breath came in tortured bursts, and he could tell that Ted was not in much better shape. And then—

Far ahead he saw a brightening of the dim blue light. They rounded a little curve, and to his eyes came the most welcome sight he had ever beheld. The corridor ended, and ahead was the opening that led out of the underworld!

That sight, though, was as nothing to what they saw when, lungs burning and throats parched, they broke suddenly into dull Martian daylight. For there, not a hundred yards away, perched on a huge platform on legs, was the Wanderer!

Even then, Alan's first thought was of disaster. "They've moved it!" he gulped. "What if they've jimmied the machinery?"

"Find that—out later!" grunted Ted grimly. "Lets get there!"

And get there they did, in record-smashing time. Around the big platform crawled half a dozen of the six-legged machines, but to the men, the machines paid no attention. A leap took Ted onto the platform, and in an instant, Alan was beside him. The robot stopped like a trained dog, his duty done.

From the cave poured scores of the robots and Martians, the Martians clacking commands to the machine-men and the machine-bugs as well!

"Inside!" gasped Alan. "We've got to—get inside!"

The hatchway door was closed. Ted's eager fingers worked at the catch, and three robots were but five feet away! The door swung open, and with a heave of his husky arm, Ted lifted Alan—now all but exhausted—and half threw him through the opening.

"Get in!" he grunted to the robot, and the creature scrambled through in an instant. Then Ted leaped for safety—too late!

For the pursuit caught up to them there, and Alan heard the door clang shut with Ted outside.

His brain cleared in a trice, and from somewhere he found strength. A desperate scheme flashed into his mind— but the situation was more than desperate! He leaped to the barred shelves of the Wanderer and found what he wanted. A clip of shells for his automatic, quickly thrust into place; half a dozen dynamite cartridges, thrust into the rubbery hands of the robot.

Then he jumped to the door of the sphere, threw it open. There, as he feared, was Ted—a wrestling captive in the hands of three machine-men. Only one thing to do!

Alan did it. He leaped to the platform, planted the muzzle of his gun against a robot's dome, pulled the trigger. Twice more, and the three were out of commission. Ted was free!

"Get in!" Alan shrieked. "I'll stop 'em!"

He ordered the robot out of the sphere and helped to push Ted, now completely exhausted, inside. Then he rasped out commands to the robot.

"When I say 'go,' run to meet the robots coming out of the corridor. Understand?" The robot clicked a metallic, "yes," and Alan scratched a match on die silvery side of the sphere. With its sputtering flame he lit the fuses of the dynamite bombs in the robot's hands—and the pursuit was only fifty feet away!

"Go!" he yelled.

With his last strength he hauled himself once more inside the Wanderer, slammed the door shut. He managed to get his face to a porthole just in time to see the weirdest of weird scenes.

Their robot, obeying his last command, had dashed to meet the oncoming throng. Apparently a Martian in the group had uttered an order, for the whole crowd stopped dead. Just then the dynamite cartridges exploded, one after another!

For an instant the air was full of flying machines. A rain of metal fell on the sides of the Wanderer. A light smoke cleared, and where there had been a metallic throng an instant before, there was now only a hole in the ground.

"That ends that," said Alan, his face sober. "Now we're going—"

He forced himself to climb to the control board, pushed

\

the switches as the professor had taught him. With a rush the great sphere shot upward, and in a moment the master minds of Mars were far below. . ..

The return journey was longer than had been the first half of the expedition. The planet would be a hundred million miles from earth when they landed. Perhaps, too, Alan's handling of the Wanderer and plotting of the course were not so skillful as the professor's.

After shooting through the atmosphere of Mars at the speed of lightning, grateful that the Martians had not harmed the Wanderer, they slept the clock around. Then two took up the routine three had practiced.

Carefully, each day, Alan increased the air pressure inside the sphere. They had become accustomed to the rarefied atmosphere of Mars, and it was necessary to get back to earth pressure. Once again they became weightless and had to pull themselves from bed to stove to porthole by ropes. Once more they speculated on the chance of striking an asteroid, but now the possibility of such an instantaneous, painless death seemed almost pleasurable when compared to the horrors they had been through.

They talked endlessly of the professor. They discovered how fond they had both become of the mild-mannered little man, the man to whom life on Mars seemed truly preferable to that on earth because it would increase his fund of knowledge.

They agreed definitely on one thing:

"Someday, somehow, we'll get back there and see whether we can't bring him away with us!"

"We'll build a larger Wanderer," Alan dreamed. "Perhaps one capable of housing one hundred men. With the professor's help, we'll strike a truce so that we can explore the whole planet."

Days wore on, and the sphere tore on. Nothing went wrong. Astronomical observations indicated that they were on the right track. And suddenly one day, Ted uttered a shout:

"It's getting darkl"

Sure enough! That meant, Alan realized at once, that they were dangerously near the earth. The earth was between them and the sun!

A look from the porthole told him the truth of his realization. Far, far away—yet close enough so that he could recognize the familiar outlines of continents learned first from globes in schoolrooms—he could see the huge ball.

Then it was a question of the most skilful kind of navigation of the Wanderer. For he had to reverse it—turn it completely around as had the professor so that it would land right side up. He had to control its speed so that, when it did land, it would not be in an African jungle or an Arctic waste. That took two days—two days during which he often descended to within a few miles of the surface, then shot up again a hundred miles! But at length he was on the right course. He was over North America, then the United States, and finally the right state, the right city, and the right building.

Then he looked at Ted, a grin on his face.

"One minute more and we'll be there," he announced. "Are you ready to be called a liar?"

Ted stared.

"What do you mean?"

"My boy, nobody's going to believe for a minute that we've been to Mars. They'll say we've been dreaming."

Ted chuckled.

"It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare! But—" He halted, and Alan looked at him curiously. "But what?"

"It was a dream for die old doc, and we'll make 'em believe it's so. What do you say?" Alan grinned again.

"I say you bet! The professor gets the credit." The Wanderer bumped gently on the roof of Dr. Lut-yens' laboratory.

BY VIRTUE OF

CIRCUMFERENCE

By PETER VAN DRESSER

T

J-HERES many a second mate on the Interplanetary ships, sir, as would begrudge me this second 'elping of lemon pie. But a man must keep up 'is strength. Moreover, there 'ave been times when my corpulence 'as been an instrument of providence. Yes, sir! If Timothy 'awkins, the 'umble space cook now lunching with you, 'adn't measured exactly forty-nine and three-quarters inches in circumference on a certain occasion, one of the finest officers in the service wouldn't be where he is today!

Seventeen years ago it was, that occasion, and a desperate agonizing time. But it cheers me to think of it now.

And I need cheering when a second mate starts talking about what 'e terms my gross tonnage. You've no idee, sir, the things I 'ave to bear up with. Not that I 'old any ill will against the second mates. They're the lads that 'ave to figure acceleration, you know, and if they overlook any rightful ways and means of lightening the ship's load, the service suffers. I wouldn't 'ave that 'appen—I 'ave my loyal pride in the service.

I don't need to tell you, sir, that Interplanetary is the

145 greatest merchant marine of the ether. No more do I need to point out that Interplanetary offers the swiftest and safest transportation service which 'as yet been developed, and that it covers millions upon millions of miles, making calls at every known port in the solar system. All these things you, sir, being an expert in such matters, know very well.

But it may be that you 'ave never ad occasion to realize that an 'umble space cook like myself may take as 'igh a pride in the service as the captain of the mightiest space liner that ever made the run from Earth to Mars. Because I 'ave that 'igh pride, I 'old no 'ard feelings to speak of against second mates. They 'ave their dooty to do.

As I was saying, they must figure acceleration; they 'ave to know the weight of a ship down to the last ounce, and they 'owl like fury at any extra poundage. I've lost track of the number of times second mates 'ave told me ow much power it takes to drive my carcass up to orbital speed. Runs to the millions of foot-pounds, it does, and some of 'em 'ave been real nasty about it.

But I can bear up. I can even feel bright and appy when I think of 'ow seventeen years ago my circumference was the turning point, you might say, of a man's life.

Since you insist on 'earing about it, sir, it was this way. Seventen years ago—

Oh, no, sir, thank you, sir. No more pie. My ship's due to accelerate this afternoon, and the second mate might be annoyed if he learned I'd 'ad a third 'elping.

. . . Well, since you press me, maybe I could tuck away a bit more.

Very tasty lemon pie, sir. There's no denying it's a rare pleasure to eat of somebody else's 'andiwork, and I can go on with the story as I eat.

It was this way. Seventeen years ago, fate so arranged it that I was cook aboard the Algol, a smallish ship of the Triple-O line; and further arranged things so that a freckled runt of a kid fresh out of North American Astro-nautical School signed up as cadet apprentice aboard the Algol. Prescott, 'is name was.

The Algol was a little worn-out transport that ad originally been used on the Venus orbits, but owing to 'er low cargo lift and general seenile dementy, she 'ad been retired from interplanetary runs and was being let out for small jobs near ome.

I should mention that fate had also arranged that the throat of this craft's main exhaust nozzle was precisely fifteen and eight-tenths inches in diameter. Not that I 'ad such intimate knowledge of the Algol's insides at the start of this particular voyage. I learned it in a desperate hour, sir, and Prescott shared the hour.

Prescott, 'e wasn't ighly promising material for officer-ship at the time 'e shipped aboard the Algol. 'E was a 'ornery little runt barely out of 'is teens, with a freckled phiz and a cowlick of wild-looking yellow hair. But there 'e was, all ready for is four years of apprentice service before 'e tried for 'is junior course-navigator's papers.

Well, the Algol at this time ad been chartered by the International Stereographic Survey for one of its very special undertakin's. It seems that this year the Delporte Object was due for a perihelion approach. The Delporte Object, in case you 'ave never been interduced, is a planetoid 'ardly more than 'alf a mile across. It was especially interesting to the Survey people because it occasionally came within less than a million and a 'alf miles of Earth, and because it 'ad a 'ighly eccentric orbit. So they 'ad decided to establish an observation station on it, and the Algol was chartered for transport service.

There, sir, you 'ave the picture. Two complete round trips we was scheduled to make. On the first round trip we was to carry a couple of small dismantled air cells, maintenance machinery, and the installation crew. On the next, supplies, scientific gear, and the three men to staff the station.

When we accelerated out of Mount Kenia spaceport for the first passage, we carried a skeleton crew, for the passage at the most wouldn't take more than five days each way. Master of the Algol was Captain Flynn, an old-timer in the Survey service—a good enough man in a solemn sort of way. The rest of the crew I 'ardly remember, except the chief engineer and 'is assistant, who figger somewhat in this story. And of course the two lads we 'ad along as cadets—young Prescott and another chap named Cunningham.

Some might say the passage was uneventful, but to a man with a discerning eye there is always some small 'uman drammer being played out aboard a ship. In this case, 'twas the actions of the two cadets that supplied the drammer. You see, sir, Captain Flynn was a man who took 'is work deadly serious, and this passage was a bit tricky. Close navigatin' was needed to connect up with a wee mite of a thing like this Delporte Object—a mere lump of rock all but invisible against the blazin' stars of outer space—and 'e was worried all the while about losing time locating it or making 'is landing.

The two cadets were just two more worries for im, since e was bounden to make out a full report of their characters and their actions aboard 'is ship, for the consideration of the Board of Commissions. This is a serious responsibility, of course, for 'tis no easy thing for a young man to qualify for the service and a doubtful report from a ship's master as punctured many a candidate.

Well, from the first young Prescott grated Captain Flynn the wrong way. 'E was a belligerent little cuss; think 'e must 'ave 'ad to fight 'is way through training school, not only because 'is folks was poor but also because 'is pugnacious looks was against 'im. I judge 'e'd 'ad to stand up for 'imself so much and so 'ard that it'd become a regular 'abit with 'im. He seemed to carry a chip on 'is shoulder constant.

Young Cunningham, on the other hand, was one of these diplomatic young fellers, well-built and 'andsome. 'Ad good family connections, and knew 'ow to use 'em and ow to get 'imself ahead through tact and a bit o' smart soft soap now and then. 'E knew just when to be on 'and, and when to keep 'imself out of the way. When Flynn was frettin' over something, Cunningham would stay discreet-like in the background. But when the Old Man was in a good 'umor, 'e'd 'over around, and ask polite easy questions, and play up the studious, deferential young man in fine shape. I could see the master lappin' it up, and saying to 'imself what an excellent young man Cunningham was.

Not that I minded that; maybe he was an excellent young man. But I could also see the Old Man's opinion of Prescott dropping lower and lower—and I 'ad taken a real liking to that chap. 'E 'ad guts (if you'll pardon the expression, sir) and e 'ad brains. If 'e only could 'ave been gotten out of tliat pugnacious state of mind of 'is!

But everything 'e did was designed perfect to irritate a man of Flynn's nature. 'E would argue with the Old Man about points of theory (on which of course 'e was fresher) and would show 'im up. E would criticize the way things was run in die service and would show no respect for things Flynn 'eld in 'igh esteem. I could see 'e knew 'e was not helping 'imself by such goings on, but some imp drove 'im on.

You may wonder ow I knew all this, sir, but in a ship as small as the Algol there was no steward or cabin boy and I served the table myself. I was distressed, sir—for I knew that fine material for the service was likely to be spoiled if things went on.

Well, in spite of his worries, Captain Flynn picked up the Delporte Object at a neat three thousand miles or so, and in a few hours we jockeyed alongside, and 'ung there while three of the construction crew went out through the air lock in space suits and dropped down to the barren craggy surface of that forsaken lump of rock.

You know, sir, one of the problems in setting up a station on those planetoids is the insignificant gravity of 'em. The 'eaviest man weighs but a few ounces, and is in danger of kicking 'imself away into space if 'e's a least bit careless. Consequently the first thing they do is make a strong anchorage to attach the air cells to and all the rest of the gear.

Making such anchorages is chancy work, sir. You see a man can't just stand on the planetoid and drive a stake or a drill into it. For since 'e 'as no weight, the minute 'e shoves down on any tool, instead of drivin' it into the ground, 'e simply shoves 'imself off into space! So they use what is called a recoil drill. This is no more than a rotary drill driven by power through a cable from the ship. Only instead of depending on its weight to drive it in, as you would on Earth, it 'as a small rocket motor built into the top of it that forces it in while the drill teeth are cutting. After this ingenious contraption bores a good deep ole into solid footing, they shove an anchor rod into it and cement it in so as to give em something solid to work from.

I take off my 'at to the men that do such work, sir, for they do 'ave their courage. I watched 'em for a while through one of the ports, out there in their shiny suits and 'elmets, with sunlight blistering down on 'em and the 'ori-zon of their new world curving a few 'undred yards away from them, with cruel black space beyond.

And while I was watching, a comical thing 'appened. One man was standing by 'olding the upper part of the drill, waiting to screw it in place when the other two got the tripod set. I noticed he seemed a bit fidgety, and all of a sudden the thing gave a whoosh of flame, and 'e and the drill went flying off into space like a blooming pin-wheel! 'E must 'ave been twiddling with the controls and set off the little rocket motor accidentally.

Well, there was a deal of fuss; signal bells rang all over the ship, and Captain Flynn nearly strangled with excitement. The man was flying off at about twenty miles an hour, and in no danger unless we might lose 'im in space. Which we didn't. But we spent 'alf an hour maneuverin' after 'im with our steering Jets, and shooting 'im a life line, then maneuverin' back over the landing crew again.

When we finally got the chap alongside, what did we see behind 'is 'elmet glasses but Prescott's 'omely little mug! It seemed the lad 'ad persuaded the chief of the construction crew to let 'im go along and 'elp! Flynn fair danced a 'ornpipe with rage, and I could see a whole swarm of black marks going down on the lad's record.

Well, after this delay, and as soon as everything 'ad been passed down the cable, and they'd assembled one of the air cells and reported okay, the accelerate-ship bells sounded and our main jets blasted us away from the Del-porte Object and threw us into the course for 'ome.

To make a long story short, in eleven days we were back again, with the final consignment of equipment and the staff from Survey headquarters. We found the station complete; several dome-shaped air cells 'ad been anchored to the planetoid's surface, solar power machines were set up, life lines stretched, and everything set. And old Flynn, in a desperate 'urry because 'e was behind schedule, gave the men just three hours to unload the rest of the gear.

'Twas on the final return trip that important events connected with my circumference took place.

Flynn 'ad worked us into a nice 'yperbolic course for Earth, which was 'anging off to one side about as big as a lonesome winter moon—a mere step away, not more than a few days' free coursing; and things was going as well as could be expected aboard the old cheese-grater. Except for young Prescott.

I was sorely distressed about the young chap, sir. Since that business of the construction crew, 'is genius for saying the wrong thing 'ad got 'im in worse and worse with Flynn. The lad 'ad a fine inquiring mind, sir; 'e was continually asking for permission to go on dooty with this or that machineman, for 'e liked to burrow into all the workings of the craft. A laudable thing, of course, but Flynn

by this time was so galled with 'im that 'e took it all in the wrong light.

I remember it came to me second'and, sir, how Flynn and die chief engineer, doing a bit of inspection together, came on young Prescott in the engine room, all excited over a fitting.

"Look at this!" 'e bursts out, so interested 'e forgets both the chip on 'is shoulder and 'is manners, and talks to them as 'e might to two cronies. "See 'ere. I've been studying the engine-room layout, and if you uncoupled this inner compression fitting on the turbulizer volute, you could—"

Flynn didn't even let 'im finish. "Don't you start uncoupling fittings!" he roars.

The poor kid sort of jumped as if ed been waked up sudden and unpleasant, and then 'is freckled phiz gets all of a blaze.

But before e can make matters worse by saying anything, Flynn is starting on again, frowning and fuming under his breath: "Impertinent young pup! Must be shown 'is place."

Things more or less like that went on continual. I could see Prescott wasn't likely to get much of a report, but what could I do? A man must learn 'is own lessons, and Prescott 'imself was as much at fault as anyone.

At about the 'alfway mark, the chief engineer and Captain Flynn 'ad a conference. I could 'ear them talking worried-like as I cleared the table.

"Why didn't you attend to this on the ways at Kenia?" Flynn growls out.

The engineer shrugs. "Widi four hours to refuel and overhaul!" 'e snorts. "I tell you the job's just as well done now. If you can spare me two able-bodied men for three hours, we'll take care of it."

Flynn groans and finally says, "All right, all right. I suppose I can let you ave the two cadets. They've got to learn the messy end of their jobs sometime. But remember this—you've got to be able to give me thrust when I need it."

He rang for Prescott and Cunningham, and soon the two lads were standing before them, Prescott rumpled and with 'is cowlick sticking up and Cunningham sleek and respectful-like.

"Well, lads," Flynn starts off brightly, "I've got a job of real work for you. Mr, Bolt here tells me he needs a couple of young huskies to help 'im for an hour or two. It's out of your department, but this ship is short'anded and I know you'll be glad to pitch in and 'elp. What do you say to that, gentlemen?"

"We're always glad of an opportunity to learn, sir," Cunningham says smoothly. "What is it?"

Captain Flynn clears 'is throat a time or two. "Why," 'e says, "it seems there's a bit of touching up needed in the main motors—some cleaning out in the combustion chamber and mixing ports, isn't it, Mr. Bolt?"

Right off I saw Cunningham wince. You see, sir, that particular job is one of the nastiest that as to be done aboard a rocket ship. The combustion chamber lies fo'ard of the exhaust nozzle; it's a kind of 'uge oven where the fuel is burned. It's lined with special alloy that they must make the well-known 'inges of 'ades out of, for it won't melt for flame that'd boil steel like coffee. All along the fore end of it are the ports where the fuel and the oxygen from the tanks and nebulizers are pumped in, and the after end of it narrows down into the throat of the exhaust nozzle.

Ordinarily, work on this part of a ship is done in the ways in port, but every now and then something goes wrong during acceleration, and then repairs are made in flight with the ship coursing free and the motors off, naturally. Of course they let the chamber cool—if there's time.

Cunningham didn't waste any time wriggling out of it. Oh, 'e did it cleverly, reminding Captain Flynn that 'e 'ad a special assignment to work up a report of the flight navigation to present to the Board of Commissions and 'inting that 'is connections back 'ome wouldn't like to 'ear of im being assigned to such work, and so on.

The Old Man 'emmed and 'awed some more, and finally let 'im off, though I was pleased to see that 'is enthusiasm for the bright young fellow 'ad cooled a bit. Of course you understand, sir, this wasn't a real emergency, or 'e could ave ordered 'im to do it.

"I need two men for the job," Bolt insists glumly, "and I've nobody to spare. We've already ad to pull the equalizer gear off the main 'yzone pump, and if I'm any shorter 'anded, I certainly can't guarantee to get it reset and assembled before you need thrust."

"Oh, drat it, man!" yammers Flynn. "Why didn't you let well enough alone? Why must you try to over'aul your entire power plant with deceleration only eighteen hours away?"

Bolt shrugs 'is shoulders. "I know my business," 'e says. "I 'ave no desire to burn out a throat in the midst of deceleration, and with that equalizer the way it was, I could guarantee you no more than seven minutes of firing, for she was feeding a three-per-cent excess of oxygen. 'Ow-ever, if you can't spare me the men for chamber cleaning out, it isn't absolutely necessary, though it'll take twenty per cent more fuel to stop us with the fuel ports in their present condition."

That settles it! Old Flynn couldn't stand the thought of 'aving to report unnecessary fuel consumption to 'is superiors. 'E fumed and fretted around some more till 'e was fair distracted, and the upshot of it all was, if you'll believe me, sir, that *e assigned me to work along with Prescott on the cleanout crew!

Young Prescott took his assignment in good order, grinned that lopsided grin of 'is, and said 'e was ready any time. Cunningham slipped away, quiet-like, and I, to speak figurative, girded up my loins. And well I might, sir, for let me tell you I was in for a period of sore trial and tribulation.

Right off Bolt 'ustled us aft to the air-lock room, where 'is assistant took us in 'and. Which assistant, I may add, was a swarthy individual as broad as 'e was lgh, and bull-necked, with a 'ead so 'ard I could 'ave bounced a cast-iron skillet off it. Well, after a brief but eloquent exposition of our forthcoming dooties, this gentleman got us into our space armor, snapped sundry tools and wrenches to our belts, and shoved us into the air lock.

I don't mind acknowledging sir, that on the few occasions when I 'ave 'ad to go outside of a ship in flight, I 'ave been struck with mortal dread. 'Tis a fearsome experience to throw back a hatch and climb out onto a slippery 'ull 'anging in the midst of eternity, with a wee morsel of air inside your 'elmet and suit the only thing between you and suffocation. Not to mention the uncanny feel of knowing that, though everything looks as still as a millpond, you're 'iking along at a dozen miles or so a second.

'Owever, our cicerone, if I may so term the assistant engineer, gave me no time to meditate but prodded me along. We crept behind 'im along the curve of the 'ull, back to die stern where the main exhaust nozzle flared out.

You see, sir, what we'd 'ad to do was actually to crawl back into the combustion chamber through this exhaust nozzle, for 'tis much easier to get at it this way than from the inside of the ship. So we swung along from 'and 'old to 'and 'old, anging on like grim death, till we got clear to the stern and could peek around over the edge into the great black mouth of the nozzle.

'Twas a grim-looking thing, sir, a regular opening to the Pit. I could picture to myself ow it looked when the motors was firing, with a shaft of flame three hundred feet long pouring out of it with a two-thousand-ton drive!

Well, the assistant engineer swung 'imself around into the opening and commenced to work back into the blackness. I 'esitated a bit, till I saw young Prescott grinning at me mocking-like through the lenses of 'is 'elmet, and then I 'eaved myself around and followed suit. Very cautious, I followed along behind the assistant engineer, who ad switched on 'is electric torch.

'Twas like walking along a tunnel, only it got narrower and narrower. Pretty soon we 'ad to stoop, and then we was crawling on our 'ands and knees. Still it got narrower, till finally I was wriggling along on my belly like a bloomin' earthworm. The last few feet was a tight squeeze, I can tell you—'twas what they call the throat of the nozzle, and I slipped into it as if the engineer 'ad designed it to fit me as close as 'umanly possible. But as soon as I was through, it opened out into a good-sized space—along about nine feet across and eighteen feet long—the combustion chamber.

We all wriggled through and stood there, our torches throwing uncanny lights and shadows around us. 'Twas a mighty queer place to be in, sir—the very 'eart of our ship, as you might say. The walls was all curved in queer ways to fit the flow of the white-hot burning gases, and ahead there was a regular oneycomb of funny little 'oles and nozzles where the fuel and the oxygen spouted in under I wouldn't know 'ow many thousands of pounds pressure.

As I stood there looking around, I began to feel the 'eat for the first time. The motor 'adn't been firing for a good many hours, but the walls—which 'ad been white-hot— were still sizzling. Right through the insulation of my suit that 'eat commenced to strike. I could feel the perspiration begin to crawl out of my pores.

Sir, if someone was to walk up now and tell me I'd 'ave to go through again what I went through in the next three hours, I believe I would faint away dead. The recollection of it is that powerful. 'Ow we worked! And 'ow that bull-necked second engineer drove us! And 'ow that dreadful 'eat ate into our bones and marrows! There must 'ave been a thousand of those little nozzles, and each one of 'em 'ad to be reamed out and scraped clean of the slaggy stuff that was cloggin' 'em. A lot of 'em 'ad to be unscrewed and new ones put in place.

We worked till the blood pounded in the back of my 'ead like sledge 'ammers. We worked till my 'ands blistered raw inside my mittens from gripping and turning the reaming tools. We worked till sparks flew in front of my eyes and my brain addled inside my skull.

Once in a while I'd look over my shoulder at the round opening into the nozzle, with cool black sky way down at the end of it and stars glittering like ice crystals. Then that slave driver in charge would grab my arm and show me some more of the little 'oles to be reamed out. I got so numb finally that when we really were finished 'e ad to pull me away from the work and put 'is faceplate against mine and yell to me to stop.

We gathered up our tools and staggered back toward the throat opening. The two of 'em climbed up and wriggled out of it; I drove my worn-out muscles and managed to scramble into it.

And then, sir, I stuck.

Oh, I know it sounds comical now, sir. But after seventeen years I still cannot laugh at it as I should. Words fail to describe the awful sense of 'orror that overcame me. I 'ad no more strength to struggle; I could only lie and kick my feet, feeble as a stranded tadpole. Pretty soon I could feel someone tugging at my shoulders and 'elmet, but 'e only jammed me tighter than ever. The throat of that exhaust nozzle was a perfect fit. As I 'ave mentioned, it was precisely fifteen and eight-tenths inches in diameter. If you will take the trouble to multiply this figger by pi, you will discover that it come out to forty-nine and three-quarters or thereabouts, which 'as been my own circumference for the past twenty years. A perfect fit can be a ghastly thing, sir. Appalling!

"Shove yourself 'ard now, Timothy," urges young Prescott, 'is voice queer and shaky.

It sort of roused me, and when 'e gives another tug, I gathers fresh strength from somewhere and nearly shoves my 'eart out—without gaining so much as a millionth of an inch!

Then sir, I gave up, and black despair surged over me as I fully realized the situation. There I was—stuck fast in the throat of the main exhaust nozzle of a rocket transport that was due to decelerate from full orbital speed for an Earth landing.

The whole ship was crippled, of course. With me in there, the main motors was useless—'twould 'ave blown the Algol to kingdom come 'ad they tried to start em, even 'ad they decided to sacrifice me. The 'orror of it fair smothered me, sir, and I passed out.

But I learned what 'appened later, got it second'and but vivid. It seems that the second engineer and Prescott worked on me a bit longer, got frantic, and 'ustled back into the ship for 'elp. A rescue party of the machine crew threw on space suits and came rushing out. And they pretty near pulled my suit off (which of course would ave meant the end of me) before they gave up.

By then, the whole ship was in a turmoil, with deceleration time coming closer and closer and no possible way of getting power out of the main motor. Old Flynn was nearly apoplectic. At the very least 'e expected to 'ave to radio a patrol ship for 'elp, and that would mean all kinds of trouble and expense and reports and disgrace.

But there was worse than that in prospect. Ten to one, we were 'urtling 'ead on toward death! There was plenty of chance that a patrol ship could not reach us before we struck the outer stratosphere—and that would 'ave been fatal at the speed we were 'itting!

I suppose, sir, I should be grateful that, wedged there as I was, I could be oblivious of it all. But just the same I'd like to have seen young Prescott when he got his sudden idea.

"The fitting! The turbulizer!" he yelled, and 'urled himself like mad back down into the ship.

They said he fair tore into the engine room, sir—e was racing against death, defying doom for every one of us! 'E 'eaded straight for that turbulizer volute 'e'd been studying when Captain Flynn 'ad blasted 'im for getting dirilled about what would 'appen if 'e uncoupled it.

"Yank this out!" the lad yelped—"so I can get into the combustion chamber.  Uncouple it! Quick, quick!"

'E was clawing at it like something wild, almost in a frenzy, but Chief Engineer Bolt caught the idea fast. First, he barked over his shoulder:

"Get that door closed off!"

And it was Captain Flynn himself who understood and, disregarding 'is lawful dignity, jumped to get the airtight door of the compartment closed off!

Meanwhile, Bolt was hustling a pair of his best mechanics into space suits, and in two jerks he had them at work uncoupling that fitting, while the rest of them waited, all fevered with anxiety, hardly breathing . . . till at last the big casting came uncoupled—and there was a 'ole leading straight into the combustion chamber! It was small, but it was a 'ole.

The moment 'e saw it, that little runt of a Prescott gave a sort of squeak and a leap, and rammed himself right into it regardless. Then he twisted and squeezed himself back into my private inf erno—and finally managed to 'eave me out from astern, so to speak. 'E shoved me out, shook

me till I come to, an' led me over the hull back into the ship. 'E saved the Algol.

You can imagine, sir, what a 'ero the lad was after all this. Captain Flynn forgot all his objections to impertinent young pups who might start uncoupling fittings. 'E couldn't speak 'ighly enough of young Prescott, and when 'e finally brought the Algol in, 'e recommended the lad for special citation and I don't know what all.

But the curious thing was, sir, that instead of all this praise going to the lad's 'ead and making 'im more obstreperous than ever, it 'ad just the opposite effect. The minute people acted as if they was willin' to acknowledge 'e knew 'is stuff and might some day be a credit to the service, 'e lost all that pugnacious cockiness of 'is. You can't see even the faintest 'int of it now in Captain Alvin Prescott of the Corona Borealis.

Yes, sir, that's the man—the famous "H-Two" Prescott everybody's talking about, the captain who picked the survivors off that Heliaque ship half a million miles inside Mercury's orbit and got back with them alive. That's the scrappy little runt who 'eaved me out of that exhaust nozzle seventeen years ago, and it's cheering to think of 'im now over a piece of lemon pie.

For I believe I may say without undue pride, sir, that it was Timothy 'awkins who by virtue of circumference, as you might say, first afforded Alvin Prescott an opportunity to prove 'is true mettle, and who launched 'im on 'is brilliant career.

THE RED DEATH OF MARS

By ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS

Q

V^JPARKS AVERY, on vigil beside his radio equipment, saw the three men coming. He didn't need to look twice to know that something was wrong. Rising, he opened the controls that manipulated the outer door of the lock.

From the stern of the ship came a rattle of pots and pans as Shorty Adams, the dour cook, prepared the evening meal.

Angus Mcllrath, far-wandering son of Scotland, came forward from his engine room. Momentarily, as he opened the door, the muted hiss of the uranium-fission engines sounded. "What is it, lad?" Mcllrath asked.

Sparks pointed to the three men. They were nearer now. Coming across the sandy square, the dust splashed around their feet and hung in an eddying cloud behind them; dust that had never known rain.

Mcllrath squinted through the double glass of the port, shielding his old eyes against the sun glare of Mars. "I don't like their faces, lad."

Sparks did not answer. Heavy boots clumped in the lock. The outer door clanged. Air hissed softly. The inner door opened.

Martin Frome, tall and thin, came first. His blue-gray eyes rested for an instant on the radioman. He said nothing. Behind him came James Sutter, swinging his long arms like a waddling ape. Last came Vincent Orsatti, blinking weak eyes behind thick-lensed spectacles.

"Is everything all right in the ship?" Frome asked.

"Right, sir," Sparks answered.

"You kept close watch from the ports, as I directed?"

"Yes."

"You observed nothing unusual, no movement of any kind?" "Nothing."

Frome turned to Mcllrath. "Are the engines ready?" "The engines," said Mcllrath evenly, "are always ready." "Keep them that way," said Frome flatly. Mcllrath touched his cap with two fingers. "Aye, Captain."

Frome turned to the two men who had entered with him. "Sutter, prepare a short archaeological report on the city itself for immediate transmission by radio to our main base."

The archaeologist, already pulling off his heavy garments, clumped across the room to a table.

"Orsatti," Frome said, "you will oblige me greatly if you will tackle a report on this." He opened the knapsack that he carried, took an object from it which he laid on a table.

"Gladly, Captain," Orsatti answered. "Oh! On that?"

There was startled inquiry in Orsatti's voice. Sparks leaned forward to look at the object Frome had laid on the table. A gleam of brilliant ruby lanced out from it. "What is it?" he asked.

"We don't know," Frome answered. "They're scattered everywhere, all over the city. In one place we found them piled three feet high against a door, like a load of coal dumped from a truck. They look like jewels, but they aren't."

It did look like a jewel, like a ruby as big as a man's fist. It was round and its surface was a mass of facets from which reddish beams of reflected light winked.

"But, Captain," Orsatti protested. "My speciality is biochemistry. I am also a metallurgist, of sorts, but this doesn't fall within either of my fields."

"Describe it as best you can," Frome said gruffly, "while I prepare a report on the fate of our first expedition to the city of Torms."

"You found them?" Sparks interrupted quickly.

"We located their ship from the air, before we landed."

"I know that. But the men—"

Frome's lips knifed into a straight line. "We found the men, too."

"Oh," Sparks answered. For a second he stared at the captain, his face working. Then he turned on his heel and walked over and eased his lithe body into the chair in front of the radio transmitter. Mcllrath looked at him sadly, but said nothing.

Orsatti's report was finished first. He handed the single sheet to the radioman. Sparks read:

The jewel-like objects which we have discovered here in Torms seem to be unique. So far as my personal knowledge goes, they have never been reported elsewhere on Mars.

We picked them up all over the city. Apparently the first expedition discovered them, for we found several in their ship, one under the commander's bunk, others near the vessel.

They appear either singly or in groups that may run as high as several hundreds. In one place we found thousands of them piled, as Captain Frome described it, "like coal in front of a basement door."

It is doubtful that they belonged to the unknown inhabitants of this city. A more likely hypothesis is that they had been brought here after the inhabitants died.

In appearance they much resemble gigantic jewels, and at first glance, they seem to have been carved in definite facets. A more careful examination, however, discloses that the facets are natural, and apparently result from the crystalline structure of these strange objects.

Another unique characteristic is their fragility. Sutter dropped one of them. It shattered into fragments so minute as to be almost invisible, and then, to add to our uncertainty about these crystals, the fragments rapidly dissolved into a thin red gas which seemed to have a tendency to flow together.

We have as yet not been able to suggest an adequate explanation for the origin of these crystals or to determine what they really are.—Signed, Vincent Orsatti, biochemist with the rescue expedition to Torms.

Sparks snapped a series of switches. A transformer hummed. Radio tubes warmed. He spoke into the microphone. "Rescue ship Kepler calling Main Base."

"Go ahead, rescue ship," the loud-speaker answered.

By the time he had finished the first message, Sutter had 1 completed his report. Sparks started reading the archaeologist's account into the microphone.

"Unquestionably this is the most important archaeological discovery made since the first ship landed on Mars eleven years ago. It is not necessary for me to recount here the explorations made since that date.

"You recall the eagerness with which the first exploratory efforts were carried out, the hurried, frantic search for intelligent life on Mars. There was never any question that life had existed here. Dust had almost filled the canals, dust covered the sites, but the canals and the sites proved that a race of remarkable scientific achievement had developed on this planet. You recall how our eagerness faded into wonder as the reports of the exploring parties came in. They found cities with sand drifting down the streets. The condition of the cities indicated that they had been abandoned in a manner which suggested that the inhabitants had slowly fled before an advancing enemy. We found tools scattered everywhere, ornaments, the strange scroll books covered with indecipherable hieroglyphics. But we never found the race that had created these things. We found their bones, dry in the sand. But we never found them. Nor did we find the enemy before which they had fled.

"Nor are there any inhabitants here in this city of Torms. But there is something here that I regard as very significant.

"Here everything is in perfect order. The books are neatly stacked in the shelves, the contents of the few houses we entered are in place, and the tools and engines of the race that built this city are packed in the equivalent of cosmoline, a heavy grease that protects them from rusting.

"Everything here is in perfect order—as if the owners planned to return at some future day.

"A secret is hidden here, a secret that may account for the disappearance of the race that once inhabited Mars. This city is newer than any of the others we have found. It was abandoned last. The clue to the fate of the life on this planet is here.

"Upon the desirability of determining the fate of this people, of solving the vast mystery that shrouds this planet, I need not comment.

"I therefore recommend that a most careful investigation be made here.

"Signed—JAMES SUTTER."

Sparks took a deep breath. "End of the second report," he said.

"It sounds interesting," the speaker said, "but have you got any dope on what happened to the first expedition?"

"It will be along in a minute," Sparks answered.

"All right, don't snap my head off," the speaker grated. The operator's voice trailed into suddenly embarrassed silence. "Avery, I'm sorry. I—just forgot."

"Skip it," the radioman said gruffly. "I'm not asking for any sympathy." He looked up. Captain Frome, his face looking as if it had been chiseled from granite, stood beside him.

"Transmit this," Frome said. He laid his hand on the radio operator's shoulder, his fingers dug into the flesh.

Sparks didn't feel them. He read the message. "O.K.," he said, "that's what I wanted to know."

Frome's voice was suspiciously husky. "Lad, I'm sorry."

"You can skip that, too," Sparks answered. Frome walked away. The operator's voice droned into the microphone, repeating the message Frome had given him.

"October 16, 2347.—When radio signals of the first expedition to Torms ceased coming through, we were sent to ascertain if the expedition was in trouble. This is a report of what we found.

"We sighted the ship from the air. It was resting in one of the squares peculiar to Martian cities. We landed as near to it as we could, in a nearby square, and immediately Orsatti, Sutter and myself walked to the ship, leaving Avery, our radio operator, Mcllrath, our engineer, and Adams, our cook, to guard our own vessel.

"I regret to inform you that we found the three members of the first expedition dead.

"We were unable to determine the cause of death. There were no wounds on their bodies, but the expression on their faces indicated that they had died in agony. Commander Richard Avery was in his bunk. His legs and arms, stiffened in death, were drawn up in a position that hinted he had been aroused from slumber and had tried to defend himself. However this is merely an impression. No evidence substantiates it. Samuel Funk, the archaeologist, was at the radio transmitter. The impression I received was that he died trying to call for help. The radio set was dead because of power failure, which is utterly incredible, for the power that fed the set was drawn directly from the uranium-fission driving engines, which had ceased to operate. In my personal experience this is the first and only time an uranium-fission engine has failed to function. I can suggest no reason for this failure. However the engines are dead. We tested them.

"John Orms, language expert who was attempting to decipher the Martian language was found at some distance from the ship. His tracks in the sand indicated he had fled from the vessel. The same agony was on his face.

"In an effort to determine if the ship had been attacked, we examined the sand near it. No footprints, other than those made by the three men were found.

"We buried them in the sand of the square in which their ship had landed.

"We will make a complete investigation. It is essential that we know not only what caused their deaths, but what stopped the engines of their ship. Also we will attempt to solve the mystery of this city, as indicated by James Sutter, our archaeologist. Signed—Martin Frome, Captain of the rescue ship Kepler'*

Sparks' steady voice faltered. He swallowed. Then he spoke again. "This is the end of the transmission at this time." He snapped off the transmitter.

There was silence in the ship. Sparks looked at the radio equipment, saying notliing. He raised his head when a voice spoke.

"Ye're a haard man, Martin Frome." It was Angus

McIIrath. In moments of stress the burr of his far-distant homeland appeared in his voice.

"You need not remind me of that fact, Angus," Frome answered.

"Skip it, Angus," said Sparks bluntly.

"But 'twas yer own faither, lad, that they buried there. The least they could have done was to tell ye as soon as they returned—what they had found—instead of making ye wait and learn it from the messages." He turned to Frame. "I say it again. Ye're a haard man."

"This is a hard planet, Angus, and it is a hard trail we travel getting here. It is no place for weakness of any kind—"

"Aye, but—"

"I said to forget it, Angus," Sparks interrupted. "My father was a hard man, too. -If he had not been, he would not have been what he was—the first human to set foot on Mars. I know very well what he was called. 'Old find-a-way-or-make-one Avery/ 'Old damn the risk; we're going through.' Whenever anything went wrong, and everything must have gone wrong on that first trip, he had a saying, 'For every evil, nature provides a cure. But she doesn't hand you that cure on a silver platter. You've got to find it yourself, or die.' He hated any show of sentiment, any weakness of any kind. Captain Frome told me my father was dead in exactly the way he would have wished the news to reach me. As to his death, he died as he would have wished, fighting the unknown. He is buried where he would have wished to be—in the sand of Mars."

Silence followed the radio operator's outburst, the awkward silence of men who want to show their sympathy and can't find the words.

"I was on that first trip with him," said McIIrath. "I learned to know him. Ye're his own true son."

"Sorry," Sparks answered. "I didn't mean to blow off steam that way. He wouldn't have liked it. But he was always sort of a god to me, and," his lips tightened, "something killed him."

The central door opened. The cook stood there. "Come and get it," he said, "or I'll throw it away."

"Come on," said Sparks bitterly. "Let's go eat."

When they left the room the jewel was lying on the table where Orsatti had been examining it.

When they returned it was gone.

They searched the ship for it. They didn't find it. They didn't even find a tiny opening in the inner hull down near the floor, a hole that looked as if a rivet might have dropped out of it. The hole was no larger than a lead pencil, which was probably why they missed it. There was another tiny opening in the outer shell of the ship.

The jewel was gone.

"Gentlemen," said Captain Frome, "tonight we will take turns standing guard."

But nothing happened that night. No intruder tried to gain entrance to the ship. The wind of Mars, blowing the dry dust of the red planet, whimpered softly around the vessel.

There was no other sound.

But what happened the next day made them forget, temporarily at least, all about the jewel that had disappeared so mysteriously.

Early in the morning Sutter and Orsatti went out to continue their investigation of the city. Frome remained in the ship, writing up a complete report, McIIrath, under orders from Frome, had gone to the vessel of the first expedition, to examine the engines. He had returned dourly shaking his head. The engines were dead. He had reported to Frome that he was unable to determine the cause of their failure, and muttering had gone back to his own engine room.

Sparks, on lookout duty at the port, saw the man coming. It was Sutter. He was running.

"We've found them!" Sutter gasped as he came through the inner door of the lock. "The inhabitants of Mars. In a cavern under the city. You remember that door where all the jewels were piled? We shoveled them out of the way and opened it. The Martians are down below. Frozen sleep," he gasped in explanation.

"Then they're alive?" Frome snapped.

"No. Not yet. But they can be awakened, I think. Orsatti says they can and he ought to know. He's down there now." The archaeologist was so excited he could not speak coherently.

Sparks knew what this find meant to Sutter. It meant a lot to all of them. One of the big reasons why men had been so anxious to blaze a trail across space to Mars had been to meet the inhabitants of the planet. Photographs taken in 1969 had showed conclusively that the canals of Mars were artificial. Therefore, there was life on the sister world across the void.

But when they reached the planet, they hadn't found the men of Mars. Instead they had found desolation and dust and sand. And death. Deserted cities.

If Sutter were right, this was the big moment in the history of the exploration of Mars. Even the arrival of the first spaceship from Earth was not as important as this discovery. His heart leaped at the thought. The long-lost inhabitants of Mars had been found!

Frome began jerking on heavy clothing. "Get into your clothes, lad," he barked, "and call Angus. He came here with the first ship, and he deserves to be present when we awaken one of these Martians."

Sparks, diving toward the engine room, realized that Frome had given no reason for taking him along. He had said that Angus deserved to be present. The old engineer did. He had suffered all the privations of the pioneer explorers to this planet. He had earned a chance to be present at the historic moment when one of the men of Mars was awakened.

But Sparks knew why Frome was taking him. He hadn't earned his chance. Someone else, who couldn't be present, had earned it for him.

He was only a youth, barely past twenty. Only his superb knowledge of radio equipment had got him a place with the Martian explorers. His father had not opposed his coming. Nor had he helped his son secure the appointment. He had said, "The fact that I am commander of the men exploring Mars will make no difference so far as you are concerned. You will suffer every hardship that anyone else suffers, you will take every risk. You will eat the same food, sleep in the same hard bunks, drink the same synthesized water, and stand strictly on your own feet. You will ask no favors and you will obey orders implicitly, no matter what they are."

Richard Avery had been a hard man. But he had been a man.

Only Shorty Adams was left to guard the ship. Frome gave him strict orders to be on the lookout.

Sutter led them at a dogtrot across the silent, deserted city to a low building that had only one door. Ruby crystals were scattered all around the door where he and Orsatti had shoved them out of the way. Sutter dived into the dark opening and as the others followed, Sparks saw how heavy that door was. It was at least a foot thick and the other surface was heavily pitted by rust.

Orsatti waited for them down below. "They're here all right," he said. "Each of these cells has a Martian in it. They're in frozen sleep, too. No doubt about it."

The chamber was not large. It had been carved out of solid rock and it had perhaps five hundred coffin-like cells in it. Each receptacle was fitted with a glass top.

"I waited for your permission to open one of these receptacles, Captain Frome," Orsatti continued. "Pending your arrival, I took the liberty of removing the seals from one of the caskets. It's ready to open. Shall I go ahead?"

Frome hesitated. He peered through the glass top, studied the creature that lay within.

"Are you certain these people are really in frozen sleep?" he asked.

"Positive of it. Feel the temperature down here. It's perfect for frozen sleep. That's why this city was in perfect order, the tools put away in grease, the houses closed and locked. These people expected to return to their city when they awakened."

"Well," said Frome slowly, "you may— What's wrong, Angus?"

Mcllrath had stood apart from the others. He had taken a flashlight and poked carefully around the cavern, nosing down the aisles between the receptacles like a wary old hound scenting the presence of danger. Now he spoke.

THE RED DEATH  OF  MARS  177

Tm thinking that these people had a reason for putting themselves into suspended animation. They didn't come down here and hide away in this gloomy hole for no cause. I don't know what their reason was, but it could have been the last desperate expedient of a race fleeing from some deadly and implacable enemy. If this is true, we had best consider well our action in awakening them."

A little stir of uneasiness ran through the group. Orsatti blinked owlishly. Sutter protested inarticulately.

"Have you seen anything that you might consider an enemy strong enough to force the Martians to resort to frozen sleep to escape it?" Frome questioned.

"I have not that."

"But perhaps their food supply gave out," Sutter protested. "The water supply has been dwindling on this planet for ages. Perhaps a protracted period of drought left them with no choice except frozen sleep or starvation. They chose suspended animation hoping that when they awakened, climatic conditions would be better. Perhaps they had alternate cycles of drought and meager rainfall. This was the way they escaped the drought."

The old Scot shook his head, "Ye may be right. Perhaps these Martians fled from drought. But I remember we came here to rescue three men. We found them dead. One of them had fled from their ship. What he fled we do not know. But we do know that this race was also fleeing from something."

Again the little stir of uneasiness came. Was the old Scot sensing something that he could not put into words?

Sutter was an archaeologist. He had spent years digging into the ruins of Mars. He would not be balked now. "This is superstitious nonsense!"

"It may be that," Mcllrath answered. "I think I knew the three men who died here fairly well. There was little superstition in them. And I know very well indeed that uranium-fission engines are not superstitious. But both the men and the engines are dead. You cannot account for that by superstition."

Sutter and Orsatti turned to Frome and began to plead with him to permit the opening of one of the receptacles.

Frome considered his decision. "The whole purpose of our exploration of this planet has been to discover the Martians. Having found them, if we fail to awaken them, our purpose is defeated. Therefore, you may open one of the receptacles."

Sutter and Orsatti wasted no time. Frome turned to Mcllrath. "I'm sorry, Angus. If you had had a definite reason, we would have waited."

"Aye, Captain," Mcllrath answered.

Sparks Avery watched. He had taken no part in the conversation. Now, in spite of the dry, frigid air, globules of sweat began to form on his forehead. He brushed them away. Now and again his eyes strayed to the heavy pistol that hung at Frome's hip. Frome had opened the flap and loosened the pistol in its holster.

There was a jewel on the floor near the end of the ramp that led downward. It glittered evilly in the sunlight that was beginning to shine into the cavern.

It seemed to the radio operator that only minutes passed before Orsatti had opened the receptacle. Very gently he and Sutter lifted out its occupant.

They laid him on the floor, this man of Mars. The men from Earth clustered about him. He was not quite five feet tall, had a huge chest, and long spindly arms. He was clad in a soft leather garment and around his waist was a metal belt from which a pouch and a short dagger hung.

"In minutes, he will awaken," Orsatti whispered.

The others were silent. Sparks caught the suppressed tension of that moment. He had been on Mars less than six months, but he had absorbed from his father the lure of the red planet, the vast mystery of it. Now the mystery would be solved. Now Mars would have a voice. Now the red deserts would give up their secrets, now the deserted cities would reveal what had happened in diem.

The Martian stirred. A little finger moved, an arm twisted. His chest heaved. The soft sigh of air through long unused vocal chords echoed through the cavern.

"He's awakening," Sutter whispered. "Heavens! What will he say? What will he do? What will he think? How amazed he will be to see us, strangers from another world, bending over him!"

As they watched, the chest movement of the Martian became more regular. The panting heaves that had marked his first gasping efforts for air smoothed into an even rhythm. Spasmodic twitching fluttered his throat.

"Look!" the archaeologist's tense voice ran out. "His eyes are opening."

They were brown, an agate-brown. They were filmed and out of focus.

"Easy, old fellow," Sutter whispered. "Here. I'll help you sit up." He slipped an arm under the Martian's shoulder.

The Martian glanced at Sutter, and looked away. The film was gone from his eyes. They were in focus now.

Sparks caught his breath. What he had seen was incredible.

The Martian had only glanced at Sutter. Then he looked away. His eyes went to the faces of the others. But he only glanced at them, too, glanced casually at them, as if they were of no importance.

Awakening from the sleep of ages, finding himself the captive of a race that obviously did not belong to Mars, he found them not worthy of a second glance.

What was wrong. Couldn't the Martian see yet? Was he blind?

Or, no matter how important were these giants who were bending over, was there something that was more important?

The Martian had large, pointed ears, which he could move at will. He twitched them backward, like a cat listening for a sound behind him. He absolutely ignored the Earthmen. His ears flipped forward toward the open doorway through which the sun was shining. He listened. There was no sound. He moved his head from side to side, his ears questing for some sound in the cold dry air, his eyes alert for movement.

Sparks found himself listening, too. He heard nothing. But the Martian seemed to hear something. His ears were flipped forward, with the intentness of a cat that has heard the growl of a dangerous dog. But he was no longer listening. He was looking. He saw something. The agate-brown eyes were fixed with terrible intentness on an object near the doorway.

Fear crept over his face, a horror and a terror that was akin to madness. He jerked himself free from Sutter's arms. The archaeologist tried to hold him. He wrenched himself free. His hand darted to the dagger at his belt.

It rose evilly upward—and sank in the Martian's throat!

He screeched. The screech died in a gurgle. He fell forward on his face, and a cloud of dry dust puffed from under his dead body.

In the shocked, stunned silence Sutter hoarsely gasped. "We scared him. He saw us, and committed suicide."

"No!" Sparks jerked out. "He saw us all right, but we didn't scare him. He didn't pay any attention to us. There's the thing that scared him!"

He pointed toward the doorway where the ruby jewel glinted in the sunlight. "That's what he saw. That thing. It scared him so badly that he committed suicide." He started to approach the jewel.

"Drop it!" Mcllrath's voice rang out. "Don't touch that thing."

Sparks leaped away.

"The lad's right," Angus continued. "I was watching. The Martian paid us no heed. It was yon jewel that scared him."

"But that's preposterous!" Sutter protested. "That jewel is harmless. We'll open another receptacle, revive another Martian."

"We'll do nothing of the kind," Frome snapped. "Preposterous or not, this demands a full investigation. When the first Martian we find commits suicide as soon as we awaken him, I'm going to know why he did it before we awaken another. Sutter, you and Orsatti pick up his body. We'll take it to the ship, make a complete report to our main base, and ask that a large expedition be sent here.. Angus, you lead the way. Sparks, you follow him. I'll bring up the rear."

He jerked the pistol from its holster. The click as he slipped a cartridge into the chamber was loud in the silent vault. Overruling Sutter's objections, he ordered them from the vault. They obeyed him. As he walked up the incline, he picked up the jewel and swiftly thrust it into his knapsack. He closed the door of the cavern as they left.

In the minds of each of them was a single question: Why did the Martian commit suicide? Why had that jewel scared him so badly? Was death, silent and invisible, here in this haunted city? Had the Martians fled from death?

When they reached the ship they found that death was there ahead of them. They found Shorty Adams curled up under the water cooler in his own galley.

He was dead.

Sparks found him and called the others. Frome got there first. His examination of the body was swift, but thorough. "This happened almost as soon as we left the ship. There is no wound on his body, no sign to show the cause of death. But his face is stamped with the same agony that was on the faces of the first three."

Methodically he began to search the galley. From an open bin he pulled another jewel.

Frome's face seemed to freeze. He was still wearing the heavy gloves that are standard equipment in the open of Mars. Handling the jewel gingerly, he raised it up to the level of his eyes, squinted at it. Shaking his head, he said, "I can't tell whether it is the same one we brought into the ship last night."

"Do you think, while we were at dinner, Adams slipped into the other room and stole it?" Sutter asked.

"That is not true," said Mcllrath flatly.

"How do you know it isn't? It could be true."

"I knew Adams," the old Scot said. "He was no thief."

"But how did it get out of the ship, or where was it hidden? Are you suggesting it moved of its own accord?" Sutter persisted.

"Enough," Frome interrupted decisively. "Something killed him. I am not prepared to say this jewel was responsible for his death. I'm not prepared to say it wasn't. But I am saying this: We're going to our main base immediately, where complete laboratory facilities are available, and we're going to find out what these things really are. Angus, prepare your engines for an immediate take-off. Sparks," he barked, "warm up your transmitter and make contact with our main base immediately. Report that we are coming in. Get moving."

Sparks was already racing toward the bow of the ship. As he slid into the seat before the transmitter, he saw, out of the corner of his eyes, the body of the dead Martian where Sutter and Orsatti had dropped it when they entered the ship. The dagger was still sticking from his throat.

The sight sent a touch of eerie chill up his spine. If he had needed anything to remind him that some incredible form of death lurked very near, the sight of the dagger protruding from the Martian provided it.

He snapped the switches, reached automatically for the microphone. When no transformer hum came he snapped the switches again. He was still working with them when Frome entered the room.

"I regret to report," he said, "that our transmitter is dead. The power seems to have failed."

Frome stopped in mid-stride. He would have halted like that if somebody had suddenly pulled a gun on him. "What's that?"

As Sparks repeated the words, Sutter and Orsatti entered the room.

"But the power for our radio transmitter is drawn from our main engines," Frome whispered. Then he spun on his heel, brushed past Orsatti and Sutter, and was gone.

"What's going on?" Orsatti asked bewilderedly.

"I have a hunch I know," Sparks answered. He pounded after the captain. When he reached the engine room he needed only a glance to see that his worst fear had come true.

"But the engines can't be dead," Frome was saying vehemently. "They cant be. It's impossible for uranium-fission engines to fail."

"I know it's impossible," the old engineer replied stubbornly, "but I'm telling you it's happened anyhow."

Captain Frome faced the tense little group. "Gentlemen," he said, "I need not remind you that we are face to face with a new and unknown form of death. Night is coming. We are without power to move the ship or to operate our radio apparatus. There are hundreds of miles of dry, deadly deserts surrounding this city, deserts which we could not hope to cross on foot. We have food and water for two weeks. Unquestionably, when our main base cannot raise us by radio, they will send a rescue ship, but it will be a week before a rescue expedition can reach us. If we are to be numbered among the living when it arrives, the price we will pay for our lives is constant vigilance. Pistols will be issued to all of you. Keep them ready at all times."

He paused and looked at the engineer. "Angus, you and Sparks will make every effort to determine the cause of our engine failure and to correct it. Sutter, you will do me a great favor if you will take charge of the galley. Orsatti, I would like you to help me." "Certainly. What are we to do?"

"We are going to find out what these things really are," Frome answered. He pointed to the two jewels. The biochemist paled.

Working on the engines, it was obvious that the old engineer was trying to conceal his fears. To all questions he returned the same answer, a perturbed shake of the head. "I dinna know, lad. It is as if the uranium has lost its power to explode."

"But it hasn't been touched. The seals are in place. If anyone had tampered with it, he would have left marks behind him."

"I know that, lad. And I am remembering that there were no marks on the bodies of the dead men, either." "But what could have done it?"

"I dinna know, lad. But we must remember this is Mars. There are strange things here on this planet, things that no man can guess. The Martian committed suicide. That was strange. And those ruby jewels are very strange."

"But why were our engines stopped? Were we deliberately marooned here?"

"We cannot begin to guess at motivations," Mcllrath replied uneasily. "This is not Earth. The creatures of this planet may have entirely different reasons for their acts than we have."

Then the first shot came. Bang! The second one came right behind it.

Somebody was using a gun. His first shot had missed. But he had taken dead aim to make certain the second one did not miss.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Three more shots followed closely on the heels of the second. Whoever was using the gun had missed with the second. Now he was emptying the weapon at a charging enemy.

"It's in the main control room," Sparks said. "Come on."

Yanking his pistol from its holster, he raced down the corridor. Mcllrath came right behind him. They almost ran over Sutter as he came out of the galley, a gun in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other. The archaeologist brought up the rear.

Sparks kicked open the door.

Orsatti lay on the floor. Sparks did not need to see the sick agony on his face to know Orsatti was dead or dying.

Frome was alive. He stood stiffly erect, his feet wide apart, taking aim with his pistol. Flame lanced from the muzzle and the sharp thunder of the shot smashed through the room.

He yanked the trigger again and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. With a single motion of his arm he threw the weapon at the thing coming at him.

The sight paralyzed the radio operator. What he saw— was impossible! The thing that moved toward Frome was a two-foot ball of reddish gas. A globe of swirling gas, lit with a baleful red brilliance. The thing glittered with microscopic pin points of light. It made a sound as it moved, a high-pitched note like the whine of a distant motor generator.

There were two of the gas balls. One of them was darting toward Frome. The other was down on the floor, on Orsatti's body, and the whine coming from it held a gloating note, like a ghoul feeding.

Everything happened in split seconds.   A gas ball

streaked toward Frome. A thundering explosion smashed Sparks' eardrums. He saw a pistol poked past him and he knew that Mcllrath was firing over his shoulder. He jerked up his own gun and the two pistols spat a salvo.

The gas ball flinched as the bullets hit it, wavered and dodged.

"That's the medicine," Sparks shouted. "Hot lead." He fired again.

Before the third shot had left his gun, he knew the weapon was useless. The gas ball flinched as the slugs hit it, but they passed through it unimpeded. It struck Frome on the chest, clung to him like a leech. His hands jerked up to tear it away, but as it touched him his whole body seemed to be paralyzed, and his arms fell limply. A look of startled agony writhed over his face. His eyes popped open in sudden horror. He screamed and slumped to the floor.

As he fell, he saw the radio operator standing in the doorway.

"Close that door," he gasped. "Barricade yourself behind it."

Sparks did not move to obey him.

"Save yourselves," the weak words came. "Never mind us. We're done for." The voice found strength in some hidden sources and Captain Frome rasped out his final command. "That's an order. Obey it."

He was the captain. His authority was final.

"Obey it!" Sparks snarled. He leaped into the room, Mcllrath and Sutter right behind him.

What happened next was always afterwards a blur in Sparks's mind. As a boy he had fought bumblebees in the meadows of Earth.   This was something like fighting bumblebees, except that this bee was deadly. Slapping, slugging at the reddish mass of gas on Frome's chest, they tried to tear it loose. To touch it sent jarring needles of pain up their arms. Their hands smashed through it. It swirled and re-formed.

But when the fight was over, Captain Frome was on one side of the door and a reddish mass of gas was singing angrily on the other.

Sparks was turning back to the door. When he came out the second time, he had Orsatti's body in his arms. He had enough strengdi left to lay the biochemist down. Then his legs buckled under him and he collapsed.

When he recovered consciousness the old engineer was dribbling water into his mouth. He tried to sit up but Mcllrath pushed him back.

"Lie still, lad, until ye get your strength back."

"But those gas balls!"

"Lie still and I'll tell you what we've decided about them."

"But where are they?"

"Forward in the control room whining to each other. Captain Frome thinks he has found out what they are." "Captain Frome? How is he?"

"Weak as a kitten, but we think he'll live. He says the gas balls came from the ruby jewels, that while he and Orsatti were working with the crystals they suddenly turned to gas right before their eyes!"

"But that's impossible."

The old Scot shook his head. "Captain Frome says the gas balls and the crystals are two different forms of the same life species. He thinks they are similar to the cocoon and the butterfly that we know back on Earth. The crystal is the cocoon stage. The ball of gas is the butterfly stage. He says he thinks they live on radiant energy, and that they attack our engines and us for the same reason."

"But—" Sparks choked off his protest. Frome was a thoroughly capable physicist, and he was not given to idle statements. If he made a statement, he had a good reason to back it up. "What connection is there between our engines and us?"

"There is this connection, lad. The source of power in our engines is the radioactivity of the uranium atom. The source of the energy that keeps the human heart beating is the element potassium, which is slightly radioactive. If you remove the uranium from our engines, they won't generate power. If you remove the potassium from our bodies, our heart stops beating."

"But the uranium was not removed from our engines, and the bodies of the dead men show no marks of any kind. How was the potassium removed without leaving a mark?"

"It is not the uranium or the potassium that is removed. Captain Frome says these gas balls live on the radioactive emanations, the alpha, beta, and gamma rays, discharged by these elements, leaving them inert. Just as a leech sucks blood, they suck the radioactive discharges. Are you feeling better now, lad?"

Sparks sat up. A wave of dizziness sent his head spinning, but he forced himself to his feet and walked over to where Captain Frome lay on the floor. Frome's eyes were closed and he was breathing in slow, gasping sobs.

Sutter was bending over Frome. "His heart is barely beating," the archaeologist said. "Those things almost sucked the life out of him."

Sparks said nothing. He walked to the nearest port and looked out. Swift dusk was falling over Mars. Sharp shadows were creeping over the city. Blobs of darkness were huddling behind the buildings. Night was coming over this city where for centuries red death had patiently waited for the last of the Martians to awaken.

The men of Mars had not taken refuge in frozen sleep to escape a drought cycle. They had fled from a deadly enemy. The Martian had committed suicide when he saw that jewel glittering in the sunlight at the entrance to the cavern. He had known what it was. He had preferred to die by his own hand rather than face a more agonizing death.

A movement in the shadows caught his eyes. He looked again, to make certain he had not been mistaken. Then he saw what it was—a ball of red gas drifting along a foot above the sand. It came out of the shadow and moved directly toward the ship.

Another dead butterfly had emerged, another cocoon had burst.

But they were safe. The stout steel hull of die ship would protect them until a rescue expedition could arrive. They had plenty of food and water. Even if a thousand cocoons released their drifting death, they could not get through the walls of the ship.

Someone breathed heavily behind him. Turning, Sparks saw Angus looking out over his shoulder. The old engineer squinted at the drifting ball of gas. "Another one? I was afraid there would be others. Those two behind that door in the control room have been squealing as if they were calling to others of their kind."

"Do you think they can call others?"

"I dinna know, lad. Back on Earth the moths do it, and I doubt if yon red devil came here because of idle curiosity."

The radio operator followed the red monstrosity as it drifted out of sight. He shivered and said, "Well, we're safe here."

"About that, I dinna know either," Mcllrath answered, shaking his head.

It was not so much what he said but the way he said it that sent a sudden chill to the radio operator's heart. But Angus refused to answer his questions. Instead, the engineer led him down the corridor to the control room. The door was still blocked. It was a stout sheet of aluminum alloy.

Putty had been plastered around the cracks.

"While you were still unconscious," Mcllrath explained, "those devils began to ooze through the cracks between the edges of the door and the facing. We stopped them up with a bit of putty, but—"

"But what!" Sparks exploded. "You surely don't think they can come through that door?"

"I think they can't, lad," the old Scot answered, "but I remember that door the Martians built to seal their cavern. It was at least a foot thick. But the outer surface was pitted with holes that were almost six inches deep, as if something had tried to eat its way through the barrier, and had failed. It wasn't rust, either, for in this dry desert metal will scarcely rust. So something else must have eaten those holes in that door, and the only thing that could have done—"

He broke off to stare in slowly mounting horror at the door they were facing. At the same instant Sparks saw what was happening.

A tiny smudge had appeared on the gray surface. It looked a little like a drop of acid. It was about the size of a dime, and it was growing in size. As it grew it turned distinctly reddish.

"They are eating their way through the door!" Sparks whispered. He started to slap at the reddish spot but Mcllrath knocked his hand away. The engineer seized a wad of putty from the floor and slapped it over the spot. It ceased growing. On the other side of the door an angry whine sounded.

"That stops you this time," he grunted.

"Yes, but for how long?" Sparks whispered.

Mcllrath didn't answer.

Sutter came running through the corridor. "I just wanted to tell you," he panted, "there are a lot of those things outside. They're doing something to the glass in the portholes, and—"

They didn't wait for him to finish but raced back to the stern of the ship. A glance showed that the archaeologist was right. Dozens of blobs of glistening gas floated over the ship. A few were clamped over the glass of the ports. Under the action of some acid they secreted, it was flaking away.

Nobody said anything, but each knew that doom was coming toward them. Slowly but surely the glass in the ports would be disintegrated. If they closed the ports with metal, the monstrosities would eat through the metal. There was no place in the ship that promised safety, with the possible exception of the cook's galley, which was in

the heart of the ship and protected by metal barriers on all sides. In time even those barriers would fall.

"There must be some way to whip them," Sparks grated.

Sutter was twitching as if he had the palsy.

Only the old engineer was calm and he spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. "Yes, lad, there probably is. But guns didn't work—"

"Sparks," a weak voice whispered. The radio operator jerked around to see who was calling him. He saw Captain Frome. The captain had spoken. "What's happening?"

The radioman told him. Frome sighed. "I wish I could suggest something. But I can't. Too weak even to think. So I'm turning everything over to you, lad."

"To me!"

"Yes. I ought to put you under arrest... for disobeying me . . . when I told you to save yourself. Instead I'm put

ting you in charge ... of the remnants of this expedition. I'm not doing this just because you showed initiative and daring . . . when you saved my life . . . but because you're old 'Find-a-way-or-make-one' Avery's son. He never let anything stop him. And you're his son. You'll get us out of this mess ... if anybody can."

The radioman's mind was reeling. Captain Frome was telling him that he was the boss. "But what about Mcllrath and Sutter? Will they—"

"I think they will. But let them answer for themselves."

Sutter nodded nervously. "I don't care what's done as long as we get out of here alive."

Mcllrath said simply. "I followed your father, lad. You're his own true son. I will not hesitate to follow you."

The surge of exultation that leaped up in Sparks was drowned in the recognition of his new responsibility. Before, he had been taking orders. Now he was giving them. He well knew that Frome had had another reason for designating him as acting captain. Sutter and Mcllrath were both too old to respond quickly in an emergency. He was young, his reactions timed to split seconds. If they were to escape alive, they had to have a leader who could react instantly.

He stood up. "We'll carry Captain Frome into the galley. It's the best-protected spot in the ship. We'll take all our emergency equipment in there. We'll plug the porthole with putty. And after that—" But he didn't finish the sentence. He knew the metal walls of the galley would yield in time.

After they had carried everything to the galley, Sparks came back to the stern. Mcllrath followed him. "What are ye planning to do, lad?" he asked quietly.

"What makes you think I'm planning anything?" Sparks answered sharply.

"Ye've got the same quiet ferocity in your eyes that your father had. When he was planning something dangerous, and didn't intend to tell anybody about it, he looked just exactly like you do now."

"Yeah?" Sparks rasped. "Well, I am planning something, but you can't stop me. You heard what Frome said. I'm in charge now."

The engineer's eyes did not falter. "Ye needn't remind me of that, lad. I'm not trying to stop you. But if I know what it is you're doing, I might be able to help you."

"Oh!" the radioman answered. "I am planning something. I didn't tell you because I was afraid you might kick about it—think it was too dangerous. But it's the only way I can see for us to have even a chance to get out of here alive."

"And what is that, lad?" Mcllrath asked quietly.

"You remember my father had a saying," Sparks answered. " 'For every evil, nature provides a virtue. For every poison, there's an antidote. For every disease, there's a cure—somewhere—' There is something that will whip these gas balls, something that will destroy them. They've got a weakness, somewhere!"

"I also remember the rest of that saying. Nature provides a way to cure everything that goes wrong. But she doesn't hand you that cure on a silver platter. You've got to find it yourself! I don't doubt but there's a way to whip these vandals, lad, but how are we going to find it in the few hours we've got left?" The old engineer's face was wrinkled into a frown of pleading perplexity.

"By going to the only possible source of information, the

Martians themselves. They fought these things for centuries. If anybody knows what to do to lick em, the Martians do," Sparks answered.

"But they lost," Mcllrath protested. "They hid away in a hole. If they had known how to whip their enemy, they would have done it."

The radioman's youthful face clouded. "I've thought of that," he said desperately. "But maybe they ran out of ammunition to fight with. The fact that they put their city in order shows they expected these radium suckers to be gone when they awakened. Anyhow, diey're our only hope. We can either take a chance that they will know how to whip them, or we can sit here and die waiting. I'm not going to sit here and wait for one of those things to suck the life out of me. I'm going after a Martian. And this one," he finished grimly, "won't commit suicide before we get a chance to talk to him."

"But, lad—"

Sparks snarled, "I'm going."

He thought the engineer meant to protest his going because he would have to run the gantlet of the growing number of balls outside. But Mcllrath had no such intention. The old Scot knew very well that death lurked outside, but the threat of death had never stopped Richard Avery. Nor would it stop his son. It wouldn't stop Mcllrath either. Very calmly he insisted on going along.

Sparks' voice softened. "I think, Angus, you had better stay here and help me through the emergency lock."

"Aye, lad," Mcllradi answered. "I'll be waiting for you."

So Sparks waited until deep darkness had fallen. Then he slipped through the lock.

A globe of witch fire floated outside. Sparks eyed it. All over his body he felt his skin writhe. What if one of those things caught him? He knew the answer to that. His heart would stop beating, just as Orsatti's heart had stopped, just as—

He watched the gas ball. It floated toward the stern of the ship. He slipped to the sand and dropped on his face, crawling up against the hull. A thin whine sounded as another of the creatures passed. Or perhaps it was the same one. Perhaps it had sensed his presence and had returned. He held his breath. Death went by.

He waited until everydiing was clear and then dashed across the sand. Panting for breath in the thin, dry air, he reached the shelter of the buildings and saw a luminosity coming toward him.

He dived headfirst into the sand. Dust rose in choking clouds. The gas ball passed. He lay still, fighting for breath. The dust irritated his nostrils. He began to worm his way forward.

Two hours later he was back at the ship, a bound-and-gagged Martian over his shoulder. He took one look at the vessel and his heart sank. It was surrounded by hundreds of balls of fire mist. Swirling over the hull, squirming against the ports, eating their way through to the food that lay inside. Hundreds of them. And others were coming.

Had they already penetrated the hull?

He lay down flat on his face and began to worm his way across the open space, the Martian still over his shoulder. The Martian had seen the gas balls. He was whimpering like a badly frightened child.

Would he reach the ship? Or would they see him and dart at him in a swarming cloud? He was now only ten feet from the flier. A quick dash would take him to the lock. He took a deep breath, and lifted himself for the dash.

Then it happened. A gas ball, passing over him, suddenly whined angrily, and looped back toward him, hovering over him like a buzzard investigating carrion. Other luminosities, attracted by the action of the first one, came swirling downward.

They had discovered him.

It was the end. He didn't have a chance in a million. The gas balls were darting at him from all directions. He leaped to his feet, tried to race toward the emergency lock, knowing he couldn't make it.

He tripped and fell. Everything went black. He couldn't see. Dimly he wondered—did death come like this, a sudden rushing blackness? He felt no pain.

Something touched him. He screamed. A sharp voice said, "This way, lad."

Sparks gulped in thankfulness. Mcllrath! He knew now what had happened. The engineer had been watching from the lock, a smoke projector ready. That rushing wave of blackness was smoke. Smoke! He could hear the gas balls whining as they groped through it. Mcllrath guided him to the lock. The outer door clanged shut behind them.

In all his life Sparks had never been so miserable. When he had succeeded in returning to the ship with the Martian, he had thought they now had a chance to live. Instead he had learned that they were doomed. Doomed!

Two hours had passed since he returned. They were all in the cramped galley. Death was eating at the walls around them, death that now was only minutes off.

"I tried to tell you when you left, lad," Mcllrath said softly, "but you thought I was trying to keep you from going and wouldn't listen."

"I know," Sparks nodded glumly, "but I didn't think about this. All I could think of was that maybe the Martians knew some way to fight these fiends."

"I know, lad," Mcllrath answered. "Don't be feeling bad about it. 'Twas a brave thing that ye did. And maybe they do know some way—"

"Yeah," Sparks answered gloomily. "Maybe they do."

He glanced across the galley at the Martian. He was alive all right. Scared half to death but alive. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his arms and legs bound. His bright, fear-filled eyes darted restlessly over the room. Occasionally he said something in a high, singsong tone of voice. He knew what was eating through the walls of the ship, and he might know something to do about it. Every time he spoke he might be telling them how to whip the radium suckers.

The trouble was diey couldn't understand what he said.

The men of Earth and the men of Mars had met under desperate circumstances with the future of the planet depending on them, and they couldn't understand each other. The languages were different. John Orms, language expert, had spent eleven years trying to crack the written Martian language and had failed.

In time, now that they had found a Martian, they would be able to understand each other. But there wasn't time.

Seconds ticked away into nothingness. A red blot appeared on the wall of the galley. Mcllrath slapped a wad of putty over it, and looked down at the diminishing supply. There was very little putty left.

Sutter twitched nervously. Mcllrath calmly sat down. Sparks glowered at the Martian. To have safety so near, and yet so far away. It was maddening!

Frome, lying on the floor, tried to sit up and fell back. "Could I," he whispered, "have a drink of water?"

They had plenty of water. Sparks drew a cupful from the cooler. The eyes of the Martian followed him as he lifted Frome to a sitting position. The captain drank. "Any luck, lad?" he said weakly.

"No," Sparks answered, "but were not finished yet. There's some way to lick these things and I know it." He rose to his feet. He was lying to himself, trying to lie to them. They were finished. When the rescue expedition came after them, as it certainly would, it would be finished too. The bones of men would lie with the bones of Martians in the dry deserts, in the dust of the deserted cities. The exploration of the planet, so bravely begun, might well end here. The labor of the men who had fought space to reach Mars, the daring of the pioneers who had braved the deserts would have resulted only in death.

Then Sutter screamed, an inarticulate screech, the yell of a man who has seen death coming, and knows he cannot stop it.

A red dot, the size of the end of a lead pencil, had appeared on the outer wall. It began to grow in size.

Slowly the archaeologist slumped to the floor. He had fainted. The pressure was too much for him. They let him lie. Death would come easier if he did not know it was coming.

The red dot grew. The galley was silent. In the silence men breathed heavily. The Martian screeched. Another red dot had appeared on the wall.

"Shut up!" Sparks rasped. "We're all in the same boat—"

He broke off to stare at the Martian. A sudden savage hope sent his heart pounding.

The Martian seemed to be having a fit. He was twisting and turning and trying to free himself from his bonds. His eyes were darting continuously from the two men to another object in the room. He looked like a dog trying to warn his master that a grizzly bear is lurking on the trail ahead. And like a dog he could only tell what he knew by howling and begging with his eyes.

"He's trying to tell us something," Sparks whispered tensely. He leaped across the galley and cut the ropes that bound the native. The Martian struggled to his feet. He leaped across the room toward—Sparks caught his breath —the water cooler. He drew a cupful of the liquid, turned and splashed it across the red dots growing on the wall.

Something hissed like an angry snake. Hissed and drew away. The dots stopped growing.

"Water," Sparks gulped. "The one thing this planet has always needed and never had. Water! Those gas balls have evolved in a desert. They can't stand water; it kills them. Sutter was right. The Martians went into frozen sleep because their water supply had given out. The answer was right under our eyes all the time. The very dust that choked us should have told us what to do."

He was screaming now. "There's always a cure for every evil. But you've got to find that cure. And we've found it. Take that! And that!"

He was splashing water on the walls, wetting them down. Mcllrath and the Martian were helping him. The putty began to slip and fall away. Luminosities tried to surge through the holes. When water struck them, they sizzled like a skillet full of hot grease, burst into steam, and steaming died.

Two Earthmen and a Martian fought side by side, and they used as a weapon the one thing of which Mars for centuries had never had enough—water.

When the rescue ship came knifing down out of the sky, the surprised captain found four weary, happy Earthmen to greet him. Two of them supported the man he recognized as captain of this ill-fated expedition. But when he came to greet Frome, it was Sparks who stepped forward, and gravely saluted.

"Avery, sir, acting captain of the rescue ship Kepler, reporting."

The puzzled captain acknowledged his salute. They told him what had happened. "I get that," he said. "You did a swell job. But," he gestured toward the other group, "who are these?"

"The men of Mars," Sparks announced. "We've found them."

They had awakened the Martians from frozen sleep. They stood in a group apart from the Earthmen.

"But what's the matter with them?" the captain asked. "What are they acting like that for?"

The Martians were waving their hands in the air, turning somersaults, twisting and contorting their bodies.

"They're trying to tell you how happy they are to see you," Sparks answered. "They haven't learned how to talk to us yet, but they sure know how to make signs."

THE LAND OF NO SHADOW

By CARL H. CLAUDY

T

JLHE following established facts cannot

be controverted:

(1)     In the Morning Post of January 3, 1931, this adver-

tisement appeared for the first time:

WANTED—Young man, physically strong, courageous, no home ties, unmarried, some knowledge of science. Applicant must be willing to "take a chance" for fame and fortune. Can learn interesting details by addressing Box 756.

(2)       The same advertisement appeared January 7.

(3)       Alvin Gaylord left our boardinghouse on January 4, and never returned.

(4)       Doctor Kurt Arronson, professor of physics at the university, author of Mathematics of the Atom, Logarithms of the Fourth Dimension, and so forth, disappeared from his home January 10, and has never been heard of since.

(5)       On December 28, 1930, he had purchased from the Graham Clark Company: three boxes, each containing a dozen cans of soup; three boxes, each containing a dozen 204 cans of meat; ten tins of crackers; a box of twelve tins of applesauce and cranberry jelly; four cooked hams in cans; ten one-pound packages of cheese and two cartons of matches.

(6)       On December 29, at the Colonial Hardware Company, he bought a saw, an ax, a crowbar, a coil of half-inch Manila rope, a thirty-eight automatic, two boxes of cartridges, and a small flashlight.

(7)       On the same day he purchased from the sporting-goods store a gymnasium springboard. He bought also the heaviest sweater he could purchase, two all-wool blankets and twelve two-quart canteens.

(8)       All these purchases were delivered to his house, 89 Hillerton Road. I saw the sales slips of these purchases on his desk, and of course the stores will confirm the purchases. The delivery drivers substantiate my statement that all these boxes, materials, and apparatus were delivered.

(9)   They also have disappeared, except the springboard,

which was burned.

(10)       On January 10, fire broke out in Dr. Arronson's laboratory, apparently from some defective wiring in electrical apparatus of some size, set up in the middle of the room. Little damage was done, except to the apparatus, which was hopelessly ruined.

(11)       When I was examined for life insurance, the three physicians reported nothing unusual in my physique.

(12)       Several different medical examinations over a period of several days in the hospital, and one by the entire medical faculty of the university, disclose that my heart is now on the right side of my body.

(13)       All my life I have been right-handed. Now I am left-handed.

(14)       In the Horological Institute's museum, there should be by now, a Swiss watch marked "gift of Jerome Llewellyn Berkman." The watch was my fadier's. I carried it for ten years. Now it is like no other watch in the world; the hands turn counterclockwise, and the figures on the dial, which once read 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth, like your watch, now read 12, 11, 10, 9, and so on up to 1, which is where the 11 is on all other watch dials. I have just given it to the orderly to mail to the Institute.

(15)       I list as "evidence" the fact that Alvin Gaylord and I both knew that the university powerhouse, with its great generator, is just a mile and a quarter from Arronson's house. We had learned that in our surveying course. But I want to make it very plain that I had never translated distance into paces—I thought of it in feet, and in miles and fractions. It's a little comfort to remember that now.

Such is the "evidence," all of the most circumstantial and shadowy character. It doesn't explain to the world the disappearances of Gaylord and the professor. Yet, it cannot, I think, be altogether disregarded. Galileo was persecuted for insisting that the world moved. Da Vinci was laughed at for believing a heavier-than-air machine could support its own and a man's weight in the air. Roentgen was dubbed "crank" when he first told the world of seeing through solid matter. But they told their stories. I tell mine.

Someday someone will discover the secret of Dr. Arronson's huge coils and tubes and again adventure into the "Land of No Shadow." He should begin his journey in the neighborhood of Dr. Arronson's house. He will find the cross I erected, and if he will, he may lift away the rocks —but of that I will speak later.

You must forgive the "I" in this story. It is too weirdly personal to set forth otherwise. Furthermore, I am the only man on this earth who knows it.

I, Jerome Llewellyn Berkman—Jerry to my friends—am twenty-two years old, an orphan. My roommate, Alvin Gaylord, was also tieless, and my age. Both of us were seniors at the university. Both of us were strong, athletic, healthy. But there the resemblance ends. Al was a fine student, specializing in mathematics and physics. He claimed to understand Einstein! I just lucked through in both math and physics.

In the three years we had roomed together, we had become more than good friends. I mustn't be sentimental— but Alvin was like a brother—never mind.

On January 3, he called my attention to that advertisement, and I laughed. But Al Gaylord didn't laugh.

"Young man—no home ties—knowledge of science—" he repeated thoughtfully.

Now I know that he answered it. He went to Dr. Arron-son's house. I know now he went through the coils. All I knew then was that he just disappeared.

When he didn't come back to the boardinghouse for dinner, I notified the police and the university authorities. But he had no family; he had no debts; he had no property. There were no clues.

He was like a brother and I loved him. But what could I do? The police had said, "We'll find him." But they didn't.

Then I saw the second advertisement. I read it a dozen times, then answered it, giving my age and qualifications. It might give me a clue to Al. Next day—January 8—I received an answer from Dr. Arronson, telling me to call at the Hillerton Road address. I wish I'd kept the letter, but you probably wouldn't believe it genuine.

I went to Dr. Arronson's house about noon. Did you ever see Dr. Arronson? Queer little chap. Bald as an eagle; great, high beak of a nose; eyes like two Roman candles squirting fireballs at you; meek little voice that made you think him a meek little man. Very dry and precise, and widi a queer quality of eagerness, a breathless reach-ing-out from his mind to yours that not only made him famous as a physicist but as a teacher.

I'd never cottoned to him because I detested mathematical physics, but I didn't dislike him. Al liked him a lot. Like everyone else at the university, I respected him tremendously. Even now I won't say that he was cruel or inhuman—at first.

The first thing he made me do was promise I wouldn't reveal what he was about to tell me until he gave me leave or died. Of course I don't know he's dead—but he's gone. I guess it's all right for me to talk, now.

Anyhow, I swore.

"How much mathematics do you know?" I told him.

"Know anything about Einstein's theories?" I didn't—or scarcely anything.

"Are you willing to adventure, take a chance, risk your life against the certainty of undying fame and all the wealth you can use?"

"Sounds good," I said, half-skeptically. "I like excitement."

The scientist began a long lecture on the cosmos, particularly the mathematical conception of it, with special reference to the fourth dimension. You can find it all in books, so I'll condense it to one queer analogy.

"Imagine a world consisting only of an enormous plane, on which live flat beings who know only the two dimensions of right and left, forward and back. We'll call it Flatland," he began. "Of the third dimension, up or down, they know nothing. In their world, a line to them is like a wall to us; they can go around it, but not over it, since they know no such idea as 'over.' If I should pick up one of these queer Flatland dwellers and move him over the line of a complete circle, I would put him in prison for life, and he wouldn't know how he got there. He went 'up,' and he knows no 'up,' and then 'down' on the other side of the line, and he's never heard of 'down/

"Or I might lift him up from his familiar Flatland and put him in another Flatland, a quarter of an inch away. Let's suppose he lives on a large sheet of pink paper! I put him on blue paper. His home has disappeared. He doesn't know where he is. The color of his world has changed. His old world may be only an eighth of an inch above him, yet he can't see it, because he knows only two dimensions. 'Up' doesn't exist in his consciousness. Understand that?"

I said I did. Child's stuff. Had it in physics many times.

"Good! But can you understand that there may be another three-dimensional world, very close to this one, yet unknown to us because it's removed from our world a certain distance along a dimension at right angles to the three we know?"

I knew that as a mathematical conception, of course. We can draw lines, make planes, combine planes into solids; but we cannot construct a four-dimensional figure because we know only three dimensions.

"Nevertheless," he went on, "there is another three-dimensional world a short distance from this one. I don't know the exact distance, but it is not very many feet. It is as invisible and intangible to us as the blue plane would be to the pink Flatland dweller. Knowing no 'up' or 'down,' he cannot conceive of another Flatland close to him that he can't see or know. He knows only the dimensions length and breadth. We know also altitude. These make the familiar frame of reference by which we explain the position of anything. The chair you sit on is four feet from the east wall, ten feet from the north wall, its seat is thirty inches above the floor! But for the fourth dimension, we have no name. We cannot mentally conceive of another direction, ninety degrees from the three we know. Yet there is such a direction!"

Doctor Arronson paused, looking at me expectantly. I was fascinated—and uncomfortable.

"If I poke my finger through the Flatlander's sheet of paper, he sees only a line; he cannot see 'up' and 'down' my finger. Suppose a Flatlander lived on a sheet of paper in a book, with flat worlds on both sides of him. Suppose, then, some scientific Flatlander discovered a way of crawling from the world he knew to a second flat world he did not know! In so doing, he would be reversed—in the new world he'd be reversed as to right and left, just as our image in a mirror is inverted. But he would be the Coliimbus of his world—a man for the ages!"

The professor's eyes were burning as he visualized the immortal niche that might be his. I squirmed in my seat, unable to take my eyes from his. I began to wonder if he hadn't gone so far into his studies that he was becoming unbalanced. I grew afraid.

"Now—if somebody could discover a way of going from the world we know to the other world, removed from ours by an unknown distance along the fourth dimension, think what it would mean!"

The professor drew a long breath. I began to get interested. The idea of finding new worlds was gigantic!

"I have devised a means," the doctor said, speaking very slowly and significantly, "of moving a three-dimensional solid along the unknown fourth dimension. I won't bother you with details, but electrically I can set up such a strain in the ether that a three-dimensional solid can move along the fourth dimension. I have 'punched a hole' in the space of both worlds, much as my finger might punch a hole in two Flatlands pressed tightly together. I have found a pathway, and along that path a human being can go—a human being with courage, with adventurous spirit, with nerve."

"And what will he find at the end of the path?" I was becoming gripped, like a man living through a queer nightmare.

"I don't know." The professor spoke musingly. "I don't know! If I knew, I'd adventure myself. But I haven't the courage. I am old. I have little strength. That's why I advertised for a strong man with courage."

"Is that where Gaylord went?" I asked.

The professor's eyes fell. "Craylor?" he asked, mispronouncing the name. "Who—who is he?"

I was not deceived. Somehow I knew that Al had answered the advertisement. Doubtless the professor had sent him on this insane adventure! I began to feel sure of it— even though I felt in my heart that the whole thing was impossible.

"Tell me some more!" I pleaded. I wanted the whole story before I had him committed to an asylum, or went to the police and accused him of murdering Gaylord.

The professor rose. "Come!" he commanded. "I will show you."

He led me to an adjoining room—it might once have been a dining room of his house. Light from three large windows illuminated it. It was bare of furniture except for a small chair and table. In the center of the room stood a large frame about seven feet square, of what looked like black glass or enameled iron. It was surrounded by many coils of wire. There must have been hundreds of them.

Its four sides were covered with glass tubes of strange shapes, containing what appeared to be an unusual arrangement of grids and filaments, something like radio tubes, or perhaps X-ray tubes—I'm not much of a scientist.

In front of this frame was a gymnasium springboard. To one side lay an open case of red rubber balls.

"Walk around the frame, but don't touch it. Look at it. Step through it—don't touch it!"

The apparatus was screwed to the wooden floor. Behind it for ten feet was an empty space, then the north wall of the room. In front of it was the springboard.

"Stand on the springboard and jump through the frame," suggested the professor. "It's quite easy." I hesitated. Why, I don't know.

"Like this." The professor stepped on the springboard, teetered up and down a minute, then jumped through the frame. He landed on his feet but staggered a little, and fell awkwardly on his hands and knees.

"You can do better than that," he said as he rose. "I'm too old."

I stepped on the board, took a good jump, and landed on the floor six feet beyond the frame. "Well?" I asked.

The professor placed the chair opposite the edge of the frame and motioned me to sit. So sitting, I could see both in front of and behind the frame, but not through it. I was looking west, toward a window in the opposite wall.

The professor pulled a switch and pushed the handle on a rheostat. The tubes around the frame began to glow softly. A very low, soft hum, something like that of a connected loud-speaker when nothing is coming over the radio, filled the room.

"Look carefully!" commanded the professor.

It's hard to find the right words. For perhaps five minutes nothing happened. Then I noticed that a fog of darkness began to gather in the space beyond the frame. It began as a small spot and spread very slowly, gradually obscuring the wall opposite me. The window slowly disappeared. I call it a fog—it was more an absence of light. Yet the room was in broad daylight from the windows.

I suppose I watched this strange phenomenon develop for fifteen minutes. Then the professor picked up one of the rubber balls and tossed it through the frame—toward the north—into the darkness. It didn't fall to the floor. It simply disappeared.

"That's funny!" I said. It was funny, too. "Do that again!"

"You do it!" suggested the professor. "Throw the ball, hard. But as you get up, don't go north of the frame. Don't step into that dark area!"

I didn't. I got up from my chair and stood beside the springboard. I threw a rubber ball into what appeared to be a midnight-black curtain in a black frame. I threw it hard enough to hit the wall and bounce. The ball disappeared.

It was uncanny. Not the ball disappearing, but my feeling. That darkness in the midst of light ... I felt as you might if a bottomless hole opened suddenly at your feet, deep in which lay something fearful, unknown. Now I know I was looking at something no other man had ever seen before—Al and the professor excepted.

The professor cut one of the rubber balls in half; it was hollow. The rubber inside was yellow. Red outside, yellow inside.

"Throw again!" suggested Dr. Arronson. "If you throw often enough and hit—something—just right, you may get a ball back!"

"Hit what?" I asked. "There's nothing there to hit but the wall—"

"Well, throw!" begged the professor.

I stood in front of that frame and threw fifteen rubber balls as hard as I could. They all disappeared. But the sixteenth ball came back. Then my eyes did pop, I guess, because the ball was yellow. It had gone in red.

"Cut it open," suggested the professor, handing me a knife.

I did. Inside, it was red.

"It turned inside out," explained the professor, "as it bounced back."

"How can a hollow sphere turn inside out?" I demanded.

"That's as incomprehensible to you as how a Flatlander could be picked up and turned over is to him!" retorted the professor.

The professor shut off the current. The blackness disappeared as if—well, it just wasn't! I expected to find the floor covered with rubber balls. I could see none.

"You have seen my hole in space, my door to the other world," went on the professor. "Through that frame I have thrown soup, canned meat, tools, a gun, rope, canteens filled with water—everything I think a pioneer could want. Now I want you—if you have the nerve—to take a running jump from that springboard through that frame. I don't know where you'll land, but it will be somewhere. Something solid is there, or the rubber ball wouldn't bounce back. If it can bounce back, you can jump back. Jump through and look around. See what kind of world it is, then come back and tell me!" The professor's voice grew curiously clear and eager. "Come back and tell me, and you'll be the most famous man in the world!"

"Why the springboard?" I asked. "Why not just walk through the frame?"

"There is always the possibility of failure of the current," pointed out Professor Arronson. "A jump from the springboard minimizes the time of travel. If you just climbed through, and anything happened to the current through those tubes and coils—" He paused.

"Well?"

"You'd be cut in two!" answered the professor.

I determined that if I tried his foolish experiment at all, it would be via the springboard! Then a new thought.

"Suppose I come back turned inside out?" I suggested.

"The ball bounced back! It was subjected to a compressive force, which, over there,' must have moved it along the fourth dimension."

This was an explanation that didn't explain. Still, I tried to act as if I believed all this bunk. The experiment with the balls was queer enough, but so are conjuring tricks queer.

What wasn't a trick was Gaylord's disappearance. And Gaylord was like a brother. Athletic, cheerful, courageous, wholesome chap—you know the kind. I had no proof, but I was convinced Gaylord had gone through that frame. Well, I'd go after him. I'd jump through it at once for Gaylord.

"All right!" I agreed. "Turn it on. I'll take a chance."

"And you'll come back, in a day or so, and tell me?" he demanded, rubbing his hands, a wild light in his eyes. I didn't like it, but—Gaylord was my buddy.

"Of course, I'll come back!" I humored him. "As a matter of fact I'll come back immediately."

"I will keep the current on—you can depend on it!" the professor assured me.

I ought to have suspected that statement. I didn't!

He turned it on. The light grew. The blackness spread again. Again the curious low hum. I walked forward in front of the springboard to look at the frame.

"Don't go so close!" cried the professor sharply.

"Why not?" I stood still, close to the frame. Nothing happened. But then I heard something unexpected. You won't believe it. I didn't myself. I heard the soft swish, swish of waves breaking on an unseen shore, as if there were a subterranean sea, hundreds of feet below the house.

I thought something was the matter with my ears! At least that's what I thought until I saw that the professor didn't want me to hear the sound.

"What's that noise?" I demanded. "Sounds like waves—"

"It is some curious electrical effect!" he answered promptly. "I don't understand it, myself. It's not important/'

All the same that strange tvhish, whish of an ocean where no ocean could possibly be, made my heart beat faster. But the professor said the right thing, just then.

"I don't want to overpersuade you," he suggested gently. "Of course, if you're afraid—"

I was afraid, all right, but I was thinking of Al too. And I reasoned that if it were all a hoax, I'd just land on the floor.

"I'm not afraid!"

I flung my defiance at him through my teeth, took a short run, landed solidly on the end of that springboard, and jumped forward with all my might into the blackness of the frame.

How can you describe an experience like no other experience you ever had? I passed from a daylit room to complete darkness. There was a sudden absence of pressure inside of me, as if I were dropping in a swift elevator. Yet I had no sensation of motion! I was no longer hurtling through the air. I—I felt queer. I suffered no pain. Yet I was being torn to pieces inside with hideous discomfort.

Violent, unfamiliar, disrupting sensations, as if a tornado were pulling me in all directions at once. Yet I felt no wind, no sense of external force. Whatever happened occurred inside of me, not outside. I was a bundle of horrible, disintegrating sensations. Nor had I any sense of time. I must have landed in a fraction of a second. Yet I died a thousand deaths. I seemed to dissolve and become reassembled. But why try to describe the indescribable?

I lost consciousness, I suppose, but whether in passing through the coils or after I struck, I don't know. I have no memory of landing. And I must have hurt myself as I landed, because I was badly bruised.

Breaking waves, somewhere below me, sounded in my ears as I slowly recovered consciousness — the regular swish, swish I had heard through the blackness in the laboratory. Opening my eyes I stared into a gray pall, like an overcast sky. Shutting them again I saw the professor, the frame, die laboratory.

After an unknown interval, weary to the point of exhaustion, every muscle and fiber in me protesting against moving, I pushed myself half-upright and looked around. I don't care much if you believe me or not. At least I won't blame you if you don't. I didn't believe my own eyes.

I was on the extreme edge of a rocky cliff at least sixty or seventy feet above the rocky shore of the sea. Overhead was a sky that seemed one toneless hue. No horizontal line separated the sea and sky. At first I thought it was fog; then it seemed that sky and sea actually became one common substance, delicately shading into each other until you couldn't tell them apart.

I looked at the edge of the cliff, so near my feet. Had I jumped two feet short, I would have been dashed to pieces on those rocks, seventy feet down. Shuddering, I drew back from the abyss and looked to right and left. The cliff terminated at my right in an impassable wall. To my left it stretched out until it, too, faded into the blend of sea and sky. Behind me was a rocky mountain, going steeply up. Almost under my hand was a rubber ball. Ten feet away lay another ball, near a small automatic pistol.

I looked down again cautiously and saw some of the things Professor Arronson said he had tossed through his "hole in space." The rope-coil, several wooden cases, broken open, their tin contents scattered about. On the rocky cliff beside me I found the sweater, the flashlight, the tools, and four of the canteens. The lighter objects he had thrown through had landed on the cliff; the heavier, not thrown far enough, had missed the cliff and fallen to the rocks below. I might have missed the cliff, too.

"This is all nonsense!" I said aloud. I closed my eyes. "I am Jerome Berkman. I am in Professor Arronson's laboratory. I have just come from Mrs. Whipple's boarding-house, and I must go back there to dinner. The streetcars pass this house a block away. People I know are all around me. Be sensible!"

I opened my eyes to see a rocky cliff, sixty or seventy feet above a gently moving sea, watching a sky fade out into nothingness.

I tried again. "See here, it's not in the power of the human body to propel itself, even with a springboard, more than ten or fifteen feet. The springboard is within ten feet of the north wall of the laboratory. I jumped. I landed. I couldn't have fallen down far. I couldn't have gone through that wall! Therefore, I am not more than eight or ten feet from the springboard and Professor Arronson!"

I called to him.

"Dr. Arronson! Dr. Arronson! Can you hear me? Answer me!

No answer, of course. I didn't use my brain. I was just reacting like a child, hollering for help in a strange situation. It was too absurd, sitting on a high cliff over a lonely sea, yelling for Arronson, though one part of my brain told me he must be but a few feet away!

I stopped my silly yelling to talk to myself again.

"Look here!" I said loudly. "Look here! I'm dreaming. That's it! I'm asleep in the laboratory."

My feeling of unreality is hard to describe. I suppose it was at least an hour before I realized its cause. One of the rubber balls focused my mind on it. Picking it up idly, I held it in my hand, feeling it. Suddenly I spoke aloud:

"Why, it isn't red! Or yellow!"

It was a neutral gray. Then I understood the feeling of unreality. I saw no color anywhere. Gray rocks, gray sea, gray sky—different tones of gray; some dark, some light, but no red or blue or green or yellow. Everything was like a photograph, which is real to our minds only by convention. No wonder I thought I was dreaming.

I spoke aloud again. It got to be a habit. "I can see, but there is no color—only shades of light and dark. There must be a source of light without color. Yet how can white light, which gives shadows of light and dark, exist without color?"

But no source of light was visible. No sun. Then I noticed something perhaps more terrifying than any part of my experience. Objects cast no shadows! I stood up. I cast no shadow. I held one hand above another, and the one below was as "bright" as the one above. The cliff cast no shadow on the sea. The gray ball on the rock beside me cast no shadow on its gray surface. My hands were gray, my clothes gray and without shadows.

I don't knowT why that simple fact scared me so, but it did. I tried hard to convince myself I slept, but I knew I was awake, and horror descended upon me.

It was the unreality! You can stand the loss of anything except the familiar appearance of the world.

The thing that brought me out of my paralysis was the realization that my mouth was as dry as cotton. I crawled slowly over to the nearest gray canteen, every muscle and nerve protesting against the effort. I was less sore than utterly weary. My very bones seemed tired.

I managed to get my hands on the canteen, unscrew the top, and drain it. Although the water was warm, I felt better. Somehow, the touch of the familiar canteen, and the wetness of my mouth, restored some of my waning courage.

I decided, at last, that I couldn't sit forever on a gray cliff and watch a gray sea! I had to do something.

How long had I sat there, anyhow? The hands of my watch pointed to five minutes after nine. That was nonsense! I couldn't have been there eight hours! I looked again, narrowly, and saw the second hand going around backward. In some strange way my watch was reversed, not inside out as the ball had been, but as if I looked at its face in a mirror. Unless it was the absence of shadows, nothing was so horrible as this, because it was dreadfully unnatural—impossible.

However, I was becoming accustomed to the unnatural and the impossible. The whole thing was impossible. One strange phenomenon more or less didn't make very much difference. Five minutes past nine by the hands was five minutes of three by the figures. I had been—wherever I was—some two hours.

To lay out some course of action was imperative. But I was tired. Like a man who had barely survived some harsh experience, I was sapped. Crawling slowly and wearily to the brown bundle that was a blanket, I cut its cord with my pocketknife. I didn't notice that I used my left hand. Knowing only that I was tired, I wrapped myself up, automatically wound my watch and went to sleep!

I woke hungry and thirsty. Translating the reversed figures told me it was four o'clock; yet I knew I had slept more than an hour. Actually I must have slept almost the clock around. The terrible weariness had left me and the thought of food and drink was strong.

Stretching, I looked for a way down to the rocky shore where the broken cases of food lay. I found them a hundred yards to my left. The descent was difficult, but I am young and active and my stomach called imperatively.

The gently breaking waves, more like those of a bay than an ocean, made me feel more at home. Foam, white crests, damp smell, all were familiar, but there was not a seaweed, a crab, or any living thing on that shadowless shore.

I picked up a can from the first broken wooden box. Its label made no sense, quo? O!§B3 is what I saw. Stupidly I regarded it. Even the letters were strange. Then it came to me. "Eagle Soup," not only spelled backward but with the letters reversed in structure. I saw them as in a mirror.

Reverse or not, qooz or soup, my stomach craved it! With my knife I cut open the can and drank the contents; few meals have ever tasted better. I opened a second can of different variety, too starved to translate and learn if I ate chicken or vegetable.

When I was through, I sat and looked at my hands—my photographically uncolored hands—and wondered. For I had used my knife with my left hand and even now that hand was holding the empty can with its jagged edges.

I was left-handed. The watch was left-handed. The letters read backward. ... I could make no sense of it.

"I'm glad I'm not turned inside out, as the ball was," I said aloud.

Perched on a broken box, I considered my next move. Slowly I came to the realization that I might be here a long time. I'd better take an inventory of the supplies that would support life until I found my way back from this left-handed land of no shadow to the familiar workaday world I knew.

On the rocks about me, scattered over perhaps thirty feet, were four broken boxes of soup, three of tinned meats, nine tins with pressed-in tops, dented but unbroken, that yielded hardtack, a box of applesauce and cranberry jelly mixed, three cans of cooked ham, four packages of cheese and a carton of matches.

But the boxes were not full!

Cans of soup and meat were missing. The professor had spoken of ten tins of crackers, and there were but nine! "Alvin!" I gasped. "Al!"

And then I shouted aloud and danced a solemn, gay, little dance, all alone on that eerie gray beach. Some of the cans were missing. Alvin had taken them! If he had loaded himself with provisions, Alvin was alive! He was here—here in this strange place!

I shrieked at the top of my lungs, "Al—Al—Al!"

There was no answer save a dull and sodden echo from the high cliff behind me. But that couldn't still the joy in my heart, the mad happiness of knowing I wasn't alone! I wore myself out calling, shouting, crying for my friend.

I gave up temporarily, and went to the top of the cliff after a canteen—a joyful trip. I remembered that the professor had sent a dozen canteens, all presumably filled with water, hurtling through diat "hole in space." I had observed only four on the rocks where I had slept. Alvin must have taken eight of them. All, I suppose, he could stagger along under.

Which way had Al gone? Certainly he hadn't climbed up higher than the cliff on which I had landed. The mountains beyond were forbidding. Al must have walked along the rocky shore. To the right or to the left?

I could think of no reason why he should choose one rather than the other. My jump from the springboard was north. I landed on a cliff, turned around, and faced a sea to the south. If the points of compass were the same "here" as on the earth—subconsciously I began to accept the unthinkable hypothesis that diis was indeed another world than the one I knew—then the beach ran, roughly, east on my left hand, facing the sea, and west to the right.

Which way would Alvin have gone? East or west? The shore to the east looked more passable. There were fewer boulders. I strung the three remaining canteens about me, loaded up with a dozen cans of soup and meat by tying them in my shirt with the twine that had been around the bundle of blanket, and started down the cliff.

On the beach I built a little pile of rocks, stuck a board in it, and penciled a message: "Al—I have gone up the beach to the left, as you face the sea. Jerry."

On the cliff top I built another cairn of stones and left another message. If Alvin had gone west and should return, he'd have the comfort of knowing he was not alone.

My insane watch told me it was half-past five. Whether it was morning or evening, I no longer knew. But I did know, now, that no sun rose or set in this strange environment. I thought of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" and the "sunless sea." I dubbed the cliff Kubla forthwith. I laughed at the title, but underneath I was sick with terror of the unknown.

Half-past five. The university was closed for the day. The generator in the physics laboratory had shut down. Mrs. Whipple was about ready to ring the dinner bell. People were hurrying home in streetcar and automobile. Cops stood on corners blowing whistles—and I walked a rocky beach within a few rods of all that. Yet I was alone. Alone —or insane.

"Insane people never think diey're insane!" I told myself, but that was no comfort. Yet—I knew I was sane, just as you know it. I knew I was alive, just as you know it. I knew I was not asleep, just as you know it.

With my load of canteens and food I walked along the gray beach. I suppose I went fifteen or twenty miles, and in all that distance, land and sea exhibited no change. Rocky cliffs to my left, gray sea to my right. The beach— it was more rock than sand — seemed almost perfectly straight. But as I could not see more than half a mile ahead of me, and as the beach over which I walked disappeared into nodiingness half a mile behind, I had only a mile of beach under observation. The stretch might be the segment of some great arc and I wouldn't know it.

Nowhere did anything grow. No seaweed, crab, bird, lichen, tree. Nodiing but bare, gray, photographic rock.

I sat down at last, ate some soup and meat, and went to sleep. The rocks were not comfortable, but I am hardy. I did not suffer from chill, even without the blanket.

I don't know how long I slept. Six or seven hours perhaps. I woke with a start. Something had wakened me; some change in my surroundings; some alteration in conditions. I stared at the gray sea. The waves were as gentle and slow as before. The sky and sea still melted together half a mile away. Yet something had startled me.

I got up and turned around, slowly. Then I stood very still, frozen to immobility by something I thought I saw.

Down the beach, just about where sea and sky and land all came together in the fading mist, I saw a face. It was huge. I knew it must be a half-mile away, yet it seemed very close. It was colorless. The nose and mouth were too vague to describe, but the eyes—living, sentient, looking at me—struck terror into my heart.

The face showed only an instant; then it was gone.

I think I would have gone mad had my attention not been attracted at that moment. I heard something—a sound so faint it was scarce a breath, and yet so startling, so filled with portent and amazing hope I could not believe my ears,

I listened again. As faint as the thin, gray ghost of a sound, as delicate as a spider web of a cry, I heard it. A mournful, pitiful, hopeless whisper, directionless, distance-less.

My own name: "Jerry—Jerry—"

No man ever heard his own name under stranger circumstances. I answered at the top of my lungs.

"Here—here I am! Where are you? Al! Al, where are you?"

I stood motionless, listening. Gentle swish of waves, a dull thump, thump, thump that was my heart. I held my breath.

Again I heard it—elusive, directionless, sourceless. I would have disregarded it as an illusion had it not been my own name. Maybe it was an illusion anyway.

Down on the rocky strand I sat and tried to think. No use yelling my head off. I knew, somehow, that it was an actual sound I had heard.

"It can't be at sea," I said aloud, scanning the empty wastes. "No boats around here. Boats mean men."

I thought of that horrible, misty face I had seen. Could Al be in its power? I put the thought away hastily.

"He can't be under the beach. There are no holes. He must be up on the cliff!"

I leaped into action. If Alvin was on those cliffs and could see and call to me, he must be so situated that he couldn't show himself or climb down. I ran madly along the shore, looking for a place to climb. The cliffs here were a hundred feet high, at least; not the cliffs of erosion but of volcanic origin. Anyway, they would have been volcanic on the earth I knew! Smooth and sharp—but colorless.

I saved my breath; I didn't call. Hunting systematically, at last I found a break in the cliff, a steep way of broken gray rock. I tried it without stopping to think of risk. Al must have come this way. Where Al could climb for exploration, I could go to rescue him.

After I'd scaled the first thirty or forty feet, hanging by toe and finger to the slightest projection, I knew that a slip meant a possible hideous death. To fall and break a leg was to starve. I thought of it, but I was no longer afraid. I was doing something! Maybe that will help you to think better of me.

Al was helpless or he would have shown himself in response to my first call. How helpless, I didn't know then!

At the top I fell over exhausted. For a few minutes I lay there to get my breath. Then I got to my feet and called again, loudly: "Al! Al! Where are you?"

"Her-r-rel"

The answer was prompt, faint, but much stronger than before. It seemed to come from the level on which I stood —a rough and rocky plateau that stretched a thousand feet to a steep mountain that melted into the sky.

"I'm coming!" I yelled. "Call—every minute!"

I listened, straining. The answer came, faint but clear!

"In_the~hole!"

In the hole! What hole? I saw no hole. The sound came from my left. I scrambled over rocks, leaped from boulder to boulder, recklessly. After perhaps a hundred yards, I stopped. "Call to me, Al. Where are you?" "He-r-re! In—the—hole—"

The cry was stronger but of an eerie quality. It was no more Alvin's voice than is yours. It reverberated, echoed, hung in the air.

In the hole—in the hole—Al must have fallen into a hole. Perhaps he was injured! That was why he couldn't come.

I turned slightly to my left. "I'm coming! I'm coming!" I yelled, and scrambled on. "Call again. Where are you?"

"Jerry!"

The answer was almost at my feet! I stood stockstill. "Where? Where?" I yelled. "Here—the hole—look out-t-t-"

This time Al's voice seemed husky, natural, and close!

Look out for what? I checked my course. Al wouldn't warn me without reason. I moved more slowly, choosing my footing. The call was apparently from the earth twenty feet in front of me. Ah! I bit my lip. Almost at my feet was a hole—a circular, well-made, smooth hole. It was ten feet in diameter, at least, and forty feet deep. Its smooth walls, its perfect circular proportions, its perpendicular exactness made it seem the product of workmen. A well, perhaps, bored in the rock.

Approaching cautiously I looked over the edge. "Al!" I cried. "Al!"

"Jerry!"

Now it was all Al's voice, infinitely relieved. There he stood, forty feet down, curiously foreshortened as he gazed up. He was grinning. I must have been half crying with joy.

"Jerry! Boy! I was wondering if you'd come. That ad—I was sure you'd guess what I'd done!"

"Are you hurt?" I called to him, choking.

"Curiously, no-o-o-o!" His voice reverberated up die shaft. "But I can't get out!"

"I'll get you out!" I promised. "But I didn't bring the rope any more than you did! It's twenty miles away—fifteen anyway. How you fixed for food and water?"

"Food's gone. Have . . . half . . . a . . . canteen-n-n-n-"

"Stand by to catch!"

I looked down at Alvin, so short a distance away, yet so impossibly far from me. He stood close against the smooth wall. I swung a full canteen from its strap and dropped it gently. He caught it. I fancy he restrained his eagerness. His movements appeared deliberate enough, but the canteen was long at his lips.

I wanted to ask him how he got there—how long he'd been there, but conversation was too difficult with those infernal echoes. Explanation could wait. The job now was to get Alvin out. There was just one way. I had to go back for the rope.

"I ought to make it in twelve hours!" I called to him. "Can you hold out?" "Ye-es!" His tone was musing. "I—hope—you—can-n-n." "Of course I can!"

There was a mutter, a whisper. It sounded queer. Not like Alvin.

"I didn't get that. What did you say?"

"Good . . . old . . . Jerry!" His voice was full, hearty. "Go to it, boy. I . . . know . . . you'll . . . make it-t-t-t!"

I dropped him all the food I had carried, except two cans of soup. I figured I'd need those for strength on my way. But I was worried about the water. I'd need a little.

"Can you hold out for a drink?" I asked him.

"How . . . many . . . canteens-s-s-s?" he called back.

I told him.

"Oh, plenty!" he cried. "One at a time, now-w-w-w!"

The words were like a douse of ice water. Al had always been unselfish. Yet here he was, telling me to give up all the water! Slowly, disappointedly, I dropped them—all of them.

" By, old fellow!" I called to him, with an attempt at heartiness. "I'l be back, soon as legs can carry me. Keep the old upper lip stiff. I'll be right back with the rope!'

"Sure you will-1-1-1!" Mutter, mutter, mutter, under his breath. I thought I caught a word, a syllable, a hint in the echoes. They made no impression, then.

I built a little cairn of stone ten feet from the lip of the hole, so I could find it easily. Then I found a better way down the cliff to the beach, where I built another cairn. I suppose I moved half a ton of rocks and piled them up. The cliffs were all alike, and if I missed the spot I might hunt for days and never find Alvin again.

After that, just to be doubly sure, I paced off two thousand steps, and from lighter rocks well back from the water s edge, I built a second cairn that I could see from below. I dreaded that long cliff. I wanted to do everything humanly possible to guard against failure. Two cairns were better than one.

At last I started. I was hungry and thirsty. I didn't mind the thirst—much. Alvin needed the water more than I did. Al was like a brother.

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

Think, think, think.

Alvin. In the hole. How did he get there? He isn't hurt. Should have asked. No matter. Ask him later.

Tramp, tramp, tramp. Keep a sharp lookout for "kubla." No need for water yet. Was Alvin out of his head?

Footsteps.Footsteps on the rocky beach of a phantom world that didn't exist.

Mouth dry—like cotton. Hot. Sweaty. I need a bath. Bath . . . Why not a bath? Couldn't be any wetter than I was.

I walked into the water. It was slightly cooler than the air—not much. But it helped. I splashed in it, let the waves lap at me. I stooped over and dashed some into my face. Some of it got into my mouth.

I gave a wild shriek of laughter! The water was fresh! No wonder Al had taken all the canteens!

I put my head down and drank my fill. Al, having sense, had not assumed that because the oceans he knew were salt, that this queer ocean was salt too. Al had the true scientific mind. And he had given me credit for a little common sense.

I strode along the beach, feeling like a different man. Then I stopped. Why had Alvin muttered those echo-twisted words?

Ifeletyou.Ifeletyou. That was what they had sounded like. I put the meaningless syllables away. No use trying to figure them out.

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.Alvin in the hole. Said good-bye. Was cheerful. But he said I could make it—"if—they'll— let—you." Nonsense. Must have meant something else. What else could "ifeletyou" be? "If I'll let you?" No sense.

"If they'll let you." That's what he had muttered! Who could "they" be?

Had Alvin seen the face too? Had he been approached closely? That horrible face, with sentient, intelligent eyes! What would a man do—what could he do—if that face came closer . . . closer . . .?

Tossing my head, I spoke aloud to a shadowy world where no shadows were: "I won't be scared of a shadow!'

But I lied. I was scared. I couldn't talk myself out of being terrorized at Al's ominous words. Words hinting that there were "things" along the beach to waylay me.

Please don't laugh. I admit I was a coward. I'm not making any excuses. I told you this story wasn't a pleasant one from my standpoint. Scorn me all you want, but don't laugh.

They—they—they.

Tramp—tramp—tramp.

Rope waiting—if they've left it. There is no "they." This place is lifeless. The "face" was imagination.

But it was no use. I looked over my shoulder every two minutes. I strained my eyes at the ghostly meeting of sky and beach half a mile ahead, and half a mile behind. Half a mile is a long distance if you walk it; a short distance to get away from a face that peers at you with living eyes.

I'll skip the rest of that walk, except the last couple of miles. It was all the same, anyway—lapping sea, misty meeting of land and sky, rock, sand, desolation, grayness— and fear—

I began to recognize the cliffs. I was getting near Kubla. My queer watch told me I was about "home." I strained my eyes to see into the mistlike distance.

Of course the rope would be there! What could have moved it!

Out of the corner of my eyes, close to the cliff ahead, I saw color. My head came around with a jerk. Color! A sort of purple-violet!

When I looked directly at it, it was gone. When I didn't look at it, it was there.

I walked up to the spot until I could see it, directly above. Nebulous, inchoate, a circular spot about a foot in diameter, it was like a violet vapor in the still air.

I know what it was now. I'm a slow thinker. Alvin would have known at once had he seen it. But I mustn't get ahead of my story. I kept staring at this queer phenomenon.

It was fairly high above me, and it grew in size as I stared at it. When it was some eight or ten feet in diameter, it grew no larger. I thought I must be going crazy, for the light—if it were a light—began to make a noise. It was a faint sound, like a spinning top a long way off. Even that didn't tell me what it was! Had my brains only worked, there would be no cross in the rocks, no empty ache in my heart—

But I was in a hurry to get that rope. I left the violet light that wasn't a light and the hum that wasn't a hum and tramped on. I counted my steps; two thousand, six hundred and forty from the light to Kubla.

I found the rope. Nothing had disturbed it. In fact, nothing was disturbed. The boxes, the blanket, the supplies were just as I had left them. My note to Alvin was still under the little stone. I trembled with relief.

I was happier in mind than I'd been since I had arrived in this land. Eating a hurried meal, I rested full length for fifteen minutes. But I couldn't rest inside. Al was at the bottom of that hole, patiently waiting. Convulsively I leaped to my feet, loaded up with more canned food, coiled the rope over my shoulder, and started back.

I counted steps again—two thousand, six hundred and forty to where I'd seen the orchid-color glow. This time it wasn't there! Curious! I looked carefully, but there wasn't a sign of it.

I hate to tell you its absence made me nervous. But it did. There had been a light. Now there wasn't a light. What had caused it, what had put it out, or had taken it away?

Now you know why I was nervous. Al had muttered something about "they." Had "they" turned off the light? Were "they" in the air about me?

Yes, I looked over my shoulder a lot on the way back. But I didn't see the face then.

It was a much more tiresome journey than coming. I was tired! Yet I moved quickly because I wanted an end of being alone.

Hours of it, and then out of the ghostlike mist ahead I caught sight of the second cairn I had built close to the cliff. It looked friendly and inviting. I'd have Alvin out in less than half an hour!

I counted paces. The first cairn I had built, marking the spot where the climb up was easier, was just two thousand paces. I'd see it in a minute.

I counted fifteen hundred paces and stopped, bewildered. It must be right ahead! I walked on. Sixteen hundred—and began to feel a sudden fresh fear. Seventeen hundred—the beach was a flat! Eighteen hundred—nothing. Two thousand—no cairn!

My clammy wet clothes became suddenly chilly. Here was the spot where the cairn must have been. And no rocks.

In some miraculous way, Al must have got out, and moved them.

"Al—All" I yelled. "Where are you?"

Faint, thin, a mere wraith of sound, I heard the answer—

"Jerry-y-y-y-y!"

Then Al was still in the hole! I gulped. My hair rose. The thump of my heart sounded in my ears.

Had "they" moved the rocks? If the face was real, the body to which it had to belong must be of enormous strength—strong enough to move a cairn of stones with a sweep of the hand. But a body of such size and strength must be enormously heavy. And the sand held no footprints but my own. Besides, the world was dead. There was no food for a—a face.

I gulped.

What had moved those rocks?

Dropping all my load but the rope, I flew for the easiest way up the cliff. As I ran, I blessed my impulse to build the second cairn. Had I not done so, I might never again have found Alvin! The cliffs all looked alike; the rocks on the beach were the same endless jumble; no landmark pierced the hazy air to show me where, in all that wilderness, Al waited patiently in a rocky prison.

It was the second cairn that located him. "They" had removed one pile of rocks, but hadn't noticed the other one, two thousand steps away I

Stark fear drove me on. Terror winged my leaden feet. There was a "they." I knew it now.

The rope was heavy. My feet were aching boils. I paid no attention. I was trying to escape the Unknown Something that moved rocks from a beach without leaving a trace. I wanted human company.

I found my little pile of rocks on the lip of the hole without spending much breath in calling.

At the bottom of the hole sat Alvin, his arms wrapped about his knees. At my breathless call, he looked up and grinned. Oh, the heartening power of that friendly, crooked smile, impishly twisting his wide mouth! For the moment fright left me. Al was safe! All was right with this altogether wrong world.

"Out of . . . breath. Five minutes . . . have you out!" I gasped.

"You found the ro-ope?"

"Of course!"

Alvin said no more, but I noted the quality of surprise in his voice. If he hadn't expected me to find it, where did he find the grit for the grin?

Five minutes I spent in rest. The rope was strong, but only half-inch. I didn't believe Alvin could climb it. It was

up to me to haul him up, hand over hand, so that the rope wouldn't fray.

"Ready now," I called down, "stand by for the rope!"

One end of the line I tied about a rock that couldn't have weighed less than five hundred pounds. I mustn't make any mistake about this! If I dropped both ends of the rope into the shaft, Al was as dead as if buried!

Then I tumbled the rest of the coil into the hole. It reached all the way, with a few feet to spare.

"Make a loop for your feet, Al!"

He nodded. I saw him roll up his blanket, throw the roll over one shoulder, tie a loop in the rope and step into it.

I took a long breath, thankful that I had a pair of arms suited to a stevedore's job, and hauled.

He was heavy—a hundred and sixty-five, anyway. I pulled him up a few feet, put my foot on the rope, and took a turn about the rock. Then I reached down and hauled a few more feet.

Hard work.And risky. But Al came up, smiling cheerfully, confidently, and unafraid.

Halfway up, I snubbed tight and gasped, "Got to rest a minute."

"Take your time."

The reverberations had stopped, he was that close to the top. Taking a fresh grip on the rope, I hauled and hauled. He came within reach of my hands. I grabbed his left hand, let go the rope, took his other hand, and with one last heave, drew him safely from his living grave.

We took one long understanding look at each other. Our eyes spoke worlds. Relief—unutterable joy. Then Al became matter-of-fact.

"You all in, or can you travel?" he asked.

I let go of responsibility with the rope. From now on I didn't have to do any thinking. Al, who knew more in five minutes than I in all my life, was in charge.

"Pretty tired, but I can manage. Where do we go from here?"

"Down—back to Point Discovery."

His "Point Discovery" was my "Kubla." But I couldn't go that far without a rest. I said so. Alvin nodded.

"Al," I said eagerly, "how did you get down there? What—"

Al has clear blue eyes, a wide, expressive mouth. But now a haunted look came to the eyes; the mouth drew into a line.

"That'll keep. We must get away—get away—"

The words were fraught with meaning. Without another word I nodded, rose, untied and coiled the rope, and we started for the edge of the cliff. Al didn't want to get away any more than I did!

We got to the beach without adventure. I pointed to the spot where the cairn had been.

"It disappeared," I said.

"Not surprised!" Al answered. "Lets hurry!"

We tramped on in silence, and with every step, I felt better. Al was alive and free! I shifted my feet as if they had wings, and worry dropped from me as a discarded cloak.

The second cairn showed up through the mist. Al understood it without explanations.

"Smart work, Jerry!" he said warmly.

We tramped back toward Kubla for an hour. Then something happened to my legs. They're usually pretty

good, but now they wilted under me. I stopped. My knees trembled.

Alvin looked back the way we had come.

"Far enough, I guess," he said. "We'll stop here. Shoes off, bathe your feet before you do anything else, and we'll eat."

I did as I was told, mechanically. We ate a can of meat. I intended to ask questions—but before I got the first one out, exhaustion grabbed me. I slept for ten hours without stirring.

I came to, much mortified, and we talked. Al told me how he had answered the ad, jumped through the coils, experienced that queer dissolving of his substance.

"Think of it, Jerry!" he burst out, his face alight. "This discovery will revolutionize the world. Greater than Newton, Darwin, Galileo, the names of Arronson, Gaylord, and Berkman. That is—" He stopped—"unless—"

"Unless what?"

"They!" he said, and his voice was low—fatalistic. My heart tightened.

"Jerry," he said soberly, "I tramped along the beach, exploring—just as you did. I lay down to sleep on my blanket, and when I woke up, I was in the hole."

"How did you get there?" My voice was weak.

"I don't know." Alvin grinned, rather wryly. "I slept too soundly. But something picked me up, blanket and all, and carried me from the beach. 'They' found the hole and put me in it—or made the hole for me as I slept!"

This seemed to me arrant nonsense.

"No human agency," I scoffed, "could pick up a sleeping man, carry him up that cliff, then lower him fifty feet into a hole without waking him."

"I didn't say it was a human agency."

As I felt the blood leave my face, Alvin laughed gently.

"It was done by an inhabitant of this world," he said matter-of-facdy.

"A world of phantoms!Gigantic, horrible ghosts!" I shuddered.

"Not a bit of it," Al reassured me. "This is a perfectly real world! Solid, three-dimensional! Close to our own!"

"Then why can't we see the—the inhabitants?"

"Because we can understand only the three-dimensional part! That's all our senses will permit."

I must have looked bewildered.

"Listen, Jerry," Al went on earnestly, "this land of three dimensions is also a land of four dimensions. In that fourth dimension, something thinks and moves and plans and executes! Something digs shafts in the rock of three dimensions as easily as you would draw a circle on the Flat-lander's piece of paper. Something removed your cairn of rocks. Something wafted me sleeping to the cliff top and to the bottom of that hole—"

"Something with a—a hideous face," I put in.

Alvin nodded. "I saw it, too, just as I woke up in the hole. It was leaning over." For a moment Al was silent. Then he put a hand on my arm. "Do you know, Jerry, I felt good when I saw that second cairn of rocks. It proved that 'they' aren't omniscent. They can overlook things just as we can!"

"Yet," I said, " 'they' might be all around us, looking at us, examining us."

"Sure," Al said cheerfully. "We're just like the Flatlander in a two-dimensional world. He can't see you unless you are on his dimension. To get out of his sight you need only move up, away from his plane. These—shall I say people? Beings? Anyhow, they inhabit a world of four dimensions. Unless they want you to, you can't see them."

I shuddered. The idea of giants with the faces of devils watching us from an invisible Somewhere and preparing— goodness knows for what!—was appalling.

"Where does the light come from?" I demanded.

"Sun, I suppose," answered Alvin. "Polarized in some queer way — all color filtered out of it by its passage through the unknown fourth dimension."

"And the way earth and sky fade into each other?"

Alvin laughed. "I don't know! Our five senses simply don't give us enough information about this land. We're Flatlanders, and we must seem ludicrously helpesss to these —these faces."

I felt a sudden desire to get out of a world where we were helpless, incomplete specimens, back to a world that we knew. I said as much.

Alvin grinned. "We're driven to it by a very concrete and three-dimensional matter," he assured me. "Hunger! We have water, but only the food our thoughtful Professor Arronson tossed through the coils. When that's gone, we starve. We'd better go back—and next time come with a plentiful supply."

Next time! Not if I saw Professor Arronson first! Nor would there be a "next time" for Al, if I had anything to say about it!

Outside, I think I appeared nonchalant and unconcerned. Inside, my skin was liver-white and my flesh crawled and my hair tingled. Unknown eyes, looking at you from a fourth-dimensional point of vantage!

"But look here!" I cried. "If this is an inhabited world, must those inhabitants necessarily be dangerous to us? Why not friendly? Interested? Hospitable?"

Alvin grinned again.

"Are you very gentle with an insect? Do you mind swatting a fly? We probably look so unfamiliar to the beings in this world that they won't give us credit for having feelings. I was jailed in a rock hole so I'd be there when I was wanted."

In the biological lab at college are rats and guinea pigs— kept in cages until they are wanted. A tremor shook me. "Come on! Let's go!" I urged.

We hastened on toward Kubla. Every moment I expected some unseen thing to lay hold of me.

"Grub enough at Kubla for three or four days," Al said. "In that time we've got to find the way out."

Somehow I felt confident Al would find a way back. His ideas were better than mine.

The cliffs began to look familiar. I recognized a rock, here and there, on the beach. We were approaching Kubla.

I thought of the queer, violet phenomenon I had seen just about here. I described it to Al, but for some reason I didn't tell him how it began as a spot and grew, for fifteen minutes, or how far it was from Kubla.

"Right here, or hereabouts," was all I said as to its location. "Queer, violet light that I couldn't see except when I didn't look at it. When I got close it was up above, like a faint, vague circle of dyed air. It had a queer hum, like a top a long way off."

He shook his head. Would he, do you suppose, have understood it better had I told him of having paced it off to Kubla? I try to tell myself he would not. But—oh, I wish I had told him! Things might have been so different— no cross—all of us famous! And now, the dull, hopeless years—

We arrived. Everything remained as I had left it. The rubber balls were still scattered around on the cliff. The broken boxes and the food in cans were undisturbed on the rocks below. The little note I had left for Alvin was still under its rock. No one had been there. Nothing had been there. I sighed with relief.

"So far," said Al cheerfully, "so good."

We did the obvious—collected all the scattered food and made an orderly pile of it, climbed the cliff, gathered up the balls and put them in a cleft in the rock. Al tried to juggle three of them and laughed when he failed! He had a stout heart. His fear was under control.

Al wouldn't talk of how he had felt in that rocky prison. He had faced starvation—or worse. His only chance of liberation could have come from those—faces. Never had a man been so terribly alone as he. Yet he had come out with unwrecked nerves! But he wouldn't talk about it. He wouldn't answer my questions.

As I worked, I looked constantly about me. Nothing in the landscape was fearful. It was just lifeless, like an empty house. Yet within me swelled a rising tide of apprehension. Something was going to happen! The shadow of coming tragedy touched me with its cold edges.

A soldier to be shot at sunrise can brace himself for dawn and face a firing squad with what manhood is in him. In some country—I forget which—a sentenced criminal is not told how long he has to live. He goes to sleep every night with the thought "it may be tonight." He never knows when the hand of the jailor will be laid upon him to lead him to the scaffold. He must keep himself braced all the time—or break down into a weltering mass of terror.

I didn't doubt Al's ability to find a way back. He'd solve the puzzle. But could he solve it before the jailor came?

We were resting at the base of the cliff when Al's hand grasped my arm, and Al's breath came hot on my neck.

"Look!" he whispered. "Look!"

He shrank down behind a pile of rocks, pulling me with him. The hand with which he pointed up the beach was shaking. Al's hand—shaking! I looked.

A quarter of a mile away, two faces stood out of the mist; faces that changed as we looked at them! The mouths were lipless, and as I watched, they disappeared. Beneath the faces, bodies—huge and barrel-like—took form, and then faded.

"Wonderful!" Al whispered. "They're in and out of the fourth dimension before our eyes! We see only what is in our three dimensions . . . For Pete's sake, look, man!"

The beings drifted up to the cliff and disappeared into it.

"Gosh," Al murmured. "Three-dimensional matter is no obstacle to them! No wonder they could dig that hole!"

The cliff was at our back. I looked around at it to reassure myself, and cried out, a strangled, bitter cry. Alvin turned, and together we stared into the rocky cliff against which we leaned, stared into two huge eyes that were not eyes, at a face that was no more a face than are the feelers on a lobster's legs. We looked into eyes that were intelligent, sentient, understanding, reasoning—but eyes as impersonal, as inhuman, as monstrous as a nightmare. Inside the living rock!

If I could have fled into the cage of a savage man-eating tiger, and known that there I would not see those eyes, or be at the mercy of that stupendous, impersonal cruelty, I would have cuddled to the beast like a baby to his mother. Anything to escape diat inchoate, grisly thing in the rock. . . .

It faded. It wasn't ready for us. Perhaps it had just wanted a good, close look. We fled up the rocks to the top of the cliff—fled without plan, or words. And up there my control snapped.

"Al!" I shrieked. "I can't stand it!"

I ran to the cliff edge, looked wildly in every direction for a way of escape. But there was nothing but gray sea and gray rock. I wanted to yell, or fight, or leap outward and end all this senseless terror.

Al was beside me in an instant, and his face was infinitely gentle.

"Come on, Jerry," he said, like a dad talking to his child. "Let's flop and get a little rest."

So great was his hold on me that I let him lead me away from the cliff, and wrap a blanket about me. And I slept, or rather fell unconscious from exhaustion.

Al and I woke up at the same instant. We were staring at each other, wide-eyed, sweating. "What is it?" I asked. "I don't know," he replied.

For a moment we listened. There was a queer thumping in the air that was not our hearts. There were other sounds, muffled and ominous. Sounds that drew closer— and closer. "They're gathering," I thought, and in my heart leaped terror, reborn and fresh.

Al put his hand on my shoulder. He had regained control, completely.

"You ve got a decision to make, Jerry," he said. "Spill it."

"Would you rather take a dangerous chance on getting back home, or stay here and learn the meaning of all this?"

He waved his hand. By "all this" he meant this inexorable approaching mystery; that thump—thump—thump: those hideous, invisible beings that seemed to be gathering from great distances around us.

"Home, of course!" I answered, strained. "Is there any question about it?"

He didn't answer at once—I like to think that Alvin gave up a great ambition in that moment. He just looked off into space, then nodded.

"Just where did you land when you jumped through the coils?" he asked quietly.

Beckoning him over to the little note I had left for him under a rock, I pointed.

"Locate the spot exactly," he commanded. "Lie down as you were when you recovered consciousness."

I did so. I couldn't forget. Two feet from the edge of the cliff, and almost between two sharp rocks.

"I landed there too," he agreed. "Just what did Professor Arronson say to you about getting back?"

I repeated the substance of his conversation: I needn't stay but a little while; I was to look around and see what I could see; he would keep the current turned on, so I could come back.

"That's what he told me!" confirmed Alvin. "What's your impression of the distance from the springboard to where you landed?"

"Six or seven feet—eight at the outside."

"That's my idea," agreed Alvin. "Then six feet out from the edge of this cliff is an invisible 'door' to our world, the back of the portal we came through. We don't see it, but we know where it is. We agree as to the distance. All we have to do is take a running jump from that spot and dive—"

He left his sentence unfinished, and looked at me oddly.

"Suppose we're mistaken? Suppose it's farther away than we think? If we miss it—"

This time it was I who failed to finish a sentence. The rocks, sixty feet below, were jagged, and menacing.

"You catch the idea, exactly!" grinned Alvin. "If it isn't there—we lose! But if it is there we arrive in the room with the coils."

I looked down at the rocks and grew cold.

"Suppose we try!" suggested Alvin. "If we succeed, we can make plans for a better—and safer—exploration!"

I had reservations about coming back. The gold of Midas wasn't enough to tempt me back to this place, once I was out of it!

"On the other hand," he continued, "we have a great chance to see something no one in all the world has ever experienced. If we jump—and miscalculate the 'door'—we die on the rocks. If we don't jump, at least we'll know something very interesting before we die some other way."

"What odier way?"

He held up his hand for silence. Under the faint, swish, swish, swish of the waves, beneath the beating of my heart, I heard that thump — thump — thump — those vague noises . . .

"That!" he said. "Don't ask me what it is. I don't know. But, it would be very interesting."

"Let's try the door," I said. I didn't have ATs scientific curiosity. "I'll go first. If I fail, you'll know we've miscalculated—"

Al laughed. "We'll let chance settle that. But first let's take all the precautions we can."

"How do you take precautions about diving headfirst off a cliff sixty feet high, trying to hit a hole in space you can't see?"

"Smooth off the cliff and get space for a good running jump," answered Al. "That crowbar ought to help. Then, of course, we'll throw a ball or a rock at our supposed 'door' to see if it's there!"

We went to work removing boulders. I felt that we were working against time—against the faint thump—thump— thump—that was growing louder all the time. Against the moment when the invisible gathering would manifest itself.

After we had smoothed off a path twenty feet long, we ate ham and applesauce.

In the air was that pulsing sound, getting closer. And another sound like . . . like gigantic whispers. As though somebody were discussing us. I looked around for faces. At any moment something might enclose us—spirit us away. Perhaps forever.

"Better start, hadn't I?" I inquired. My voice sounded all right to me. I was glad it didn't tremble like the rest of me.

"We'll toss a coin for it!" amended Alvin.

He spoke in a tone that meant what it said. I wanted to take the risk myself. But he gave me no time to protest.

"I'll toss it and you can call it!" he suggested. "If you win, you go. If you don't, I go. That understood?"

"You toss, and I call heads or tails," I answered. "If it lands what I call, I jump off the cliff, through the 'door.' If it doesn't, you go first. Word of honor you'll abide by the toss."

"Word of honor!"

Al took a quarter from his pocket. The familiar token looked odd in that strange world—a gray quarter, with nothing of silver about it.

"Ready?"

I nodded.

He flipped it high in the air.

"Heads!" I called as it went up. It tinkled on a rock, bounced, fell under the edge of another, right by Al. He picked it up, looked at it. It was tails.

"I go!" he announced.

He picked up a ball. "I'll throw just where I believe the 'door' to be. I'll keep my eyes glued to the spot where it goes through, run hard and jump for that spot. Then you follow."

I nodded. I was limp inside. I believed in Al. But those rocks sixty feet down from the top of the cliff were suddenly savage, menacing.

Alvin picked up a ball and poised to throw, like a baseball pitcher. Suddenly he dropped his hand and walked up to me to lay his other one on my shoulder.

"Been a great experience, eh?" he asked. "Good old Jerry!"

That was all. He walked to the end of our runway, turned and threw. The ball was only a second in flight. It seemed to hesitate, to hang in the air a moment—and then it disappeared!

Al grinned at my cry of joy. Then he waved his hand. The courage of him! My hair rose. I twitched all over. Then he was running, running down the little path we had made. ...

He flung himself over the cliff, straight out and a little up.

I have heard that a drowning man reviews his whole life in his last few seconds; that a man falling out of a high window lives his years over again before he strikes the ground. I never believed it. But it's so. While Al hung between rock and sky, I lived over again our lives together —studying in our room at night, getting a malted at the corner, walking across the campus. Several vacations we had camped together. Al, the versatile. Al running the high hurdles—

The hurtling body reached the top of its curve. I shut my eyes.

I can't tell you of the next few minutes. I didn't need to look to see if he made it. I heard!

I scrambled down the cliff as fast as I could go. He was dead—instantly, I think. His lips smiled and his face was peaceful.

I was alone—all alone. Al was dead. There were just these rocks, the gray sea, and I.

Forgetting the pulsing thumps, the undefinable whispers, I buried Al where he fell, under a cairn of rocks. From the boards of one of the boxes I made a cross, using a rope to tie the pieces together. I set it firmly between two great boulders and tried to say a prayer.

Then I climbed the cliff. Why, I don't know. I didn't care.

I sat on the cliff edge and looked down at the cross. I was as dead as Alvin. That something was still drawing closer. Horror was enveloping me. But I didn't care. Too numb even for grief, I sat on the cliff edge staring out. And then came stark, poignant despair. I knew myself a murderer!

As I sat on the edge of the cliff and looked out over the great sea, / saw again a spot of pale, orchid-violet light. Just a faint, faint little spot, but it grew, slowly but surely it grew, until it was square! Square, and not five feet beyond the edge of the cliff. Square, the shape and the size of the coils on the frame! And it hummed—and so I knew.

The round violet glow I had seen two thousand, six hundred and forty paces down the beach—the glow that hummed—was a mile and a quarter away. The university powerhouse with its big generator was a mile and a quarter from Arronson's house. Al and I had measured it in surveying class!

The square, violet glow in front of me was Arronson's frame of coils! That glow I had seen down the beach was the university powerhouse. Evidently any powerful electrical field in the world I knew shone as a very faint, violet glow in this one! Had I told Alvin how far from Kubla that first faint glow had been, he might have got the connection.

Why had the ball Alvin had thrown disappeared? If the "door" was open for the ball, why was Alvin beneath a cross? I puzzled for a few minutes, my numb brain working slower than usual—then the answer began to come.

In Arronson's laboratory the strange "black light" had commenced as a small spot and grown until it had filled the frame. The orchid glow I had seen a mile and a quarter from Kubla had begun as a small spot and grown and grown—I suppose as the generator had increased its speed. The orchid glow now bright in front of me had commenced as a small, elusive, half-seen tinge of color—and had grown and grown!

When Al had thrown the ball, the current must have been just turned on—Arronson evidently had not kept it on all the time. By some strange freak of ill luck, Al's ball had hit the little spot where the "door" had just begun to open. Wide enough for the ball, but not wide enough for Al!

Now the door was open wide for me!

My thoughts were a riot, my skin dripped with wet, cold sweat, my heart died within me. Below was a cross. There had been no need of it. Had we waited, had I had the wit to tell him the distance I had paced off! Or how the spot had grown!

Paralyzed with hopeless regret, going mad with grief, rage welled up inside me as understanding came. He had lied, Arronson! He had promised to keep the current on!

We had believed him. Al had believed him. How should we know that current had been cut off? Arronson had promised, and broken his word.

Arronson, murderer! Arronson, coward, who couldn't adventure for himself. Arronson, who had taken the life of the best man I ever knew to satisfy his insane thirst for knowledge and for fame!

I cried his name aloud. I raged against him and his coils and his lie! I don't remember all I did. I tramped up and down, up and down the cliff, looking at the violet glow. I threw myself upon the rocks, and cried.

Becoming calm at last, I knew I had very little more time. Those pulsing noises in the air were closer. I looked around and through the air I saw a monstrous, gray shadow fade into the mountain.

Fear returned. My rage at Arronson died down into a cold and deadly hatred. Somewhere about me, "they" were getting ready to act.

I drew my breath in, walked slowly to the end of the runway and faced the violet glow. Fear streamed out behind me as had the black light from the coils, but there was none in front.

I set myself, gathered my strength and ran—ran as if that dread and inexorable thump were already upon me, ran with all my might and main, down the rough path. I sprang straight out and a little up, over the murderous rocks below, to the very center of that pale glow—

I landed on one shoulder. Sliding across the floor I brought up with a bang against Dr. Arronson's wall. Dazed for a moment, I thought I heard a low cry. Then I crawled groggily to my feet. Behind me was the frame, the coils. The springboard had been pulled to one side. Facing me, his eyes eagerly interested, alight with wonder, was Dr. Arronson.

"Tell me!" he demanded. "Tell me—tell me! What— where—what is beyond?"

But the light went out of his eyes and the blood from his cheeks as he saw my face. All I could see was Arronson, the murderer.

He shrank from me as I moved toward him. I exulted! I would have liked to stop and watch him cower in terror —he who didn't know what real terror was!

I jumped and caught his wrists. I am big and strong and he was little and weak. I wanted to crush him with my hands—but there was a better way.

As a hammer thrower whirls the weight, so I used Arronson. He squealed—squealed like a trapped rat! Three times I whirled him around my head, and then I let go! Arronson, murderer, flew feet first through his infernal coils, the blackness cutting off his yell of fear as if a knife had cut the sound—

"Go see for yourself!" I yelled after him. "See that cross! See for yourself those living eyes! Try being a caged rabbit!"

I looked around the room. It was then I saw the sales slips of all his purchases of food and tools. They were on his desk. But I didn't take them. Now I wish I had. At least they would be tangible evidence.

I didn't disturb his coils before I left the house. He should have the same chance he gave me—better! I didn't turn off the coils. It was not my fault that his laboratory caught fire, not my fault that he has no "door" through which to return! Let him stay—and rot—and learn! Let him suffer whatever fate "they" provide for the witless humans who come to a world not intended for them.

The doctors here are very kind. Everyone makes me as comfortable as possible. I have a private room. They keep the door locked, but I don't mind. They talk soothingly. I don't blame them for thinking I'm crazy.

They tell me Professor Arronson has gone away on a vacation, and that Alvin has gone with him! They try to bolster up this lie with tales of the purchase of the canned goods, the rope, the automatic, as supplies for a camping expedition! The red balls, they insist, are tennis balls, and the springboard, they tell me, was bought for a boy's gymnasium! At my strange watch, at my left-handedness, they just shake their heads.

"Just a case of overstudy," they say. "Professor Arronson and Alvin will be back in a week or so, and then you'll be all right."

But I know better. I have seen—and in my dreams I still see—a simple cross. Beneath it lies all that is mortal of my friend. Somewhere there is—or was—Professor Arronson. Whether he died of starvation—or whether some thing came over the mountain for him, I will never know.

Someday some man will rediscover the secret of the coils, and adventure again into the fourth dimension. Let him look for Kubla, and the cross, and raise at least a flag for Alvin who died with a smile, the first true explorer of the Land of No Shadow.

PLUM DUFF

By PETER VAN DRESSER

c

V^APTAIN JACK BULLFINGER, said Timothy judgmatically, "was a hard man. He was such a man as would sooner clout a mate behind the ear than speak a civil order to 'im."

I listened attentively, for my friend Timothy is a space cook, one of those beings several degrees superior even to a sea cook, and his words are of value. Timothy is comfortably fat, and I should hesitate to say how many millions of miles his mass has been transported between the ports of the solar system. He has gone through amazing experiences during his career among the pots and pans, and whenever he seems ready to tell a tale, I dispose myself to his convenience.

"I do not mean to say," went on Timothy, settling his weight more comfortably in the park bench where we had seated ourselves for a chat, "that he was such a man as would actually clout a mate behind the ear, for that is not in the regulations, but he would 'ave liked to. It was a turn of mind of his, you might say."

"But how do you account for this news dispatch?" I asked, returning to the item that had started our conversation. "It says that after forty years in the service, Cap-

257

tain Jack Bullfinger is retiring from active duty and that his men have presented him with a gold watch and chain in token of their esteem and friendship. But if he maltreated his men, Timothy, how could he be popular?"

Timothy shook his head massively and stared off into space. " 'E must have changed, then," he finally said. "The plum duffing must ave been permanent."

"The plum duffing?" I ventured cautiously, wondering what he meant.

Timothy heaved a great sigh and began speaking. "It happened back in 2011," he said, "when I was considerably younger than I am now. I had, as you might say, just embarked on the thankless career of space cookery, and I had illusions of what could be done for the middles of suffering mankind in their voyaging through the System.

"She was a ship of the Triple-O line that I served on under Captain Bullfinger. I think that name probably is beyond your time for it has long since gone into bankruptcy. It was a little company, and its ships were stubby beetle-tailed devils, with no sort of comforts for a decent man. The particular one I had the misfortune to sign up on was the Coma Berenices, the smallest of the lot.

"That ship and its master had a reputation together. The Coma was a bad actor and Jack Bullfinger was a hard driver. She was the sort of ship that made the life of a chief engineer miserable. Those were the days of atomic hydrogen—another thing that's beyond your memory— and if you excuse my expression, it was opping 'ades to handle if anything went wrong. And even when nothing went wrong, this Coma Berenices was mean. She drove like a child's squib, wobbling off axis every few minutes and falling away three points or more and then snapping ahead fit to knock the kettles off the stove. I tell you, sir, it's a wonder I 'aven't Saint Vitus's dance to this day from my time aboard that ship.

"But this Bullfinger took a sort of morbid pride in her. Yes, sir, he exulted in the contrariness of the old gas pipe. Fancied himself as an Iron Man or something of that nature. No, sir, 'e wasn't popular in those days. Not cleanshaven and respectable like that telephoto of him. No, indeed. He was a stocky, square-built man with a red face and a great black beard—kind of made you jump if you came around a corner and met him sudden. I learned a plenty of his ways mighty soon after we cleared Earth on the outward run to Mars.

"The old Coma was under contract to the Planetary Minerals and Metals Corporation. She was loaded with great machinery, not to speak of sixty engineers going to the corporation's two mines on Mars. They were a wild lot, going out to two years' exile in that terrible hole, with no chance to see a piece of blue sky or breathe a bit of natural air.

"It didn't take me long to learn something about Bull-finger an' his methods. To save fuel he doubled his acceleration, an' when that happens, a body weighs twice as much as normal. Did you ever try to cook twice as much stew, sir, while you were weighin' 450 pounds, when you should rightly weigh only 225? It's cruel punishment, I tell you.

"We got well fed-up that trip. 'Twas a February opposition, and a clear sixty-million-mile course out to Mars. Every day Bullfinger'd come through the ship on his inspection tour, rumbling and roaring like an overloaded exhaust, and raggin' everybody he came across.

"I learned from the steward what was ailing that man. His room was full of pictures of old-time sailing ships, and 'e 'ad a whole bookshelf full of sea stories. 'Twas romance that was wrong with Captain Bullfinger. 'E was overcome with admiration for the old skippers that crowded on most sail when the wind blew loudest, that raced each other round the Cape Horn, and knocked their men down with belaying pins. I guess 'e thought the times was too delicate, what with algebra and celestial mechanics taking the place of tarred rope and bulgin' biceps. So whenever there was anything that could be done in a harder way than usual, he did it that way, and 'e drove 'is ship and roared at 'is men and bristled 'is black whiskers for all 'e was worth.

"Now there was one contradiction aboard ship, sir, that just goes to show the way Fate works. The chief engineer of the Coma was a young Frenchman by the name of Marcel Saint-Geraud, if you can believe it, and 'e looked it. 'E was so small an' dainty an' young that 'e was a perpetual insult to the captain! Not over five feet four at the most from the top of his shiny black hair parted in the middle to the tip of his shiny black boots. 'E was a perfect gentleman, with a waxed mustache and ballroom manners.

"I don't mean to give the impression that Saint-G was a sissy. 'E was one of the finest engineers that ever calibrated an equalizing gear, sir. 'E was just out of college, with honors and one year's experience, but you can understand what a thorn in die flesh 'e was to our friend Bull-finger. 'E was a blot on the noble traditions of Space as represented by black whiskers and belaying pins, as you might say.

"Steward soon began reporting to me ow things was becoming strained in the officers' mess. Bullfinger was finding it 'ard to be civil to Saint-G. 'E was falling into the 'abit of making sarcastic remarks whenever the little man came in looking particularly spruce and nice. Remarks such as, ' 'ow did the dance come off today, Marcel?' or % 'ope you 'aven't found things too messy this watch, monsieur?'

"The whole business was kind of 'ard on the Frenchman. Even though the other officers wasn't 'ostile to 'im like Bullfinger, still they couldn't make much out of 'im. So Saint-G led a kind of solitary life, reading in his stateroom or pacing around by 'imself when 'e was off watch. That's no good for a man in Space, sir, when outside the portholes is nothing but unholy black sky with cruel blue-white stars staring at you. Out there, when the good old Earth drops behind till it looks smaller than a ten-cent piece, a man's lonely enough even when 'e's got friends about 'im. Without friends 'e's pretty bad off.

"One day 'e strolled by the ventilator deck where I was taking my ease (little enough I 'ad of it) and said a few words as if 'e wanted to start a conversation. I was glad to do what I could to cheer him up, so I unlimbered and talked about this and that, and I could fair see'm brighten up. When 'e left me to go on watch 'e was a new man. You may think 'twas peculiar, sir, that a chief engineer should get so familiar with a ship's cook, but as I said before, the man was desperately lonely and men are just men out there. We struck up a fine friendship and many's the pleasant conversation we 'ad there on the ventilator deck with the big fans 'umming in dieir cases all about us.

"I soon discovered that 'e was a chrysanthemum fancier, and that back ome 'e 'ad a pretty little garden and 'ot'ouse and all the rest of it. Well, sir, you know me well enough to see ow that started me off! If there's anything I want to enjoy for a few years before I die, it's a 'ome and pretty little garden around it where I can raise flowers. So I would listen by the hour while 'e talked about his darlings, and about 'ow 'e budded and grafted them and 'ow 'e named them after famous ladies and all the like of that. I can 'ear 'im to this day, speaking with a French twist to the words, all full of quiet enthusiasm. 'Owever 'e was led to become an engineer of rocketry, is beyond me. But such is the way of Fate.

"Voyages don't last forever (which is a blessing) so after twenty-seven days the old red baseball of Mars began shining through the ports and soon we slapped down in the ways on the plain of Tharsis with Bullfinger roarin' out is orders through the intercom (the nearest thing he could get to a megaphone, I guess). Three days we was in the plant unloading our supplies and refueling and taking on our cargo. The men there were crazy glad to see us, and you couldn't blame 'em. Two years cooped up in those airtight buildings, with no scenery around them but jaundiced Martian desert, living under 'alf gravity and 'ardly able to enjoy life. But we were destined to see worse than the red stuff of Mars before that voyage ended.

"Yes, sir, barely four hours after we 'ad 'iked ourselves earthward from the air locks of Mars, we were swinging around and heading outward again.

"It was a couple of hours before I found out what 'ad 'appened. Bullfinger 'ad just received a message that should 'ave reached us while we was at the Tharsis plant but was delayed in transmission. Came from 'eadquarters of Planetary Minerals and Metals back in Chicago, and was all about one of them asteroids—you know—the little specks of rock a few dozen miles across buzzing around on the far side of Mars. I never thought they were good for anything but to clutter up pages in the Ephemeris, but I guess there was something they wanted on this one. They 'ad dumped a dozen men on it, with air cells and supplies and equipment. That was eighteen months before. Those men *ad been shut off from everything for eighteen months —living practically outside gravity—while that little bit of rock not more than a 'undred miles around 'ad kited through one revolution in its crazy orbit. 'Idalgo, that was the name of the little planet. Named after a Spanish gentleman, 'twas. But can you think of the 'ardihood of those men, willingly going into such a scheme? I tell you, sir, there's a deal of strange 'appenings around this old System of ours.

"Well, anyhow, the company 'ad been planning to pick them up when 'Idalgo got back near enough to Mars to make it convenient. They 'ad arranged for the old Tucann to do the job, but she burned out her bow section leaving Earth and 'er sailin' was canceled. Consequently they switched it to us as the nearest one around. And that was why we was 'iking back out instead of coming 'ome like gentlemen, safe and sound.

"It took about five days' cruising to connect up with that mite of a planet, and there was a nice bit of navigation even if Jack Bullfinger did do it. 'Twasn't long before we could see this 'Idalgo 'anging off to one side like a golf ball against a curtain of black velvet. We watched while Bull-finger brought us up to it, and we could see the crumbly rock surface of it, and the queer shadows from the sun. It fair gave me the chills to look at the thing. Like a death'sead 'twas, all barren and orrible. Ow men could bring themselves to stay on a place like that, as I said before, is beyond me.

"I 'ave no wish to enlarge on this part of my tale, sir. There are some things better forgot. For about a day we 'ung beside 'Idalgo, while the officers in the instrument room combed die whole of it with telescopes. They located the air cells all right, and a few of the machines they 'ad built there—but not a sign of the men. From the looks of them, the works 'ad been abandoned for months. The air-lock doors was gaping open, and there was no light or life about the place.

"There was no living thing on the whole ball—no 'uman nor animal nor plant.

" 'Twas a queer feeling that came over us then on the old Coma. What 'ad happened to those men during the long months when that little speck of matter was coasting out toward the fringes of the System? 'Ad they gone crazy with the loneliness and jumped off into space? They could do it, you know, because the velocity of escape from that little ball was only a few feet a second. Or 'ad something got them?

"Oh well, there is no use speculating about that. Tis a ' sealed mystery, like many another I 'ave run against in my travels, and there is uo way of knowing. When Bullfinger satisfied 'imself that there was nothing 'e could do, we shoved off from 'Idalgo and 'iked on back toward the good old sun and friendlier places.

"I was kind of expecting Bullfinger to put in at the Mars satellite station for fuel, as the long detour must 'ave used a lot. But as the time wore on, 'e showed no signs of stopping and we could see 'e 'ad worked us into our orbit direct to Earth. Now this I 'old was an unfortunate decision on 'is part, and dictated by the nonsense of 'is about wooden ships and iron men, and 'ard-driving skippers of the old days. 'E thought 'twould bring him credit with the company to save the time and fuel that would be taken up by the Mars stopover. Well, it's one thing to fight against nature on Earth, when she uses nothing but wind and water and the like, and another thing to fight 'er in space when er tactics is so much more scientific, as you might say.

"Saint-G was a bit worried about fuel, too. 'E 'ad a feeling that 'is tanks wasn't full enough to get us back. 'E 'ad several talks with Bullfinger about it, and pressed 'im pretty strong for the refueling, but 'twas no use. Jack Bull-finger was the master of the ship, and not afraid of man nor devil and 'e was going to take 'is ship through.

"Well, things went on about as usual till we got about 'alfway back, then Saint-G told me that things didn't look any too good. There we was, thirty-five million miles to port in either direction, and doubtful about getting there. Earth no more than a middlin' bright star ahead, and Mars a similar one behind. Talk about a drop of water in the ocean! We felt smaller than that, and just about as important. I tell you, the old System's a terrible big place if once you start worrying about it.

"Of course you understand the men didn't know about this. I wouldn't 'ave except for Saint-G, and I kept mum.

" 'Twas on Saint Patrick's Day by the chronometer that the suspense was ended. We 'ad been thirty-five days coming in, and Earth was anging out through the ports fine and large—a fair sight, with 'er crescent all silver and 'er markings standing out clear. Saint-G dropped by to see me, worn and tired from a long session in the engine room and another with the officers. For once, 'is hair was not neat, and 'is little mustache was drooping.

" 'My friend,' 'e says, putting is 'and on my shoulder, 1 'ave sad news to tell you. Today, on the third watch, our fuel will be gone/ 'Is arms dropped to 'is sides like 'e was too tired to 'old them, and 'e stood looking tragic-like. T ave done my best,' 'e says, 'but eet was not enough. I wish to thank you for ow much you 'ave 'elped me, and for the many delightful hours I 'ave spent with you.'

"Polite? 'Ere 'e was, pronouncing a death sentence as quiet-like and courteous as a man saying good-by to the 'ost at a party. I tell you, sir, there's nobody like him. For the life of me I couldn't keep a lump out of my throat.

" 'Cheer up, Saint-G,' I finally says. 'Where there's life there's 'ope,' (though at the news the bottom 'ad dropped out of my stomach). 'What does the old man say 'e'll do about it?'

" 'Oh,' says the little feller, ' 'e propose to make a Hoh-mann landing. Eet is perhaps possible/ 'E shakes 'is 'ead and presses 'is 'ands to 'is 'ead. 'Ah, my so exquisite Lady Gwendolyn, what will 'appen to 'er?'

"For a minute I 'ad no idea what 'e was talking about, then I remembered that 'Lady Gwendolyn' was one of 'is pet chrysanthemums—a new breed e was developing in 'is little garden.

" 'Listen, Saint-G,' I tell 'im, 'if it's to be a 'Ohmann landing, then 'twill be a 'Ohmann landing, and you must take 'eart/ I slaps 'im on the back. 'Now you turn in and get some rest. This is Saint Pat's Day and I feel luck in my bones, and we must be fit and ready for it! You'll see your ' "Lady Gwendolyn."'

"Now 'ere is where the plum duff comes in. But first I must explain about this 'Ohmann landing—that's before your time, too.

" 'Ave you ever seen one of these fancy divers in a circus jumping sixty feet into a tank of water about four feet deep? Well, a 'Ohmann landing is something like that, only about five times as bad. For when you look up at the sky, you may think there is a lot of the Earth's atmosphere above you, but when you're coming in from outside 'tis as thin as the peel on an orange, and you must navigate and figure unhumanly close to enter it just right. You must come in slantways, just so as to dip into the curve of the air, and then out again before she gets too ot. But 'er angle and speed must be just right so that she'll be slowed down enough to swing around in a long ellipse and come back into the air on the other side of the Earth. This must go on four or five times, and knowing that Bullfinger was none too clever at navigating, 'tis no wonder that my 'eart sank at Saint-G's report. 'Twas as good as suicide for us to attempt it.

"But a man must face dangers with a full stomach, and I knew 'twas my duty to carry on with my work to the best of my ability. And besides, 'twas Saint Patrick's Day and there should be a good dinner to 'elp the morale. My supplies was run down with the extra drain and when I came to fix something for a nice dessert I was stumped. I 'ad nothing left but some cans of plums. They wasn't enough to go round, by a good margin. Well, sir, I thought and thought, and then I 'ad an inspiration.

"Yes, sir, you're right. I decided to make plum duff. I knew 'twas a famous dish in old sailing-ship times, and I figured it ought to instill in our breasts, or our stomachs as you might say, some of the 'eroism of old times. 'Ow to make it, I wasn't quite sure, but I experimented a bit and boiled me up a batch of starch pudding sweetened with syrup and then I plopped those plums in. 'Twasn't such a bad concoction, and it 'eartened me to fling it like a challenge, as you might say, in the teeth of danger. I guess every man aboard 'ad a bit of it. Blow my nozzles! When I think ow near I came to wrecking the Coma with all of us aboard. Me and my plum duff—

"Well, about 'alf an hour after we'd eaten mess, plum duff and all, old BuIIfmger called the whole crew and passenger list together on C deck.

" 'Men,' 'e says, after clearing 'is throat and rumbling a bit, 'I 'ave some grave news to give you.' 'E glares around impressively. 'In 'alf an hour,' 'e goes on, 'we will be out of fuel. 'Owever, I 'ave worked die ship into an orbit that will carry us into a successful 'Ohmann landing, providing you all do your duty and keep your 'eads. I shall request each one of the passengers to retire to 'is stateroom and strap himself in 'is bunk during the periods of free fall. The crew will take up emergency posts. The mates will see to it that all regulations pertaining to weightless operation are enforced. The rest will be in the 'ands of me and the navigator—and God. That is all—except,' ('ere 'e glared around again) 'we must carry on the noble tradition of the sea, and up'old our courage and strength.'

"Well, in short order die mates got everybody where they belonged, and the passengers put in their staterooms, and everything shipshape. For my part, I 'elped the mess-boy stow my pots and dishes where they wouldn't go flying about while we were weightless. There is no understanding the unreasonableness of kitchen stuff when you're weightless—they act as if possessed by imps, and will stay in no place but must float about and bounce 'ere and there till the air is thick with them.

"When all these preparations was complete, a sort of 'ush fell over the old Coma, so that all you could 'ear was the um of the ventilating fans and the occasional whisper of a man. We was all strained and tense with waiting for the drive-jet to stop, for there's no getting around it that weightlessness is a 'orrible unpleasant state to be in, and it was going to be a matter of hours for us, for we would 'ave to fall from a 'undred thousand miles away. Imagine that, sir—falling that distance, with our motors dead! Our only chance was to 'it the atmosphere just right! Just skin through the stratosphere enough to slow up but not enough so the friction would bum us to a crisp. If we'd only had a little fuel to decelerate with!

"Well, sir, what 'appened from then on was a kind of nightmare which is jumbled in my mind to this day. The alarm bells rang and I felt my weight dying away and that awful feeling grabbing me in the pit of my stomach. The motors was stopping and we was going into free fall! I grabbed a 'and'old and 'eld on, while everything went dizzy in front of my eyes and my ears started roaring. The whole corridor was whirling around me in big circles and I shut my eyes and clung on to that 'an'old for all I was worth. My feet shot up off the deck in the queerest fashion, and I felt as if I was falling off a precipice and that piece of steel between my 'ands was the only solid thing anywhere, though it was falling, too. Oh yes, sir, 'tis no lark to lose all the weight that you was meant to 'ave, and float around like a blooming feather in a windstorm.

"In a few minutes I managed to get some control of myself, and I could see things fairly straight. I could just make out the big curve of the Earth swinging out to one side, all dull silver against the black sky.

"I adn t been looking at it very long, when I eard a kind of squawk down the corridor, as if somebody was urt. So I pushed myself out, and there was a mechanic all doubled up and 'anging midway between the deck and topsides of the corridor and groaning something awful. I bounced along till I came up to 'im. "What's the matter?' I yelled at 'im. 'Ow, my goodness! I'm poisoned!' he squawks, grabbing 'is stomach and wallowing around in the air. 'Acute indigestion,' I thinks to myself. So I took im in tow and 'eads for the sick bay, which was down on B deck.

"Well, from then on the nightmare really began. I 'ad no sooner got to the sick bay than I saw more coming and one of the mates was doing is best to mix emetics of sody water and mustard and what not. Oh, 'twas a terrible mess, for die water and stuff wouldn't pour from the bottles but would plop out in great gobs to fly about the room and bust over everything, and die sick men was groaning and bouncing themselves about in their cramps. And more was continually coming and even the volunteer doctors was getting struck. Well, sir, 'twas my plum duff that did it! The plums was old and ad some'ow gone bad, and the whole crew 'ad got ptomaine poisoning. Think of it, sir!

"And all the while the curve of the Earth was getting bigger and bigger off to one side and below. I snatched looks at it between times, and it made my 'eart sick with fear. We were falling toward it faster than any bullet shot from a gun—and if we struck the atmosphere wrong the least hairsbreadth, 'twas farewell!

"I went up in the chartroom—all semblance of discipline 'aving vanished—when Bullfinger, still glued to the instruments, mutters, '1 think we're coming in now.'

" 'E meant the stratosphere, which was where we would find out whether we could live or die. But the navigator only groans 'orrible like from 'is corner of the room. 'E was too sick to care.

"I froze in front of the pyrometers, knowing that they would tell the story. You see, sir, they showed the temperature of the outer 'ull, and when you strike air at seven miles a second, the 'eat of compression is something awful. I knew that if ever the needles swung far into the red sectors of the dials, we'd be done for, 'cause our bow plates would melt off. So I stared and I sweat, and I sweat and I stared, and the needles stood still at way below zero.

"Then they kind of shook themselves and commenced moving ever so slow. At the same time I felt a pull on my body, and me and everything loose in the room started drifting toward the ceiling. The more pressure I felt on my body, the more the needles sneaked around the dial toward the red. My naked perspiring soul was 'eaving against them, but nothing would stop them. I don't know ow long it lasted. I looked once out of the porthole beside me—facing away from Earth—and the sky wasn't black any more but a dark, deep blue, and by that sign, I knew we were well into the stratosphere.

"When I looked back again, one of the needles was in the red! The air inside the Coma was getting 'ot, for the bulk'ead beneath my 'and was warm to the touch. I gave a kind of a groan, and Bullfinger looked around at me.' 'As she gone over?' 'e asked.

"I nodded and 'e turned even greener. 'Oh, my 'eavens,'

'e says, ' 'ave we burnt out our bow? Just when we was past the thickest of it! What 'ave I done?' And then a bell commenced banging away and a red light winked over one of the air gauges. At that the captain broke down completely. ' 'Tis the bow compartment,' 'e moans, 'we'll never get out alive!'

"Then 'e starts bellowing. 'The repair men!' 'e yells, 'where are they? Get 'em on the job!' But all the repair crew was sick with ptomaine. There wasn't a bloom in' guy on the ship able to fix that bow compartment.

"And then who should bust in but little Saint-G, swinging from 'and'old to 'and'old. 'E comes up to old Bullfinger and says, 'Sir,' 'e says, my gauges 'ave inform me that we 'ave a puncture somewhere in the bow—yes?'

"Bullfinger stops groaning long enough to nod to 'im. 'Very well, sir,' 'e goes on, 'you 'ave no doubt computed when we shall reenter the atmosphere. I desire to know.'

"Bullfinger shook 'is 'ead despairingly. 'In seventy-one minutes,' 'e says, 'but much good 'twill do us. She will not 'old up under it. We're lost!'

"Now, sir, even I 'esitate to impose on your credulity for the rest of the tale, but 'tis gospel truth what I'm about to relate. Saint-G turns to me and grabs my arm. 'Timothy!' 'e shouts it at me. 'You must 'elp me! Come! Vite!' And 'e was off like a shot, and I followed 'im.

"To this day I get shaky in the legs to think of it. Yes, sir, we crawled out to work on that leak—the chief engineer and the cook! We went outside through the air lock with our space-suits and 'elmets and magnetic shoes, and we 'auled gear around to the bow of the old Coma, and we went to work. There we was, stark underneath the black sky, two mites sticking to that curve of metal, with the old

Earth 'anging 'uge and ominous over our shoulders, and with the sun glaring out from behind it as if it wanted to burn us alive.

"But we worked like Furies, for believe me, sir, there was plenty of stimulus. We was swinging out and away from the Earth, once more back in space, and coming around to the sunward side at the same time. We could see the Earth turning over slow be'ind us, and the continents sliding around the curved edge of it and the water of the seas shining like glass in the sun. For a while, the ball was growing smaller as we coasted out, but pretty soon we knew that it 'ad stopped shrinking and was creeping up on us again. That meant we 'ad little time left, for we'd soon be back in the atmosphere, and if we were outside when that 'appened, we'd be wiped off that 'ull as clean as a new pot.

"Can you see us under the black curtain of space, workin' frantically with tools to mend that 'ole? Fearin' the first tug of atmosphere that would pull us into Space? The lives of the whole crew depending on us?

"Well, there's not much else to tell, sir, for the fact diat I'm 'ere shows that we did finish in time. We skedaddled back through the lock just two minutes before we was due to strike air, tossing away a cool ten thousand dollars worth of 'yzone torches and molar formers, because there was no time to fetch 'em through the lock. We found that enough of the crew 'ad revived to manage the ship, and the critical times was over anyway. Our speed 'ad been cut down enough so that there was no more danger, and during the rest of that 'Ohmann landing business, the Coma was well under control.

"Five hours later we made a forced water-landing in the South Atlantic, and radioed for a sea tug to take us into Miami. But as I said at the beginning of this tale, sir, Captain Bullfinger 'as been a different man ever since. Saint-G was the 'ero—the nice little man that e sneered at so much. 'E saved the ship when all the bold spacemen was took down with the tummy-ache from my plum duff! Saint-G, the polite chrysanthemum-raiser, the man of the hour! And Bullfinger was man enough to make it plain he could take 'is medicine.

"But," said Timothy, shaking his head in mild resignation, "I who made 'im what e is, as you might say, am still a space cook, which is Fate. And I 'ope that Saint-G by this time 'as retired to 'is little 'ome and flower bed, where I think 'e would be much 'appier.

"Oh yes, 'e was a fine little man, but I forgot to say, sir, that being of a sensitive stomach, *e threw up all 'is dinner as soon as we went into free fall. Which was why 'e didn't 'ave the cramp, which was why 'e could carry on an mend that ship! It was the fact that 'e was delicate, sir, that made 'im the *ero, I wonder ow many great deeds of history 'ave depended on such things as that?"

KINDNESS

By LESTER DEL REY

T

IHE wind eddied idly around the corner and past die secluded park bench. It caught fitfully at the paper on the ground, turning the pages, then picked up a section and blew it away, leaving gaudy-colored comics uppermost. Danny moved forward into the sunlight, his eyes dropping to the children's page exposed.

But it was no use; he made no effort to pick up the paper. In a world where even the children's comics needed explaining, there could be nothing of interest to the last living Homo Sapiens—the last normal man in the world. His foot kicked the paper away, under the bench where it would no longer remind him of his deficiencies. There had been a time when he had tried to reason slowly over the omitted steps of logic and find the points behind such humor as the new race enjoyed, sometimes successfully, more often not; but now he left it to the quick, intuitive thinking of those about him. Nothing fell flatter than a joke that had to be reasoned out slowly.

Homo sapiens! The type of man who had come out of the caves and built a world of atomic power, electronics, and other old-time wonders—thinking man, as it translated from the Latin. In the dim past, when his ancestors

had owned the world, they had made a joke of it, shortening it to "Homo sap," and laughing, because there had been no other species to rival them. Now it was no longer a joke.

Normal man had been only a "sap" to Homo Intelligens —intelligent man—who was now the master of the world. Danny was only a leftover, the last normal man in a world of supermen, hating the fact that he had been born, and that his mother had died at his birth to leave him only loneliness as his heritage.

He drew farther back on the bench as the steps of a young couple reached his ears, pulling his hat down to avoid recognition. But they went by, preoccupied with their own affairs, leaving only a scattered bit of conversation in his ears. He turned it over, trying senselessly to decode it.

Impossible! The casual talk left out too many steps of logic for Danny to understand it. Homo intelligens had a new way of thinking, above reason, where all the long, painful steps of logic could be jumped instantly. They could arrive at a correct picture of the whole from litde scattered bits of information. Just as man had once invented logic to replace the trial-and-error thinking that most animals have, so Homo intelligens had learned to use intuition. They could look at the first page of an old-time book and immediately know the whole of it, since the little tricks of the author would connect in their intuitive minds and at once build up all the missing links. They didn't even have to try—they just looked, and knew. It was like Newton looking at an apple falling and immediately seeing why the planets circled the sun, and the laws of gravitation; but these new men did it all the time, not just as those rare intervals where it had worked for Homo sapiens once.

Man was gone, except for Danny, and he had to leave this world of supermen. Somehow, soon, those escape plans must be completed, before the last of his little courage was gone! He stirred restlessly, and the little coins in his pocket set up a faint jingling sound. More charity, or occupational therapy! For six hours a day, five days a week, he worked in a little office, painfully doing routine work that could probably have been done better by machinery. Oh, they assured him that his manual skill was as great as theirs and that it was needed, but he could never be sure. In their unfailing kindness, they had probably decided it was better for him to live as normally as they could let him, and then had created the job to fit what he could do.

Other footsteps came down the little path, but he did not look up until they stopped. "Hi, Danny! You weren't at the Library, and Miss Larsen said, payday, weather, and all, I'd find you here. How's everything?"

Outwardly, Jack Thorpe's body might have been the twin of Danny's own well-muscled one, and the smiling face above it bore no distinguishing characteristics. The mutation that changed man to superman had been within, a quicker, more complex relation of brain cell to brain cell that had no outward signs. Danny nodded at Jack, drawing over reluctantly to make room for this man who had been his playmate when they were both too young for the difference to matter much.

He did not ask the reason behind the librarian's knowledge of his whereabouts; so far as he knew, there was no particular pattern to his coming here, but to the others there must be one. He found he could even smile at their ability to foretell his plans.

"Hi, Jackl Fine. I thought you were on Mars."

Thorpe frowned, as if an effort was needed to remember that the boy beside him was different, and his words bore the careful phrasing of all those who spoke to Danny. "I finished that, for the time being; I'm supposed to report to Venus next. They're having trouble getting an even balance of boys and girls there, you know. Thought you might want to come along. You've never been Outside, and you were always bugs about those old space stories, I remember."

"I still am, Jack. But—" He knew what it meant, of course. Those who looked after him behind the scenes had detected the growing discontent, and were hoping to distract him with this chance to see the places his fathers had conquered in the heyday of his race. But he had no wish to see them as they now were, filled with the busy work of the new men; it was better to imagine them as they had once been, rather than see reality. And the ship was here; there could be no chance for escape from those other worlds.

Jack nodded quickly, with the almost telepathic understanding of his race. "Of course. Suit yourself, fellow. Going up to the Heights? Miss Larsen says she has something for you."

"Not yet, Jack. I thought I might look at—drop by the old Museum."

"Oh." Thorpe got up slowly, brushing his suit with idle fingers. "Danny!"

"Uh?"

"I probably know you better than anyone else, fellow, so—•" He hesitated, shrugged, and went on. "Don't mind if I jump to conclusions; I won't talk out of turn. But best of luck—and good-by, Danny!"

He was gone almost instantly, leaving Danny's heart stuck in his drroat A few words, a facial expression, probably some childhood memories, and Danny might as well have revealed his most cherished secret hopes in shouted words! How many others knew of his interest in the old ship in the Museum and his carefully made plot to escape this kindly, charity-filled torture world?

He crushed a cigarette under his heel, trying to forget the thought. Jack had played with him as a child, and the others hadn't. He'd have to base his hopes on that and be even more careful never to think of die idea around others. In the meantime, he'd stay away from the ship! Perhaps in that way the subtle warning of Thorpe's words might work in his favor—provided the man had meant his promise of silence.

Danny forced his doubts away, grimly conscious that he dared not lose hope in this last desperate scheme for independence and self-respect; the other way lay despair and listless hopelessness, the same empty death from an acute inferiority complex that had claimed the diminishing numbers of his own kind and left him as the last, lonely specimen. Somehow, he'd succeed, and in the meantime he would go to the Library and let the Museum strictly alone.

There was a throng of people leaving the Library as Danny came up the escalator, but either they did not recognize him with his hat pulled low or sensed his desire and pretended not to know him. He slipped into one of the less-used hallways and made his way toward the Historic

Documents section, where Miss Larsen was putting away the reading tapes and preparing to leave.

But she tossed them aside quickly as he came in and smiled up at him, the rich, warm smile of her people. "Hello, Danny! Did your friend find you all right?"

"Mm-limm. He said you had something for me."

"I have." There was pleasure in her face as she turned back toward the desk behind her, to come up with a small wrapped parcel. For the thousandth time, he caught himself wishing she were of his race and stifling the feeling as he realized what her attitude must really be. To her, the small talk from his race's past was a subject of historic interest, no more. And he was just a dull-witted hangover from ancient days. "Guess what?"

But in spite of himself, his face lighted, both at the game and the package. "The magazines! The lost issues of Space Trails?" There had been only the first instalment of a story extant, and yet that single part had set his pulses throbbing as few of the other ancient stories of his ancestors' conquest of space had done. Now, with the missing sections, life would be filled with zest for a few more hours as he followed the fictional exploits of a conqueror who had known no fear of keener minds.

"Not quite, Danny, but almost. We couldn't locate even a trace of them, but I gave the first instalment to Bryant Kenning last week, and he finished it for you." Her voice was apologetic. "Of course the words won't be quite identical, but Kenning swears that the story is undoubtedly exactly the same in structure as it would have been, and the style is duplicated almost perfectly!"

Like that! Kenning had taken the first pages of a novel that had meant weeks and months of thought to some ancient writer and had found in them the whole plot, clearly revealed, instantly his! A night's labor had been needed to duplicate it, probably—a disagreeable and boring piece of work, but not a difficult one! Danny did not question the accuracy of the duplication, since Kenning was their greatest historical novelist. But the pleasure went out of it.

He took the package, noting that some illustrator had even copied the old artist's style, and that it was set up to match the original format. "Thank you, Miss Larsen. I'm sorry to put all of you to so much trouble. And it was nice of Mr. Kenning!"

Her face had fallen with his, but she pretended not to notice. "He wanted to do it—volunteered when he heard we were searching for the missing copies. And if diere are any others with pieces missing, Danny, he wants you to let him know. You two are about the only ones who use this division now; why don't you drop by and see him? If you'd like to go tonight—"

"Thanks. But I'll read this tonight, instead. Tell him I'm very grateful, though, will you?" But he paused, wondering again whether he dared ask for tapes on the history of the asteroids; no, there would be too much risk of her guessing, either now or later. He dared not trust any of them with a hint of his plan.

Miss Larsen smiled again, half-winking at him. "Okay, Danny, I'll tell him. 'Night!"

Outside, with the cool of evening beginning to fall, Danny found his way into the untraveled sections and let his feet guide him. Once, as a group came toward him, he crossed the street without thinking, and went on. The package under his arm grew heavy, and he shifted it, torn between a desire to find what had happened to the hero and a disgust at his own sapiens brain for not knowing. Probably, in the long run, he'd end up by going home and reading it, but for the moment he was nearest content letting his feet carry him along idly, holding most of his thoughts in abeyance.

Another small park was in his path, and he crossed it slowly, the babble of small children's voices only partly heard until he came up to them, two boys and a girl. The supervisor, who should have had them back at the Center, was a dim shape in the far shadows, with another, dimmer shape beside her, leaving the five-year-olds happily engaged in the ancient pastime of getting dirty and impressing each other.

Danny stopped, a slow smile creeping onto his lips. At that age, their intuitive ability was just beginning, and their little games and pretenses made sense that was like a tonic to him. Vaguely, he remembered his own friends of that age beginning uncertainly to acquire the trick of seeming to know everything, and his worries at being left behind. For a time, the occasional flashes of intuition that had always blessed even Homo sapiens gave him hope, but eventually the supervisor had been forced to tell him diat he was different, and why. Now he thrust those painful memories aside and slipped quietly forward into the game.

They accepted him with the easy nonchalance of children who have no repressions, feverishly trying to build their sand castles higher than his; but in that, his experience was greater than theirs, and his judgment of the damp stuff was surer. A perverse glow of accomplishment grew inside him as he added still another story to the

towering structure and built, a bridge, propped up with sticks and leaves, leading to it.

Then the lights came on, illuminating the sandbox and those inside it and dispelling the shadows of dusk. The littler boy glanced up, really seeing him for the first time. "Oh, you're Danny Black, aren't you? I saw your picture. Judy, Bobby, look! It's that man—"

But their voices faded out as he ran off through the park and into the deserted byways again, clutching the package to him. Fool! To delight in beating children at a useless game, or to be surprised that they should know him! He slowed to a walk, twitching his lips at the thought that by now the supervisor would be reprimanding them for their thoughtlessness. And still his feet went on, unguided.

It was inevitable, of course, that they should lead him to the Museum, where all his secret hopes centered, but he

was surprised to look up and see it before him. And then he was glad. Surely they could read nothing into this visit, unpremeditated, just before the place closed. He caught his breath, forced his face into lines of more casual interest, and went inside, down the long corridors, and to the hall of the ship.

She rested there, pointed slightly skyward, sleek and immense even in a room designed to appear like the distant reaches of space. For six hundred feet, gleaming metal formed a smooth frictionless surface that slid gracefully from the blunt bow back toward the narrow stern with its blackened ion jets.

This, Danny knew, was the last and greatest of the space liners his people had built at the height of their glory. And even before her, the mutations that had created the new race of men had been caused by the radiations of deep space, and the results had already been spreading. For a time, as the logbook indicated, this ship had sailed out to Mars, to Venus, and to the other points of man's empire, while the tension slowly mounted at home. There had never been another wholly sapient-designed ship, for the new race was spreading, making its greater intelligence felt, with the invert-matter rocket replacing this older, less-efficient ion rocket which the ship carried. Eventually, unable to compete with the new models, she had been retired from service and junked, while the War between the new and old races passed by her and buried her under tons of rubble, leaving no memory of her existence.

And now, carefully excavated from the old ruins of the dry dock where she had lain so long, she had been enthroned in state for the last year, here in the Museum of Sapient History, while all Danny's hopes and prayers had centered around her. There was still a feeling of awe in him as he started slowly across the carpeted floor toward the open lock and the lighted interior.

"Danny!" The sudden word interrupted him, bringing him about with a guilty start, but it was only Professor Kirk, and he relaxed again. The old archaeologist came toward him, his smile barely visible in the half-light of the immense dome. "I'd about given you up, boy, and started out. But I happened to look back and see you. Thought you might be interested in some information I just came onto today."

"Information about the ship?"

"What else? Here, come on inside her and into the lounge—I have a few privileges here, and we might as well be comfortable. You know, as I grow older, I find myself appreciating your ancestors' ideas of comfort, Danny. Sort of a pity our own culture is too new for much luxuriousness yet." Of all the new race, Kirk seemed the most completely at ease before Danny, partly because of his age, and partly because they had shared the same enthusiasm for the great ship when it had first arrived.

Now he settled back into one of the old divans, using his immunity to ordinary rules to light a cigarette and pass one to the younger man. "You know all the supplies and things in the ship have puzzled us both, and we couldn't find any record of them? The log ends when they put the old ship up for junking, you remember, and we couldn't figure out why all this had been restored and restocked, ready for some long voyage to somewhere. Well, it came to light in some further excavations that have been completed. Danny, your people did that during the War; or really, after they'd lost the War to us!"

Danny straightened. The War was a period of history he'd avoided, mostly, though he knew the outlines of it. With Homo intelligens increasing and pressing the older race aside by the laws of survival value, his people had made a final desperate bid for supremacy. And while the new race had not wanted the War, they had been forced finally to fight back with as little mercy as had been shown them; and since they had the tremendous advantage of the new intuitive thinking, there had been only thousands left of the original billions of the old race when the War's brief course was finished. It had been inevitable, probably, from the first mutation, but it was not something Danny cared to think of. Now he nodded, and let the other continue.

"Your ancestors, Danny, were beaten then, but they weren't completely crushed, and they put about the last bit of energy they had into rebuilding this ship—the only navigable one left them—and restocking it. They were going to go out somewhere, they didn't know quite where, even to another solar system, and take some of the old race for a new start, away from us. It was their last bid for survival, and it failed when my people learned of it and blasted the docks down over the ship, but it was a glorious failure, boy! I thought you'd want to know."

Danny's thoughts centered slowly. "You mean everything on the ship is from my people? But surely the provisions wouldn't have remained usable after all this time?"

"They did, though; the tests we made proved that conclusively. Your people knew how to preserve things as well as we do, and they expected to be drifting in the ship for half a century, maybe. They'll be usable a thousand years from now." He chucked his cigarette across the room and chuckled in pleased surprise when it fell accurately into a snuffer. "I stuck around, really, to tell you, and I've kept the papers over at the school for you to see. Why not come over with me now?"

"Not tonight, sir. I'd rather stay here a little longer."

Professor Kirk nodded, pulling himself up reluctantly. "As you wish ... I know how you feel, and I'm sorry about their moving the ship, too. We'll miss her, Dannyl"

"Moving the ship?"

"Hadn't you heard? I thought that's why you came around at this hour. They want her over in London, and they're bringing one of the old Lunar ships here to replace her. Too bad!" He touched the walls thoughtfully, drawing his hands down and across the rich nap on the seat. "Well, don't stay too long, and turn her lights out before you leave. Place'll be closed in half an hour. 'Night, Danny!"

" 'Night, Professor!" Danny sat frozen on the soft seat, listening to the slow tread of the old man and the beating of his own heart. They were moving the ship, ripping his plans to shreds, leaving him stranded in this world of a new race, where even the children were sorry for him.

It had meant so much, even to feel that somehow he would escape, someday! Impatiently, he snapped off die lights, feeling closer to the ship in the privacy of the dark, where no watchman could see his emotion. For a year now he had built his life around the idea of taking this ship out and away, to leave the new race far behind. Long, carefully casual months of work had been spent in learning her structure, finding all her stores, assuring himself bit by bit from a hundred old books that he could operate her.

She had been almost designed for the job, built to be operated by one man, even a cripple, in an emergency, and nearly everything was automatic. Only the problem of a destination had remained, since the planets were all swarming with the others, but the ship's log had suggested the answer even to that.

Once there had been rich men among his people who sought novelty and seclusion, and found them among the larger asteroids; money and science had built them artificial gravities and given them atmospheres, powered by atomic-energy plants that should last forever. Now the rich men were undoubtedly dead, and the new race had abandoned such useless things. Surely, somewhere among the asteroids, there should have been a haven for him, made safe by the very numbers of the little worlds that could baffle almost any search.

Danny heard a guard go by, and slowly got to his feet, to go out again into a world that would no longer hold even that hope. It had been a lovely plan to dream on, a necessary dream. Then the sound of the great doors came to his ears, closing! The professor had forgotten to tell them of his presence! And—!

All right, so he didn't know the history of all those little worlds; perhaps he would have to hunt through them, one by one, to find a suitable home. Did it matter? In every other way, he could never be more ready. For a moment only, he hesitated; then his hands fumbled with the great lock's control switch, and it swung shut quietly in the dark; then shut off from the outside world, he began running toward the forward controls.

The lights came on silendy as he found the navigation chair and sank into it. Little lights that spelled out the readiness of the ship. "Ship sealed . . . Air okay . . . Power, automatic .. . Engine, automatic . . ." Half a hundred little lights and dials that told the story of a ship waiting for his hand. He moved the course plotter slowly along the tiny atmospheric map until it reached the top of the stratosphere; the big star map moved slowly out, with the pointer in his fingers tracing an irregular, jagged line that would lead him somewhere toward the asteroids, well away from the present position of Mars, and yet could offer no clue. Later, he could set the analyzers to finding the present location of some chosen asteroid and determine his course more accurately, but all that mattered at the moment was to get away, beyond all tracing, before his loss could be reported.

Seconds later his fingers pressed down savagely on the main power switch, and there was a lurch of starting, followed by another slight one as the walls of the Museum crumpled before the savage force of the great ion rockets. On the map, a tiny spot of light appeared, marking the ship's changing position. The world was behind him now, and there was no one to look at his efforts in kindly pity or remind him of his weakness. Only blind fate was against him, and his ancestors had met and conquered that long before.

A bell rang, indicating the end of the atmosphere, and the big automatic pilot began clucking contentedly, emitting a louder cluck now and then as it found the irregularities in the unorthodox course he had charted and swung the ship to follow. Danny watched it, satisfied that it was working. His ancestors may have been capable of reason only, but they had built machines that were almost intuitive and had managed, as the ship about him testified. His head was higher as he turned back to the kitchen, and there was a bit of a swagger to his walk.

The food was still good. He wolfed it down, remembering that supper had been forgotten, and studied slowly through the big logbook of the long voyages made by the ship, searching through it for each casual reference to the asteroids. Ceres, Palas, Vesta, some of the ones referred to by nicknames or numbers? Which ones?

But he had decided when he stood once again in the navigation room, watching the aloof immensity of space; out here it was relieved only by the tiny hot pinpoints that must be stars, colored, small, and intense as no stars could be through an atmosphere. It would be one of the numbered planetoids, referred to also as "The Danes" in the log. The word was meaningless, but it seemed to have been one of the newer and more completely terranized, though not the very newest, where any search would surely start.

He set the automatic analyzer to running from the key numbers in the manual and watched it for a time, but it ground on slowly, tracing through all the years that had passed. For a time, he fiddled with the radio, before he remembered that it operated on a wave form no longer used. It was just as well; his severance from the new race would be all the more final.

Still the analyzer ground on. Space lost its novelty, and the operation of the pilot ceased to interest him. He wandered back through the ship toward the lounge, to spy the parcel where he had dropped and forgotten it. There was nothing that required his attention. He buried himself in the story again.

And once he began reading, he forgot his doubts at the

fact that it was Kenning's story, not the original; there was the same sweep to the tale, the same warm and human characters, the same drive of a race that had felt the mastership of destiny so long ago. Small wonder the readers of that time had named it the greatest epic of space to be written!

Once he stopped, as the analyzer reached its conclusions and bonged softly, to set the controls on the automatic for the little world that might be his home, with luck. And then the ship moved on, no longer veering, but making the slightly curved path its selectors found most suitable, while Danny read further, huddled over the story in the navigator s chair, feeling a new and greater kinship with the characters of the story. He was no longer a poor Earth-bound charity case, but an adventurer with them!

His nerves were tingling with that glow when the tale came to its end, and he let it drop onto the floor from tired fingers. Under his hand, a light had sprung up, but he was oblivious to it, until a crashing gong sounded over him, jerking him from the chair. There had been such a gong described in the story...

And the meaning was the same. His eyes made out the red letters that glared accusingly from the control panel: RADIATION AT TEN O'CLOCK HORIZ—SHIP INDICATED!

Danny's fingers were on the master switch and cutting off all life except pseudogravity from the ship as the realization of danger penetrated. The other ship was not hard to find from the observation window; the great streak of an invert-matter rocket glowed hody out there, pointed ap-parendy back to Earth—probably the Callisto!

For a second he was sure they had spotted him, but the flicker must have been only a minor correction to adjust for some small error for the trail continued. He had no knowledge of the new ships and whether they carried warning signals or not, but apparently they must have dispensed with such things. The streak vanished into the distance, and the letters on the panel that had marked its changing position went dead. Danny waited until the fullest amplification showed no response before throwing power on again. The small glow of the ion rocket would be invisible at the distance, surely.

Nothing further seemed to occur; there was a contented purr from the pilot and the faint sleepy hum of raw power from the rear, but no bells or sudden sounds. Slowly, his head fell forward over the navigator's table, and his heavy breathing mixed with the low sounds of the room. The ship went on about its business as it had been designed to do. Its course was charted, even to the old landing sweep, and it needed no further attention.

That was proved when the slow ringing of a bell woke Danny, while the board blinked in time to it: Destination! Destination! Destination reached!

He shut off everything, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and looked out. Above, there was weak but warm sunlight streaming down from a bluish sky that held a few small clouds suspended close to the ground. Beyond the ship, where it lay on a neglected sandy landing field, was the green of grass and the wild profusion of a forest. The horizon dropped off sharply, reminding him that it was only a tiny world, but otherwise it might have been Earth. He spotted an unkept hangar ahead and applied weak power to the underjets, testing until they moved the ship slowly forward and inside, out of the view of any above.

Then he was at the lock, fumbling with the switch. As it opened, he could smell the clean fragrance of growing things, and there was the sound of birds nearby. A rabbit hopped leisurely out from underfoot as he stumbled eagerly out to the sunlight, and weeds and underbrush were already spreading to cover the buildings about him. For a moment, he sighed; it had been too easy, this discovery of a heaven on the first wild try.

But the sight of the buildings drove back the doubt. Once, surrounded by a pretentious formal garden, there had been a great stone mansion, now falling into ruins. Beside it and further from him, a smaller house had been built, seemingly from the wreckage. That was still whole, though ivy had grown over it and half covered the door that came open at the touch of his fingers.

There was still a faint glow to the heaters that drew power from the great atomic plant that gave this little world a perpetual semblance of Earthliness, but a coating of dust was everywhere. The furnishings, though, were in good condition. He scanned over them, recognizing some as similar to the pieces in the Museum, and the products of his race. One by one he studied them—his fortune, and now his home!

On the table, a book was dropped casually, and there was a sheet of paper propped against it, with something that might have been a girl's rough handwriting on it. Curiosity carried him closer, until he could make it out through the dust that clung even after he shook it.

Dad:

Charley Summers found a wrecked ship of those things, and came for me. We'll be living high on 13. Come on over, if your jets will make it, and meet your son-in-law.

There was no date, nothing to indicate whether "Dad" had returned, or what had happened to them. But Danny dropped it reverently back on the table, looking out across the landing strip as if to see a worn old ship crawl in through the brief twilight that was falling over die tiny world. "Those things" could only be the new race, after the War; and that meant that here was the final outpost of his people. The note might be ten years or half a dozen centuries old—but his people had been here, fighting on and managing to live, after Earth had been lost to them. If they could, so could he!

And unlikely though it seemed, there might possibly be more of them out there somewhere. Perhaps the race was still surviving in spite of time and trouble and even Homo intelligens.

Danny's eyes were moist as he stepped back from the door and the darkness outside to begin cleaning his new home. If any were there, he'd find them. And if not—

Well, he was still a member of a great and daring race that could never know defeat so long as a single man might live. He would never forget that.

TONGUE OF BEAST

By CARL H. CLAUDY

D R. ALAN KANE, head of the physics department of the university, lounged in a big easy chair in the pleasant living room of the apartment he shared with Ted Dolliver.

The "mastodon," as Alan called his powerfully built friend and assistant, was sprawled crosswise on the couch, sorting papers on the carpet. A lamp on a center table cast queer shadows from his slightly deformed ear, a souvenir of professional wrestling days, and his long arms and great hands made blobs of shade on his papers.

"Wonder you wouldn't sort clippings like a civilized person instead of a human crab!" jeered the slim young scientist.

"Wonder you wouldn't put the clippings away when you make 'em," retorted Ted. "As an amanuensis, I'm a darn good wrestler. What did you ever want this for?" He rose, in a lithe, flowing movement, and flourished a clipping. "I've filed papers on science and politics and strange discoveries, and a recipe for making biscuits, but why are you saving this fool picture?"

Alan took the clipping and looked with some amusement

at a newspaper picture of a husky young man surrounded by cats in uniforms. The line underneath said:

MOST MARVELOUS OF ANIMAL TRAINERS

"Now why did you want that?" Ted persisted. "You've heard me speak of Dr. Anoti, haven't you?" asked Alan.

"Of course. That Chinese mathematician you studied under."

"Mathematician and scientist, and a hundred years ahead of his time.A genuinely great man. Well, he had a young laboratory attendant by the name of Norris. Interesting young fellow, but I lost sight of him. The man with the cats reminded me of him. That's why I cut out the picture."

"Hm. You sure you weren't interested in the uncanny cats?"

Alan threw a book at Ted. "For a man of brawn, you occasionally exhibit flashes of brain! As I recall it, this man didn't give any commands to his cats; he just looked at them and they did wonderful things. Read the clipping!"

Obediently, Ted read aloud: "At the Orpheum, Professor Gregory Norlan exhibited a troupe of trained cats in a performance that beggars belief. Without a word of command, the fourteen cats marched and countermarched in military maneuvers, and sat up and waved their paws in unison. One cat, appropriately named Pythagoras, added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided, by pushing numbered blocks around. Though doubtless a series of tricks, the act is well worth watching. The professor and his incredible cats are shown above."

"Yes," nodded Alan, "I remembered correctly. And there was another article somewhere that told about the peculiar power this man had over his cats. But he disappeared."

"What do you mean, disappeared?"

"Left the stage. I had curiosity enough to want to keep track of him, but the editor of the big vaudeville paper I wrote told me he had disappeared. Odd, too, because he was a headliner." Alan paused to call, "Oko, there's the bell."

The Japanese who served them went to the door, and came back to announce, "Policeman humbly request speech Dr. Kane."

Alan nodded, and Ted gathered up his papers. The door opened and an officer in the uniform of University City's police force entered. Both Alan and Ted knew him slightly. He was Captain Mullins, a courageous and efficient man.

"Dr. Kane," he said, "I know how you dislike being bothered about police matters, but we are at the end of our rope and we need your help."

Almost involuntarily, Alan shook his head. He hated police work. But Ted looked hopeful; he craved action.

"Wait, Dr. Kane," urged the captain. "Don't refuse until you know the whole story. You do know, of course, that someone seems to have started a murder campaign against members of the faculty."

"Yes." Alan nodded somberly.

All University City had been shocked by recent happenings in the cloistered little town.

First had come an attack on gentle old Professor Henderson, peacefully spending an evening with his little granddaughter, Margaret, in his study on the fifth floor of a quiet apartment house. Margaret's father and mother, going out for a game of bridge, left the twro talking happily about a visit to the zoo. They came back to find the old man lying lifeless, his neck broken, and Margaret almost beside herself with grief and terror.

The child insisted that she had seen a dark face at the window, a window fully sixty feet above the ground, and then a dreadful, growling man had climbed in, seized her grandfather, overcome him, flung him down, and vanished through the window again.

Both the local police and the special police brought in from nearby cities were baffled. They could discover no motive for the crime, and the identity of the assailant was a complete mystery. The only official statement that could be made was, "Murder, by some person unknown."

Several evenings after this, Thomas Gallatin, the university librarian, was working alone in the library, with the outer doors ajar, but the ponderous ornamental iron gates just beyond the doors were both closed and locked. He looked up to see a big, stooping figure shambling down the hall toward him. Some strange prowler? But how had he got over those high gates? The caller came on faster, making a queer, threatening sound in his throat.

Gallatin leaped for the inner office, locked its heavy, oak door, and telephoned for the police, while a frenzied smashing and crashing went on in the next room. The noise stopped just before the police arrived. They found the outer room a chaos of smashed furniture and half-destroyed books. But the caller had vanished, leaving no clues.

Two nights later, University City had its third sensation —the chase that officers Dugan and Fellows made after a speeding car on the boulevard from University City to the metropolis. They began to catch Tip with the car as they reached a lonely stretch of road. Suddenly the driver slowed, jumped out, and ran into a little patch of woods. His car crashed into a tree and burst into flames.

Fellows ran to the burning car, and Dugan chased the big driver into the woods. Dugan searched all through the woods by bright moonlight, but the driver had disappeared. The car's plates showed that it belonged to William Morrison, assistant keeper at the zoo, but Morrison, himself a small man and slightly lame, had spent the evening playing cards with friends, and he ruefully declared he had no idea who had taken his car.

All this Alan knew. But still he shook his head, for important scientific work was crowding him.

"I'm sorry, Captain," he said, "but I haven't time, and I'm not an officer, and—"

"Isn't Professor Gordon a close friend of yours?"

"Gordon? What has he to do with it?"

"He was attacked just an hour ago."

"Is he hurt?" demanded Alan.

"Yes, but the doctors think he'll recover. The attacker climbed in at a second-story window. A big, dark fellow again. We've rounded up every possible suspect of that description in town. And all eleven have perfect alibis! I believe all three attacks were by the same man, and we've got to find him. Will you help?"

"I'm always suspicious of 'perfect alibis,'" mused Alan.

"So am I!" responded the officer. "But seven of the eleven were already in jail for various crimes. Two were at a training gymnasium, putting on a wrestling exhibition for dozens of spectators. The tenth is a handy man at the zoo, and both the keeper and the assistant keeper say he was with them all evening, making some alterations in the birdhouse. The eleventh man is running a temperature of one hundred and five at the city hospital."

"Those alibis do seem airtight." Alan frowned, considering, and spoke again, abruptly. "I'll come in on this, Captain. These attacks must be stopped. I'll see what I can do. It's obvious that—but never mind."

The captain left, and Alan paced the floor, thinking. Ted watched him sleepdy until two and then turned in. At half-past six, Alan was shaking him.

"Get up, mastodon. There's work to do."

Ted shaved, showered, ate three breakfasts, and at seven was ready.

"Want you to go out to the zoo," directed Alan. "There's too much zoo in all this. Go out there and meet all the keepers, and that handy man."

"O.K. But whadye mean, too much zoo?"

Alan shook his head impatientiy. "A child can see it. The murdered man's granddaughter loved the zoo. The zoo employs a handy man big enough to make an assault. All three men attacked are on the city board that governs the zoo. Didn't you know that? Neither did the police apparently. But there must be a connection between these attacks on three, quiet, faculty men who haven't a known enemy among them. The zoo may be that connection. Go look the place over!"

While Ted was gone, Alan paced the floor again and muttered, "And trained cats. Now why should that clipping come to light?" He struggled for linkings that refused to come to the surface of his mind. "And trained cats . . . most unusually trained cats . . . the zoo . . . and the man who jumped out of the car and disappeared ... at least became invisible . . ."

Presently Ted returned. "I talked with everyone at the zoo," he reported. "I'm sort of fed up on lions and snakes and monkeys and other fauna. But I can show you one of the men right here!" He reached for the clipping scrap-book. "There!" He pointed to the picture of the cat trainer. "Your animal trainer and William Morrison, the assistant keeper at the zoo, are the same man!"

Alan stared. At last he spoke. "Phone Captain Mullins; I want a car and a driver who knows where that man jumped from die speeding car. Look here, Ted, I've a wild idea. If it's right, I'll likely need your help."

Ted's eyes glowed. "I'm ready. Going to bring me face to face with your murderer?"

"Perhaps," nodded Alan.

Before long, Dugan, the very officer who had chased the speeding driver, was taking them over a lonely stretch of road.

He brought the car to a stop, and said, "That car crashed right here. Over there is the patch of woods the man hid in. We searched everywhere—and he didn't cross the road or the fields!"

Alan, with Ted following, explored the woods in silence. But when they got back to the car and were starting home, Alan spoke. Just five grave words. "I think I have it."

For a week he was busy in the laboratory, excluding even Ted. But Ted was content. He knew he'd be asked to the laboratory as soon as the device or process being worked out there was completed. Yet the invitation, when it came, amazed him.

Alan called him up at the apartment. "Want you over here in an hour, Ted," he said. "Please bring a mutt. Yes, mutt. Dog. Pup. Any kind. I won't hurt him."

Ted wandered the streets and finally "rented" a dog from a small boy for a dollar. They entered the laboratory in solemn procession, the dog first.

"Lock the door. Come upstairs," called Alan.

Ted and the rented dog raced up. They found the big, white-tiled laboratory partially cleared to make room for a small table flanked on either side by something that looked like a cross between a bass drum and a searchlight. Wires led to it. A humming noise, faint but musical, came from it. A dim, reddish glow showed through cracks. What appeared to be a lens of black glass was in the end. A chair was beside the table.

"Mind being the victims of electrical vivisection?" asked Alan.

"Can't answer for Fido here," retorted Ted. "But I'd mind it a lot."

"Then I'll have to be a victim, and twice in one day is once too often!" complained Alan. "It doesn't hurt, mastodon, really."

"Oh, I'll be the sacrifice. But why be so mysterious?"

"Sorry, Ted. I didn't mean to be. Hold the dog on the table, will you? And just relax. This thing is—queer. Very queer. I was dumb not to see it instantly when you showed me the cat trainer's picture. But I had it all the time in my notebooks. And the man who disappeared in the trees was the final proof."

Ted shook his head. "How plain you make everything," he said wearily.

Alan laughed. "I beg your pardon, Ted. Just do as I say and I'll tell all!"

"Humph!" But Ted sat and soothed the dog.

Alan fussed over his queer apparatus, and the humming noise grew louder. But Ted felt no sensation.

"Just relax, Ted," Alan urged. "And, by any chance, are you thinking anything unusual?"

"I'm hungry. But that isn't unusual."

"Suppose the dog is thinking anything unusual?"

"How do I know what a dog thinks?"

"Well, think of something he might think—think of something he could do."

Ted knit his brows. What could a dog do? Stand on his hind legs, fetch and carry, wag his tail—

The dog suddenly stood on his hind legs, then jumped from the table to fetch a newspaper from a corner, and wagged his tail!

Ted turned his head to give Alan a long look. Then he turned back to the dog, took the animal's head between his hands, and thought of other things he might do. The dog broke from his hands, obediently turned around several times, and then lay down.

"I don't believe it!" snapped Ted.

"Try again," suggested Alan. "Think of something a dog doesn't usually do."

Ted again took the dog's head in his hand. He was a nice dog. A nice dog might cross the room and stand on his hind legs and walk along the wall. When he got to the end of the wall, he might stand in the corner and wag his tail, hard.

The dog trotted across the room, stood on his hind legs, walked rather waveringly on them along the wall, then stood in the corner and wagged his tail violently.

"Look here, shrimp!" Ted's eyes were hard. "What is all this? I think, and the dog immediately gets my thought. But it can't be."

"Why can't it? The cat trainer's cats did impossible things too."

"What's that thing?" Ted pointed at the humming mechanism.

"That's a producer of rays. The highest frequency vibrations known to science—only they are not known. I call them Omega rays!"

Alan fell silent and looked out of the window. Then he asked, "Ted, can a strong man, who knows wrestling, win against a man of much greater strength who knows nothing of wrestling? A man who would fight to kill?"

"Might win, might lose. Depends on who got a hold first."

"That won't do then," Alan said, and looked out of the window again. Suddenly he brightened. "An electric porcupine, of course. Stupid of me even to ask the first question. Now, Ted—"

Alan explained at some length what he wanted done, and when Ted had mastered his instructions, he left on the run.

That evening Ted reported back at the laboratory. There Alan showed him denim overalls and a jacket with many metal plates sewed on them. The crude suit had almost the appearance of a coat of mail. Wires led from it to a coil on the table in a corner.

When Ted had told of his day's work, Alan asked, "Did you lock the lower door?"

"Of course."

"Well, go open it. Then come back and get into this suit. And, Ted, keep your head. I think you'll be wholly protected, but this experiment is dangerous. Yet it's the only way I know to get the murderer to confess."

Quite unperturbed, Ted climbed into the strange garments.

"I don't like shoving you into this," Alan looked anxious. "If I could do it, I would, but I'm not strong enough, and I have to run the ray machine."

"Fiddlesticks! I've been in danger before!" snapped Ted. "How long you figure we'll have to wait?"

"If you really made him believe you're a threat, things will happen tonight," answered Alan. "I'd say by midnight. Did you stress the fact that you'd be here alone?"

"I did. Said it twice!"

The time passed slowly. Alan went over his plans, and Ted read. The sounds from without gradually ceased as the clock hands dragged on. Eleven, half-past, midnight— a faint sound below, as of a door being softly closed.

Alan stepped tensely behind the machine, and Ted stood up. Alan touched a switch and the coil on the table buzzed. Ted said, "Ouch!" and jumped as his hand came in contact with one of the metal plates on his clothing. Both men stared at the door.

A hand appeared and the door opened wider, revealing a figure all in black, with a black face and glaring red eyes. Long arms almost touching the floor, the stooped figure shambled into the room. Suddenly, with a growl and a leap, the marauder sprang, arms outstretched to grasp the waiting Ted.

With that hot breath on his cheek, Ted knew he faced a horrible death. Yet when the killer closed with him, Ted struggled to hug him tightly to his queer suit of mail.

A wild yell of terror and pain, and the midnight visitor tore loose. Then, growling savagely, he sprang again. Once more Ted hugged him tightly, dodging the hands groping for his throat—and again the killer shrieked as the electric current shot through him. Once more he recoiled.

"You all right, Ted?" Alan, busy with the ray machine, saw Ted feel his throat—one powerful hand had got a momentary grip.

"Sure. Here he comes again!"

The shambling figure of horror flung itself across the room once more. But the attack was more cautious, and Ted had time for offense. He seized one extended hand, swung around, and, putting all his strength into the heave, threw his assailant over his shoulder. The killer landed with a crash, and Ted fell on top, clutching madly, burrowing his head to avoid strangling hands. His triumph was brief—the next instant his opponent was up and away, cowering against the door.

Alan trained the invisible rays upon him, and motioned to Ted to stand within their range.

The gibbering killer growled, but the sound grew fainter and finally ceased. Instead of rage and fear and murder, something more human seemed to come into the reddish eyes set in the flat, ugly face. The black-clad figure straightened, hands dropping harmlessly.

"I think that will do it. Try, Ted."

Ted stood a moment, concentrating. Then the murderer shambled across the room, pulled forward Ted's chair, and sat down clumsily.

After a long moment, Alan said, "It works."

Ted stripped off his queer suit with a sigh of relief. The murderer sat quietly in his chair. Alan got a gun from a desk drawer and handed it to Ted.

"Keep him covered while I phone," he said, and left the room to call up the assistant keeper at the zoo.

Soon the three were on their way to William Morrison's home, Alan driving and the other two in the rear seat, with Ted tautly alert.

Morrison's little home was lighted, and the door was ajar. Ted seated his queer companion on a hall chair and remained with him. Alan entered the front room, closing the door behind him.

William Morrison came limping, to meet him. "This is an honor, Dr. Kane." And he offered his hand.

But Alan did not take it. "I have come to get your confession of the murder of Professor Henderson," he began without preliminary.

"What? Are you crazy? I murder? You're mad!"

"No, I have the facts. I want them written and signed by you, however. Of course, you'll refuse to give them to me. But—look here!"

Alan threw open the door, and Morrison stared out at Ted and the murderer. Hatred swept over Morrison's face, hatred and a peculiar look of triumph.

Alan read his expression. "It's no good, Morrison. Your influence is over. I made a ray machine too. My friend here and your agent have both sat under its rays. It's his mind, not yours, that's in control."

But the lame man was not convinced. He concentrated, staring at the black-clad friend on the chair. Nothing happened.

Then Alan suggested, "Ted, you might show what you can do."

"Suppose you get up and walk three times around your chair and sit down again," Ted said softly. The black figure rose wearily, walked three times about the chair, and sat down again.

Alan closed the door. "Now will you tell?" he demanded of Morrison.

"I—I have nothing to tell."

"You will tell, write, and sign." Alan waited for a long moment, but Morrison only stared at him in defiant, malignant silence.

"Perhaps," said Alan, "my friend can influence your friend so that he will persuade you to talk." He stepped to the door and opened it. "Ted!"

Ted rose. The black figure rose. Both entered the room. Alan closed the door. The fiendish figure shambled slowly across the room toward Morrison, great hands reaching out. From his mouth came guttural mumblings.

Morrison cowered. "No—no! I'll tell. Make him stop. Call him off! I'll tell!"

The figure stopped, went to one side of the room, and sat down.

"I—I was assistant to Dr. Anoti, while you studied under him. I made notes—too." Morrison was shaking in terror. "Communication—with animal minds—under short-wave rays. Brains are electrical. Subject two brains to the same rays, and the weaker brain gets the thought of the stronger. Even an animal can get the thought. I—I trained cats, that way. I—was a success. But—but I—I committed a crime. I had to leave the stage. I got the job in the zoo here. Then—then—"

"Yes," prompted Alan. "Then?"

"I wanted to be head keeper." Morrison's voice was flat. "The board said I wasn't good enough. I hated them all. I—I wanted to get even." He looked at the impassive figure of the black fiend. "I—I experimented. I made the machine from my notes. And I chose him—" he pointed to the dark figure on the chair. "He's strong—intelligent. I taught him to drive a car. I made him wear clothes. At night he looks almost human. I—I—" Go on.

"I sent him after Professor Henderson. He—killed him. Then after the librarian. He—failed. Then, after Gordon— but he failed there, too. He speeded, and the police caught up with him. But they didn't look up in the trees. He escaped, but he failed again."

"Yes. And today Mr. Dolliver gave you enough hints so that you thought he knew—and you sent that black fiend after him. Now sit down at that desk and write your confession and sign it."

"No—no! I don't want to hang. He is the murderer. He did it. You can shoot him. You can't prove I did it. I won't hang for it." Morrison glared at Alan like a trapped rat.

Ted, watching, fearful for Alan, afraid of some sudden move from Morrison that he himself could not foresee, came to a sudden resolution. Without waiting for an order from Alan, he acted. Not with his body but with his controlling mind.

The next moment the great black figure sprang up, rushed upon Morrison, growling savagely, and seized him in mighty arms. Shaking him and growling, the figure shambled across the room — to deposit Morrison quite gently in the desk chair, and thrust a pen in his hand.

But the pen dropped to the floor. Morrison's fingers were limp. His whole body was limp. He slid from his chair to the floor and lay still.

"He's out," ejaculated Ted, in exasperation. "Now we've got to bring him to before we can finish our job."

"Send that beast away from him," commanded Alan and Ted mentally commanded the black figure to leave the man.

It shambled back to its chair, and Alan bent over Morrison—then looked up at Ted with a startled face. "He's dead, Ted!"

"But—but I didn't tell the beast to kill him. It didn't kill him!"

"No, his heart must have been weak, and it went back on him. Fright killed him. Perhaps it's just as well. No court would have accepted his confession. He would have been confined as a madman and would always have been a burden on the state and a potential menace."

"I feel guilty," Ted muttered.

"You needn't. Get busy and we'll close this case," Alan said briskly, knowing Ted needed a chance for action. "Well take the gorilla back home, chain him up, and tell the police we've caught the murderer. The poor brute did the attacking even if he's not responsible for what he did. The zoo will put him in an escape-proof cage, and that will be the end of the trouble."

There was great jubilation in police circles, and University City breathed again. The murderer was the escaped gorilla from the zoo! Why had no one thought of it? Letters were written to the press. People thought of the gorilla as half-human. Hadn't he worn clothes? Driven a car? But parents were no longer afraid about their children at night, and members of the faculty were happy to know they had no secret enemies.

Alan and Ted had a final talk about the case.

"It was simple—after you gave me the clue, Ted," Alan explained. "Anoti knew thought is electrical; there is some force in every brain that affects other brains. We can even measure faint electric brain currents. Anoti suggested that if two brains were simultaneously subjected to the influence of a peculiar variety of very short electric rays— and he constructed a formula to show how they could be produced—the weaker brain might get the thought of the stronger. Not any very abstract thought, of course, but ideas of action."

"But how did I give you the clue?" asked Ted.

"By getting curious about that clipping! I knew the zoo was a connecting link. You connected Morrison, the keeper, with Norris, the assistant, by digging up that picture of the cat man, which I'd kept because it looked like Norris, never thinking it was Norris. These attempts at murder were all the work of something powerful, something that could climb to fifth-floor windows and escape up trees. Zoo—Morrison—Norris—what, in a zoo, could do all this?"

"The gorilla, of course," answered Ted. "Smart, Alan! So you got out your notes, made the ray machine, tried it on yourself, and then on the dog and me. Huh. And then you sent me to the zoo to throw a scare into Morrison so he'd send the gorilla to finish me."

"Yes. That was the only way to get the gorilla out of Morrison's mind control and under ours. I hoped we could use the gorilla to scare a confession out of Morrison."

"Instead I scared the life out of him," Ted said grimly.

"Don't let that weigh on you so heavily. After all, justice has been done, and a menace removed."

"Alan," Ted said hesitantly, "that's a dangerous thing, your machine. And Morrison's."

Alan nodded. "No other man shall talk widi tongue of beast to beast through me. My ray machine will be dis-manded. We'll find his and destroy it. The case will be completely closed."

"I'm glad," Ted said, rubbing his neck. "It's tricky business, this wrestling with gorillas."

Alan's answer made Ted forget his sore neck. "I couldn't have handled things without you, mastodon," he said. "University City will never know how much it owes you, but I know."

ROCKET TO THE SUN

By PETER VAN DRESSER

l TELL YE, IT'S FATE," Gilxeath repeated, his homely face tight with worry. "A fifty-million-dollar ship is lost somewhere out beyond Mars and a fine commander is lost with her, and there's nothing we can do to save them. It's Fate."

"There's no such thing as Fate," snub-nose young Dixon maintained. "Knowledge is power, isn't it? That makes man the master of his destiny. With only a little more knowledge perhaps, Commander Aiken or someone could bring the Asterion safely into port."

I opened my mouth to snap, "Do you have to argue about it?" and then I shut it again. Better for them to argue than sit brooding over the chances men take in exploring space. Besides, I was the youngest patrolman at the table.

It seems only yesterday instead of back in 2076 that we three sat diere in the messroom at Tycho spaceport, moon-side. We'd finished supper and Captain Rooney had left, but we sat on.

We were all from the EPX-3, a fast Ecliptic Patrol ship running out of Tycho. She was a sleek little rocket and packed full of power. She was theoretically capable of two 316

thousand seconds at five-gravity thrust—which figures out an ultimate velocity around six miles a second, but only once did we ever push her to the limit.

That was an experience! And we three who sat there talking after supper had no idea how soon we'd be in the thick of it.

Dixon and I were in our early twenties. Dixon was good-looking, with his fine, open face and yellow hair, though his snub nose gave him a cocky air. He was ship's technician, and full of theories. He and Gilreath were forever arguing. Gilreath was our propulsion engineer, an older man and a Scot. I was radioman and, young as I was, I'd seen plenty of active service and thought I knew something about space travel.

I knew enough, anyhow, to feel sunk about that lost ship. The Asterion, under Commander Aiken, was the first ship to dare an exploring voyage to the outer moons of Jupiter. Aiken was one of the finest spacemen who ever lived, and he had two good assistants with him. Great things were expected of Aiken's expedition—full-wave visi-graphs of the surface of Jupiter, radiographic soundings, and all sorts of new information. That was why fifty million dollars had been spent on the new ship. And now, gone for more than eleven months, long overdue, the As-terion and the men aboard her were lost in a vast silence.

She carried microwave equipment and light-signaling apparatus, of course, and all the big 'scopes—both electronic and optical—were watching for her. But never a sign. There was nothing anyone could do about it, for finding a "dead" ship in space is practically impossible.

The Asterion was lost, that was all. She'd cracked up crossing through the asteroid belt beyond Mars, or she'd miscalculated her approach to Jupiter and been pulled in, or she'd been hit by a meteorite and lost her air.

The Asterion was lost. Aiken was lost. We all hated to think of it. Gilreath and Dixon were arguing to forget.

"No such thing as Fate!" Gilreath exclaimed. "Dixon, do ye actually sit there, a puir wee morsel of human frailty, and claim ye could even hope to be the masterr of your destiny? Why—"

"Sure," Dixon declared. "All you have to do is know enough in any situation, and there's bound to be a way you can work it out."

Gilreath snorted. "Supposing, Mr. Prentiss Dixon, just supposing that I were to slosh ye over the head with a spanner and toss ye oot through the air lock younder, just as ye are? 'Tis a bit cold outside now, and tiiey do say it's no' easy to get along without a bit of air to breath. Just what kind of knowledge would save ye in that situation, hey?"

"Why," said Dixon, "there are all sorts of things I might know. I might have studied yoga and know how to put myself into a trance so I'd need no air. But probably I'd never let the situation develop in the first place. With proper knowledge I could foresee—"

It was just then that I received an urgent buzz from Vaughn, the operator of the spaceport radio-beam station. When I reached his shack, I found him bending excitedly over his main microwave receiver.

"I've got the Asterion!" he gasped. "Grab those spare phones and help me copy. Ionics are bad."

They were bad. But in spite of the hissing, crackling, wailing sounds, we managed to get a good deal of the message. I remember how the nape of my neck prickled. It was almost like a message from the grave. And it didn't give us much more hope than one. It ran something like this:

SO S—XXXI—S O S—XXXI—Position at 2076-93-14. 4327 GMT Lat. 1°.206, Long. 179°.937. Heliacal distance 93266000. Heliocentric velocity 27.3116. Steering jets disabled unable effect repairs oxygen low Aiken.

Let me translate that. Triple X-l was the call letter of the Asterion, of course, and all the rest of the numbers were co-ordinates fixing her position and velocity in space just before the SOS. Clearly the ship was in a desperate situation. Something had gone wrong with the steering jets, and Aiken couldn't swing his ship out of its plunge toward die sun. He was now hurtling across the orbit of Earth ahead of us, diving toward the sun, at twenty-seven miles a secondl Diving helplessly in the gravitational grip of the mighty center of the solar system—into hideous, white-hot death.

And he was appealing to us for help! But how could we hope to overtake him, decelerate, and then accelerate back, out of die sun's pull, toward Eardi and safety!

Appalled, I dashed to Captain Rooney's ground quarters. I found the little man where I expected—in the unused store chamber he'd fixed up for his precious chickens. Captain Rooney's hobby was raising fancy poultry. He had his runways and coops and his ultraviolet lamps and patent feeders, and so on. Every transport rocket that came from Earth brought him a fresh batch of blooded eggs, and he was always as eager as a kid to see the little ones hatch out.

Well, I found him on his knees nursing a pretty little rooster with the pip, and looking a good deal like a bantam himself. When I handed him the message he read it slowly and carefully.

"Hmmm," he said. "Aiken seems to be in hot water." He scratched his ear as if he were puzzled—and then suddenly he flashed those blue icicle eyes at me and let out a string of orders.

"Get the chief port astrogator into my office at once, Petersen. Tell Gilreath and Dixon to have the ship set for acceleration in two hours—full fuel load and oxygen for maximum cruising time. Get over to the observatory, give them these co-ordinates, and tell em to locate the Asterion with the big 'scope. At once. Drop by Vaughn and have this message relayed to Earth Headquarters. Then get back and check up all your instruments. That's all for the present."

I saluted and snapped out of the room. What was Rooney planning? A suicide dash to rescue the Asterion— a dash ending in parboiling for all concerned?

But I had too much to do to think very much. I carried out all my orders, then bounded back to the observatory, and stuck at one or the visiplates. If we did pick up the Asterion and she happened to be sending any light signals, I wanted to read them.

But we drew a blank. The Asterion was sending no light signals. That looked bad. Finally I hurried back to the EPX.

Down in the breech of the launching gun where the EPX was resting, a steel-walled room six hundred feet below the level of the moon's surface, I found things humming. Technicians and mechanics were swarming in and out of the ship's air locks. Dixon was all over the ship like a monkey, checking everything in his province, and I glimpsed Gilreath, dour and grim, vanishing through a manhole into the black depths among the manifolds of his main motors. It certainly looked as if Rooney meant business.

I had a peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. The EPX-3 and every man of her crew were going to be tested as they had never been tested before.

Ten minutes before our two hours were up, Rooney called Gilreath and Dixon and me into the ship's control room. "Gentlemen," he said crisply, "with the help of the port astrogating officer, I have just finished computing an orbit that I believe will handle the situation."

Then he launched into a rapid-fire technical explanation, and the gist of it was that there was a chance of overtaking the Asterion in her fall into the sun if we were willing to use up three-quarters of our fuel supply right at the start. After effecting a rescue, we couldn't return, but we could accelerate at right angles to the line of flight toward the sun. This would swing our orbit enough to one side so that it would miss the sun by a reasonably safe margin. After that our momentum, with some assistance from the engines, would carry us on out to one of the Martian ports.

"But," said our flyweight skipper, "there is one factor I am duty-bound to point out to you. With the limited amount of fuel we'll have left after overtaking the Asterion, our final orbit is bound to pass for about seventy to ninety minutes through the Sphere of Excessive Radiation."

At his repeated mention of fuel, Dixon and I involuntarily exchanged glances. Short of fuel—that's what we'd be all right. In deep-space orbiting, that's longhand for suicide.

Rooney was going on. "Now, gentlemen, will you bear in mind what I've just said while I read you a radiogram from Earth Headquarters?"

He read from a yellow blank in his clear, rather high-pitched voice:

Rooney, Commanding Officer EPX-3, Lunar Base. Do not attempt assist Asterion until further instructions. Under present course no assistance possible without loss of rescuing vessel. Continue search for radio-beam and light signals, and report periodically.

VINCIMAN, Commanding Officer Earth Zone, Ecliptic Patrol

There was dead silence when he finished. He looked at us and said simply, "Gentlemen, do we disregard this message?"

Let me explain what he was putting up to us. Within the "Sphere of Excessive Radiation," shown on the Ecliptic pilot charts, the heat from the sun is so terrific that no shielding or insulation can keep the inside of a ship's hull at what is ordinarily considered living temperatures. Rooney was asking us if we would be willing to risk exposure to this heat for possibly an hour and a half in order to rescue Aiken and his companions.

Dixon was the first to answer. "Bunch of stuffed shirts at Earth Headquarters," he growled. "How do they know where the limits of dieir blessed sphere are? Their surveys were made twenty years ago. I vote we overlook that radiogram."

Gilreath said, " 'Twould be a shame for so praiseworthy an expedition as Commander Aiken's to come to an unhappy end. And then, mon, think of losing a fifty-milliondollar ship! Captain Rooney, I feel certain that message should be overlooked!" I nodded.

Rooney's hard little face almost cracked into a smile. "Very well, gentlemen," he said.

Ten minutes later, the EPX-3 was ready to go. A needle of chrome-beryllium steel a hundred and twenty-five feet long, the patrol ship rested in the repulsion chamber of the electrostatic launching gun sunk into the lava rock of Tycho. Her double air hatches were sealed, her piloting gyroscopes singing inside their evacuated cases. Above her prow, through the long barrel of the gun, loomed the black void of outer space studded with fiercely gleaming blue-white stars. Within her airtight double hull, we four rested in our acceleration saddles, each in a tiny cubicle lined with dials and gauges.

Have you ever taken off in a really fast rocket! One launched from an electro-gun? Let me tell you what it's like to leave the Tycho spaceport in a ship like ours.

You lean back in your acceleration saddle, feeling the soft leather of it cushioning your body at every point. Your weight is only a sixth what it is on Earth, of course; so you don't press down very hard. You're nervous, no matter how many times you've done this before. Tensely, you watch your chronometer needle swing around the dial toward the second for starting, and you feel your muscles tightening. The needle creeps nearer, it touches, then—

For an instant, your whole body tingles with a queer, shivering shock. Suddenly you realize that you're already out of the muzzle of the gun and the ship is shooting up at two thousand feet a second. The concentrated field of force of the electro-gun has crashed through the whole ship, through your body, hurling upward every molecule in it simultaneously. That's why you're not mashed flat by the terrific acceleration.

For five seconds more you sense nothing—no motion, no sound. You have suddenly become weightless, floating in your saddle while the ship rushes upward. The enormous crater of Tycho drops away beneath her; the utter blackness of outer space shadows swallows her.

Then you hear faint, drumming sounds from the bulkhead behind you, and you feel the ship turning. The steering jets are working, swinging the ship to the proper angle in space. For perhaps half a minute there is a subdued click of automatic relays, followed by slight bursts from the steering nozzles, as the iron pilot delicately jockeys the ship into position.

Then silence again. You are still coasting.

The next instant, Whoom! Something smashes you back into your saddle, something sits heavily on your chest, something roars as if a West Indian hurricane were trying to break through the tough bulkheads around you. Your heart pounds and your breath comes in gasps.

This is action. The main motor is firing! Back in the stern engine room, a solid three-inch jet of pentahyzone, five times as powerful as pure liquid hydrogen, is expanding through the nebulizers and manifolds into a tornado of explosive gas, is whirling into the main combustion chamber and exploding into an inferno of tortured, white-hot vapors. Out of the rocket exhaust nozzle screams the column of incandescence, blasting the ship ahead with a five-hundred-ton thrust.

Like a silver needle, the ship lunges through black space. Each second, she increases speed. In one minute she is hurtling forward at almost two miles a second.

The Earth looms in the sky above, a huge bluish-silver crescent. Then the sun itself lifts over the curved lunar horizon, a monstrous blue-white eye rimmed in great scarlet flames, weirdly motionless against the black sky.

Held rigidly in its path by its gyroscopic controls, the silver ship hurtles ahead at ever-increasing speed. Inside, in your chamber, you gasp for breath, a haze swims before your eyes, and you wonder how long you can go on breathing with an elephant kneeling on your chest.

On this particular occasion, acceleration took an almost unendurable fifteen minutes, and when the automatic controls finally cut out the motor and left us in the blessed quiet and weightlessness of outer space free fall, there wasn't a man aboard who could do anything for five minutes.

After that, the routine of ship handling asserted itself.

We had built up a speed equal to that of the Asterion, and were traveling a flat hyperbola that led in toward die sun and gradually approached the Asterion s course. It was a tricky piece of astrogating. We couldn't just shoot over toward the exploring ship and pull alongside her. We had to figure out a course that would bring us to a given point just as the Asterion reached it.

That point was a trifle outside the orbit of Mercury, only nineteen days' cruising at the speed we were making. Our pace was really tremendous. Why, in three days the Eardi was no more than a bright star astern.

And the way the disk of the sun was growing scared me! Every time I looked out of a porthole at it—through actinic glass, of course—it seemed bigger. There was a horrible fascination about watching the prominences, great scarlet flames licking out across the jet-black sky for half a million miles or more. Were we to be sucked down into a monstrous maelstrom of flame?

After the first flush of the take-off, we were a pretty sober crew. Already we'd used up three-fourths of our precious fuel; there was no possibility of turning back. Then, too, our whole venture might be futile, so that if we ever got back, we'd face nothing better than a court-martial. We'd had no more signals from the Asterion—she might have changed her course so that we'd never even meet her. Or we might meet her and find the crew dead, suffocated, their oxygen all gone.

I think even Captain Rooney was worried. I'm not sure. Once, though, shortly after we'd passed out of signaling range of the Earth stations, I thought I'd actually caught him in a funk. I'd swung myself forward along the catwalk handholds to the little cubicle called his office. He was sitting at his chart table—strapped into the seat, of course, since we were weightless—looking desperately upset.

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" I asked.

"Eh, what's that?" he said. "Oh, no, nothing, nothing."

So I gave him my report, our final message from Earth Headquarters, and I was about to leave when he cleared his throat.

"Petersen," he asked me solemnly, "what's the service coming to?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, sir," I answered. "It did seem to me disgraceful, their hesitating about sending a ship after Aiken. After all—"

"No, no, that's not what I mean," he interrupted testily. "Do you know what they've done? That idiot Vinciman has ordered me to discontinue my poultry breeding. Claims the birds use up too much oxygen. How's that for a shortsighted narrow-minded policy, hey?"

"When did you hear that, sir?" I asked, keeping my face straight.

He scowled. "Two weeks ago; came in my private orders. Well, if we get hold of Aiken, he'll put a stop to such nonsense. An old shipmate of mine, you know—and a fine, sensible spaceman. Hell see to it the stuffed shirts down at Earth Headquarters don't regulate a man out of all his scientific pleasures, by jinks!"

I went off grinning to myself in spite of my worry, and when I relayed the poultry story to Dixon, he got a laugh out of it too. He said Gilreath would call Vinciman's discontinue order, Fate. Every once in a while I heard Dixon and Gilreath going on with their knowledge-versus-Fate argument.

But we were all pretty busy. One thing I had to do was figure out each day the theoretical position of the Asterion and stand radar- and 'scope-watch looking for her. It was tiring work, checking and interpreting shifting pips on the search radar; then straining your eyes hour after hour into a visiplate peppered with star images, trying to see if one of those points of light might be a ship.

But thirty hours before the time of junction I actually picked up the Asterion! She must have been about fifty thousand miles away then—just a sliver of light in the visiplate. But I knew her by the shape. She was dead as an asteroid, though, not sending any signals. I was simply seeing the glint of sunlight reflected from her hull.

The news electrified us, and we kept a hawk watch on the exploring ship, eagerly looking for signs of life as she grew larger.

It was about this time that we began to notice the growing intensity of the solar radiation. Rooney had the ship turned so that her nose was pointed directly toward the sun, and that lowered the absorbing area to a minimum. That, and the fact that our hull was highly polished, kept our temperature down to the nineties, though each watch it climbed a degree or so, ominously.

Six hours before juncture, our little 'scope showed the Asterion quite plainly. There was something queer about that ship. Aft of her amidships section there seemed to be a belt of dull discoloration, a queer, mottled green, on the bright metal of her hull. The area covered the openings for her steering jets, and we wondered if it could have had anything to do with putting her steering apparatus out of commission.

Still no sign of life. Was the Asterion no more than a drifting coffin in space? What strange disaster had overtaken her? A queer premonition settled down over us.

And ahead of us loomed the sun, larger and fiercer and more malignant than ever. It might be that more than one coffin would drift in toward perihelion passage before this business was over.

In a few hours more, we drew near the silent ship. Then began the delicate business of jockeying alongside her, neutralizing whatever velocity-differential the automatic pilot hadn't accounted for.

While our little skipper gently shifted our ship closer and closer with short blasts of our steering jets, the rest of us crowded to the ports. Fascinated, we watched the big gleaming torpedo drift near, her lines picked out sharply in the blaze of outer-space sunlight against the black pit of the sky.

Her discolored zone showed up plainly. It was more than discolored—it was pitted and pockmarked.

Eagerly I watched the shielded ports, but no faces appeared at them. Were we too late? Had grim death by suffocation already invaded that silent, hermetically sealed hull?

We shifted in until we were close to the side of the Asterion. There we were, the two of us, hurtling sunward at over thirty-five miles a second. Yet only the slow march of indicators across the faces of our instruments showed the wild speed of our plunge into the sun, the urgent need for haste.

And we were short of fuel. I tried not to think of that.

Dixon and I were selected for the boarding party. As we stepped out of the air lock in our vacuum armor, the sunlight struck us with almost a physical blow. Despite the heavy insulation of the armor, the flood of intensive radiation immediately raised the temperature inside it to over a hundred degrees.

It was no particular trick to get across to the Asterion, naturally, for the only thing holding us to our own ship was our magnetic shoes, and when we neutralized them, a slight jump would carry us across the gap. But by the same token a life line attached to a reel on our own vessel was an absolute necessity, for otherwise, if we missed our target, we'd sail on indefinitely.

Dixon, impetuous as usual, was the first to get his gear adjusted and jump. He sailed across the gap to the Asterion, his life line unreeling after him. He had aimed for the bow section, to try access through the forward air lock, but I soon saw that he had miscalculated his direction. He was drifting toward the belt of discoloration.

The next instant he landed—and crashed through the scarred metal as if it had been tissue paper, dropping out of sight in a swirl of greenish dust!

Frantically I called into my helmet microphone, and in a moment his voice sounded in my headphones.

Tm all right, Petersen," he said in an annoyed tone. "Don't yell like that. I think I'm inside the amidships fuel tank. Come on over."

Soon I was on the hull of the Asterion, peering in amazement into the hole Dixon had knocked through something that had once been tough chrome-beryllium steel and was now brittle, fragile powder. What had happened to this ship?

Gingerly I climbed down after Dixon into the fuel tank. It was bone-dry, and its inner walls were also corroded. We knocked a hole through into the very heart of the ship and found the longitudinal compression member not yet attacked by the strange green rust—it was all that was holding bow and stern together. We flashed our hand lamps down the circular tunnel inside it—that tunnel was the catwalk aft. The airtight emergency hatch into the engine room was closed!

If Aiken and his men were alive, they must be beyond that hatch, for the forward part of the ship was drained of air.

I floated myself along to the hatch and banged on the metal with a wrench from my belt kit. Then I placed my helmet against the door and listened. Sound carries well from metal to metal and I heard a voice.

It said tensely, "What was that?"

I banged again and shouted, "Boarding party from Patrol Ship EPX-3! Do you hear me? Who are you?"

The voice answered weakly, "This—is—Aiken."

There was a pause, and then a faint murmur, "Oxygen..."

Dixon was listening too. Instantly he scrambled out of the ship and went skinning over to the EPX. In five minutes he was back with the hyzone cutting torch—part of our regular emergency rig. In a flare of incandescence he drove the white-hot tungsten needle through the plate and allowed it to cool in place; then, with a shrill hiss, a burst of oxygen jetted through the needle from the flask attached to the apparatus.

After that we listened anxiously. At last the voice spoke again.

"Good work," it said. "Aiken speaking. I've got two men in a bad way here—down with oxygen starvation. Can you get them out?"

Dixon and I looked at each other. Could we? The hatch we were talking through wasn't an air lock; it was just an emergency airtight door. If we opened it, or if we cut through the bulkhead with a torch, we'd let out all the air in the engine room. The men would be dead before we got to them. Everything seemed to depend on the next question I asked.

"Have you got vacuum armor in with you?"

A silence. Then, "Only one suit. Pretty poor spaceman-ship, but we had no time . . ."

My heart sank. How could we ever get these men out of that steel-walled death chamber? We switched into a tense conference with Rooney and Gilreath, who were listening to us back in the control room of the EPX.

The skipper's voice came through sharp and worried. "Explain the situation, Petersen. I can give just two hours more in diis course before we accelerate out of it. What's got to be done?"

We wasted precious minutes debating, and it was Dixon who finally solved the problem.

"We've got to cut out the forward air lock, move the whole thing aft, and weld it on the hull outside the engine room," he rattled into his mike. "Then we can get inside it and cut down through the hull. Let's get going."

"Right," snapped back Rooney. "Good work, Dixon. Go to it. Gilreath's coming out right away to help. Remember —the deadline's two hours."

Two hours. After that, delay might mean a ghastly finish. We'd remember.

Gilreath came over loaded with an arsenal of tools and he and Dixon and I went to work like madmen on the forward air lock. It was sunk into the ship and we had to slice down around it, cutting through the ship's double skin. And though we knew our hyzone torches were slicing through the metal with a four-thousand degree heat, they seemed to cut as slowly as if we had been using wax candles.

After an agonizing time however, the job was done and the compressed-air feed lines disconnected, and the three of us manhandled the entire chamber up out of the hull and aft, wrestling the peculiar inertial resistance of heavy objects in free fall, the sweat pouring off us in rivulets.

And then began the even worse work of welding the thing in place—a nightmare of haywire fitting and connecting. At the end of Rooney's two hours, we were't ready. One of the makeshift seams was leaking.

"Just ten minutes more, sir," Dixon pleaded with Rooney through his microphone.

Ten minutes more, and something else wasn't working. Our voices began cracking and red spots danced before us.

It was an hour and a half past the deadline before we finally got those three half-conscious men into vacuum armor and out across to the EPX. We put them in the sick bay.

"Safe at last," Aiken murmured.

I didn't answer. How could I tell him the danger we were in, so long delayed, so short of fuel?

Aiken was the only one of the three well enough to talk intelligibly. When I got him strapped into a berth, he told me, in pain-racked whispers, what had happened to the ship.

"Sure—we made it," he gasped. "We've been there—got everything we went after. It's—it's all aboard the ship— or what's left of the ship. The green rust? Don't know— much more about it—than you do. . . ."

I pieced together his story from the broken account.

The exploring ship had been almost through the asteroid belt on the return orbit before they'd discovered that something was eating away the metal of their ship. They soon found the cause. In a locker amidships, along with other mineralogical specimens, there'd been stored a piece of unknown radioactive substance. In spite of the usual shielding precautions, emanations from this substance seemed to be setting up molecular disintegration in nearby metals, and it was spreading into some of the main structural members of the ship.

From then on, the voyage was slow torture, with their ship gradually disintegrating beneath them. They jettisoned the radioactive stuff, of course, but the disease went grimly on.

First the power plant for the microbeam projector crumbled into powder. Soon after that, the entire control apparatus for the steering jets went to pieces. Then it became necessary to empty oxygen and fuel tanks to keep them from exploding as their walls weakened. Presently the entire forward hull became unspaceworthy and they had to retreat to the engine room aft. Here they managed to rig a jury transmitter and send the SOS. After that, they went on half-rations of oxygen, and clung to dull hope.

That's the gist of the story.

I was glad Aiken dropped off to sleep as soon as he'd finished it. Otherwise, I couldn't have concealed from him the terrific danger we were in.

Forward in the computing room, swimming in a haze of heat, I found Rooney and Gilreath bending over the plotting table. The skipper was talking.

"Gilreath," he was saying, "there's no way out. If we accelerate now it'll only prolong the agony—make our approach a little slower. But I couldn't leave them. I thought we might—"

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and there was Dixon behind me looking in. The older men looked up suddenly; Gilreath shook his head silently and Rooney's jaw tightened.

"Do you prefer slow parboiling or a quick searing, lads?" he asked with a kind of diagonal grin. "It seems it's come to that. There's not much choice aboard a rocket to the sun. I'm sorry I got you into this—if that means anything to you," he added.

"Look here, sir," Dixon began excitedly, "I've discovered fuel—the Asterions aftertanks are still full! Can't we get the stuff across into our own tanks?"

A thrill of hope ran through me, but Gilreath shook his head. "I've looked into that. There are no outside connections built in, and it would take hours to rig couplings and a hose line. No, it looks to me, Dixon, as if this is one of the seetuations we've argued about. Gentlemen, we're staring square in the face o' Fate."

His solemn words left us silent, facing a fiery doom. There seemed nothing more that could be said or done.

Then suddenly, Gilreath gasped, "Rooney! Isn't the Asterions main motor in pair-fect commission, hey?"

"What good does that do us?" snapped the skipper. "She has no steering gear and her hull's in pieces—she's not spaceworthy!"

"No, but what's to prevent us from using her engines while we do the steering? Her main compression member's still whole, and if we let her push us from astern it will carry the stress. We could force our stern exhaust nobble over her bow, and maybe weld it to make it more secure—Dixon and Petersen here could do that in ten minutes—and in the meantime I could go back aboard her and get her main motor firing. How about it?"

There was a tense silence, and then Rooney slapped the chart table. "You're stark mad, Gilreath!" he rasped out. "Or you're a genius. We'll do what you say—or parboil. I mean that literally, gentlemen."

After that I guess we were all a bit loco for a while. You couldn't think clearly in that heat. It pounded through my head while I was struggling back into my armor. Outside, I felt the sun drilling through my spine, and fire and blackness danced in front of my eyes. I remember the two big ships maneuvering through space with Dixon and me sticking to them like flies—the EPX with her steering jets spurting flame, settling slowly backward so that her yawning main exhaust fitted over the nose of the Asterion. Dixon and I were there, somehow, helping, croaking directions through our radios to Rooney at the controls, working frantically with tools that burned red-hot in our hands.

And then I was back in the control room. I remember the first feel of the hesitating acceleration as the floor seemed to rise gently and press against our feet. That meant old Gilreath was actually in the Asterion s abandoned engine room, wanning up his nebulizers. Then came

the sudden blast of sound through the incandescent silence, the crushing force of full five-gravity acceleration. It threw me to the floor and knelt on my chest and squeezed me flat, but I didn't care. It meant power, the full power of a superheated motor blasting us out and away from the awful, stifling heat. . . .

So that was the way we did it. I doubt there's been a maneuver like it before or since, but it worked. Our own steering jets held us true to the line of flight, while the Asterion s big motor did the work.

We got out of the Sphere of Excessive Radiation in about twenty minutes, and then Rooney used up the last of the Asterion s fuel working us into a long hyperbola that took us out to Mars in about forty days.

Do you know what Captain Rooney started worrying about as soon as we were well on our return passage? I heard him ask Commander Aiken for a private conference, and when I next saw Aiken he was grinning to himself. And not a week after we finally got back to our Tycho base, while the explorer was still receiving all kinds of honors on Earth, orders came from headquarters giving Rooney an increased oxygen allowance for his lunar chicken farm!

The disintegration business? They're still working on that. But the piece of mineral had gone overboard of course, and the physicists haven't been able to make much of the green stuff left on the Asterion. They think that the disintegration stopped because we passed so close to the sun, that the ultraviolet bombardment ionized it or something. Came near ionizing us too!

There's one more thing I remember well. I can still see Dixon slapping Gilreath on the back when the engineer came back from his session in the engine room of the Asterion.

"Old John Calvin!" chuckled Dixon. "Where's your predestination now? Didn't I tell you brains would get you out of anything?"

Gilreath almost smiled. "Dinna disturb yerself, lad," he said. "My hypothesis is no upset in the slightest. What else was it indeed but Fate that ordained there should be one man with brains aboard this vessel?"