The World at Bay

ByPAUL CAPON

Jacket and Endpaper Designs by Alex Schomburg

Cecile Matschat, Editor Carl Carmer, Consulting Editor

THEJOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY Philadelphia * Toronto

Copyright, 1954 BY PAUL CAPON

FIRST EDITION

Made in the United States of America L. C. Card #54-7726

To My Son MARK

Invisible Stars

THE EVENTS described in THE WORLD AT BAY are supposed to take place in the spring of 1977, and there are several references to a science called "radaroscopy." It is by means of this science that the story's chief character, Professor Elrick, discovers the existence of a dark star, Nero, that is closer to the Solar System than any known star, and it is also by means of radaroscopy that he plots the course of a space fleet believed to be on its way to the Earth from one of Nero's planets.

Since these things are conjectured as happening in the comparatively near future, the reader may well ask if radaroscopy is likely to become an established science within time, and the answer is an unqualified Yes. Although the term "radaroscopy" is not yet accepted, the science already exists, and is already being practiced on both sides of the Atlantic. To date, it is known as "blind astronomy" or "daylight astronomy."

In Great Britain, its chief practitioners are Professor P. M. S. Blackett and Dr. A. C. B. Lovell, who work together at Manchester. The original purpose of their research was to apply radar techniques to the study of cosmic rays, but in the course of their experiments

they made a strange and stimulating discovery—they found they were getting radar echoes from meteors. Thus the new science was born, and just how far-reaching its effects will be, no one can even begin to predict.

Blackett and Lovell's first textbook success was the discovery of the Piscids—a shower of meteors coming from the direction of the constellation Pisces. The Piscids continued for the better part of a year, with a frequency more intense than any previously observed meteor shower. The visual astronomers missed them altogether, partly because their greatest activity was during the hours of daylight. Whereas visual astronomers have to make their observations by night and in clear weather, the radar astronomer knows no such limitations. He can take observations at any hour of the day or night, and whether the sky is clear or clouded is a matter of indifference to him.

Blackett and Lovell, however, were not alone in the field. As early as January, 1946, Sir Edward Appleton had expounded the theory of how radar echoes could be bounced off the moon, and less than a month later the U. S. Signal Corps put the theory into practice— they shot a signal at the moon and obtained an echo in less than three seconds, the time required for the round trip of 480,000 miles. Unless the Corps has changed its plans, Mars is the next objective, but of course for a signal to travel the huge distance involved an extremely powerful transmitter will be needed, and then it will be necessary to wait some years until the planet is in favorable opposition. At the least, the distance to be covered will be 35 million miles each way, but, since the signal travels at more than 10 million

Invisible Stars

ix

miles a minute, fewer than seven minutes will elapse before the echo reports back.

Meanwhile, radar astronomy has come of age. Within the last eight years it has added to the Galaxy's 100 billion visible stars at least as many invisible ones, and, although so far no star has been found nearer to the Earth than that already known, it may yet happen. Indeed, if THE WORLD AT BAY is anything to go by, Nero doesn't get discovered until 1964!

Contents

CHAPTER                                                                                                   PAGE

Invisible Stars                                                  viii

1.  The Doubters............................................             1

2.     Unnamed Threat...................................... ......... 13

3.     Suspense....................................................          23

4.  Landing of the Poppeans.......................          36

5.  A Bad Bargain.................................          48

6.  Liberty or Death...................................... ........ 62

7.     Cigarette Madness...................................          79

8.  Dust of Doom...........................................          92

9.  Captured!..................................................       108

10. Battle in the Air.......................................       124

11. Arctic Landing......................................... ..... 136

12. Official Broadcast...................................       149

13. Plans for Escape...................................... ..... 160

14. Caught by a Monster..............................       175

15. Death Sentence for Man!.........................       186

16. Return to Life...........................................       196

xi

Chapter I The Doubters

N

OTHING could have seemed more serene or peaceful than the morning of the twenty-first of April, 1977. Spring had come to London at last, and the sun shone from a clear sky. Sunlight sparkled on the pavements and danced among the leaves of the trees, yet as Jim Shannon climbed into his crimson jet car and headed south, away from Hampstead and toward the West End, he thought of the day as being full of foreboding and tension. "Not long to wait now," he reflected, as the car moved forward. "If the Professor's right, we'll know the worst within the next twenty-four hours."

He was out of cigarettes and pulled up outside a shop in Hampstead Road to buy some. Near the shop some people were waiting for a bus and among them he recognized the librarian of the Laboratory where he worked.

"Hullo, there, Mr. Boothwaite," he called. "Can I give you a lift?"

Boothwaite was a tall, correct, rather supercilious young man of thirty or so. He had been to Oxford and had never got over it. He dressed fashionably and today he was wearing a dark-green business suit and a hard hat tilted at just the right angle; and, cautious by nature, he carried a beautifully furled umbrella. He looked at Jim as if he were seeing him for the

first time in his life, then at the red jet car, and finally inclined his head gravely. "Thank you," he drawled, "I should be most grateful."

Jim did not know Boothwaite very well and was not sure that he liked him. The librarian had a long, thin face and he carried his head high as if there were forever a bad smell under his nose. His personality was cold and unbending, and he talked in a clipped, high-pitched voice as if, on the whole, it were really too much trouble for him to talk at all.

This morning, however, since Jim was by way of being his host, Boothwaite made a sketchy attempt at friendliness. "Let me see," he said, as Jim maneuvered the car back into the stream of traffic, "you're Professor Elrick's assistant, aren't you?"

"That's right," said Jim. "Been with him a year."

"But you're an American?" Sure.

There was a silence, during which Jim sensed himself being studied in the mirror, then Boothwaite said, "Aren't you a little young to be over here on your own?"

"I'm seventeen," Jim told him. "And, anyway, I'm not over here on my own."

"Oh, your people live in England, do they?"

Jim nodded, and told Boothwaite that his parents had a house in Hampstead. "My father's on loan to the British Museum," he explained. "He's an archaeologist. His interests are all in the past and mine are all in the future—so we get along fine."

"The future?" murmured Boothwaite, vaguely. "Oh, space travel, and all that, I suppose? H'm, it sounds as if you've been letting Professor Elrick influence your ideas, young man."

"Well, what's so wrong about that?" asked Jim, hotly. "The Professor's my chief, so why shouldn't I be influenced by him? And, anyway, he's the nearest thing we've got at the Laboratory to a genius."

Boothwaite laughed and remarked that he wouldn't dispute it. "Oh, he's a genius all right," he said, "but we mustn't forget that it's the privilege of genius to be fully absorbed in certain points. You've only to think of Newton and his belief in astrology to realize that; or Oliver Lodge and his convictions regarding spiritualism. And now—Elrick and his theories regarding Poppea."

He again laughed his thin little laugh and Jim found himself wishing that he'd never offered the librarian a lift. His indignation was such that he felt it would be safer to keep quiet, and so sat silent, going red about the ears, while Boothwaite enlarged upon his opinion of Elrick.

"Mind you," said Boothwaite, "I'm not denying that the Professor's discovery of the Neronian System is one of the major discoveries of the century, but I really think he should have left it at that. I mean, all his recent talk about imminent invasions from outer space is, in my opinion, just so much poppycock."

"Is it?" muttered Jim, between clenched teeth. "I wonder if you'll think the same this time tomorrow."

Boothwaite smiled superciliously, "So it's as near as that, is it?" he drawled.

"The Professor thinks so."

"Does he, indeed? Then I really feel he should warn the Government."

"Maybe he should. In fact, maybe he has, but, Mr. Boothwaite, have you ever heard of a government taking notice of anything until it's happened?"

"Perhaps not, but—"

Traffic lights flashed red, and Jim pulled up with such suddenness that Boothwaite nearly bumped his nose on the windshield and never finished his sentence.

Jim leaned on the steering wheel and gazed at his passenger with all the seriousness he could command. "Mr. Boothwaite," he said, "you don't seem to realize the Professor has evidence for his theory."

"Evidence?" echoed Boothwaite, slightly worried at last.

"Yes, and I can show it to you on the screen of the big radaroscope any time you like."

"Oh, that," said Boothwaite, and seemed relieved. "You mean the cluster of celestial objects that's been observed moving toward us? Oh, I've heard about that and I'm assured it's nothing more than an unusually large shower of meteors. I'm also assured that the meteors will all bum out as soon as they enter our atmosphere."

Jim's gaze became even more intent. "Listen," he said. "Have you ever heard of meteors moving in formation?"

"Formation? What do you mean?"

"Come up to the radaroscope chamber when we get to the Laboratory and I'll show you."

"I should be delighted."

The lights changed to green and the traffic moved forward. Jim swung left into the Park, and a minute later the tall white building that housed the London Radar Research Laboratory hove into view above the tops of the trees. The big clock which graced the central tower struck nine as Jim drove through the gateway, and he remarked that they were dead on time. "Good," he said. "I'd sure hate to be late on what may be my last day."

Boothwaite laughed uneasily. "Well, you are a somber fellow," he observed and climbed out of the car.

The radaroscope chamber was on the top floor of the Laboratory building and Jim took Boothwaite up to it in the elevator. A flashing red light over the door of the chamber indicated that it was in use, and Boothwaite asked if this meant they couldn't go in.

"No," said Jim. "We can go in as long as we're quick about it. It's only when the light burns continuously that entry's forbidden."

"But someone's in there?"

"Yes, the Professor, I guess. He's there most of the time now, and for the last week he's been practically living in the Lab."

As he spoke, he tugged open the door and slipped into the semidarkness beyond. Boothwaite followed him and they found themselves seats at the back of the room, which was semicircular and rather like a small motion-picture house. The whole of the flat wall, which they faced, was taken up by a huge radai screen, on which trembled myriads of pinpoints of brilliant light. The screen's background was smoky-blue, and a segment of light in its upper left-hand corner was, Jim explained to Boothwaite, the reflection thrown by the moon.

"And all those little dots of light?" asked Boothwaite. "What are they?"

"Those are what I've brought you to see. According to the Professor, they're thrown by a tremendous fleet of spaceships. Or, according to other people, they're simply meteors."

They were not alone in the chamber so they spoke in whispers. Professor Elrick was sitting in the front row of seats and at his side was a tall bald man whom Jim could not recognize by the faint light thrown by the screen. The Professor had the control panel in front of him, and from time to time the image on the screen shifted and wavered as he tried to bring it into better focus and position, and frequently it was interrupted by sudden flashes as atmospherics interfered with reception.

Boothwaite shook his head dubiously and glanced at Jim. "I thought you said these meteors, or whatever they are, were moving in formation," he whispered. "Well, I don't see it."

"No, but that's because we're viewing them at an angle," Jim told him. "The Professor's got all the data, and his calculations don't leave room for any doubt. If we could view those dots of light from directly underneath, as it were, we'd see that they form a symmetrical pattern."

He was still speaking when the lights went up, and then he saw that the man with the Professor was none other than Sir John Caldwell, the Laboratory's General Director, a lank man with stooping shoulders and a high domed forehead. Jim had never seen the great man at such close quarters and, as he jumped to his feet, he felt slightly abashed.

Sir John, however, was too preoccupied to notice him. He was listening to something the Professor was telling him and the expression on his face was serious in the extreme.

"Come along to my office, Elrick," he said, as he made toward the door. "I'd be a fool not to pay at least some attention to your findings."

Jim turned to Boothwaite with a smile that was gently triumphant. "Well, anyway, someone's impressed," he murmured.

Boothwaite shrugged faintly and stood up. "Too much imagination," he drawled, "that's the trouble with you scientists. Still, thanks for the lift and the warning, and now I must get to work. Poppean invasion or no Poppean invasion, the library carries on!"

He favored Jim with a languid nod and drifted away, and Jim had no doubt that his composure was perfectly genuine. Boothwaite might be too coldblooded to be quite human, but he was also too coldblooded to get flustered. If the Poppeans came he would treat them with the same indifference with which he treated everything else, and he would not be likely to forget his umbrella.

Boothwaite might be able to carry on with his work, but it was more than Jim could manage. He was too excited. He went down to his room and gazed in distaste at the radar negatives he was meant to be classifying. He turned away from them and paced the room restlessly, and five minutes passed before he mustered sufficient will power to sit down at the workbench.

Then his eye fell on his engagement pad and he cheered up a little. Under the day's date was written: "12:30. Lunch with Ruth." Ruth was Professor Elrick's daughter and she was an extremely attractive girl. Today would be the first time that Jim had taken her out to lunch.

He grinned and glanced out of the window at the clear sky. "Now, look here, you Poppeans," he said, "if you arrive before lunch and break that date for me I'll never forgive you. If you do, you're my sworn enemies for life."

Behind him a voice said, "What's that? What's that?" and he turned to find that Professor Elrick had come into the room. The Professor wore rubber soles, and Jim was always being surprised in this fashion.

"Nothing, sir," said Jim. "I was only talking to myself."

"Bad that, bad. Oh, yes, and who was that you had with you in the radar chamber just now?"

"Mr. Boothwaite, sir. You know—the librarian. I took him up there because I wanted to convince him that you may be right. I mean, about this Poppean business."

"Hah! And did you convince him?"

"Well, I think he's still a little skeptical."

"I'm sure he is. Everyone's skeptical, and I'm just a fool. In fact, I'm insane. 'Poor old Elrick,' they say. 'Done valuable work in the past, of course, but now he's completely off bis rocker!' So they try to humor me. Bah!"

"What about the General Director, sir? He was impressed, wasn't he?"

"No," said the Professor, categorically. "He pretended to be, but he wasn't. Took me along to his office and said, 'Elrick, write me a full report on this matter and I'll make it my responsibility to see that a copy is laid before the Home Secretary.' Humoring me, that's all." He looked out of the window and up at the sky just as Jim had done a few minutes before. "A full report, Jim! Why, it will take me a day to write it and by then our visitors will have called."

"You sound pretty sure, sir."

The Professor took a step forward, raised his index finger and flourished it under Jim's nose. "What's that, Jim?" he asked.

"Your finger, sir."

"You're sure of that?"

"Yes. Quite sure," said Jim, grinning.

"So'm I," agreed the Professor lowering his hand and stuffing it into his pocket. "And, Jim, just as I'm sure that that was my finger, so am I sure that the Poppeans will be with us by nightfall."

"Whoosh!" exclaimed Jim.

"It's all very well to say * Whoosh!'" cried the Professor, "but why aren't you working?"

"I'm just about to get down to it, sir."

"Then get down to it, Jim, and don't stand there arguing with me. Of course the Poppeans will come!"

The Professor scowled his fiercest and swung off to his own room, slamming the door. Jim smiled and sat down again. He and the Professor had been together a year and they understood each other. The Professor was a man of fleeting emotions, and his moods fluctuated restlessly between thunder and sunshine. He was a short man with a round head, a round face and a round body, and because he looked so funny he always had the greatest difficulty in getting people to take him seriously. As a young man he had injured his eyes in a physics experiment and now wore rimless spectacles with pebble lenses nearly an inch thick, which made his eyes appear huge and so added to the general effect of roundness. He was sensitive about his physical appearance, and Jim had had the wisdom to realize it almost as soon as he was first acquainted with the Professor. He always made a point of treating his chief as if he were as tall and as handsome as a television star. In fact, he sometimes felt the Professor would gladly surrender all his eminence as a radarologist just to be as tall and as handsome as a television star.

Jim sat scanning radarographs and sorting them into piles, but try as he might he could not keep his mind on his work. His gaze continually traveled to the window, and at every minute he half expected some unimaginable object to come hurtling out of that small rectangle of sky and go roaring over the Laboratory. He knew it was ridiculous to expect great things of the small section of sky he happened to be gazing at, and yet he could not help himself. After all, he argued, London was the world's largest city and the invaders could hardly ignore it. So perhaps it wasn't entirely ridiculous to look up at the sky and wonder.

In the next room the Professor coughed, and the sound brought Jim's thoughts back to Earth with a bump. Guiltily he picked up a radarograph and examined its tag, then placed it on the appropriate pile. The next negative he took up had no tag, and he was unable to identify it. He rose and took the offending radarograph in to the Professor.

"Professor, have you any idea what this—" he began, then broke off when he realized that his chief was on the telephone.

The Professor hung up almost at once and Jim noticed he was somewhat excited. His round, moonlike face was redder than usual, and as he pushed the telephone way from him he made several attempts to smooth his fluffy hair, a sure sign of agitation.

"That was Johnson," he said, jumping up. "He's on observation duty and reports that the stream of meteors, as he calls it, now appears to be breaking up into four parts. Come along, Jim; let's go and talk to him."

The observation chamber was on the same floor as the Professor's quarters and it differed from the other radaroscope chambers in that it had six screens arranged one above the other in two sets of three. Each screen received its reflection from a different part of the heavens and the control panel was correspondingly complicated. The man in charge, Johnson, glanced round as Professor Elrick and Jim entered, and for a moment they glimpsed his sharp-featured, long-nosed profile against the bluish light of the screen.

He pointed to Screen No. 5 and asked the Professor what he made of it. The image on the screen was not very different from the one Jim had seen in the large radaroscope chamber a little earlier, but even a layman could have seen that a subtle change had come over the grouping of the dots of light.

The Professor studied the image for a minute or so, then remarked to Johnson that his observation was correct. "Yes, the objects are now formed into four groups of roughly equal size," he said. "And what's your explanation?"

Johnson leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "Rather different from yours, I expect," he said. "You see, I m still convinced those reflections are thrown by meteors."

"Bah!" exclaimed the Professor, bouncing with impatience. "What in heaven's name could make a group of meteors, streaming through space, suddenly break into four parts?"

Johnson thrust his pipe into his mouth and struck a match. "Our atmosphere," he said, quietly. "You and I have both seen meteors and groups of meteors behave very oddly when they enter the fringe of the Earth's atmosphere."

"I've seen them break up and vanish," agreed the Professor, "but these objects haven't vanished."

Johnson waited until he had his pipe well lighted before replying, then he murmured, "Give them time, Professor. If those spots are still on that screen half an hour from now I'll be decidedly impressed."

The Professor settled back in his chair. "Then we'll wait half an hour," he said.

In point of fact, it was not necessary to wait so long. Before fifteen minutes had passed, Johnson was becoming restive. He had to make continual adjustments to his dials to keep the pinpoints of light on the screen, and he also used one of his other screens to take a cross bearing. He passed his findings on to the Professor, and the conclusion they came to, after calculation, was startling in the extreme. "If your data are correct," said the Professor, "those objects are now traveling through our outer atmosphere parallel to the Earth's surface and not more than two hundred miles above it?"

"That's right," muttered Johnson, in an awed voice.

"Then they can hardly be meteors."

"That's right," said Johnson again.

Professor Elrick jumped to his feet and pushed the scrap of paper on which he had scribbled his calculations into his pocket. "Fine!" he exclaimed, as he made for the door. "Now perhaps the General Director will pay some serious attention to mel"

ChaptCr 2tUnnamed Threat

D

EOPLE WHO KNEW both the Elricks often marveled that a man as plain as the Professor had ever managed to have a daughter as pretty as Ruth. She was slim and graceful and, except for freckles which infuriated her, as lovely as a movie star. She was Jim's age exactly, and she had auburn hair which she wore very short in the fashion of the day. Her eyes were green, and on this fateful spring morning she wore a new green frock which matched them to a shade.

She arrived at the Laboratory punctually at half-past twelve and went first into the Professor s room, which was deserted, and then into Jim's. "Hullo, Jim. Where's Daddy?" Jim glanced round, felt himself go red and leaped to his feet. He explained that the Professor was closeted with the General Director. "As a matter of fact, the heat's on," he said. "You know—the Poppean invasion." "You mean it's really going to happen?" "It looks like it."

Ruth gazed at him with widening eyes. "They've actually started to arrive?" she asked breathlessly.

"In a sense, yes. That's to say, we think they've contacted our atmosphere."

Ruth smiled excitedly and glanced up at the sky. "Then they'll be here almost any minute?"

"Well, not quite that," said Jim. "As far as we can judge from the radaroscopes, the space fleet is traveling through the upper stratosphere parallel to the Earth's surface, which most likely means that the Poppeans are using our atmosphere as a braking agent. Get the idea?"

"I think so. You mean the spaceships graze the outer fringe of our atmosphere, which has the effect of slowing them down?"

"That's it. Then they shoot out into space again, and turn and come back. After about the fourth grazing their velocity will be sufficiently reduced for them to think about landing."

"And how long will all that take?"

"Well, according to the Professor, something like twenty hours," said Jim, and grinned. "So at least we've got time for lunch."

"Good," said Ruth, smiling again. "Except that I think I'm almost too excited to eat!"

Jim scribbled a note for the Professor to say that he had gone to lunch and then escorted Ruth along the corridor to the elevator. "I thought we might go to the new open-air restaurant in the Park," he said, as they rode down.

"Lovely," said Ruth, "but it's rather expensive, isn't it?"

Jim laughed. "Money doesn't mean a thing now," he said. "By this time tomorrow we may be fighting for our lives!"

Ruth glanced at him and would have said something, but at that moment the elevator came to a stop on the ground floor and they stepped out of it. Boothwaite passed them in the hall, also on his way to lunch, and he favored Jim with a slight nod. "So far, so good," he murmured. "It looks as if your Poppean friends have missed their way, doesn't it?"

"Could be," said Jim, and just managed to suppress a desire to tell the snooty librarian the latest news. He did not want to be responsible for starting any wild rumors.

"Who's that?" asked Ruth, as Boothwaite passed out of earshot.

Jim explained, and told her that Boothwaite was highly skeptical of the possibility of a Poppean invasion. "He thinks the Professor is crazy," he said, "without knowing the first thing about radarology himself. In fact, I daresay he doesn't even know what the Neronian System is."

"Oh," said Ruth, and for the next few minutes she was unaccountably quiet. Jim glanced at her.

"Anything wrong?" he asked.

"No. At least, that is—no, nothing's wrong."

Outside, the sun was still shining brilliantly, but as they entered the Park it went behind a cloud and Ruth shivered.

"Cold?" asked Jim. "I mean, would you rather we had lunch in an indoor restaurant?"

"No, it's not that," Ruth assured him. "Actually, I shivered because I was still thinking about what you said in the lift—that by this time tomorrow we may be fighting for our fives. At first the idea of an invasion from outer space all seemed rather fun, but now I'm not so sure." She took his arm and looked up at the cloud-flecked sky. "Oh, Jim, if only it were a little more imaginablel"

"That's the last thing it is," Jim agreed. "Still, for all we know, the Poppeans may be delightful beings. There's always that possibility."

"Yes, I suppose so. Then I hope the Government has sense enough not to start shooting at them before we have a chance to find out."

Jim reflected privately that, from what he knew of governments and armies and suchlike, it would almost certainly be a question of shooting first and asking questions afterward, but he decided to keep his opinion to himself.

The sun came out at that moment and Ruth smiled. "That's better," she said. "Now I promise not to be gloomy again. It is a lovely day, isn't it?"

It was. They had just reached the Serpentine, and the sunlight, sparkling on the water, made it seem as if it were strewn with diamonds, and the ducks were all behaving as if they had suddenly become infected with a spring madness of tail-shaking, diving and quacking. Girls in gay summer dresses were feeding them, and all the dogs for miles around seemed to have decided this was just the day for a swim. They bounded into the water after sticks and balls, shook themselves dry on the walk, then bounded into the water again. The scene was so gloriously alive that when Ruth caught herself wondering if, within a matter of hours, it might not be changed to one of devastation and death, she hastily suppressed the idea with a feeling of guilt.

The new restaurant had a huge semicircular terrace built out over the water, and each table had its own striped sunshade. Jim chose one of the outside tables, and a waiter, dressed for no really plausible reason as a gondolier, came and took their order. Ruth was about to order duckling and orange salad when she thought she saw one of the ducks on the Serpentine eying her reproachfully, and changed her mind. "I think I'd like lobster salad," she said.

"And hors d'oeuvres first?" Jim suggested.

"Please," said Ruth, and then, as the waiter left them, she turned to him with a strange, serious expression and he noticed she was blushing.

"Jim—" she began, then broke off.

"What?"

"Well, I'm going to say something rather horrifying. Will you promise you won't be shocked?"

"All right. Whatever it is I won t be shocked."

"The fact is I'm just as ignorant as that chap Booth-waite. Jim, tell me—what is the Neronian System?"

In spite of his promise, Jim was shocked, quite considerably so, and for nearly a minute he stared at Ruth without speaking. "The Neronian System?" he muttered, at length. "But, Ruth, your father discovered it."

"I know, and I suppose that's why I've never found out what it was. I mean, the attitude was always so much, 'That's Daddy, and he discovered the Neronian System,' that I simply accepted it without question. Anyway, what is it?"

Jim drew a deep breath. "Well, do you know what Nero is?" he asked.

"Yes. It's a dark star, isn't it?"

"That's right, and do you know what's special about it?"

Ruth pondered this for some seconds, then shook her head. "No, I don't. Unless, perhaps, it's particularly big or something?"

"No, it's not particularly big. In fact, it's not much larger than our sun, but the significant thing about it is that it's the nearest star to the Solar System. For centuries the astronomers thought the nearest star was Sirius, which is about eight and a half light-years away, but your father changed all that—"

The waiter arrived with the hors d'oeuvres, and Jim broke off.

"Please go on," said Ruth, as soon as she was served. "So Nero's the nearest star, and I suppose it hadn't been discovered before because it's a dark star?"

"Exactly, and to be discovered it had to wait for the invention of radaroscopy—"

"Perhaps you'd better explain that, while you're about it."

"Well, radaroscopy is simply the system by which short-wave beams are bounced off objects in space and then picked up on cathode-ray tubes. The radaro-scope can never supersede the telescope because all it can do is tell you where an object is, how big it is and how far away. It can't tell you anything about the surface of a star, but, when it comes to dealing with dark stars, it's got the telescope beaten hollow."

"I'm with you so far," said Ruth. "Just when was it that Daddy discovered Nero?"

"In 1964," Jim told her. "And in the following year he discovered that Nero was attended by a number of planets in much the same way as our sun is—hence the Neronian System. In all, Nero has seven planets and, from our point of view, the most interesting of them is Poppea."

"Because it's something like the Earth?"

"Yes. It's much more massive, but it's Nero's third planet and it's just about the same distance from Nero as we are from the sun. And there's another point of resemblance which is even more striking."

"Ah, I know that one," said Ruth, smiling. "It's got oxygen!"

"That's right," agreed Jim. "Poppea and the Earth, out of all the planets of both systems, are the only two with oxygen atmospheres. And what a lot of trouble that fact got the Professor into."

"You mean, because of his prediction of a Poppean invasion and all?"

"Yes. He argued that because of Poppea's position in the Neronian System, and because it had an oxygen atmosphere, its evolutionary development must have been comparable to that of the Earth. Therefore it is logical to assume some species of intelligent being has evolved, and, since their planet is immeasurably older than ours, it is also logical to assume that they are, technologically and in other ways, miles ahead of us. That's to say that space travel and all that sort of thing are probably commonplace with them. Now if you put all those assumptions together what conclusion do you get?"

"Search me," said Ruth.

"Well, since the Poppean sun is going out, life on the planet must be getting fairly intolerable. Nero is probably only visible to the Poppeans as a dull-red orb in a purple sky, and so they exist in perpetual semi-darkness and at a temperature so low we can hardly conceive it. Now the Professor estimates that within a generation the cold will reach a point at which all oxygen will liquefy, so what are the Poppeans going to do about it? Well, clearly, since they're intelligent beings, they're not simply going to let themselves perish. On the assumption that they've mastered space travel, they will abandon their planet for one where life is possible, and were the nearest world to them with an oxygen atmosphere!"

"And that's why we re for it?"

"Presumably," said Jim, with a quick glance at the sky. "Anyway, the Professor first put forward the idea of a Poppean invasion more than ten years ago, and it didn't do him any good at all. Everyone simply decided he'd gone crazy, and his stock slumped so thoroughly that it's stayed slumped ever since. That's why he holds only a comparatively minor post at the Laboratory, and that's why his temper is so uncertain. If there ever was a frustrated man, it's he."

"Then I'm glad the Poppeans are coming," said Ruth. "At least it will show everyone that Daddy was right."

"There's that," Jim agreed, ruefully. "But just this once I could almost wish he were wrong."

Suddenly Ruth stiffened and raised her eyes. "What's that?" she breathed. "Listen!"

A soft sound like the tearing of silk shook the air, and Jim and Ruth exchanged glances. "It's only the breeze—" Jim began, then broke off as the sound came again. It was louder this time, and it ended with a sharp crack, like the breaking of a limb of a tree. Then came a fearful shuddering sound, like the shaking of sheet metal, followed by four dull thuds, regularly spaced: "Woomp ... woomp ... woomp ... woomp!"

Then—silence. A silence so deep that Ruth could hear her heart thumping against her ribs. Everyone on the terrace had stopped talking and most were gazing anxiously up at the sky. Jim heard a man say, "Thunder," but there was no conviction in the voice. The sounds they had heard had nothing in common with thunder except that they had come from above. A long way above, Jim reflected.

"Let's get back to the Lab!" he exclaimed.

Ruth was too breathless to speak. She nodded and stood up. They had barely finished their hors d'oeuvres, but the idea of calmly going on with their lunch was out of the question. Jim hurriedly pushed a ten-shilling note under his plate, then followed Ruth from the terrace.

It was imagination, of course, but everything seemed changed. Even the ducks looked worried and, although the dogs still bounded about after balls, it was hard to believe they had their minds on the game. As Ruth ran at Jim's side toward the gates all her perceptions seemed heightened, so that she knew that, even if nothing more happened, she would remember this day for as long as she lived. Every few seconds she glanced up at the sky, but there was nothing to be seen. The sun still shone serenely and the sky was clear except for a single bank of white woolly clouds.

The Professor was in his room when they arrived at the Laboratory. He was sitting in front of his big radio set, listening to a news report from America, but as Jim and Ruth entered he swung round fiercely.

"Jim!" he exclaimed. "Where the deuce have you been?"

"Having lunch, sir.With Ruth."

"Lunch!" screamed the Professor. "Heavens, Jim, have you no sense of occasion? The Poppean space fleet is already streaking through our stratosphere, and your only reaction is to have lunch! I suppose on Judgment Day you'll do crosswords?"

"Sorry, sir," said Jim, grinning. "Anyway, we didn't get beyond the first course. Then we heard that incredible noise and came straight back."

"So you heard the noise all right?" said the Pro

fessor. "Well, it's a relief to know that your perceptions aren't completely withered. Actually, of course, the noise was caused by the impact of the space fleet on our atmosphere, and similar atmospheric disturbances have been reported from all over the world. In some places they've even caused damage to buildings, and in Milwaukee a row of houses collapsed."

"But so far none of the spaceships have landed?"

The Professor shook his head. "No, but at last the General Director and I have got the Government to take notice," he said. "In fact, I had a word with the Home Secretary myself."

"And what will the Government do?"

Professor Elrick sighed and took off his glasses to polish them. "Heaven knows," he said. "Call out the Home Guard, man the ack-ack guns and draw up plans for the evacuation of London, I suppose. I don't think official imagination can go much further than that."

"Well, sir, what would you do if you were the Government?"

"I don't know," said the Professor, and suddenly smiled, "but I expect I'd call out the Home Guard, man the ack-ack guns and draw up plans for the evacuation of London." He gazed out of the window for a few seconds, then went on slowly, "The fact is, Jim, there's nothing we can do until we know exactly what we're up against!"

Chapter 3 s^p*»**

NDERSTANDABLY no one was able to do any work at the Laboratory that afternoon. For the most part the staff congregated on the roof and watched the sky. That was the worst aspect of it, waiting for something to happen, and for a long time so little happened. Someone had taken a portable radio up onto the roof and at three o'clock the announcer interrupted the program with an official announcement. "We have been asked by the Home Office to broadcast the following message," he said, in unhurried tones. "At five o'clock this afternoon the Prime Minister will come on the air to make an important statement. While it is emphasized there is no cause for alarm, it is in the interests of everyone to hear the Prime Minister's statement, which will be broadcast on the usual wave lengths of all three services. This announcement will be repeated at half-hourly intervals until five o'clock. . . ."

That, for the time being, was as much as the general public was told of the emergency and, as far as could be judged, people were not much affected by the announcement. No one connected it with the strange sounds that had shaken the air earlier in the afternoon, and the explanation most current was that the Prime Minister was simply going to announce the dissolution of Parliament. The Government had all but lost a vote

of confidence three nights before and most people agreed it was about time for an election. Even at the Laboratory, where the staff knew something of the nature of the crisis, the keynote was one of calm, and most of the people simply looked upon the threatened invasion as a literally heaven-sent excuse to knock off work.

Professor Elrick, however, unlike the majority of his countrymen, had not the knack of keeping calm in a crisis. He was all over the place—in his room, in the observation chamber and up on the roof. When he was fiddling with the radio he wanted to be scanning the radar screens, and when he was in the radaroscope chamber he wanted to be watching the sky. And wherever he went he learned no more than he already knew—that a great number of strange objects were streaming through the upper sky.

Soon after three the General Director came up onto the roof and made straight for the Professor, who was standing with Jim and Ruth under the rotating aerials. "Ah, there you are Elrick—" he began, and, although at that point he dropped into an undertone, Jim's ears were keen enough to get the gist of what he was saying. It seemed the General Director had been asked to attend an emergency meeting of the Cabinet at Downing Street, and he wanted the Professor to go with him. "After all, Elrick," said Sir John, "you know more about this business than anyone else."

"Not much," said the Professor. "But of course I'll come."

The two men hurried from the roof, and Ruth turned to Jim with shining eyes. "Did you hear that?" she asked. "The Prime Minister wants Daddy to tell him what to say—that's what it means, doesn't it?"

"I guess so," said Jim. "Gee, they've been laughing at him for a dozen years and now he's the only man they can turn to!"

As was to be expected, when the Prime Minister came on the air at five, he had comparatively little to say and said it superlatively well. He had spent a lifetime in being confident and reassuring, and an inter-galactic invasion was something he could take in his stride. He made the whole prospect sound like a storm in a teacup, and his tones, which still retained a slight Welsh accent, were those of a bluff and trusted physician at the bedside of an overanxious patient. He talked about the "Poppy-Anns," making them sound slightly ridiculous, and he won Ruth's heart forever by mentioning the Professor by name. "Before making this statement," he said, "I naturally consulted the advice of the greatest experts in the field of radarology— in particular, Professor Elrick, of the London Radar Research Laboratory. He has studied the possibility of a Poppy-Ann visitation for a great number of years, and he assures me there is no reason to suppose that the Poppy-Anns will necessarily be hostile. It may be that the visit they are paying us is merely formal and friendly, and it is difficult to conceive that they will be sufficiently ill-advised to try and annex our planet. We should object. We should object with every weapon at our command and it goes without saying that every other nation would be our ally. So, whether they come as friends or as enemies, we have nothing to fear, and we can await their visit with easy minds and calm nerves. . . ."

"Bromide," muttered Jim, turning away, "but I guess there's nothing much else he can say." Soon after the broadcast the Professor and the Director General returned to the Laboratory and Sir John called a meeting of all the staff. They assembled in the main lecture room and the Director spoke to them briefly. "All of you have heard the Prime Minister's broadcast," he said, "and I have little to add to his statement. The only advice I can give you is to go home and keep calm. As far as the Laboratory is concerned, the observation chamber will be manned as usual, and it is my intention to spend the night in the building myself. Professor Elrick also wishes to stay and in addition to us I should much appreciate it if about a dozen of the male staff would volunteer as a sort of night patrol, to serve in whatever capacity seems indicated when the invasion comes. Those of you who have the misfortune to be as old as I will remember how we did this sort of thing in World War II and, before all you men leap to your feet, I should like to point out that I want the volunteers to be fairly young men, unmarried and without home responsibilities,..."

Jim could wait no longer and jumped up. Several other men followed suit and Ruth tugged at Jim's jacket and whispered, "If you and Daddy are both staying, then I shall stay, too. I don't see myself sitting in an empty apartment waiting for the Poppeans to call."

From the forty or more volunteers Sir John selected a dozen, then suggested that everyone else go home. Boothwaite was one of the ones who stayed and, as the hall cleared, he glanced round, recognized Jim and came to him. "Well, it seems that the mad Professor wasn't so mad after all," he murmured. "I suppose you haven't any inside information on when our guests are expected?"

"None," said Jim. "All I know is that, according to the radaroscopes, so far none of the spaceships have approached nearer than about fifty miles to the Earth's surface. They are all traveling in an east to west direction and roughly parallel to the equator. An American observatory claims to have photographed one of the spaceships telescopically, and it's described as a circular, shining object, rather like our old friends, the flying saucers."

The Professor came up just then and Boothwaite moved away with his usual languid nod.

"Well, Jim, one thing's assured," said the Professor, "and that is that you and I get a good view of events. Sir John is organizing the patrols on the basis of two men to each floor, and we've been allotted the roof. As for you, Ruth, I think you'd better stay the night with your Aunt Edith."

Ruth stared at him in dismay and shook her head. "No, I'm staying here," she assured him. "Yes, I am, Daddy. Aunt Edith's fairly dismal at the best of times, so what she'll be like in a Poppean invasion doesn't bear thinking about. Besides, you'll need my help."

The Professor was in too good a mood to argue, and it suddenly occurred to Jim that his chief was looking about ten years younger. Events were justifying his much-derided theory with a vengeance and, even if he died within the next hour, at least he would die a fulfilled and successful man.

Before Jim went up onto the roof he rang his home and explained what was happening, and the thought that he might never see his parents again made him inarticulate. "I guess there's not much to say, Pop," he told his father, "except that everything's under control and the Professor's in fine form. I—I guess I'd better speak to Mom, hadn't I?"

His father told him that she was out just at the moment. "She forgot to get any oranges," he said, "and she's hoping to catch the shops before they close. I told her it didn't seem important to me, but you know what women are—the chores must be done even though the heavens fall. Still, I expect you'll be ringing again later, won't you?"

"Oh, sure," said Jim, relieved at being able to postpone matters. "That's right, I'll ring later, and meanwhile take care of yourself, Pop."

"And you, Jim. Good-by."

Jim hung up and then joined Ruth and the Professor on the roof. It was deserted now, and the hush of evening was already settling over London. There seemed to be less traffic in the streets than usual, and fewer people in the Park. The portable radio was still up on the roof and Ruth switched it on. Gay, light-hearted music came from it—the sort of music a ship's orchestra plays when the ship is going down, or a theater orchestra plays when the theater catches fire —but presently the program was interrupted by a news announcement. There was still little cause for alarm, said the announcer, and so far no reports had been received of any Poppean spaceships landing. There was no doubt, however, that the space fleet was moving in closer to the Earth, and reports coming in from various parts of the world where the objects had been seen through telescopes suggested that the spaceships were now not more than twenty to thirty miles up. The most circumstantial report so far received came from San Francisco where a group of eight of the objects had been seen streaking out across the Pacific. They moved in arrow formation, were definitely circular in shape, probably rotating, and each was estimated to be three hundred feet in diameter. "That is the end of the news," said the announcer, "and we are now taking you back to Eastmouth for a further program of light orchestral music from the Palm Court of the Grand Hotel there. Other news announcements will be made as occasion warrants."

"Oh, why doesn't something happen?" muttered Ruth, and turned the radio down as the tinkling, over-cheerful music was resumed. "Whenever I've thought about invasions from space, I've always imagined that everything would happen at once. You know—zing, woosh, bang, and there we are, running for our lives. This suspense is getting me down."

"I know what you mean," said Jim, and strolled across to the parapet. "As far as the way things look, this could be just any fine evening in spring. Only don't forget anything may happen at any moment."

"Maybe," said Ruth, "but it doesn't feel like it," and the only thing that happened in the next two hours was that at half-past seven one of the regular night watchmen came up to them with coffee and sandwiches.

They ate the sandwiches sitting on the parapet gazing toward the east, and the silence, except for the faint music issuing from the radio, was uncanny. The Park, on their left, was now almost totally deserted, and Brompton Road, on their right, was bereft of traffic except for occasional buses. Once a convoy of military vehicles, mounted with searchlights and guns, rumbled by, but there was no other sign that anything untoward was afoot, and for the rest the three of them just sat there, watched their shadows grow longer and wished that something would happen.

Ruth shivered, and her father asked her if she were cold.

"Not particularly," she said, "but it is getting a bit chilly, isn't it?"

The Professor sniffed the air and remarked that it would probably freeze later on. "How about you and Jim going along home in Jim's car," he said, "and picking up all you can find in the way of overcoats and sweaters?"

"What, and have the invasion start without us?" exclaimed Ruth, indignantly. "No, I'd rather freeze than miss anything."

Soon after nine, the Director General visited them. He was excited. He came over to the Professor and sat down on the parapet. "Australia's off the air," he said, breathlessly. "So's New Zealand, and Japan. I've just had the news from the Home Office. Sydney went off about an hour ago, and all the other stations followed suit pretty soon after. And what makes it even more strange is that the transmitters aren't dead. We're still getting time signals from Sydney, and in the Tokyo studio there's a metronome ticking that can be heard all the time. But no voices, no programs or announcements. Good Heavens, Elrick, it's as if everyone living in those three countries had just dropped dead."

"What about the cable companies?" asked the Professor. "Aren't they getting anything?"

Sir John shook his head. "Apparently not," he said. "It's as if a huge slice of the Earth had suddenly ceased to exist. The Sydney announcer shouted something just before he fell silent, but that was all, and none of our monitors could make out what he said. Well, Elrick, any comment?"

"None. Except that it looks fairly evident the invasion is following the dawn. If that's so, we've still got about eight hours to wait."

"Eight hours!" exclaimed Ruth. "Oh, no, Daddy— we can t take another eight hours of this suspense!"

The Professor glanced at her and smiled. "Well, at least it gives you and Jim time to collect some extra clothes," he said. "So run along—off with you!"

Before Ruth and Jim could leave, the little group was joined by Sir John's assistant, breathless from having run up the last flight of stairs. "You're wanted on the telephone, Sir John," he said. "The Home Office again."

Sir John jumped up. "You'd better come with me, Elrick," he muttered. "I've never felt at such a loss in my life."

The Professor followed the Director from the roof, and Jim and Ruth exchanged glances. Jim moved a little closer to her and took her hand. "Eight hours to go," he murmured. "Well, I guess that's better than no time limit at all."

"I suppose so," said Ruth with a sigh. "Anyway, we can fill in half an hour collecting those togs. Come along."

They hurried down to the floor below and rang for the elevator. While they were waiting for it, Ruth's thoughts returned to the Poppeans and she gazed at Jim with a puzzled frown. "Jim, what can they be doing?" she asked. "I mean, they can't really be exterminating whole populations, can they?"

Jim shrugged helplessly and lit a cigarette. "Well, if they are, they're not using atom bombs to do it," he said. "The radio stations at Sydney and Tokyo haven't been destroyed."

"Then what are they using? Gas?"

"Maybe.If so, it's a poor outlook for us."

"You mean, no gas masks?"

"That's it."

"But the Army will have some?"

"I don't know. Gas hasn't been used in warfare for more than forty years, and soldiers all over the world gave up carrying gas masks as part of their regular equipment sometime in the nineteen-fifties. If there are any gas masks, they are probably stored in attics or warehouses."

Halfway through his last sentence his expression changed and Ruth noticed it. "What's struck you, Jim?" she asked.

He didn't answer her and at that moment the elevator arrived. He opened the gates abstractedly, and, as they rode down, Ruth nudged him. "Come on, Jim," she said. "What are you thinking about?"

He gave a start and grinned. "Gas masks," he told her. "I came across some sometime in the last year or two, but I can't remember if it was here, in London, or at school back home. They were in a cupboard and I guess it was in a laboratory, because I remember thinking that someone must have had them while experimenting with cyanide gas or something." He struggled to remember, but in the end shook his head. "No, it's no good. I guess I must have dreamed it."

The elevator came to a standstill as he spoke and he threw back the gates. They raced across the hallway and out onto the almost empty parking lot. Ruth and the Professor lived in Chelsea, and ten minutes later Jim's little jet car pulled up outside their apartment. The porter and four or five residents were standing about on the steps, gazing up at the sky, and the porter greeted Ruth with a smile. " 'Evening, Miss Elrick," he said. "And what's the latest news from the Professor?"

"Nothing much," she told him. "Except it will probably be at least eight hours before anything happens."

"Eight hours, eh?" muttered the porter, who was a big, red-faced man. "Well, what I want to know is just what are these Poppy-Anns?"

Ruth smiled and told him that no one knew. "So your guess, Wilson, is as good as the Professors or mine or anyone else's."

The porter nodded and said he reckoned they'd be a pretty crumby lot. "I mean, they got no business here," he grumbled. "I saw a fillum once about some horrors from Mars, shocking types, and they made everybody melt. Wonder what it feels like to melt. Hurts, don't it?"

"I wouldn't know," said Ruth, with a laugh, and at last managed to get away. She joined Jim at the elevator gates, but although they rang and rang no elevator appeared. The porter strolled over to them and explained that some fifth-floor residents had the gates open. "Three old ladies," he said. "They're packing the lift with bedding and are moving down to the basement. They reckon it will be like an air raid, see?"

"So we'll have to walk, shall we?" said Ruth, and made for the stairs. The Professor's apartment was only on the third floor, and, as Ruth let herself and Jim in, she remarked upon how strange and unfamiliar it all seemed. "With this threat hanging over us, everything seems strange," she said. "I feel as if I'm seeing life in a distorting mirror."

It did not take her long to find some pull-overs, scarves and gloves, and then she slipped into her bedroom and changed into skiing pants and white sweater. There was no overcoat large enough to fit Jim, but Ruth found him a fur-lined leather jacket, which, if the Professor had ever worn it, must have been miles too big for him.

Ruth watched Jim struggle into it and laughed. "Anyone'd think we were planning an Everest expedition," she said. "In fact, haven't we rather overdone it?"

"Oh, I guess not," said Jim. "After all, these April nights can be as cold as midwinter."

They couldn't know it then, but there would come a time when they would be glad they had rather overdone it. Later, they were to reflect that the Professor's insistence on extra clothing had probably been responsible for saving their lives.

The sun was starting to set as they drove back to the Laboratory, and they went straight up to the roof. There was no one there and they guessed the Professor was still in conference with Sir John. "We're in for quite a sunset," said Jim, and pointed toward the west, where the sky was ablaze with crimson light. The sun was a disc of angry fire just above the horizon and Ruth remarked gloomily that perhaps it was the last sunset they'd ever see. At the same moment, as if to confirm her fears, the air above them seemed to shudder and they heard a brief rushing sound that was halfway between a roar and a whistle.

Ruth clutched Jim's hand and they exchanged glances. "One of the spaceships?" she whispered, and looked up at the sky.

"I guess so. Only it's no good looking for it—it will have passed over us some seconds ago."

"Look!" exclaimed Ruth, and pointed toward the sun. Momentarily a black disc hovered in silhouette against the sun's greater disc, then disappeared into the glare.

Professor Elrick returned just then and they told him excitedly what they had seen. He nodded thoughtfully and observed that it was probably a reconnaissance ship. "Judging by events," he went on, "the main bulk of the space fleet appears to be passing over Eastern Asia. Peking, Shanghai and Nanking are now all off the air, and heaven knows what's happening."

"You don't suppose the Poppeans could be using some sort of gas?" asked Jim.

"Gas?" echoed the Professor, then shook his head. "No, Jim, it's out of the question. Think of the area involved, and the speed with which this thing is happening. No, I can't imagine any gas that could have such an effect."

Jim, used to accepting the Professor's judgment on every point, said nothing, yet did not dismiss the possibility of a lethal gas entirely from his mind. He was an imaginative youth, perhaps too imaginative for a scientist, and he had not the Professor's years of disciplined thought behind him. Surely it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Poppeans had discovered a poisonous gas capable of spreading at an enormous speed and capable of penetrating wherever air could penetrate? When dealing with the unimaginable, he reflected, anything was possible.

Dusk settled over London. The last streaks of ruby light faded from the sky, and here and there stars were twinkling. At several points, the beams of searchlights stabbed the darkness, puny in the face of the events that threatened, and for Jim they in some way symbolized how little the Earth understood what it was up against.

Landing of the Poppeans

riix THROUGH the night, silence crept over Asia. One by one, as the dawn came, the radio stations at 11 Chungking, Irkutsk, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi, Omsk, went off the air, suddenly, swiftly, and without prior explanation. There was a gasp and then silence, followed in some cases by the thud of a man falling, or a crash as someone or something hit the microphone. At the same time all other telecommunications ceased, and, if there were any airplanes that tried to race the invasion, they were doubtless overtaken. The Poppean spaceships were traveling across the face of the Earth as swiftly as the dawn itself, and there was no jet plane that could fly fast enough to tell what was happening in the wake of the Poppeans.

Shortly after two, Sir John joined the trio on the roof. "Moscow's had it," he announced. "So I suppose we've about three hours to go."

He chatted a bit with the Professor, hunching his shoulders against the cold, and shivering, but in the circumstances there was little to be said, and presently he left to visit the other patrols. Ruth and Jim watched the searchlights restlessly sweep the eastern sky and for the third time that night they put out a recording of the Prime Minister's speech. Jim shrugged impatiently and went to the radio. "I'm going to get Berlin,"

he said. "Maybe they know something. You speak German, don't you, Professor?"

"Not only speak, but understand," said the Professor, but his modest attempt at a joke passed unnoticed. Jim got Berlin on the radio and the music of Nicolai's overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor quickened the night air.

The Professor laughed. "Never in the history of radio," he said, "has so much light music been broadcast by so many different radio stations so continuously."

"Or so frantically," Jim suggested. "That orchestra sounds as if it's trying to beat a time bomb."

"Nonsense," said Ruth. "That's a recording you're listening to, and I'll bet it was made months ago—long before anyone except Daddy had so much as dreamed of a Poppean invasion."

As she spoke, the music faded out to be replaced by an announcer. "Achtung!" he barked, and the Professor leaned over the radio.

He listened to the announcement, then told the others that the German Minister of State was going to speak. "I'll try to give you a rough running translation," he said, "but it all depends upon how quickly he talks."

The Minister of State had a crisp high-pitched voice, and he sounded as nervous as a cat in a kennel. The Professor listened for a minute or so, then said, "So far all he's had to say is that the hour of dawn approaches and Germany awaits the unknown with courage and high hearts.... Now he's running through a list of the disasters that have befallen the Fatherland in the past and which it has survived. He is calling upon all Germans to equal their ancestors in heroism. . . ."

There was a lot more in the same vein and the

Professor let it ride. He sat back on his haunches and waited for the Minister to say something of immediate significance, but it soon became clear that the German authorities were just as ignorant of the nature of the approaching threat as the British.

Suddenly a second voice cut across that of the Minister, and the Professor stiffened and sat up. The new voice was gruff and staccato, and it sounded more as if it were grunting than speaking. Behind it the voice of the Minister could still be heard going steadily on, and the Professor's voice as he tried to make out what each voice was saying was that of a tortured man. Ruth could not be sure the second voice was talking in German, but she felt certain it wasn't speaking English.

The vocal duet seemed to last a long time, then suddenly they heard the Minister catch his breath, and gasp. He stammered something, choked and was silent, and at almost the same moment the second voice broke off.

The Professor straightened himself. "So that's that," he muttered. "Berlin's succumbed."

"That other voice?" asked Jim. "What was all that about?"

"I don't know," the Professor told him. "I think it was talking German—or, rather, broken German, but I couldn't make out what it said." He paused momentarily, then suddenly exclaimed: "No, by Jove, I've got it! That second voice was a Poppean speaking!"

Jim gazed at him in astonishment. "But—but Pop-peans can't speak German!"

"How do we know they can't?" asked the Professor. "Remember, they've probably been planning to invade this planet for generations. And no doubt they've been keeping us under extremely close observation."

"But even so I don't see how they could learn our languages," muttered Jim, frowning.

"Why, from our radio programs, of course," said his chief, with a flash of impatience. "You know something about the theory of space stations, don't you? And how such a station can travel around a planet virtually forever? Well, I think it quite probable that for perhaps the last fifty years the Poppeans have been maintaining a space station in the vicinity of the Earth. If the station was not further out than the Kennelly-Heaviside layer they could pick up our radio programs without difficulty."

Jim wasn't convinced and told the Professor so. "I don't see it," he said. "I mean, how could they ever learn a whole language just from hstening to announcers, for instance, and commercials and disc jockeys?"

"It would be difficult," agreed the Professor, "but by no means impossible, and don't forget these creatures aren't fools. In fact, they are probably almost as far ahead of us in intelligence as we are ahead of apes. They've had many million more years to learn."

He glanced at the radio, and told Jim to turn it back to London. "If there is anything in my theory," he said, "I'd like to know what the Poppeans have to say before they silence us all."

"If they spoke to the Germans," said Jim, as he fiddled with the wireless, "why didn't they speak to the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians and everyone else? We weren't told that they did."

"No, but that's not to say they didn't do so. It may be simply that our monitors didn't pick them up, and that would depend upon how much power they were using in transmission. Also, they may have concentrated on learning only a few of the world's languages-say, English, French and German."

The music the B.B.C. was broadcasting had changed in character, and now the keynote was patriotism rather than cheerfulness. A full orchestra was playing "Land of Hope and Glory," and Ruth was conscious of an uncomfortable lump in her throat. Zero hour, she felt, was now terribly close at hand, and in the east the sky was already pale with the first light of dawn. She glanced at Jim and remarked that she supposed they had about half an hour to go.

"About that," agreed Jim. "And think, if I'd never left home, I'd still have five hours."

"Yes, but it's only borrowed time when one spends it in a state of suspense, isn't it?"

The night watchman appeared on the roof and told Jim he was wanted on the telephone. "It's your Dad," he said. "He says he's been trying to get through for hours. From what I can see of it, half of London's spent the night 'phoning the other half."

As he and Jim went down the roof stairs, the watchman explained that Jim would have to use the telephone in the physics lab. "That's where it came through, see?" he said. "On account of there's no one on the switchboard. The operator's only a kid and Sir John wouldn't let her stay. Know where the physics lab is?"

"Third floor, isn't it?" said Jim. "I have been to it, but I can't place it exactly."

"I'll show you," said the watchman, and jerked open the elevator gates.

Jim had made two attempts to telephone his people during the night, but had not been able to get through. He had practically resigned himself to not speaking to them again, and now, when he heard his father's voice on the line, he felt embarrassed and couldn't think of anything to say. His father, however, was an understanding man and made it easy for him. "Well, Jim," he said, "we won't keep you more than a minute, as you've got to get back to duty, haven't you? But I thought you'd like to know that everything's under control here." He chuckled. "I mean, we're not taking this Poppean invasion overseriously. Most things are worse in anticipation than in fact, aren't they?"

"I guess so," said Jim, rather breathlessly. He wanted to say more, but no words would come. His gaze roved anxiously round the laboratory in the vain hope of finding inspiration among the jars and retorts that cluttered the benches, then suddenly he saw something that made his heart miss a beat. It was nothing more than the door of a cupboard, but in that instant he remembered that that was the cupboard in which he had seen the gas masks. He recalled the occasion well. It had happened soon after he first came to England, and the Professor had sent him down to the physics lab to borrow a gold-leaf electroscope. The instrument was kept in the cupboard and, when the lab assistant went to fetch it, Jim had noticed the gas masks.

His father was speaking to him. "Well, come what may, good luck, Jim," he was saying. "And here's your mother."

Jim spoke to his mother, and for the moment tried to keep his thoughts away from the cupboard. "Look, Mom," he said, "time's getting awfully short, so you'll understand if I have to leave the 'phone rather suddenly—"

"But, of course, darling," she assured him. "You know, we both think you're such a brave boy—"

"Yes, Mom, but—"

"Have you been up on the roof all night?" she asked* "It must be terribly cold up there, and, Jim, you are wearing a topcoat, aren't you? I mean, it would be so silly to catch a chill at a time like this, wouldn't it?"

"Sure, Mom, but—"

She interrupted him again and Jim started to get desperate. His mother was wonderful, but he had to admit it would take more than the heavens falling, or a Poppean invasion, to stop her talking, and now all the time he was wondering if the gas masks were still in that cupboard. He might never have got away had not Boothwaite, still mournfully patrolling the third floor, looked into the room just then.

Jim beckoned to him frantically, and scribbled, Forheavens sake, pretend to call me away, on the pad that lay at the side of the telephone.

Boothwaite sauntered over and looked at the pad. He got the idea at once and, moving a little way back, shouted, "I say, Shannon, old chap, Professor Elrick wants you to join him on the roof at once!"

Jim's mother overheard all right and heaved a sigh. "Oh, dear," she said, "I suppose that means those silly creatures are about to arrive. Well, good-by, darling, and take care of yourself."

"And you take care of yourself, too," said Jim. "Good-by, Mom. And good luck."

He replaced the receiver and hurried across to the cupboard, murmuring a word of thanks to Boothwaite as he went. "That was my mother," he explained. "She's swell, but can she talk!"

The gas masks were still in the cupboard and, with a yelp of delight, he hauled them out. There were four of them, one more than he needed, and he handed the spare one to Boothwaite. "I may be wrong," he said, "but I've a mild hunch this may come in handy. The Professor thinks I'm crazy, but I've known even him to make mistakes."

Boothwaite took the mask and examined it dubiously. "It looks like a relic of World War I," he remarked. "Still, thanks all the same. After all, it's the thought that coimts, isn't it?"

Jim grinned and ran back along the corridor to the elevator, carrying the remaining three masks. As he hurried up the flight of stairs that led to the roof he noticed that the darkness was softening into daylight. The radio was playing "God Save the Queen," which suggested that the B.B.C. had also decided zero hour was at hand, and the Professor and Ruth were still by the parapet gazing anxiously toward the eastern sky. Jim reflected they would kid him unmercifully if he joined them carrying gas masks, so he hid them between two ventilators. At the same moment a strange unearthly voice made itself heard above the music of the national anthem, and he hurried across to the radio.

The voice suggested a man talking with his mouth full of biscuit. It was gruff, hollow and distorted, and it took Jim some seconds to realize that the language it was speaking was intended for English. "Hullaw, hullaw," said the voice. "In'lish pipple, you nothing to fear. Do not get fright. We are peace-pipple. Frens. Good frens. Sit still, you all right. If in car, stop. If drive train, stop. If fly plane, land. If drive ship, anchor. Keep still, you all right. Please believe. We good pipple. ..."

There was a pause, then the message was repeated. Jim's eyes met the Professor's, and with one accord they looked up at the lightening sky in the hope of discerning the spaceship whence the voice came. They could see nothing, and the Professor remarked that for all they knew the flying radio station might be twenty or thirty miles above their heads.

Ruth suddenly clutched her father's arm. "Listen!" she exclaimed. "Guns. . . ."

She was right. For perhaps five seconds the air shook with the crack and rumble of distant gunfire, then the guns fell silent and at the same moment the Professor pointed toward the eastern horizon. "I think this is it," he said quietly, and took Ruth's hand in his.

An object that could have been a saucer seen edge on was wobbling through the sky toward them, black against the horizon's pallor. Jim held his breath with excitement and his heart seemed to stop beating altogether. Then as the object grew in size he saw that, beneath it, a great white cloud was spreading—a cloud that might have been smoke or dust and which spread so rapidly it seemed to be impelled by an energy of its own. "Gas!" he shouted. "Come on!"

He spoke with an authority he had never before attained, and the Professor and Ruth followed him to the place where he had left the masks. Frantically they pulled the masks over their heads, and all the time Jim kept his eyes on the dark object that rushed toward them perhaps not more than two thousand feet above street level. Its shadow moved in advance of it, gliding and leaping over roofs and trees, and in its wake drooped the great cloud of white vapor, spreading remorselessly.

Momentarily the huge machine seemed to be directly above them, and they glimpsed it as a vast, slowly revolving wheel on which the sun's first rays shone and glinted. The noise of the spaceship's motors screamed and roared in their ears, and then the white mist fell, enveloping them in a cloud so dense they could barely discern the flagstaff at the roof's far end.

Jim anxiously drew a deep breath through his gas mask and, when nothing untoward happened, decided it was an effective defense against the gas. He was enormously pleased with himself, and Ruth patted him on the back by way of congratulating him on his foresight. At the same moment they heard the distant roar of other spaceships, miles to the north and south of them, and guessed that the white mist was now spreading over areas so far unaffected.

Jim pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the eyepieces of his gas mask. He could see a little better then and, in any case, the air was slowly clearing as the cloud of white dust settled. It was strange stuff, that dust, as Jim discovered when he went over to the parapet and examined it where it lay on the stone surface. It had a faint greenish tinge and seemed to be in a state of ferment. In places where it was thick it actually appeared to move and bubble like yeast, creeping over the stonework and insinuating itself into crevices. It was light and powdery in the extreme, and, when the Professor joined Jim, he mumbled into his mask some remark about "a form of bacteria" which Jim did not fully catch.

A muffled shout made the three of them turn, and they looked toward the stairs to see Boothwaite staggering in their direction. He was wearing his gas mask, but the white dust seemed to have affected him, for he moved like a drunken man. As soon as he saw that he had caught their attention, he sat down heavily on a ventilator and rested his head in his hands.

Jim reached him first, and he muttered that he had barely got the mask on in time. "Another second and I'd have passed out," he said. "Still feel a bit groggy. Horrid stuff. Gets everywhere."

The Professor joined them, and asked Boothwaite what had become of the other man on duty with him.

"Jones?" said Boothwaite. "It got him, I'm afraid."

"You mean he's dead?"

The librarian shook his head. "No, unconscious. In a coma. And the night watchman. And Sir John. Passed them both on the stairs. Trying to get up here, I suppose. Unconscious, but pulses definitely still beating."

It was nearly full daylight now, and the air was already much clearer. Jim returned to the parapet and looked down into Brompton Road. It was almost deserted, but on one sidewalk lay a small dog peacefully stretched out as if it were sleeping, and some way down the road sprawled a man. A bicycle lay at his side, which suggested he had been riding for safety when overcome by the noxious dust.

A soft whistling sound above his head made Jim look up and he was amazed to see another spaceship gliding down, silent except for the whisper of the air against its hull It was barely five hundred feet above the ground, and it was revolving so slowly Jim could not be certain it revolved at all. It passed over Albert Hall, then wheeled to the right, and, as it came to the Park, its motors roared into fife, lifting it over the trees which were left smoking and smoldering in its wake, scorched by the white-hot exhaust that poured from its reaction-propulsion units. As it crossed the Serpentine it suddenly sprouted with small yellow parachutes, dozens of them sprouting from the machine's vast outer rim and from the odd dumbbell-shaped object that formed its hub. It made for the broad open space beyond the

bandstand, hovered for a moment, then settled on the ground, briefly using its motors' exhausts to ease its fall still further.

Two more spaceships came gliding in from the Park Lane direction and yet another from the northeast, and they used exactly the same technique of landing as the first. They touched down with amazing precision, so that when they were all at rest the four ships formed the corners of a square, and no sooner were they down than all the parachutes were whipped back into their containers.

Jim turned to the Professor, who was now at his side. "Gee, Professor, I'd sure like to see one of those monsters close up."

"So should I, Jim. But you know what we must do first of all, don't you?"

"Well, no, sir."

"We must get to Broadcasting House and warn America of what to expect. We must let the Americans know that ordinary military gas masks (if they can be located) are effective against the white dust. Your compatriots have four or five hours, remember."

Jim grinned into his mask, and nodded. "Okay, sir. Let's go."

The sun was rising into a clear bright sky, but so far the morning was cold and Boothwaite shivered as he followed the others from the roof. "I've got an overcoat in the library," he said, "so I'll collect it and join you downstairs."

Chapter 5A Bad Bargain

I

HE POPPEAN dust had turned London into a city fit for ghosts. It whitened everything and made everything seem slightly unreal—the buildings, the streets, the monuments and the trees. It shimmered faintly in the sunlight, and its greenish tinge carried with it a suggestion of putrescence and decay. A thin haze continued to hang in the air long after the main cloud had settled, and Professor Elrick and his companions had no doubt it would be madness for them to take off their respirators even for a second.

Moreover, the dust had made the road surfaces as slippery as if they had been powdered with French chalk—as Jim discovered when he backed his car out on Brompton Road. The Professor, seated at his side, noticed the tendency to skid and advised him to take it easy. "Five minutes one way or the other can't make any difference," he said.

Boothwaite and Ruth shared the back seat, and now Ruth leaned forward and asked Jim which route he was planning to take.

He thought for a moment, then said, "Piccadilly and Bond Street, I guess. Obviously, we can't go through the Park, and, even if we went via Park Lane, the Foppeans might spot us."

"That's what I meant," said Ruth, subsiding.

On Piccadilly nothing stirred. The traffic lights were still working, and for once in his life Jim ignored them all with an easy conscience. It was an uncanny business, the way the lights went remorselessly through their routine of red, amber and green, while everything else slept. A taxi driver, ignorant of the Poppeans' radio advice to pull up, had crashed his cab into one of the pillars of the Ritz arcade, but appeared to be quite uninjured—he was slumped sideways in his seat, dozing peacefully. At the corner of Bond Street a policeman had collapsed. He was sitting on the sidewalk with his back to the wall and his legs spread out in front of him. His helmet had fallen forward over his nose and all his dignity had deserted him.

"I wonder how long people are supposed to stay unconscious," said Jim. "I mean, if it's too long they'll starve to death, or die of thirst. I hope the Poppeans have thought of that."

"I expect so," said the Professor. "After all, it's possible they have an antidote to the dust. Or it's equally possible the effects wear off when the animalcules forming the dust come to the end of their life-span—which may be only a matter of hours."

"Maybe. And, while we're on the subject, how do toe eat and drink?"

The Professor chuckled. "I suggest we cross that bridge when we come to it," he said.

"I've practically come to it already," said Jim. "Another hour or so and it'll be my breakfast time. And I wouldn't say No to a cup of coffee right now."

Professor Elrick laughed into his gas mask and remarked that he'd never known such a youth. "Here we are, the last four effective people in the Old World and all you can think of is your tummy. Aren't you even a little bit ashamed of yourself?"

"Well, no, sir. You see, I want to stay effective."

"I get your point," said the Professor, "and no doubt when the time comes we'll devise a plan. I imagine it would be possible to seal a kitchen hermetically, and then to draw off all the dust with a vacuum cleaner. It would be risky, of course, but it's a chance we must take if we don't want to starve. I'm afraid my kitchen won't be any good—too big and too many doors."

"The kitchen at home's pretty small," said Jim. "And it's only got one door, so maybe that'll serve."

As he spoke he swung the car into Upper Regent Street, and the prowlike f acade of Broadcasting House hove into view. "Here we are," he said. "I suppose all we have to do is discover which studio was in use and then talk. The B.B.C. was still on the air when the dust fell."

"I think so," said the Professor, "but we can find out what's what when we get inside the building."

He had hardly finished speaking when Ruth touched his shoulder and pointed. "Poppeans!" she cried, and he looked in the direction of Langham Place to see six or seven strange gray-skinned creatures bounding toward them.

Jim saw them, too, and slammed on his brakes. He made a desperate effort to swing the car into Mortimer Street, and skidded violently. The car fetched up against a lamppost, smashing its near-side front wheel, and the Professor yelled to them to run for it.

Boothwaite was out of the car first and he got clean away, running with the easy action of a trained athlete. Ruth slipped as she jumped from the car and fell on her back. Jim went to help her, but before she could get to her feet the Poppeans were upon them. Jim felt himself encircled by powerful horny limbs and, although he struggled with all his strength to free himself, he realized it was as hopeless as struggling against the embrace of a gorilla. Ruth was in the clutches of another Poppean, and all the time the creatures kept up a strange chorus that sounded something like: "Wonurt! Wonurt! Wonurt!" After a few seconds of this, it dawned upon Jim they were trying to assure their prisoners they did not intend to hurt them.

He looked round for the Professor and saw him running along Mortimer Street as fast as his short legs would carry him. Two Poppeans were in pursuit, bounding along in great twenty-foot leaps, and, even as Jim watched, one of the creatures bounded right past the Professor, heading him off. The Professor turned and ran full tilt into the grasp of the other Poppean.

Jim glanced at Ruth. "That's that," he said. "Now Boothwaite's the only one of us that's free."

"Jim, what will they do with us?"

"I don't know. And I don't think they know either."

The Poppeans certainly seemed disconcerted by their catch. They clearly had not expected to find any human beings in a state of consciousness, and presumably had been given no instructions for dealing with the eventuality. They stood around discussing the problem in a series of grunts and mumblings, and the creature who held Jim was so negligent about it—merely gripping a wrist—that for a few seconds Jim seriously considered breaking away. He reflected, however, that he would simply be recaptured at once, and so discarded the idea.

Instead he took the opportunity to study the Poppeans in detail. As the Professor had expected, they bore some faint resemblance to humans. They had thick, stumpy legs upon which they stood upright, and they were massively built, but so short that the tallest of them hardly came up to the Professors shoulder—and the Professor himself was only five feet seven. They were quite hairless, and the most repellent thing about them was their skins, which were coarse and rubbery and pitted with thousands of tiny air cells. Over their heads they wore a form of transparent breathing apparatus, presumably to protect them from the white dust, and Jim could see that their eyes, conditioned by eons of semidarkness, were huge and dark, making him think of lemur s eyes. Their mouths were smaller than Earthlings, and quite round, which probably explained why they had such difficulty in speaking our language, and their hands had two opposable thumbs on each side of three broad, nailless fingers.

There were seven of them in all and after a few minutes' more discussion they appeared to reach a decision, for two of them turned and went bounding off in the direction of Portland Place.

"They sure can move," said Jim, admiringly.

"Yes," agreed the Professor, "but don't forget that here they've got a much slighter force of gravity to contend with than when they're at home. On their own planet I don't suppose they can walk much faster than we can, and to get about at all they've had to develop muscles and bones quite out of proportion to their size."

Jim nodded and said, "Gee, I guess we'd have a tough time of it if we went to Poppea. I suppose it'd be like walking uphill all day long?"

"More or less," agreed the Professor, and Ruth remarked that she could have wished the Poppeans to be better-looking.

"It's hard to believe they're nice when they look so* nasty," she said.

"Steady," murmured the Professor. "We don't know how much English these chaps can understand, and we don't want to start off on the wrong foot. In any case, I daresay we appear fairly repulsive to them, with our white soft skins, hairy heads and wide mouths."

Jim remarked that he guessed some spaceships must have landed in Regent's Park. "Otherwise, how did these guys come to be around here?" he asked. "They can hardly have come from Hyde Park."

At that point one of the Poppeans startled the humans by turning to Jim and touching him on the chest. "You right," he said, pointing north. "In that Park six ships. In High Park, four. In Bat'sea, two."

Jim stared at the creature in amazement. "Holy cats!" he exclaimed. "So you even know the names of the parks? Say, where did you learn English?"

The Poppean was prepared to be talkative. "All my life I train for today—" he began, but his colleague, who was holding Jim, stopped him from saying anything more by nudging him and grunting reprovingly. It seemed that fraternizing with the natives was not something to be encouraged.

The discovery that their captors could understand them had the effect of silencing the humans, and for the next quarter of an hour the little group stood quietly in the sunshine waiting for the two messengers to return.

The Professor reflected that it was an uncanny experience to wait there in surroundings at once so familiar and yet so strange, guarded by weird beings from another world, and to have not the slightest idea what the immediate future might hold in store. At least the Poppeans did not seem in any way unfriendly. In the actual capture they had used no unnecessary force, and now their attitude seemed friendly rather than otherwise. Yet there was something about the creatures that suggested they could be entirely ruthless if they chose, and the Professor felt it would be as well not to provoke them.

Presently one of the guards grunted and pointed up the street. The two messengers were returning, accompanied by a colleague. They came bounding along in great careless strides, and that they were in some ways just as fallible as human beings was evidenced by the fact that one of them suddenly skidded on the slippery dust and fell flat on his face. When this happened the Professor watched the Poppeans near him closely, but as far as he could tell none of them laughed. It might be they were incapable of laughter or had a different way of expressing amusement, but the Professor preferred to think that in their millions of years of civilization the tendency to laugh at another's misfortune had disappeared.

The newcomer gazed curiously at the humans for a few moments, then grunted a brief command. Immediately, Jim's captor caught hold of him by the waist and swung him up to his shoulders as carelessly as if he had no more weight than a doll. The Poppean held him there in a sort of fireman's grip and Jim, looking about him from his semi-inverted position, saw that the Professor and Ruth had been similarly served.

Jim expected the Poppeans to take them to the spaceships in Regent's Park and, when it dawned on him that he was being carried in the opposite direction, he was surprised. The invaders appeared to be quite extraordinarily familiar with London—anyway with the main thoroughfares—and when the little party got to Oxford Circus it wheeled to the right, into Oxford Street, without the slightest hesitation. It was then Jim realized that it was to Hyde Park they were being taken.

It was an uncomfortable journey, bouncing along in the grasp of a creature from another world, but at least it was soon over. When the Poppeans got to Marble Arch they put the humans down and allowed them to walk the rest of the way. They did not even hold on to their wrists, and the Poppean who seemed to be to some extent in command came and spoke to them. "No hold you," he said, forming the words with difficulty. "Yet please no run off. We catch easy."

The Professor nodded and said that he quite understood. "But can't you tell us what you intend to do with us?" he inquired.

Either the Poppean did not understand this or he chose not to, for his next remark concerned the weather. "Much hot," he said. "For us, too hot."

"I expect so," said the Professor, speaking very slowly, "but then no doubt we should find your world too cold."

The Poppean glanced at him with what was presumably an expression of surprise—that is to say, his mouth puckered suddenly and his eyes blinked. "Our world?" he said. "You know?"

"We know a little, but not much."

The Poppean appeared to think this over for a few moments, then came to the conclusion that the conversation had gone far enough. He gestured with his stumpy arm toward the Park, and the little party moved off in that direction. They had not gone far before it became clear to the humans they were being led toward the nearest spaceship, which had landed in the open space just beyond Speaker's Corner.

"Gee, I hope they take us on board," said Jim. "I'm crazy to see the inside of one of those things."

However, it seemed it was not the Poppeans' intention to take them on board a spaceship right away. The one in command led them into the Park until they were practically in the shadow of the nearest spaceship, then he pointed to the grass that had earlier been scorched and blasted by the reaction-motors' exhaust. "Sit," he ■ordered. "You long time to wait."

So they sat, and the Professor and Jim took the opportunity to study the enormous machine. And enormous it was, even larger than they had been led to suppose from the radio reports that had come in the previous day. The Professor estimated that it was probably more than three hundred feet in diameter, and he surmised that its vast tubular rim probably housed the fuel tanks. The rim was broken at four equidistant points by spherical units which he thought were reaction-propulsion motors, and he further decided that the four spokes of that huge wheel were simply passageways communicating between the motors and the strange dumbbell-shaped object that was fixed across what might be described as the hub of the ship.

"And what goes on in the dumbbell?" asked Jim.

"I imagine one half of it's the control chamber," said the Professor, "and probably the other half is the crew's living quarters. When in space the whole ship revolves slowly and its centrifugal force provides the crew with a sort of synthetic gravity."

It was, of course, impossible to say what the spaceship's hull was made of and, when Jim suggested it was constructed from a metal of sorts, the Professor shrugged. "We just don't know, Jim," he said. "It looks something like a metal, or at least an alloy, but as yet we can't be certain. We've only the very vaguest idea of Poppea's mineral resources."

Jim gazed up at the spaceship's rim and wondered what substance it could be made of if not of metal. Its surface shone in the sunlight like silvered bronze and yet for some reason he felt that, if he touched it, it would not have the feel of metal and, if he tapped it, it would not have the ring of metal. He got up and was about to stroll over to the ship when one of the Poppeans suddenly came to life and grunted "No." With a forcible gesture he indicated that Jim was to sit down again and not make a nuisance of himself.

So Jim sat down again and surveyed the scene. There were now perhaps as many as a hundred Poppeans moving about in the Park, but it was difficult to say exactly what they were up to. Some were clearly being organized into reconnaissance parties and others were engaged in examining minutely everything they came upon—the grass, the trees, the paths and even the benches—but the great majority seemed to have no particular occupation. They simply wandered about aimlessly and to human eyes their activities made no sense at all. The Professor's explanation was that they were merely exercising themselves. "Which is natural enough," he said, "seeing they've been cooped up in the spaceships for heaven knows how long."

It occurred to him it was now some time since Ruth had said anything, and he glanced at her. She was lying face downward on the grass with her head resting on her arms, and he asked her if she were feeling all right.

"I'm so dreadfully thirsty," she murmured and, as she spoke, her gaze traveled longingly toward the drinking fountain on the far side of the carriageway.

The Professor patted her shoulder sympathetically and observed that they were all thirsty. "Only I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it except stick it out," he went on. "I'm convinced if we take these masks oflF even for a second we'll lose consciousness. You notice even the Poppeans themselves all wear breathing gear, which to my mind means the white dust is still potent. In fact, it will probably remain so for several hours yet, if not days."

"Then I wish I was a camel," muttered Ruth, and cradled her head in her arms once more. She was getting terribly hot and, with the gas mask on, there was no way of getting out of the sweaters and pull-overs she had donned during the night. The Professor and Jim were in the same predicament, and although they had taken off their coats they were sweltering and felt as if they were sitting in a Turkish bath.

There was no doubt the heat was also seriously troubling the Poppeans. As far as possible they kept to the shade and those that earlier had been idly strolling about now tended to retreat to their spaceships, the interiors of which were presumably kept congenially cold. Slowly the sun crept up the sky, and the Poppeans among the guards who knew some English turned to the Professor and asked him if the heat was always so great.

"The heat?" echoed the Professor, with a laugh. "Why, this is nothing, and the country you're now in isn't reckoned a hot country by any means. Actually, we have an extremely unreliable climate and mostly it rains."

"Rains?" muttered the Poppean, not understanding. "What is 'rains'?"

The Professor tried to explain, but it was not easy. The Poppean had some idea of water, but it hardly corresponded to the human conception of water. He had never seen an ocean, except from above, and he could not visualize water in quantity. He could not imagine water falling in droplets from the sky and all the time the Professor was speaking his attitude was faintly incredulous, as if he were listening to something that was no more than a primitive superstition.

In the end the Professor simply gave up. "Anyway, if you're staying long," he said, "you'll soon discover what rain is by bitter experience. Now there's one thing I'd like to ask you and that is what are we waiting for?"

The Poppean understood the question and answered it promptly. "Wait for Yat," he said. "Yat? What's that?"

"Commander," said the Poppean. "Chief. Over everything. He come."

"What's he like? You've seen him, I take it?"

The Poppean indicated that he didn't understand, and the Professor repeated the question.

"Yes, I see often," said the Poppean. "We people not many. We know all of us. We not big numbers like you. Now we all here."

"Good heavens. You mean the whole population of your planet has come here in the spaceships?"

"Yes. All of us."

The Professor was astounded. He had always conjectured that the population of Poppea would be small by our standards, but that it was small enough to be transported through space in a few thousand spaceships had never occurred to him. It also meant the purpose of the present invasion was something more than a mere reconnaissance. He was about to question the Poppean regarding the invaders' ultimate intention when another of the creatures came bounding up. He was pointing at the sky and grunted something in Poppean that could conceivably be "Yat!"

The Professor and Jim gazed up at the sky and saw, directly over the Park and thousands of feet above it, a shining disc that looked no bigger than a half-dollar. It was scarcely visible against the blue brilliance of the sky, but it was falling fast, and after a few moments Jim murmured, "It's another spaceship all right. And I suppose the Yat's inside it."

The incoming spaceship used a different landing technique from the one Jim had watched earlier. Instead of gliding in, it fell like a stone until, at about three thousand feet, all its motors suddenly roared into full activity, checking the spaceship's fall. For perhaps five seconds it hovered almost stationary while its parachutes opened, then its motors eased off and the huge machine drifted down to earth with a gentleness that seemed uncanny, finally landing dead in the center of the square formed by the other four spaceships.

A number of Poppeans disembarked from the newcomer immediately, and the creature who had charge of the humans told them to get up and follow him. It was clear they were going to be taken before the

Yat, and for the first time Jim felt decidedly apprehensive. So far he had nothing to complain about concerning his treatment at the hands of the Poppeans, but at the same time he did not trust them. He felt there was something sinister about them, a suggestion of ruthlessness and, as he, with the Professor and Ruth, walked toward the center spaceship, he was not far from persuading himself that the Yat would order their immediate extermination. They represented an unforeseen factor, and something told him that the Poppeans had a sharp way of dealing with unforeseen factors.

Ruth seemed to share his apprehension and, as they moved into the spaceship's shadow, she glanced back over her shoulder at the sunlit Park as if wondering whether she would ever see it again. "I'd like to know what Boothwaite's up to," she murmured.

"Heaven knows," said the Professor, then dropped his voice and added, "If he's got any sense, he'll make his way back to Broadcasting House and warn America. I've a feeling we may need some help before long."

Chapter 6

Liberty or Death

ri POPPEAN came to them who could speak almost per-j feet English. "I am the Yat's official interpreter," he told them, by way of introduction. "I have the ability to speak five of your terrestrial languages with reasonable fluency—English, German, French, Russian and Spanish. So, you see, I have linguistic gifts in a high degree, but, since on our planet we have had only one language for the last half-million years or so, I think I must be something of a throwback."

And, in fact, Jim reflected, he looked like a throwback. Even for a Poppean he was extremely short-hardly more than three and a half feet tall—and he had an odd way of standing, with the upper part of his body thrust forward and his arms swinging. His mouth was larger and wider than that of the average Poppean, more like a human mouth, and, although this no doubt accounted in part for his linguistic talents, it also made him look amazingly like a frog, a resemblance which his great bulging eyes confirmed. He had a slimy, ingratiating manner, and Jim was not too sure he was going to like him.

The Poppean told them his name was Kluss and invited them to follow him into the spaceship. He went ahead and led them up a narrow ramp which took them through a small hatch into the spaceship's

hollow rim. From then on all was in semidarkness, and they followed the little interpreter along a narrow gangway between two sets of fuel tanks. The air in the spaceship was unpleasantly chilly and the humans were glad to be wearing their coats, scarves and gloves.

"I suppose this is more or less the temperature you're used to?" said the Professor to Kluss.

"But no," said Kluss. "I consider this uncomfortably warm. Clearly, if you stay here long we shall have to find you some more clothing,"

As he spoke, they came to a circular door that had the appearance of being airtight. Kluss loosened its fastenings and opened it. It led into a small bare compartment, unfurnished except for a number of fixed benches along its walls, and, at Kluss's invitation, the humans entered. He closed the door and told them to sit down.

"What's this?" asked the Professor. "A compression chamber?"

"In a sense, yes," said Kluss. "But its main purpose is decontamination. At the moment you are laden with swarms of the bacteria which we used to induce unconsciousness among your people."

"The white dust?" murmured Ruth.

"Yes," agreed Kluss. "And before you take your masks off, or meet the Yat, you must be disinfected. I am going to fill this compartment with an odorless, colorless gas which will have the effect of killing the bacteria, and at the same time I shall raise the air pressure until it equals that of the interior of the spaceship. You see, the air pressure on our planet is considerably higher than on yours."

A pale-green light burned in the compartment and by it Kluss looked more like a frog than ever. He moved from the door to a small control panel on the far side of the compartment and depressed two levers. Air and gas started to hiss into the compartment from nozzles above the panel, and Kluss came out and sat down at the humans' side.

While waiting, the Professor congratulated Kluss on the fluency of his English and asked him how he had come to learn it so well. "I take it that you studied the language from our radio programs," he said, "but just how did you go about it?"

Kluss explained that Poppean spaceships had been penetrating the Earth's atmosphere for a comparatively long time. "By your method of reckoning time, for at least fifty years," he said. "Our technicians recorded your radio programs and gradually accumulated a huge collection of recordings. I, and some twenty other Poppeans, have practically spent our lives studying them. For a long while our task seemed hopeless for, although we soon learned to distinguish one language from another and even to designate those parts of your world where each language was mostly spoken, we were almost totally unable to get at the meanings of the words we heard. We discovered a great deal about such matters as intonation and pronunciation, and learned to repeat whole speeches parrot-fashion, but the essential part of our task seemed as if it would elude us forever. In fact, it was not until—" Kluss broke off for a minute or so while he mentally translated the Poppean method of reckoning time into terms that his hearers would understand, then went on: "As I was saying, it was not until that period of time which I think you would describe as the late nineteen-thirties that we made any progress at all."

"Television?" suggested the Professor, suddenly understanding.

"Exactly," said Kluss. "When, in the late nineteen-thirties you started to make use of television, you handed us the key to the problem. Our technicians on the visiting spaceships picked up the television programs and made photographic records of them, which we were able to study at leisure. For the first time we were able to hear the spoken word used in relation to actual representations of objects, and the progress we made from then on has never ceased from that day to this. It is true that our efforts were somewhat hampered at the very outset by the sudden cessation of all your television programs, which I believe was due to war raging on your planet, but, as you know, the interruption was only temporary and when television returned it did so with a vengeance. Little by little, we constructed the whole conception of your language, its vocabulary and its syntax, and it gives me much pleasure to hear you say that I speak it well. Naturally, however, your written language is virtually a closed book to me, but I hope that soon you will start giving me lessons."

The Professor nodded abstractedly, then remarked that Kluss, according to his account, must have been studying the terrestrial languages for something like fifty years. "If that's so," he said, "you must be considerably older than you look."

"In fact, no," said Kluss. "That is to say, by our standards I'm fairly young, while by yours I am—let me see—seventy-five. The point is that our average life-span is approximately three times as long as yours, and it is not unknown for our people to live to be nearly three hundred years old. In fact, the Yat, whom you are about to meet, is not far short of that age."

The Professor wanted to hear more about the Yat, but at that moment the two levers on the control panel suddenly jerked up of their own accord and Kluss rose. "Good," he said. "You are now decontaminated and can remove your masks."

Ruth was the first to get her mask off. She shook out her hair and drew a deep breath. "Golly, I was getting claustrophobia in that gas mask," she murmured. "And, Mr. Kluss, may I have something to drink, please?"

"Of course," said Kluss. "I will arrange it."

Then it suddenly occurred to Ruth that she might not be able to drink Poppean fluids and, panicking slightly, she asked Kluss what they were like. "I mean, could I have just plain water?" she asked.

"Certainly," he assured her, "and I think you'll find Poppean water precisely the same as the terrestrial variety. The only point about it is that on our planet it is a considerably rarer commodity than on yours."

He opened the compartment's second door and, carrying their gas masks, they followed him out into another gangway which the Professor decided must be one of the spaceship's four spokes. Its walls were transparent and as they moved along it toward the spaceship's hub, they caught glimpses of the Park and of the buildings beyond. They could see the sunlight dancing on the Serpentine, and to Ruth it was almost a shock to realize they were still in London. The strangeness of her immediate surroundings, the effect of breathing air at a higher pressure, the lowness of the temperature—all these things had combined to make her forget the outside world, and if now she had found herself looking out upon some bleak Poppean landscape, it would have been hardly more than she expected.

The gangway ended in a small, almost spherical anteroom and when they reached it Kluss turned and told them to wait. "I will go and see if the Yat is ready to receive you," he said. "And when I return I shall bring some water."

He disappeared through another of the circular doors such as they had already seen in the air lock, and Ruth remarked that she hoped he would hurry. "What I hate about this invasion," she went on, "is not having the remotest idea of what's going to happen. I almost wish I had breathed the white dust, so I could sleep through it all."

Professor Elrick laughed and accused his daughter of defeatism. "In any case," he said, "our invaders aren't nearly so unpleasant as they might have been. They're an unprepossessing lot to look at, but their behavior is reasonably humane."

"I don't like Kluss," said Jim. "I think he's sort of a jerk, and a pompous one at that."

The Professor agreed that Kluss certainly gave the impression of pomposity, but pointed out that that might be due in part to his difficulty in expressing himself. "He certainly hasn't the knack of colloquial English," said the Professor, "but, in view of the circumstances under which he learned the language, that isn't surprising. He may be as pompous and as unpleasant as he sounds, but I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt."

"I don't," said Ruth, firmly. "I may have nothing but feminine intuition to go on, but I think he's a horror!"

A faint noise behind them made them glance round and they were dismayed to see that Kluss had returned. There was no doubt he had heard Ruth's remark and there was no doubt he was furious. He showed his anger in ways that were remarkably human. His grayish skin reddened slightly, the irises of his eyes dilated, and he seemed to be having difficulty in controlling the muscles of his face—they twitched.

The Professor attempted to be genial. "Hullo, you've been very quick," he said, then, after an awkward pause, added desperately: "We were just talking about a colleague of ours. A chap called Boothwaite. He had a gas mask, too, and we were wondering what had become of him. At least, Jim and I were. Ruth wasn't, but then she doesn't care for him much."

Kluss was not deceived and when he spoke his voice was as chilly as the air surrounding them. "The Yat will be pleased to see you at once," he said. "Also, I have brought you some water."

Then they noticed he was carrying three small spheres, about as large as cocoanuts. Each was fitted with a spout and a lever, and, as he handed them round, he told the humans to place the spouts to their mouths and then gently depress the levers.

"Good heavens," exclaimed the Professor. "Do you always drink from these things?"

"No, no," said Kluss. "These containers were specially designed for use in spaceships. As you no doubt realize, it is difficult to pour liquids when out in space, because there is no force of gravity to control their behavior."

Ruth had already nearly finished her share of the water. It was slightly aerated, and it seemed to her fresher and more delicious than any water she had ever tasted. She told Kluss so, and at the same time favored him with her sweetest smile, but his manner toward her did not soften. "That is merely because you were exceptionally thirsty," he grunted, and turned his back on her. There was now no doubt that he was her enemy and, moreover, his lack of friendliness extended to the other two. Kluss had decided he did not like human beings.

Also he became suddenly impatient. He barely gave Professor and Jim time to finish drinking before he went out through the circular door and beckoned to them to follow. They did so, and he led them down an enclosed spiral staircase which brought them out into a vast room. It was shaped like a sphere with a flattened base, and the Professor conjectured they were now in the interior of one of the halves of the dumbbell. The light was poor, but, as he peered through the greenish gloom, he was able to discern that the room contained a quantity of complicated-looking machines, as well as about thirty Poppeans, who were all of them staring at the humans with unabashed curiosity.

What light there was filtered in through green shades that hid a number of portholes arranged round the sphere's circumference, and Jim remarked that the Poppeans did not seem to care for bright illumination.

"No," agreed the Professor. "But that, since they're megalopic, is easily understandable. It's my guess, Jim, that we're now in the main control chamber, and it looks to me as if the spaceship's entire complement has assembled to meet us."

Ruth turned to Kluss and asked him which of the Poppeans was the Yat, but he ignored her. He led them further into the room, and, pointing to some rugs strewn about, told them to sit down. They obeyed him and then realized that seated opposite them, wrapped in a rug and propped up against the side of what the Professor thought was probably the main transmission unit, was an aged Poppean, incredibly frail and incredibly wizened.

This was the Yat. Kluss had said that he was nearly three hundred years old, and he looked it. His face was so small and so wrinkled that the main impression it gave was simply two huge eyes. Perhaps it was these eyes, so alert and so watchful, that gave him his undeniable air of authority. For he had an air of authority, and, as the Professor returned his gaze, he did not find it difficult to believe that this ancient creature was the supreme ruler of all the Poppeans and the commander of their space fleet. The Professor felt he had never met anyone who gave a greater impression of wisdom and integrity.

It did not seem to be the custom to treat the Yat with any particular formality and when Kluss sat himself down on a mat midway between the Yat and the humans he did so without ceremony. He said a few words in Poppean to the Yat, then turned to the Professor and told him that he was now in the presence of the supreme Poppean authority. "The Yat does not speak much of your language," he said, "but he understands a great deal. It will probably not be necessary for me to translate all of what you say."

Kluss would have enlarged on this, but the Yat cut him short with a gesture, and said something in Poppean. Kluss translated and said that the Yat, in greeting the humans, wished to know before the interview began if they were quite comfortable.

"Well, frankly, we're all feeling the cold to some extent," said the Professor. "We should be very glad if we could borrow something to put around us."

His request was complied with at once, and heavy rugs were brought to them. Jim examined his as he wrapped himself in it, and found that it seemed to be knitted rather than woven, and it had a strange feel to it, rather as if it had been made out of strands of rubber. It was cold to the touch, yet he had not had it round him long before he found himself growing pleasantly warm.

The Yat, of course, opened the interview. He had a slow, deliberate way of speaking, and, according to Kluss's interpretation, he started by asking the Professor's name. The Professor told him, and the Yat gave a start of interest and at once posed another question.

"The Yat wishes to know if 'Elrick' is a common name among your people," said Kluss.

"No, it isn't. But why does he ask?"

"Because some while ago we were much interested in a series of broadcast talks given by a Professor Elrick. Were you the speaker?"

The Professor nodded. "Yes. In 1969 I was invited by the B.B.C. to give six talks on the Neronian System, which, as I expect you know, is the name we give to your celestial system. As a matter of fact, I was the first person to discover its existence."

His statement, when translated by Kluss, created considerable excitement. All the Poppeans clustered round to get a better look at him, and it became obvious to the Professor that his name must have enjoyed a certain celebrity on Poppea for some time past, and he could not help feeling gratified.

The Yat spoke and Kluss translated him as saying that he felt greatly honored to be speaking to so talented a person. "He says," Kluss went on, "that, as he remembers your talks, you even had the prescience to suggest that an invasion of your planet by the inhabitants of ours was a possibility to be reckoned with. On account of that, he feels sure you must be one of the most respected men of the Earth, and he says that no doubt you hold some position of great authority."

Professor EIrick laughed. He told the Yat he was overestimating human nature, if he thought that guessing better than the next man was a sure way of gaining respect. "The fact is," he said, "that my prediction simply earned me the reputation of being slightly mad. Moreover, it stood in the way of my advancement, with the result that the post I held at the Radar Research Laboratory could almost be described as a junior one. Still, that's past history and now I should be interested to know if my conjecture was correct— was it the prospect of the oxygen on your planet becoming liquid that led you to investigate the Earth's possibilities as a refuge?"

Apparently it was, and the Yat went on to give the Professor some account of life on Poppea in the recent past. It seemed that for thousands of years the inhabitants of the planet had led a primitive existence in the equatorial zone, which was the only part warm enough for even Poppeans to exist in. "Life on our planet," said the Yat, as interpreted by Kluss, "is unimaginably different from life on the Earth. We are so accustomed to living and working underground that many of us do not trouble to visit the surface for decades at a time. We live mainly in one large subterranean city, and not only is our industry carried on underground but our agriculture as well. We are entirely vegetarian and grow cereal and vegetable crops by artificial sunlight in extensive underground fields, melting surface ice for irrigation, and fertilizing the soil chemically. Naturally, on that basis, the population we can support is strictly limited, and at our last census, taken shortly before we embarked for the Earth, it numbered rather less than a hundred thousand—"

"Good heavens," muttered the Professor. "I knew your population must necessarily be small, but I had no idea it was that small. Then how many spaceships have you got?"

Kluss hesitated and spoke to the Yat, evidently asking him if it was all right to disclose the information. Apparently the Yat answered in the affirmative, for Kluss turned to the Professor and told him that in all they had about three thousand spaceships. "You see," he added, "we've been devoting all our resources to building this space fleet for a great number of years."

"Then you've known for a long time, have you, that your planet would presently become uninhabitable?"

Kluss put this question to the Yat, and the Yat said Yes, they had known it from time immemorable. "In fact," Kluss went on, still translating the Yat's reply, "some two thousand years ago by your reckoning— which you must remember means fewer than twenty generations for us—our planet found itself in precisely the same predicament as now, which is to say that within half a lifetime our ancestors would have been faced with the prospect of the atmosphere turning to liquid. At that time space travel had not been developed, there was no possibility of escape from the planet, and the inhabitants had no choice but to resign themselves to their doom. Nothing short of a miracle could save them—and a miracle occurred. What happened was that some form of solar explosion took place on our sun—on Nero, as you call it—and for a time it recovered something of its former brilliance and warmth. Much of the ice on Poppea melted and huge areas of the planet were overwhelmed by floods, but at least enough of the inhabitants survived to ensure the continuance of the race."

Kluss conferred with his ruler again and apparently the Yat instructed him to treat the humans to a little more Poppean history, for Kluss went on to tell them that Nero's burst of activity had not been sustained. "When it was over," he said, "there was no doubt that Nero was continuing to cool, and from that time to this the successive generations have worked unceasingly against the day when Poppea would no longer be habitable. Space travel has been an actuality with us for the last two hundred years and it was a great occasion for Poppea when, about a hundred and twenty years ago, our interplanetary explorers discovered the Earth and ascertained that it had an oxygen atmosphere. Since that day every Poppean has grown up with the idea that sooner or later he would have to make the voyage from our planet to yours."

"And what are your present plans?" asked the Professor, mildly.

His question was followed by a silence that lasted some minutes, and when the Yat finally replied he spoke even more slowly than before, as if he were anxious that Kluss should not miss any nuance of what he had to say. In fact, it seemed to the humans that the Yat had no very great opinion of Kluss and only tolerated him on account of his quite astounding linguistic knack.

The Yat came to the end of his statement and Kluss translated.

"The Yat wishes to inform you," said Kluss, "that in the course of our study of the Earth and its inhabitants, we have observed that you make virtually no use whatever of the two polar regions centering upon each end of the Earth's axis. For a long while we have entertained the idea that your terrestrial governments might not object to ceding to us one or the other of those regions for our use and enjoyment. Our first idea was to send a single spaceship as an emissary to put our request to your authorities, but in the end we discarded that plan as being too likely to invite a refusal. If that happened we should then have had no choice but to visit you in force and as enemies, and that was something we were most anxious to avoid. So instead we decided upon our present course. Since total migration was inevitable sooner or later, we decided we might as well carry out the operation in one fell swoop. To ensure that our landing was not opposed, we determined to render the terrestrial population harmless, yet, at the same time, assuring you of our peaceful intentions. As matters stand, the effects of the bacteria with which we have treated your people will pass off in time, but there is no reason why we should not repeat the dose. Meanwhile, we are in control. Our spaceships have established themselves in all the great cities of Europe, Asia and Africa, and, even as I speak, the eastern cities of the American continent are succumbing to the white dust. Our next step will be to establish a large base somewhere within the Arctic

Circle so that when the Earth's people recover then-senses they will realize we are permanently established. On that basis, we shall negotiate, and we can think of no reason why we should not be able to come to an arrangement acceptable both to your people and to ourselves. The Yat further observes that he would be interested to hear your views on the matter."

The arid matter-of-factness with which Kluss put forward the amazing proposals more or less took the Professor's breath away. For some seconds he simply sat there, knowing what he wanted to say, yet unable to think of the best way to say it, and when at last the words came he spoke as slowly as the Yat had spoken.

"On the face of it," he said, "your proposition has much to recommend it. It is quite true that we have vast polar regions which are practically useless to us. It is also no doubt true that the climate and temperature of those regions would suit you admirably, and also that you could settle in one or the other of them virtually without the rest of the world being aware that you were there. Moreover, since it is clear that in many ways you are far more advanced than we are, it is probable we should gain much more by having you there than we should lose. In fact, if my opinion were the only one to be consulted, it is likely I should welcome your people as permanent residents at the North Pole, but mine is only one voice amongst two thousand million. And I can assure you all that when two thousand million recover consciousness, they will have but one word to reply to your suggestion and that word is No. Two thousand million times No!"

The Yat muttered something, interrupting him, and Kluss translated. "The Yat suggests you are wrong," he told them. "He suggests that when the people recover consciousness they will be so impressed by the enormous power we can wield they will realize they have no choice but to concede to our request. And he would like to point out that such power as we have so far demonstrated is nothing to that which we hold in reserve." Kluss almost croaked as he said this, and, fixing the Professor with his huge eyes, looked more like an angry bullfrog than ever. He went on: "In fact, I can assure you that should the necessity arise we could wipe out the whole population of the world in less time than it takes the Earth to turn once on its axis. We could—"

He was interrupted by an angry grunt from the Yat, and it was clear he had said rather more than the Yat had intended. He subsided at once and asked the Professor if he had any comment to make.

Professor Elrick shrugged and shook his head sadly. "None," he said, "except you can rest assured that no threats and no promises and no arguments will make the slightest difference. When the peoples of the Earth come to themselves again they will be suffering from an ineffable sense of humiliation and resentment and, in their detestation of you, the invaders, they will be united as they've never been before. The bare idea of having you permanently here as residents on this planet—the suggestion that they are only allowed to live in their own world on sufferance—will be unbearable to them, and, if the only alternative is total extermination, then you can be certain they will say, 'Very well, do your worst. Exterminate us if you can. Give us liberty or give us death!' Your original project —that of sending a single spaceship as an emissary-might have had some chance of success, but the method you have in fact chosen has none. Absolutely none!"

The Yat thought this over for some minutes and when next he spoke his voice was gentle and conciliatory. Kluss told them that the Yat was most grateful to the Professor for his observations. He, the Yat, felt it would be a good idea to break off the discussion for the time being, and he suggested that the humans should have something to eat. "Our Poppean food," Kluss went on, "is no doubt very different from yours, but if you would care to try some we should be delighted. Or, if you would rather not try it, we shall take steps to obtain you a supply of your normal food."

The Professor had an instinctive idea it would be as well to accept the invitation to try Poppean food. It was clearly important to keep on good terms with the Poppeans, and he felt that one way of doing so was to break bread with them.

So he accepted the invitation, and there was no doubt the Poppeans as a whole were pleased. They considered his acceptance a gesture of good will, but when the Professor glanced round he discovered that both Ruth and Jim were looking daggers at him. "What are you thinking of?" Ruth whispered. "Their food will probably poison us."

"Possibly," said the Professor, with a bland smile, "but, in view of the ultimate stakes, that's a small risk to take!"

Chapter 7

Cigarette Madness

D

OPPEAN FOOD was dull, so dull that the humans, eating it, felt that it could not possibly be poisonous. It was coarse in texture, flavorless and icily cold. It was handed to them on small trays, and, following the Poppeans' example, they ate with their fingers. There were several flat oily wafers of compressed cereal, not unlike Indian popadam; two rubbery cakes, presumably made from sort of fungus; and some root vegetables, about as large as radishes, served in thick syrup in little saucers.

The Professor valiantly ate everything and had the hardihood to assure Kluss that he found it all delicious, but Jim was defeated by the rubbery cakes and Ruth took a loathing to the sweet vegetables. "As long as the food tastes of nothing, I can cope," she muttered. "It's when it begins to have a glimmering of flavor that it becomes completely nauseating."

During the meal the Professor questioned Kluss about everyday life on Poppea, and the picture he gained of it was by no means an enchanting one. It seemed that for at least a hundred years all cultural life on the planet had been at a standstill. For the whole of that time, no books had been written, no pictures had been painted and no games had been

played. It was as if the Poppeans had thrust into the outer darkness all the things that make life worth living, and the Professor asked Kluss to explain the reason for it.

"Put baldly," said Kluss, "it is simply that for the last hundred years, and perhaps longer, all our energies have been poured into the building of spaceships, into planning the voyage and into designing the future. Apart from those activities there was nothing, no inspiration and no future. How could our artists work when the very world they lived in was patently dying, or how dared anyone of us lose so much as a moment of time, when time was all we had between us and the ultimate disaster? If in those years we lived at all, we did so through you. Psychologically, we lived here, on your planet, and every scrap of information we acquired concerning life in this world we prized above rubies. Long, long before we embarked, your planet had become more real to us than our own."

Several of the nearby Poppeans knew enough English to understand what Kluss had been saying and now they endorsed his remarks with enthusiasm. Two or three of them essayed to join in the discussion, speaking broken English, and the humans were astonished to discover how much the Poppeans knew about the ways of the world. It seemed that every fragment of every radio program that their technicians had managed to record in the course of some fifty years had been translated into written Poppean, and then the resulting texts had been read and re-read, examined and studied, until the mind of almost every Poppean was a rag bag of terrestrial information, much of it inaccurate and all of it ill-digested. There was no doubt that to them Earth was the Promised

Land and, as the Professor listened to them, he realized that the task of persuading them to abandon their plans was going to be a hundred times harder than he had imagined.

Ruth had reached the same conclusion, and now she remarked in an undertone that it was a gloomy prospect. "I mean," she whispered, "it's the old business of what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object. We're determined they must go and they're determined to stay. And, anyway, what else can they do? They can't go on living on Poppea and, except for the Earth, there's no other planet that's any use to them. Oh, well, I expect we'll get exterminated."

A sudden thought struck her and she turned to Kluss. "Mr. Kluss, it's just occurred to me that we haven't seen any Poppean women," she said. "Aren't there any, or are they coming later? And somewhere or other there must be some Poppean children, mustn't there?"

Kluss, still harboring his resentment, affected not to hear her. The Professor noticed this and was irritated.

"My daughter asked you a question," he said, sharply. "She remarked that we hadn't seen any of your womenfolk, and wondered where they were."

Kluss looked up from his food and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm not permitted to say."

Unfortunately for him the Yat overheard this and understood what was happening. He called Kluss over to him and, judging by the tone of his voice, corrected him sharply, after which Kluss was allowed to return to his place, chastened and looking so like a woebegone frog that it was hard not to feel a little sorry for him. He apologized to the humans without looking at them, then mumbled, "The Yat wishes you to know he has reproved me for my churlishness. He says there is no reason why you should not know the whereabouts of our women and children—they are in Central Greenland. They were transported thither in about a hundred spaceships specially designed to carry large numbers of passengers and their arrival coincided with the start of the main invasion. All disembarked safely."

This formal statement left everyone feeling a little embarrassed. None of the humans knew quite what to say, and Jim, in his embarrassment and without thinking, took out a pack of cigarettes. This at once caught the Poppeans' interest, and Jim, looking round, was startled to find that they were all gazing at him.

"Oh, I suppose I shouldn't smoke—" he murmured, but KIuss hastily reassured him.

"No, please do," said the Poppean. "The fact is we are all extremely interested. Cigarettes, smoking, tobacco—all those matters constitute a great mystery to us. We have seen people with cigarettes in your television plays; we have heard hundreds of references to smoking in your radio programs; but the exact significance of it all has escaped us. Is it that you do it to ward off the forces of evil, or something of that sort?"

"I don't think so," said Jim. "We just smoke because we like it. Most of us wish we didn't, of course, but—"

"I don't understand," said Kluss. "You do it because you like it, and yet you wish you didn't?"

Jim glanced helplessly at the Professor. "You tell him, sir," he said. "I'll never get it straight."

The Professor laughed. "I think they'd be more interested to see you smoke," he said. "Haven't you a light?"

"Oh, sure," said Jim and, taking out his lighter, lit the cigarette.

The Poppeans were enchanted and, when he blew out some smoke, they sniffed it eagerly. They appeared to like the aroma of it, and the curious thing was that it seemed to excite them. The eyes of those who smelled the smoke shone unnaturally bright, and the expressions of some of them could almost be described as smiles.

"I suggest you hand the pack round," murmured the Professor. "It won't do them any harm to find out for themselves what cigarettes taste like."

Jim agreed and at once offered cigarettes to the creatures nearest him. They took them eagerly, and immediately all the other Poppeans wanted cigarettes. Jim had only a pack of twenty, of which three had been smoked, so he asked Kluss to explain to the Poppeans that they must share. "And tell them you don't blow, you suck," he said, as it dawned on him why the Poppeans who already had cigarettes were having so much difficulty in lighting them.

Ruth whispered urgently, "Jim, the Yat hasn't got one!"

"Gee, so he hasn't," murmured Jim. "He'd better have mine."

The Professor remarked he probably had some and from his pocket produced a crumpled pack in which were six flattened cigarettes. The Yat gravely accepted one, and so did Kluss, and the Professor lit them.

It was Ruth who first realized that something was seriously wrong. Her gaze happened to rest on one of the first Poppeans to accept a cigarette, and she noticed his eyes were glazed and he seemed to find it difficult to keep his head straight. It rolled from side to side, and at the same time the creature emitted a strange sound rather like half-suppressed giggling, which Ruth supposed to be the Poppean equivalent of laughter.

She touched the Professors arm and drew his attention to the giggling Poppean. "He's behaving as if he were intoxicated," she whispered. "You don't think-"

She was interrupted by a sudden roar of pain from the opposite side of the compartment, and turned to see two Poppeans fighting like lunatics. Each had hold of the other's throat and at the same time each was trying to kick the other in the stomach. One still had a cigarette stuck in his mouth and his antagonist, in the intervals of strangling and being strangled, lacking and being kicked, made frantic efforts to grab it from him. It was hopeless for the humans to try to do anything against the gorilla-like strength of those creatures, so the Professor caught hold of Kluss. "For heaven's sake, separate them," he cried. "They're intoxicated!"

Kluss looked at him dully, and then the Professor realized that he was also affected. The Professor snatched the cigarette from the creature's froglike mouth and shook him. "Listen, Kluss—" he began, but Kluss wouldn't listen. All he knew was that he'd been deprived of his cigarette, and now he lurched drunkenly to his feet and caught the Professor's wrist in his weird three-fingered hand. He recovered the cigarette, and then subsided to the floor, giggling feebly and muttering something in Poppean.

All the Poppeans were going mad. Every one of them seemed suddenly to have been seized by complete irresponsibility, and although Jim and Ruth shouted to them to put out their cigarettes, that was the last thing they intended to do. The Professor appealed to the Yat, but it was hopeless. The old man was simply bemused. His cigarette had fallen from his mouth and was burning a hole in his rug, he was listing badly to starboard, and in his eyes was the faraway look of one who dreams dreams and sees visions. The Professor nipped out the cigarette and left him.

Some of the creatures were dancing. They had linked arms and were rocking backward and forward, lifting up their knees and hopping. Also, they were making a fantastic noise that was neither singing nor shouting nor whistling, but which had some of the elements of all three. There was sometliing about their actions, and the noise, that seemed faintly familiar to the Professor, and after a minute or so he realized why. "Good heavens," he exclaimed. "They're trying to sing pop tunes. They must have picked them up from our television programs." And Ruth reflected that if she lived to be a hundred she'd never see anything stranger than that scene—those clumsy gray-skinned creatures reeling and lurching through the smoky atmosphere of the spaceship's control compartment, trying to sing popular songs.

The pace grew hotter and one of the Poppeans, as he hurtled past, knocked the Professor down. Jim hurried to him and helped him to his feet, and at the same moment Ruth let out a brief scream as another of the creatures trod on her foot.

"Gee, we'd better get out of here," Jim muttered. "Otherwise, they'll kill us, if only in fun."

"Up there!" cried the Professor, and pointed to the gantry which ran round the circumference of the control chamber at the level of the portholes. It was reached by a light retractable ladder and the three of them made their way to the ladder as best they could, dodging through the scrum of crazed Poppeans and avoiding serious injury by the skin of their teeth.

"Up you go, Ruth," muttered Jim, when they reached the ladder, and up she went, followed by the Professor, with Jim bringing up the rear and ready to kick the face of any Poppean who attempted to follow them.

None of the creatures noticed their retreat, however, and as soon as they reached the gantry Jim hauled up the ladder and secured it.

"That's better," remarked the Professor, and leaning against the gantry rail looked down upon the disorder beneath. The Poppeans were no longer singing and dancing in anything resembling unison. They had passed beyond that stage and now some were whirling around like demented dervishes, while others danced a sort of lunatic fandango, with their heads held down and their hands higher than their heads, clutching the air. Quite a few had succumbed altogether and now lay huddled against the walls, unconscious, exhausted by their unnatural exertions and poisoned by the nicotine. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air, intoxicating the Poppeans still further, and the Professor remarked that probably they would all lose consciousness before long. "When that happens we'll be able to escape," he said. "But what we do after that I can't imagine."

As he spoke, one of the Poppeans staggered across to the control panel and pulled a lever. Immediately the spaceship was shaken by a subdued rumbling and the Poppean at the controls threw back his head in a frenzy of delighted giggling.

"Holy cats!" exclaimed Jim. "I think he's started up the motors!"

Ruth turned and lifted the green shade from the nearest porthole. Jim and the Professor joined her and through the porthole they could see part of the spaceship's rim and one of the reaction-propulsion motors. There was no doubt that the motor was running. Gray smoke laced with the red flicker of flame was pouring from its exhaust and blowing in great clouds across the Park. So far there was nothing like enough power in the exhaust's thrust to lift the ship, but the Professor had an uncomfortable feeling that the bemused Poppeans would not be content to leave it at that.

He turned back into the control compartment and discovered there were now no fewer than three Poppeans swaying over the controls. They appeared to be having an argument regarding which lever should next be pulled or which button next pushed, and, while they argued, a fourth Poppean reeled up and nonchalantly pressed a switch.

The effect was shattering. Came four tremendous and almost simultaneous explosions as pressurized gases rushed into the combustion chambers and ignited, and at once the spaceship left the ground, lurching into the air as if it were itself as befuddled as the creatures controlling it. Ruth and Jim, at the porthole, caught a glimpse of the Poppeans from the other spaceships franctically scurrying to get out of the way of the scorching exhausts, and then saw the Park dwindle as the spaceship lumbered almost vertically into the sky.

The Poppeans at the controls yelled with triumph and the Professor felt fairly certain that they had never before been allowed to handle the ship. Now they were pulling levers and pressing buttons rapturously and at random, and suddenly the vast spaceship started to rotate. Three of the four Poppeans lost their balance and were sent staggering to the wall, but the fourth grabbed a lever and clung to it helplessly, rocking to and fro with the motion of the ship, and giggling and grinning as if he'd just thought of the funniest joke in the world.

The Professor roared at him to pull himself together, but the creature was too far gone to pay any attention, and the Professor went back to the porthole. "All we can do now, Jim, is to keep our fingers crossed," he muttered. "Where are we?"

"Still over the Park," said Jim, struggling to control his nerves, "and, at a guess, about five thousand feet up."

"And still rising, eh?" I guess so.

He had hardly spoken when two of the motors faltered, and the spaceship dropped sickeningly, falling for about fifty feet and then sideslipping into a lurching glide. It skimmed through the air like a badly flung dinner plate, losing height steadily. Beneath them the Professor glimpsed whole areas of West London turning upon a shifting axis.

"My bet is we crash in Holland Park," murmured Jim. "And all we need now is a miracle."

The spaceship swayed and tilted. Its whole fabric was shuddering violently from the unequal stress of its motors, and Ruth, with her face pressed to the porthole, caught a momentary glimpse of the Round Pond, just as sometimes one glimpses something dear, familiar and unattainable amidst the horrors of a nightmare. "I just can't look any more," she gasped. "I'm going to close my eyes."

She did so and tried to make her mind a blank. The suspense was terrible, and staring into the darkness of her closed eyes only seemed to make it worse. It was as if every second lasted an eternity and before many had passed she was constrained to open her eyes again. She saw the water tower on Campden Hill reel past and she would have sworn they missed its pinnacle by no more than inches. "This is it," she whispered, and closed her eyes again, ready for the crash.

Yet no crash came, and at that moment the noise of the spaceship's motors changed from an intermittent stutter to a deep and sustained roar. The essential miracle had happened, and suddenly the Professor exclaimed that the ship was no longer losing altitude. "We're flying level with the ground," he cried, and a few seconds later the spaceship started to rise steadily, sweeping up toward the blue with an ease and a conviction that could not have been in stronger contrast to its earlier reckless ascent. Flames, so pale as to be almost invisible, poured down from the motors' exhaust nozzles in an endless stream, and, with an overwhelming sensation of relief, the Professor told himself that at least for the time being he and his companions were safe.

As a trained scientist, he was disinclined to believe in miracles, and now he turned and gazed toward the control panel to see what had brought about the change in the spaceship's behavior. A Poppean whom he did not recognize was at the controls, and he was handling them as if he knew exactly what he was about. He swayed a little as he stared at the navigating dials, but that was all, and the Professor had the impression he was holding on to sobriety by sheer will power.

"The tobacco smoke doesn't seem to have affected him any," Jim remarked. "How come?"

"I don't quite know," said the Professor, "but I rather gather that he's the spaceship's chief engineer. I daresay that when he heard his beloved motors being tortured and mishandled, the shock temporarily sobered him. It looks to me as if it's nothing but will power that's keeping him on his feet."

Nearly all the other Poppeans were by now insensible. A few were still staggering aimlessly around, but the majority had succumbed. They lay huddled against the walls, asleep and half asleep, and the Professor noticed that the Yat had tumbled over sideways and was now sleeping peacefully with his head cradled on Kluss's chest. "He'll get a shock when he comes round," said the Professor. "I don't think he much likes Kluss."

Jim had returned to the porthole. "We're still climbing," he said, "and I'd say we were already about two thousand feet up. We re heading in a northwesterly direction, so I wonder where that chap thinks he's taking us."

"I don't expect he knows himself," said the Pro-

fessor. "I imagine his one concern was to get the motors running properly and—"

He broke off as the Poppean at the controls suddenly lurched sideways and fell. He made one or two halfhearted attempts to get up, but it was useless. In the end he simply rolled over onto a rug and fell asleep.

"That's that," said the Professor. "Well, Jim, we're in command now, so let's get down there and see what we can make of that control panel."

Chapter 8

Dust of Doom

riRTHUR BOOTHWATTE was not by nature a man of action, but when action was forced upon him he was by no means as ineffectual as he looked. And he was not a coward. When Jim crashed his car against the lamppost in Regent Street and Boothwaite ran for it, he only did so in the conviction that the other three were close behind him. It was not until he had turned the next corner and was in Great Portland Street that he discovered he was alone. Then he stopped running and decided he had better find out what had happened.

He made his way back to the corner and peered cautiously round it. A group of Poppeans had captured Jim and Ruth, and two more were pursuing the Professor. They caught him as Boothwaite watched, and the librarian decided his best policy would be to keep out of sight. There were seven of them, all exceedingly well-muscled, and it was out of the question for him to hope to do anything effective against them. Also it was extremely important that one of the humans stay free to get to Broadcasting House and warn America.

So Boothwaite stayed where he was and kept the little group of Poppeans with their human captives under observation. He saw two of the creatures go

bounding off in the direction of Langham Place, and he was relieved to see there was nothing unfriendly in the attitude of the remaining Poppeans to their prisoners.

Some time passed before anything else happened, and slowly the sun grew hotter and the morning shadows shortened. Then the two Poppeans returned with a third, and after a brief discussion the three humans were hoisted onto the shoulders of their captors. Then all the creatures went leaping away down Regent Street, heading for Oxford Circus, and as soon as they were out of sight Boothwaite broke cover and ran to the corner that the Poppeans had just left. He reached it just in time to see the Poppeans disappear along Oxford Street and reflected that the Professor and his companions were probably being taken to one of the spaceships in Hyde Park.

He told himself that was something he could investigate later. Regent Street was deserted and he knew that if he did not get to Broadcasting House right away he might not have another chance. An hour had already been lost since the four of them left the Laboratory, and, if the warning was not broadcast to America right away, it might well be too late for it to serve any useful purpose.

So he hurried to Broadcasting House as fast as he could and was relieved to find that the main doors were not locked. A doorkeeper was stretched out at full length on the floor just inside, snoring gently, and Boothwaite had to step over him to reach the stairs. He had never been in Broadcasting House before and had only the vaguest idea of what went on, but luck was with him, and on the first floor he came upon a studio with a red light burning outside it. He realized this probably meant that the microphone in that studio was live, and he pushed open the door.

It was a small studio, and the main piece of furniture in it was a glass-topped reading desk over which a man was slumped, sound asleep. He was still clutching the typewritten sheet from which he had been reading when he collapsed, and the desk's glass top was now quite thickly coated with the white dust. No doubt the stuff had got into the air-conditioning plant and had been carried to all parts of the building.

The unconscious announcer was a heavy man, and in one way and another he gave quite a bit of trouble when Boothwaite lifted him from the chair he was sitting on and laid him on the floor. That done, Boothwaite sat down and faced the microphone. He was disconcerted to find that he was nervous, and he cleared his throat several times while thinking about what to say. He also tapped the microphone's diaphragm with his fingernail and decided, from the noise it made, that it was live.

Finally he said, shouting like a peasant using the telephone for the first time, "Hullo, this is London calling. My name is Boothwaite, librarian at the London Radar Research Station, and I'm addressing this message to the Western Hemisphere and all parts so far unaffected by the Poppean invasion. London was attacked about an hour and a half ago. The invaders treat all the territory they pass over with some sort of bacterial matter which has the appearance of a fine white dust and the effect of rendering the entire population unconscious. However, Jim Shannon, assistant to my colleague, Professor Elrick, has discovered that an ordinary gas mask is a complete defense against the dust. I will repeat that. . .

Now that Boothwaite's initial nervousness had passed he was enjoying himself. For the first time in his life he felt himself a powerful and important figure, and the idea that he was in a way the spokesman for the whole nation roused his sense of the dramatic. In fact, such was his gratification that he spoke for longer than was strictly necessary. He described the invasion in detail, he described the spaceships and he described the Poppeans. He explained what had become of the Professor and the other two, and finally wound up his message with a promise to attempt to broadcast again should any more news come his way. He once more repeated the advice about the gas masks, giving all the emphasis he could to it, and then signed off.

He got up from the desk feeling extremely pleased with himself, and he could think of no reason why his efforts should not meet with some success. He had broadcast on one of the normal B.B.C. wave lengths and his message was certain to be picked up in the States. At that very moment, he told himself, people in America were probably racing around hunting up gas masks, and when the whole tale had been told it might very well turn out he had been instrumental in saving the world from defeat. He began to think of himself as a hero, and his next task, he reflected, was to see what he could do about rescuing the Professor and his companions.

It was the intensity of the silence that made everything seem so strange, Boothwaite decided. Probably never in the whole of its two thousand years' history had London been so utterly quiet by daylight, and when he left Broadcasting House he stood for some moments on the sidewalk in the hope of hearing just one sound to remind him he was still in the metropolis, but he heard nothing. Not a dog barked, not a bird sang and not a breath of air stirred. The silence was absolute.

There were no Poppeans in sight, but he told himself it would be as well to keep to the side streets. So he crossed Langham Place and headed for Cavendish Square. There were several cars parked in the Square, but Boothwaite reluctantly decided against borrowing one for fear that its noise would attract the Poppeans' attention. Instead he settled for a postman's bicycle. Presumably the postman had been cycling to work when overcome by the noxious dust and had barely had time to dismount. When Boothwaite came upon him he was lying on his face in the roadway with the bicycle on top of him. Before Boothwaite took the machine and cycled off he turned the man over onto his back and made him as comfortable as he could. He tucked the postman's folded raincoat under his head for a pillow, and felt that that was the least he could do in return for the bicycle. Even so, he was sure that, when the world did come to its senses again, it was going to contain one very puzzled postman.

Boothwaite had not ridden a bicycle since Oxford days and now, as he mounted and swung uncertainly into Wigmore Street, he wobbled alarmingly. Also, he was inclined to skid on the white dust which now seemed to be thicker than ever. It was like riding through a thin layer of fresh snow and for the first few hundred yards Boothwaite went very cautiously indeed. He had no sense of humor and perhaps that was just as well, for if he could have appreciated how comic he looked as he wobbled nervously along the silent and whitened street, with his smart hat balanced on top of his gas mask and his furled umbrella dangling from the crook of his elbow, he might have laughed and fallen off. As it was, he comforted himself with his usual dignified seriousness and planned the immediate future. He would head for Hyde Park, he told himself, and reconnoiter. Beyond that he had no very clear idea of what he intended to do, but when presently his eye was taken by an optician's shopwindow, it did occur to him that a pair of binoculars might prove a useful acquisition.

He dismounted and leaned the bicycle against a lamppost. He was not cut out for a life of crime and, as he approached the shopwindow with the idea of smashing it, his resolution all but failed him. He glanced anxiously up and down the deserted street, and struggled to persuade himself that, in view of the circumstances, what he was about to do was not in the least bit wicked. Finally, he gritted his teeth and, without giving himself the chance to change his mind, charged the window with his shoulder.

The noise the glass made as it smashed was appalling. The nearby houses echoed and re-echoed with the crash and to Boothwaite it seemed as if seconds passed before the heavy silence once more closed in. His instinct was to get away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible, and, grabbing the nearest pair of binoculars, he slung them over his shoulder and ran for the bicycle. He mounted it and raced up Wigmore Street as fast as he could pedal.

When he reached Edgware Road he slowed down and proceeded cautiously, expecting at every moment to run into a party of reconnoitering Poppeans. However, none appeared, and when he reached Marble Arch he dismounted. He crossed the road and made for Connaught House, London's newest luxury hotel.

It had been completed only the year before, and it claimed to be the tallest building in London. If he went up onto its roof, Boothwaite reflected, he would command a wonderful view of the Park and of all that was happening there.

He entered by a side door and found himself in a luggage room. Two porters and a bellboy were huddled together on a bench under the bell indicator and another porter had collapsed on the floor of the freight elevator, jamming the gates. Boothwaite heaved him out of the way, closed the gates and rode up to the top floor. A fire exit took him out onto the roof and he was relieved to find that its parapet was high enough to hide him from the view of any Poppeans below.

He went over to the southern parapet and gazed down. Hyde Park lay stretched out beneath him like a map. The nearest spaceship was not more than a few hundred yards away from him, and he quickly took the binoculars from their case and focused them on it. He examined it in detail and then went on to study the various Poppeans who were strolling about in its vicinity. And presently, to his astonishment, he found himself gazing directly at Professor Elrick, Ruth and Jim.

At first, he could hardly believe it. He had already guessed that they were probably in the Park, presumably in one of the spaceships, but that they should be sitting calmly on the grass, just as if they were at a picnic, was the last thing he had expected to see. Yet there they were. There was no doubt about it and the extraordinary thing was they actually appeared to be talking to the Poppeans.

No, that was impossible, he told himself. Elrick might be a genius, but even he couldn't learn the language of another planet in an hour or so. And the Poppeans might be vastly more intelligent than Earth-men, but that they had already learned English just wasn't in the cards.

Boothwaite was still puzzling about the matter when he noticed that most of the Poppeans were gazing up at the sky. One or two were pointing, and then he discovered that what they were watching was the arrival of another spaceship. It was directly over the Park, and he trained his binoculars on it. The speed with which it was coming down alarmed him and at first he decided it was out of control and was going to crash. Then with a shattering roar all its motors burst into activity, checking the spaceship's fall by reaction and at the same moment it released its parachutes. The landing itself was a joy to watch. The vast machine, almost held in balance between the force of gravity and the thrust of its motors, and steadied by its dozens of parachutes, floated to earth as gently as if it weighed hardly a pound more than the air it displaced.

Only a handful of Poppeans disembarked from the newly arrived spaceship, which suggested it did not intend to stay, and they were at once met by some of the creatures that had been guarding the humans. Boothwaite kept the binoculars on them and after a few seconds' discussion one of the newcomers was escorted to the place where the Professor and his companions waited. Through the glasses, Boothwaite could clearly see the Poppean who had been singled out for this honor and he noticed that the creature was short and squat, and bore a marked resemblance to a frog. He appeared to greet the Professor warmly and then to converse with him, and once more Booth-waite was puzzled to think how such a thing could be. He watched the froglike Poppean and the three humans walk across to the Yat's spaceship, and shook his head. "I give up," he muttered. "If these creatures, living millions of miles away from us, can speak English, then anything can happen. I think I'm going crazy."

The three humans were taken by their escort into the rim of the spaceship, and then for a long while nothing much happened. The chances of effecting a rescue seemed to Boothwaite as remote as ever, yet he felt that as long as he knew the whereabouts of his colleagues it was his duty to stick around. Meanwhile, he became increasingly aware of his own discomforts. It was hot up there on the roof and he was getting distinctly bored with his gas mask. For one thing he was terribly thirsty and for another he was hungry, and he tried anxiously to remember just how the Professor had proposed they should eat and drink. At the time he had not listened very carefully because he had assumed that the four of them would be together, and now he regretted his inattention. Something had been said about sealing up a kitchen and then drawing off the white dust with a vacuum cleaner. And young Jim Shannon had remarked that the kitchen at his home would probably be suited to the purpose. Boothwaite licked his dry lips and promised himself that as soon as the present situation resolved itself he would have a shot at finding out where Jim's home was.

The morning grew steadily hotter and by the time two hours had passed Boothwaite had more or less persuaded himself that he was serving no useful purpose in remaining on the roof. By then he was almost lightheaded with thirst and the scene in the Park had not changed in any one particular except that there were now fewer Poppeans strolling about. The heat had driven them to take refuge in the spaceship, and Boothwaite kept his binoculars trained on the center ship, where he knew his colleagues were imprisoned. Still nothing happened and at last he moved away from the parapet and stretched. "If I don't eat soon/ he muttered, "I'll pass out and then I'll be no use to man or beast."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a sudden roar shook the sultry air and he hastily raised the binoculars to his eyes. Vapor was pouring raggedly from the center spaceship's four motors, and the ship was shuddering violently as if it were about to take off. This went on for about a minute, then the huge machine gave a sudden lurch and rose from the ground. It seemed strangely hesitant in its behavior, as if it might crash at any moment, and this uncertainty was in sharp contrast to the adroitness with which the machine had landed two hours earlier. Moreover, Boothwaite noticed that the few Poppeans still left in the Park were hurriedly getting out of the ship's way, as if they were as mistrustful of its stability as he was.

Yet the spaceship didn't crash. The thrust of its exhausts suddenly increased in power and sent the ship wobbling up into the sky like a tossed pancake. Boothwaite reflected that whoever was in charge of the spaceship did not know much about controlling it, and the thought had scarcely entered his head when a fantastic explanation presented itself—perhaps the Professor and his companions had somehow seized command! It was a preposterous theory, and yet it seemed to be the only one that fitted the facts.

Then he saw that the ship had ceased to rise and was slipping sideways. It had also started to spin, tilting as it spun, and it was losing height so rapidly it seemed nothing could prevent it from crashing. Then Boothwaite momentarily lost sight of it behind some trees. He lowered the glasses and stood with his breath held, waiting for the crash.

A sudden blast of noise on his left made him nearly jump out of his skin, and he glanced in that direction to see that one of the other spaceships had started up its motors and was rising. Two of the remaining three followed suit, and he watched them ascend vertically into the sky, gleaming like golden chargers in the sunlight.

Then, almost overwhelmed with relief, he caught another glimpse of the fugitive above the treetops. He raised his glasses again and for a few seconds held the ship in view. It was no longer losing height and, as far as he could tell at that distance, it appeared to be flying steadily. A moment later it disappeared behind some buildings and he quickly swung the binoculars onto the other spaceships.

One by one they roared into the sky until they were about a thousand feet above the Park, then streaked off toward the northwest in pursuit of the fugitive. As soon as the last one was out of sight, Boothwaite ran for the elevator, and within a couple of minutes he had left the hotel and was pedaling up Edgware Road at top speed.

He went straight back to Broadcasting House and arrived there breathless and sweating. He raced up the stairs and ran along the corridor to the studio he had previously used. No sooner was he in the room than he grabbed the microphone and started to stammer out his message. "Hullo, this is London here," he gasped, "London calling the Western Hemisphere. Boothwaite speaking, I have further news. . . ."

He paused for breath, then went on to give a full description of everything that had happened to him since his earlier broadcast, and he ended his message with an appeal to all counter-invasion forces to act circumspectly should they come upon the runaway spaceship. "Professor Elrick and his two companions are certainly on board it," he said, "and to my mind it is possible that the Professor is in command. That may seem an odd suggestion, but I am convinced that whoever was at the controls of that ship when it took off had never had much to do with a spaceship before. How the Professor could have gained command of it I don't pretend to be able to say, but it is of course possible that the three humans somehow found their way to the control compartment and then succeeded in locking the Poppeans out. The fact the ship made off in a northwesterly direction suggests the Professor may be hoping to get to America, and so, should any fighter aircraft encounter it, I do implore that they avoid shooting first and asking questions afterward. As for the three spaceships that took off in pursuit, I cannot think they intend to do more than keep the fugitive under observation. Too many Poppeans are aboard for them to think of shooting it down. . . ."

As before, once Boothwaite found himself at the microphone he was loth to leave it. In fact, he spoke for nearly twenty minutes and might have spoken for longer except that he was suddenly overtaken by an attack of faintness. Then he remembered how desperately he was in need of something to eat and drink, and rather shakily concluded his message.

Before he left Broadcasting House, he looked up Jim Shannon s address in the telephone book. He remembered that Jim had told him he lived in Hamp-stead, and when he found a Lincoln J. Shannon with an address in Willow Road he concluded that would probably be Jim's father. So he resolved to go to Hampstead forthwith, and, as he left the building, he decided he had done enough cycling for one day. There were several cars parked in Portlane Place and, choosing a reliable-looking sedan, he climbed into it and drove off.

Once more he kept mainly to side streets, and the drive to Hampstead was uneventful. The white dust lay thick on every surface, but he didn't see any Poppeans. He pulled up outside the Shannons' house in Willow Road and, stopping the car, was surprised all over again by the intensity of the silence. It reminded him more than anything of a thick enveloping fog—a fog of silence, a fog that destroyed audibility instead of visibility. It tended to inhibit him from making any sound himself, so that, as he walked up to the door of the house, he all but found himself doing so on tiptoe.

Getting into the house was easy. The top part of the front door was glazed, and Boothwaite had only to break the glass with his elbow and then he was able to put his arm through the hole and turn the knob of the lock. The curtains in the front room were drawn and the lights were on, and no sooner had he entered the room than he knew he was in the right house—there was a framed photograph of Jim Shannon on the mantelpiece. And on the settee sat Mr.

and Mrs. Shannon, unconscious, of course, and with arms around each other. Boothwaite noticed that Jim's father had a grave, scholarly face and that his mother was a pretty woman of less than forty, but what really caught his attention was a particularly powerful radio set in the alcove at the side of the fireplace. No doubt the Shannons had got it so that they could listen in to American stations, and now Boothwaite quickly knelt down in front of it and turned the dials.

He picked up an American station almost immediately, but the reception was bad and the announcer had a thick Middle West accent that anyway would not have been easy for an Englishman to understand. Boothwaite listened intently and then, to his infinite relief, heard the announcer say something about gas masks. Yes, he was broadcasting a general appeal for gas masks! Boothwaite's message had been received in America and was being acted upon! ". . . so if you happen to have any gas masks, or any type of charcoal-packed respirator, bring them along to City Hall immediately. Or if you happen to know where there are any gas masks stored, let the City Authorities know about them without delay. Remember there is not a moment to be lost. Maybe in the plant where you work they use gas masks in some departments, and if so . . ." The voice faded suddenly and the next few sentences were completely inaudible.

Boothwaite waited for a few seconds and was about to try to get another station when once more the voice surged up and now it was louder than ever: **. . . therefore, on the basis of the London message, the best thing we can do is simply sit still and wait for it. Of course, sometimes just sitting and waiting

takes more courage than anything else, but . . ." Atmospherics, like the roar of sea waves, swirled up and swamped the voice, and for more than a minute Boothwaite could distinguish nothing except an occasional word or an isolated phrase, but he gathered that the announcer was advising his listeners on how to behave when the invasion came. . . make sure there is no naked flame burning in your home. And don't smoke. That's right, put that cigarette out. . . f

An atmospheric bedlam of whistles and squeals broke loose and Boothwaite touched the tuning dial. The catcalls died and now the announcer was saying, in confident, reassuring tones, "You can take it from me that Washington is on its toes. Every sort of defensive action that might prove effective is being worked over and, although for obvious reasons I can't tell you just exactly what steps are being taken, you can rest assured—"

The radio suddenly clicked into silence and at the same moment the lights went out. Boothwaite told himself that a fuse must have blown. He hurried into the kitchen and found that the lights in there had also gone. So had the lights in the pantry, and at that point the real cause of the blackout dawned on him. The power station had gone out of commission. The generators must have been running unattended ever since dawn, and now for one reason or another—probably lack of fuel—they had stopped.

Another attack of faintness swept over Boothwaite like a wave and he nearly fell. He managed to stagger to a chair and sat down heavily. No current meant no vacuum cleaner, and he told himself gloomily that put a finish to that part of his plan. His head was swimming and he found it difficult to think coherently. He felt sure that if only he could have just one sip of water he would be all right. He would be able to devise some alternative plan—and his gaze traveled longingly to the cold-water faucet above the sink. Just one sip....

He dragged himself upright and, steadying himself against the chair back, took a cup from the dresser. He lurched over to the sink and turned on the cold tap, gratefully letting the water run over his hands and wrists. He filled the cup and, as he did so, noticed that the drainboard was filmed with a layer of the white dust. So was the window ledge and every other level surface. He knew he was taking a tremendous chance, yet felt there was nothing else he could do. His thirst was now such as to outweigh every other consideration.

He turned and put the cup down on the table. He took a deep breath and held it, then quickly whipped off the gas mask. He raised the cup to his lips, drank deeply and almost at once felt revived. Then, still holding his breath, he hurriedly replaced the mask.

Yet even as he congratulated himself on the success of his maneuver he realized something was wrong. His head seemed to be filled with a strange pulsating darkness and he had the illusion that his fingers had suddenly become as thick as sausages. During the few seconds he had had the mask off, some spores of the dust had got into it, and now, multiplying rapidly, they had entered his lungs and were attacking his nerve centers. He struggled desperately to get back to the chair, but now, exactly as if the floor had been whipped from under his feet, he went down like a log and lay motionless. He experienced an odd sensation of floating, and then the throbbing darkness steadied down and closed over him. . . .

Chapter Peeped*

I

HEFUGITIVE spaceship was still rising steadily. Its movement was so smooth and gentle that inside it one hardly had any impression of movement at all. The Professor, with Ruth and Jim at his side, stood in front of the vast control panel and examined it in detail. At length he shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and muttered, "Intricate—and that's an understatement."

What could one make of those scores upon scores of rounded buttons, each marked with a weird symbol, so that the general effect was reminiscent of a lunatic typewriter—the sort of typewriter one might come upon in a nightmare? Or what could one make of those strange bulbous levers, or of the long series of little knobs, like the tuning knobs on a radio set? And then, above all these there were these strange flickering dials, also marked with outlandish symbols. No doubt these included an altometer, an air-speed indicator, a space-speed indicator, a clock, as well as several gauges relating to the spaceship's internal conditions, but from the point of view of the humans, nothing could have been more useless. Higher still, however, just above this double row of dials, were six circular screens, each about a foot across, that did mean something to the

Professor. They were like portholes and, while five showed nothing except an expanse of blue, the sixth was taken up by an ever-changing, bird's-eye view of the country they were passing over. "Do you get the idea, Jim?" asked the Professor. "Those are the spaceship's eyes. One of those screens gives a view of what's ahead, another of what's behind, then there's one for each of the side views, and the remaining two show what's above and what's below."

"But the ship's rotating," Jim objected.

"Exactly," said the Professor, "and, when you remember that, you get a glimpse of the incredible ingenuity of this device. These views are relative to the course we are traveling rather than to the spaceship itself, and not only does this device have to compensate for the ship's rotation, but also it has to be automatically variable in relation to the speed of the rotation."

Ruth shook her head helplessly. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she said, "but I just don't get it."

The Professor pointed to the screen that gave them a view of the ground they were passing over. "Well, take that, for instance," he said. "That screen gives us a steady view of the countryside beneath us, and what does that imply? It implies that at the axis of this ship there is an optical device—an artificial eye—that is revolving in opposition to the ship's rotation and at the same relative speed. If the ship rotates faster, then so does the eye, but, of course, in the opposite direction, and, if the ship's rotation slows down, then so does that of the eye. As far as that particular view is concerned the mechanics of it are fairly simple. Think of the complications involved, Ruth, in getting a constant forward view."

Ruth laughed. "I'd rather not," she murmured, and her interest was now concentrated upon the actual bird's-eye view itself. They were now virtually beyond the London area, and fields of varying shades of green were being dealt to them like cards from a pack. As Ruth peered closely at the shifting image she was able to distinguish the dark ribbon of the Great West Road and the silver ribbon of the Thames.

The Professor glanced round at the recumbent Pop-peans. "No signs of life so far," he observed, "and we'd better decide upon a plan of action. We could, of course, tie all these creatures up, but what would be the point of it? If we survive this experience I feel sure we'll do so by keeping on the right side of these chaps rather than by putting their backs up. No, I think our best policy is to keep calm and investigate the ship's potentialities. For instance, I suggest I try and locate the communications compartment and see if we can't radio America."

"Okay," said Jim, "but Kluss told us the States had already been invaded."

"He may have been lying," said the Professor. "In any case, he only claimed that the spaceships had reached the Eastern States."

"All right, sir. You try and radio America, and what do you want Ruth and me to do?"

"I suggest that you, Jim, continue to investigate the control panel. See if you can get underneath it and trace out what acts upon what. In particular see if you can find the parachute release so we shall at least know what to do if the motors pack up or if the fuel runs out. And I suggest that Ruth keep an eye on the Poppeans and on the observation screens."

It seemed Ruth had already taken up her duties, for now she suddenly pointed to one of the screens. "LookI" she exclaimed. "Spaceships!"

The Professor glanced up at the screen Ruth indicated and saw, against the circle of blue sky, the dark discs of the three spaceships. At first he imagined they were coming toward them, then realized the screen he was looking at was the one that allowed a rearward view. "They're following us," he commented, "and my guess is they came from Hyde Park. I suppose they took off immediately after us."

"They won't shoot us down?" asked Ruth, nervously.

Jim grinned at her. "I guess not," he said. "Not with the Yat on board."

As he spoke, he dropped to his knees and started to examine the lower part of the control panel. It was boxed in, but he found a small sliding door and opened it. He peered into the darkness beyond. "Holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "Just look at those wires and leads and rods and tubes. I'll never make head nor tail of this. Will you take a look, sir?"

The Professor, however, was already halfway up the spiral staircase and he told Jim to carry on. "I'll have a look later," he said. "No doubt I've got my own problems ahead."

Jim nodded and resumed his investigation. He remarked that if only he had a little more light he might be able to get on better, and Ruth offered to climb up to the gantry and remove the green shades from the portholes. This operation could have been carried out mechanically by pressing certain buttons on the control panel, but, even if Jim and Ruth had realized this, they wouldn't have known which buttons to press.

As, one by one, Rutb removed the shades the light grew stronger and dispersed the greenish gloom. Some of the Poppeans stirred uneasily as the sunlight fell across their faces, but none recovered their senses completely. When the last of the shades had been raised, Ruth climbed down to the floor of the control chamber and went back to the observation screens.

It was impossible to estimate how fast the spaceship was traveling but the three pursuing ships caught up with it without difficulty. One of them overtook it and went on ahead as a sort of vanguard, while the other two took up positions one on each side of the fugitive. Ruth kept her eyes on the screen that gave a view of the country beneath and tried to make out where they were. The rich green fields of the Home Counties presently gave way to tracts of land of a paler green as the ship passed over the chalklands of the West, and these in turn were replaced by the grays, mauves and browns of the Welsh mountains, and then came the sea, a sparkling expanse of blue, silver and green.

Jim clambered out from under the control panel and informed Ruth that he'd used up all his matches. "But I can't say that I've learned much," he told her. "All the wires lead through into the transmission unit, and there they stop dead, as it were. I've got my own theory, but—"

He broke off and glanced to the top of the spiral staircase, where the Professor had just appeared in a state of some excitement. He descended the stairs rapidly and then explained breathlessly that he had located the communications compartment without difficulty in the waist between the two halves of the dumbbell. "It's an absolute jungle of outlandish equipment," he said, "and at first I was inclined to think I should never get anywhere. They use metals and materials completely foreign to us, and I couldn't even guess at the purpose of much of the equipment, let alone hope to make it work. The only objects I could recognize on sight were the amplifiers, so I decided to work backward from them. Suddenly, by some freak, I found myself picking up signals on the short-wave band—and what do you think I learned?" "You tell us," Jim suggested.

"Why, I discovered that in some way or other the States have already been warned," said the Professor. "They know about the need for gas masks, and I picked up a message from Kansas City police headquarters instructing one of its patrol cars to call at such-and-such an address where there were some masks."

"Boothwaite!" exclaimed Ruth.

Professor Elrick nodded. "That's the only explanation," he agreed. "My guess is that after we were captured, Boothwaite had the sense to go to Broadcasting House, and warn America. What's more it seems that he also knew something of what happened to us."

Jim asked him what made him think that, and the Professor explained he had gathered as much from an amateur transmission. "I could only pick it up intermittently," he said, "and I've no idea where the chap was speaking from, but he had a Canadian accent. I only had his side of the conversation to go on, of course, and I heard him tell whoever he was speaking to that he had just been listening to a broadcast on the B.B.C. wave length. He mentioned gas masks, and then said something about spaceships taking off from Hyde Park and heading toward America. He said the leading spaceship was believed to have Professor Elrick on board, and that the London broadcast had asked all transatlantic defense forces to avoid taking action against it."

"The leading spaceship?" said Ruth. "But, Daddy, we're no longer in the lead."

As she spoke, she pointed to the forward observation screen. In it, the leading escort ship could be clearly seen, and the Professor took note of it, then shrugged. "We'll just have to take our chance, that's all," he remarked. "I don't relish the possibility of being shot down by our own side, but it's not an immediate problem. America is still a great way away."

"Yes, Daddy, but you know there are such things as long-distance fighter planes."

"Agreed, but the chances of the defending planes intercepting us in mid-Atlantic are so remote as not to be worth worrying about. It's when we get within range of the American radar-stations that the danger becomes real."

One of the Poppeans on the far side of the compartment appeared to be coming round and the Professor glanced across at him anxiously. The creature was sitting up and gazing dazedly about him. He started to get to his feet, but the effort proved too much for him, and after two or three halfhearted attempts he collapsed as suddenly as if his legs had been knocked from under him and then relapsed into unconsciousness.

"It rather looks as if the effects are beginning to wear off," said the Professor, "so we'd better make haste. It's more important than ever for us to rig up some sort of wireless transmitter, so, Jim, how about you coming up to the communications chamber with me? That is, if Ruth doesn't mind being left here alone."

Ruth smiled rather wanly. "I'll be all right," she assured him and returned her attention to the observation screens. The spaceship was now crossing the Irish Sea and, far beneath them, Ruth could see the coast line of Ireland. She watched Jim and the Professor climb the spiral staircase and then, as they disappeared through the hatch, braced herself to sustain a loneliness more desolate than any she had ever known.

As Jim followed the Professor along the narrow gangway that led to the communications chamber, he gave him some account of the internal workings of the control panel. "The main leads are marked with luminous paint," he said, "so I could distinguish them all right and I was able to trace them as far as the transmission unit, and that's as far as they go."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that, sir. All the wires end up in a strange sort of box arrangement and for the life of me I couldn't find any connections leading out of it in the direction of the motors or anything else."

The Professor made no comment, and Jim, sensing his incredulity, went on hurriedly: "Anyway, I had rather better luck working in the opposite direction. I traced the four main leads back to the panel, and in that way located the four levers that control the motors."

"But you couldn't find the parachute release?" asked the Professor, as they entered the communications chamber.

"No, I'm afraid I couldn't."

To human eyes, the communications chamber was simply a chaos of linked wires and mysterious objects. Along one wall were ranged screens similar to the ones in the control compartment, except that they were dark, and the Professor suggested they represented the radar section. He pointed to another object that looked like one half of a huge black grapefruit and explained that it was an amplifier. Atmospherics and a faint tapping that might have been Morse were now issuing from it, and, although the Professor fiddled for some seconds with the knobs on the tuning panel, he could get nothing else. "I rather fear," he said, "that by now the whole American continent has been invaded. In which case, we must make every effort to get in touch with the defending forces. Clearly we don't want to get shot down by their jet fighters, but there's also a more positive aspect of the matter. We've got the Yat on board. If only we can get to America and somehow manage to land this machine, we shall be in a position to bargain."

Jim nodded and at the same time wondered how they could hope to construct a transmitter out of the maze of equipment with which the compartment was filled. As far as he could see, nothing bore the faintest resemblance to its terrestrial equivalent and when the Professor suggested the first thing they should do was to locate a microphone, even that task seemed impossible. "There's so much of everything," muttered Jim. "What on earth can they have used all this junk for?"

"I can't imagine," said the Professor, "but no doubt we can learn as we go."

Alone in the control compartment, Ruth kept her attention on the observation screens and at the same time watched the Poppeans. Slowly they were recovering consciousness, but for the time being they remained drowsy and inert, staring bemusedly into space, and Ruth wondered uneasily how long it would be before the effects of the narcotic poisoning wore off altogether.

The spaceship had now reached a great height, and it was traveling through banks of cirrus cloud that obscured visibility and prevented Ruth from seeing much of what was below. She had seen the last of Ireland some time before, and now occasional misted glimpses of the Atlantic's green expanse showed on the screen, with no land in sight. The three escorting spaceships were still in attendance in the same positions as before, and all the sky above the spaceship was a deeper blue by far than is ever seen from the ground. Nothing broke the silence except the sound of the motors, and they had now been roaring in Ruth's ears so long and so steadily they had become, as it were, part of the silence itself.

Presently, the spaceship sailed out clear of the clouds and then, on the appropriate screen, Ruth could see the Atlantic spread out beneath her like a sheet of green silk strewn with brilliants. A lonely ship, its smoke cloud trailing behind it like a smudge of soot, was visible in the midst of the green expanse, and Ruth watched it for nearly a minute before its significance suddenly dawned on her. Then she ran across to the spiral staircase and raced up it two stairs at a time. She found the communications chamber without difficulty, and, as she entered, the Professor swung round in surprise. "Hullo, Ruth, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Well, nothing, except that we re over the Atlantic now, and I've just seen a ship. It was under way all right, and then it suddenly occurred to me that its crew can't have been affected by the white dust—and I thought you ought to know about it."

The Professor nodded and glanced at her sympathetically. He realized she had sought him out mainly. because she found the loneliness of the control compartment unendurable, and he wondered whether it was fair to ask her to return to it. Meanwhile he remarked he was not really surprised about the ship. "I imagine it's beyond the powers of even the Poppeans to treat the entire Atlantic with bacterial matter just for the sake of immobilizing a few hundred ships," he said. "In any case, what would be the point of it? The crews of the ships can't land anywhere without coming into contact with the white dust, can they?"

"No, but now that the ship has sighted us, it will give our position to the defending forces, won't it?"

"I expect so," said the Professor. "With the result, you mean, that we shall have to contend with fighter planes rather sooner than we had anticipated? Yes,' but on the other hand this spaceship is still rising and it won't be long before it's flying too high for it to be reached by fighter planes."

"That's true," said Ruth, brightening. "I hadn't thought of that."

She still seemed reluctant to return to the loneliness of the control compartment and asked how the construction of the transmitter was going on.

"Slowly," her father told her. "So far we've located a microphone and some thermionic valves, and we think those strange globular objects are almost certainly accumulators. What we're short of is insulated wire, and when you came in we were debating where we could take it from."

"Does it matter?" asked Ruth. "Surely the important thing is to get the transmitter working at all costs."

The Professor agreed, but remarked that his instinct was to proceed cautiously. "I don't like to break things up unless I know what I'm breaking," he said. "And meanwhile I think you'd better get back to the control compartment, Ruth, We don't want those Poppeans to come round and trap us in here,"

Ruth hesitated for a few seconds longer, then reluctantly made her way back to the control compartment. Nothing seemed changed. Some of the Poppeans were now sitting up, holding their heads in their hands as if suffering from violent migraine, but the majority were still no more than semiconscious and it was Ruth's impression it would be some time yet before they became a serious source of danger.

She went back to the control panel and studied the observation screens. The ship was no longer in sight, but otherwise everything was just as before. Ruth wrapped herself in her rug, and tried to ignore her nervous tension. She realized that the odds on her surviving her present experience were short, but in the meantime there was no point in worrying.

It was then it happened. It was then, when Ruth had almost lulled herself into thinking that everything would come out all right, that the motors suddenly stopped, all four of them, and simultaneously. The abrupt and appalling silence so startled Ruth that for some seconds she could not understand what had caused it and did not realize the huge spaceship was wallowing unsupported in the air, that it was, in fact, falling. The flaming streams of expanding gas had abruptly ceased to pour from the motors' combustion chambers, and now there was nothing either to keep the vessel aloft or to ease its fall toward the sea.

Jim appeared at the top of the spiral staircase, and then came clattering down it as if pursued by devils. His face was white and drawn and, as he raced toward the control panel, he caromed into one of the Poppeans who was struggling to get up and knocked him flying.

"What happened, Ruth?" Jim asked breathlessly, as he came to her side. "Did you touch anything?"

Ruth shook her head mutely, and Jim shouted to the Professor, who was coming down the stairs as fast as he could, that the ship must have run out of fuel.

"Yes," said the Professor, as he joined them. "Now, Jim, if we don't find that parachute release, we're in for it."

They stared hopelessly at the control panel and heard the air whistling against the fabric of the spaceship's hull. "We could press every button in sight," said Jim, desperately, "and hope to hit upon the parachute release that way."

The Professor nodded and took a step toward the panel. Jim and Ruth joined him and frantically the three of them pressed buttons and pulled levers, but without getting the slightest response of any sort. All that was mechanically operated in the spaceship had ceased to function, and now the only things still working were the observation screens, the navigating dials and a few similar devices.

The Professor and Jim exchanged glances and then looked up at the observation screens. The spaceship was rocking through the air like a falling leaf, and the sea's sunlit surface seemed ominously near. The escorting spaceships appeared to be moving in slightly, probably with the idea of rescue when the crash came.

Ruth turned to the Professor and asked him if he were sure that his operations in the communications chamber could not have caused the motors to pack up. "I mean, you couldn't have broken a circuit or anything?" she asked.

Her father shook his head. "Most unlikely," he told her. "All the equipment in there is radio equipment—"

Jim interrupted him with a gesture. "I've got an idea/' he exclaimed, and hurried toward the spiral staircase. "Stay there!"

Ruth glanced questioningly at her father, but he was clearly as mystified as she was. He put an arm about her shoulders and when he spoke he had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the screaming of the slip stream. "When the crash comes, dear," he said, "let your body go limp. And whether we survive or not depends largely upon which part of the ship strikes the water first. Anyway, we've a chance."

Ruth nodded and glanced up anxiously at the screens. The water was now so close she could see the white crests of the waves, and she knew the crash would certainly come within the minute. In spite of her father's advice she instinctively braced herself and in the same moment another sound suddenly thundered across the whistling of the slip stream.

"The motor!" exclaimed the Professor, and ran toward the ladder that led to the gantry. He climbed it, with Ruth at his heels, and when they reached the gantry and gazed through the portholes, they discovered he had not been mistaken. The motors had started up again, apparently of their own accord, and great jets of flaming gas were streaming from the exhaust nozzles in even greater volume than before. The spaceship was rising fast and for the moment neither Ruth nor her father could find words to express their relief.

They heard Jim shout to them and turned to see him standing at the top of the spiral stairs grinning all over his face. He joined them on the gantry and then explained what he had been doing.

"It was that coil we removed," he told the Professor.

"The possibility of that being the trouble leaped to my mind as soon as Ruth asked us if we could have broken a circuit or anything—"

"But radio equipment," muttered the Professor. "I don't see what it can have to do with ignition."

"It's got nothing to do with it in any direct sense," said Jim, "but on this spaceship the Poppeans use radio impulses instead of direct wiring, and they route them through the communications chamber. That's why all the wiring under the control panel seemed to lead nowhere, and, when Ruth asked her question, I put two and two together, rushed up to the communications chamber and replaced the coil we'd taken out. The motors started up again at once."

The Professor laughed and clapped Jim on the shoulder. He congratulated the boy on his astuteness, then remarked that the motors seemed to be running rather more powerfully than before, with the result that the spaceship was rising at a tremendous speed. "Or is that merely my imagination?" he asked, with unwonted humility.

"Well, no, I guess not," said Jim, grinning. "I think the motors actually have speeded up, and I guess we must have changed the position of the levers when we were trying to work the control panel. Maybe we'd better try to do something about it, otherwise we'll find ourselves out in space."

He was about to say something more when Ruth suddenly clutched his arm and pointed to the nearest porthole. "Look!" she cried. "Jet fighters! Dozens of them!"

Jim and the Professor hurried to the porthole, but by the time they reached it the spaceship's rotation had carried the fighter formation, if it existed, out of

view, and the Professor told Ruth she must have made a mistake. "You're dreaming, dear," he told her. "Good heavens, we must still be more than two thousand miles from America." ' Ruth was positive she was not mistaken. "Just wait a few seconds," she said, "and you'll see them all right."

The Professor shrugged skeptically, but continued to gaze through the porthole, and presently the rotation brought the airplanes back into sight. There were about thirty of them, flying in arrow formation, and coming in from the north. The Professor decided they were still about three miles away and remarked they must be based on Iceland.

"Yes, sir, that would be it," agreed Jim. "And Iceland's just the sort of place where there'd be a store of gas masks left over from World War II."

The Professor turned from the porthole and his face was grimly set. "In less than a minute they will attack," he said. "And there's nothing we can do about it except keep our heads and hope for the best."

Chapter 70 e°"/e m the AW

N

rrmN A MINUTE of the humans' first sighting the fighter planes, so much happened so quickly that they gained only the sketchiest impressions of it all. They had no time to leave the gantry and stayed there, each at a porthole, to watch the most fantastic air battle ever fought in terrestrial skies. The fighters, misled by Boothwaite's broadcast, tried to ignore the leading spaceship and came screaming in to attack the other three. Came the stutter of machine guns, and the white trails of tracer bullets ripped through the air like streamers thrown at a carnival. Jim glimpsed a fighter diving directly toward him and in the same instant saw it disintegrate, filling the air with scraps of flying debris, and, with huge relief, saw its pilot drifting toward the sea on his parachute.

Then another plane disintegrated, this time on the edge of the battle, and Jim, with a clear view of the incident, watched the machine smash into fragments as completely as if it had flown into a solid wall. He gasped and turned to the Professor. "What's doing that, sir?" he muttered. "What's breaking those planes up?"

"The Poppeans," said the Professor. "Clearly, these spaceships are armed with some sort of disintegrating

weapon, and the exact nature of it is beyond conjecture."

"I'll say it is," murmured Jim, as two more fighters broke up for no apparent reason; and looking down he saw there were now no fewer than nine parachutes silhouetted against the sea.

Yet the spaceships were not invincible, and the battle had not been raging for more than three minutes before one of them was called to account. Ruth had the best view of the incident and she saw six fighters streak in to attack the spaceship with guns blazing. Four of the planes broke up before they reached their objective, but, of the other two, one raked the central dumbbell with machine-gun fire, while the other crashed at full speed into the spaceship's outer rim. There was a violent, blue-flamed explosion as the fuel tanks caught fire, and then the spaceship tilted up on edge and went rolling down the sky throwing out flame, smoke and sparks like some enormous Catherine wheel. Fascinated and unable to take her eyes away, Ruth saw the vast machine strike the water edgeways on and then heel over, sending up great fountains and columns of spray. Huge patches of burning oil spread outward from the wreckage and already the Poppeans were scrambling terror-stricken out of the hatches in their efforts to escape the flames. They hurled themselves into the sea and floated there on the surface, no doubt buoyed up by the air contained in their strange, spongy skins.

A shout from Jim made Ruth look up, and then she found that the spaceship they were on was being attacked. Jet fighters—seven or eight of them—were roaring past the outer rim, spraying it with bullets, and presumably they were flying too close for the escorting spaceships to dare use their disintegrators. Great clouds of vapor were rising from the liquid fuel that streamed from the damaged fuel tanks and at every second Ruth expected the whole ship to explode into flame. Yet, presumably because the fuel had an exceptionally high flash point, that supreme disaster was avoided, and, as Ruth heaved a sigh of relief, she also became aware that the attack was flagging. Another two fighters disintegrated in mid-air and then the others sheered off, flying a ragged formation toward the north. Ruth counted them and was appalled to find that, of the original thirty, only eleven were returning to their base.

The entire action had lasted less than five minutes and now the ocean was littered with its debris. The hull of the wrecked spaceship still floated in its pool of oil, and, now that the flames were dying, the members of its crew who had survived the explosion were floundering through the water toward it, awaiting their chance to clamber on to its slowly cooling fabric. Discarded parachutes and fragments of the destroyed jet fighters floated here and there over a wide area, and in several places spreading patches of yellow marker-dye called Ruth's attention to the gunners and pilots who had baled out.

"It's horrible," she breathed. "There's no hope any of them will be saved, is there?"

"I don't know," said Jim. "I guess that as soon as we clear off, the Iceland base will send out rescue planes. And anyway there are ships about that must have seen something of the battle." He pointed toward a dark smoke cloud some miles to the west. "Yes, Ruth, I guess they'll be saved," he said.

"I hope so," she murmured, and then noticed that one of the escorting spaceships was no longer attending them. It was hovering above the sea's debris-littered surface and slowly descending. She watched it until it was out of sight, and long before she saw the last of it, it had alighted on the sea and its crew was making efforts to save any Poppeans and humans in the vicinity.

"No doubt they'll stay there until they've picked up everyone," said the Professor. "And, in my opinion, they're behaving with considerably more forbearance than we should in the circumstances."

"I guess so," said Jim. "But, gee, those Poppeans haven't much idea of swimming, have they?"

"Practically none," agreed the Professor. "But then, of course, swimming is something that's completely unknown on their planet. I expect they find merely being in the water a quite terrifying experience."

Liquid fuel was still spurting from the spaceship's tanks but not nearly as copiously as before, and the Professor observed that the tanks were probably to some extent self-sealing. "As a protection against any chance meteoroids met with in space," he explained. "On the other hand, there's no doubt that we've lost a great deal of fuel, and how long it will be before it runs out altogether is anybody's guess."

Jim was about to remark that the ship was still rising at a great rate when he was interrupted by a sudden commotion from the floor below. All three of them gazed down into the body of the control compartment to find that by now about half the crew had more or less recovered consciousness, and every one of them seemed to have come to in a foul temper. They were arguing and quarreling. One faction appeared to be advocating some sort of immediate action, while another group was counseling restraint. Members of the latter group kept pointing to the still-unconscious Yat, and it was clear they were trying to dissuade their more impulsive colleagues against taking any drastic steps before he came around. All discipline had been thrown to the winds and everyone seemed to be screaming at everyone else. A fierce struggle was going on round the control panel, where some of the creatures were fighting to get at the controls while others fought frantically to prevent them, and presently Jim caught sight of Kluss and shouted to him, "Hey, Kluss, what's going on?"

Kluss was leaning dazedly against a stanchion, taking no active part in the squabble, but when he heard Jim's voice he looked up and gave a start as if he had entirely forgotten the humans' presence. Other Pop-peans also looked up and, when they saw the humans, growled with anger, then turned upon Kluss as if to vent their wrath on him. Kluss backed nervously away from them, and in a matter of seconds the main center of the quarrel seemed to switch from the control panel to him.

"I don't understand," said Ruth. "What has Kluss done to upset them?"

Jim shrugged and at the same moment Kluss made a sudden dash for the ladder that led up to the gantry. He gained it and, while some of the creatures who seemed to take his side fought off the others, swarmed up it. As soon as he reached the gantry, he hauled up the ladder after him, then leaned against the rail and appeared to be beseeching the creatures below to listen to what he had to say. None of them, however, paid much attention and he soon gave up in despair and joined the humans.

His experiences of the last few moments had sobered him considerably, but he was still in a highly nervous state, and his attitude to the humans was hostile. "You're responsible for this!" he hissed at the Professor.

"I?"

"Yes, you. You encouraged the crew to smoke tobacco, and, as a trained scientist, you must have known the effects could be incalculable. Our treatment of you had been reasonable in the extreme, and it was your duty to warn us against introducing poisons into metabolisms which, in the nature of things, must differ greatly from your own. In fact, I suspect treachery, and I can assure you I'm not alone in that. Good heavens, if you went down there now, you'd be torn to pieces."

"In that case, we'd better stay up here," said the Professor, calmly. "Although, from what I can see of it, your colleagues appear to be far too busy with then-own quarrel to be much interested in us."

That was true and, as more of the creatures recovered full consciousness, the battle grew in ferocity. The Poppean that the Professor had decided was the spaceship's chief engineer seemed to be the leader of the more militant faction, and now he was struggling toward the control panel with all his might.

Kluss muttered that they were all mad and, when the Professor asked him to explain what was happening, sighed wearily.

"What you are witnessing," he said, "is no more than the resurgence of an old controversy. Thirty or forty years ago, when we first started to make a serious study of your planet, our whole population inclined to divide itself into two factions, one of which advocated the eventual abandonment of our planet, while the other, refusing to believe the scientists' predictions, maintained that we should think of no such thing. As time went on, the conservative faction dwindled until in the end it probably did not number more than about five per cent of the total population, and, when that point was reached, it naturally had no choice but to fall in with the intentions of the majority. The result was we arrived here with a small disaffected minority, which, now that things are going badly, is making trouble and gaining supporters."

He pointed to the chief engineer, who had now gained the control panel and was angrily studying the navigating dials, and told the Professor that the engineer had constituted himself leader of the rebellious faction. "He is furious about the damage done to the ship," said Kluss, "and asks nothing less than an immediate return to Poppea, and the sooner, the better."

"To Poppea?" muttered the Professor. "But doesn't he realize that we've lost a great amount of fuel? I shouldn't think we've enough fuel left to get out into space, let alone any further."

Kluss shrugged hopelessly. "It would be no good arguing with him!" he said. "He is still heavily under the influence of the tobacco smoke and not in his right mind."

"I see," murmured the Professor, then asked Kluss what he had done or said to make the rebels so angry with him.

"Nothing, in an immediate sense," said Kluss, "but, you see, I was generally considered to be one of the strongest advocates of the present adventure. As you can imagine, all my time had been spent studying the language and the habits of this, your world, and for forty years I have lived for the day when I should visit it. My colleagues' nickname for me is 'the Earth-man' and, as I scrambled up the gantry ladder, they shouted after me: 'That's right—get up there and join your barbaric pals!'"

"And the Yat?" asked Ruth, and, as she spoke, she glanced toward him. He was now semiconscious. His eyes were open, but his expression was bewildered and he made no effort to rise from the rug on which he was lying.

"The Yat?"Kluss murmured. "Ah, if only he were conscious, he would be able to restore order. No Pop-pean would ever dream of disobeying him, and I am sure he would advocate staying on this planet, come what may."

That, however, was by no means the chief engineer's idea. He was busily readjusting the levers that controlled the motors and now, apparently satisfied, he rapidly threw four large switches, one after the other. The result was breath-taking. The thrust of the spaceship's four motors was suddenly increased tenfold, and the ship went rocketing toward the troposphere at something approaching five times the speed of sound. In consequence, the silence was almost absolute, and now the flames that poured from the motors' exhaust nozzles burned brilliantly scarlet and the fabric of the hull itself grew hot from the friction of the thin air.

As soon as the humans recovered their poise, they threw themselves at the portholes and gazed down toward the receding Earth. Miles below them they could see the escorting spaceship no bigger than a coat button, and beyond was the Atlantic's gleaming silver, fringed on one side by the coast line of Western Europe and on the other by the blue ridges of the

American continent. The escorting spaceship had been taken by surprise and was only just making the switchover from air speed to space speed.

"So far," the Professor remarked, "we've probably been traveling at something like a thousand miles an hour, but now we shall go on accelerating until we're traveling approximately twenty-five times faster than that. We've got to attain a speed of about seven miles a second, which is the Earth's velocity of impact and also the speed at which the spaceship can liberate itself from the Earth's gravitational pull."

"Twenty-five thousand miles an hour!" muttered Ruth with an unladylike whistle, and Jim remarked that it sure looked as if that engineer didn't want to waste any time about getting out into cosmic space. And meanwhile the sky's blue grew steadily darker.

The Poppeans had left off quarreling among themselves, and now all of them seemed resigned to the plan of getting away from the Earth as quickly as possible. The Yat appeared to be recovering fast. He was sitting up and two Poppeans were bending over him, bathing his eyes and giving him something to drink from a spherical container.

Suddenly three of the creatures appeared at the top of the spiral stairs. One of them was shouting at the top of his voice and it was clear, from their gestures and expressions, that all three were angry. The one who was shouting pointed two or three times at the humans, then ran down the stairs and went to the chief engineer at the control panel. He seemed to be demanding something and the chief engineer, listening to him, looked worried and undecided. Finally, he nodded toward the Yat and tried to concentrate his attention on the control panel.

The Professor glanced at Kluss. "What's happening?" he asked.

"The individual who's shouting is chief of communications," said Kluss. "He says you and your companions have wrecked much of his equipment and he's extremely angry. He tells the chief engineer that, since he's assumed command of the ship, it is his duty to order your immediate disintegration. The engineer says he has neither the authority nor the experience to make political decisions and that the matter must wait until the Yat is fully recovered."

"Our disintegration?" muttered the Professor. "It sounds most unpleasant."

"It is quick and painless," said Kluss, reassuringly. "And anyway, for the time being, you are safe. The engineer will not decide in favor of it, even though his faintheartedness is losing him support amongst the crew."

And in fact that was what seemed to be happening. The Poppeans were grumbling among themselves and several of them crowded around the Yat as if impatient for him to recover and assert his authority. Others stared up at the humans, and suddenly one among the group shouted something at Kluss.

Kluss replied briefly, then turned to the Professor. "They insist that you go down there," he said.

"And if we refuse?" asked the Professor, with a glance at the hauled-up ladder.

"I advise you to go down," said Kluss. "They will not do anything to you before they have heard the Yat's decision."

The Professor still hesitated and was about to consult Jim and Ruth when several of the creatures started shouting all at once. Now they sounded thoroughly angry, and Kluss backed nervously away from the handrail.

"They say if you refuse, I'm to throw you down to them," he told the Professor. "And, of course, I should have no choice but to obey. They would consider the action a pledge of my loyalty, and, if I failed to perform it, I might well find myself accompanying you to the disintegrator."

His froglike face twitched nervously as he said this and it was clear he was not going to risk disintegration, no matter how quick and painless it might be.

"All right," said the Professor, with his eyes on Kluss's bulging arm and chest muscles. "We'll go quietly."

"You are very wise," grunted Kluss, and at once went to the ladder and lowered it.

Eager Poppean hands grabbed the three humans as they stepped from the ladder, and they were hustled across the compartment to the place where the Yat sat. The ancient creature's expression was petulant and confused, and, although he was now fully conscious, he hardly seemed to be in the mood to be impartial. The chief of communications was at the Yat's side, pouring out his tale of woe, and when he finished the Yat turned to Kluss and spoke to him in a mumbling, querulous voice.

Apparently he was asking if the humans had anything to say in their defense, and the Professor noticed that Kluss's manner, when he translated the question, was offhanded and almost churlish, as if he were anxious to prove to the Yat and all the other Poppeans that he and the humans had nothing in common.

"Our defense?" muttered the Professor. "Well, frankly, I can't see that we've committed any par

ticular crime. We could not know that tobacco would have the effect of intoxicating you, and, as for the damage to the radio compartment—well, in view of our predicament, it was surely only human to try to get in touch with our allies/'

"Only human?" echoed Kluss, with a faint sneer. "Well, Professor Elrick, your behavior may have been, as you say, only human, but I can assure you that, by our Poppean standards, it constitutes a serious breach of the law. This fleet of spaceships represents practically the whole of our planet's resources for a great number of years and to damage any part of any one of them is a crime punishable by disintegration— in fact, it is the only crime so punishable."

"I wasn't aware you were judging us," said the Professor. "I should be grateful if you would simply translate my remarks to the Yat, and leave it at that."

The Yat listened to what Kluss had to say, and then consulted briefly with three or four Poppeans standing near him. Finally, he returned his gaze to the humans and waved his three-fingered hand in a laconic gesture—a gesture that could only mean, "Take them away."

The humans at once found themselves gripped by powerful Poppean hands, and, as they were marched away, the single word, "Disintegration!" dominated the thoughts of each of them.

"I wouldn't mind so much," muttered Jim, "if only I could take one good poke at that rat Kluss!"

Chapter 11 Arctic Landing

I

HE SUNLIGHT had a weird, deathlike quality, and the sun's disc burned without rays or luster from a black, velvety sky. The spaceship had reached the exo-sphere and was still traveling outward. The compartment that the three humans were confined in was a partitioned section of the outer rim, and the strange sunlight poured into it from three portholes, one of which was set in the floor, another in the ceiling and the third in the outer bulkhead.

"For all we know," Jim murmured gloomily, "this is the disintegrator—a sort of cosmic lethal chamber."

"Improbable," said the Professor, briskly. "The Pop-peans would hardly provide us with food and water if they were merely intending to disintegrate us."

The food he referred to consisted of a large cylindrical box packed to the rim with a cereal product that resembled coarse grayish pancakes, and to wash the unappetizing fare down they had been given about four gallons of water in a spherical can. They had also been supplied with half a dozen rugs, but they hardly needed them. The punishment cell was not far from one of the spaceship's motors, which kept it pleasantly warm. "It must be torture for a Poppean to be confined in here," Ruth remarked. "Worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta!"

The cell had not been constructed for comfort. There were no seats or beds, and presumably prisoners were expected to sit and sleep on the floor. A half-screen had the toilet facilities, which in the main consisted of a tubful of fine sandy material, and it was the Professor's guess that the Poppeans used this stuff for cleaning themselves instead of water. And there was also a looking glass, which suggested that the Poppeans, in spite of their extreme ugliness, were not without vanity.

Ruth knelt and gazed down through the porthole set in the floor. She could see the Earth's northern hemisphere as part of a huge two-dimensional disc, but there was now too much cloud hanging above its surface for her to be able to identify its oceans and land masses with any certainty. She saw them as a muddled patchwork of brown, green, blue and white, and beyond the rim of the disc she could see the moon and a great host of stars. As she watched an amazing thing happened—the Earth started to tilt and waver, shuddering at the same time, as if it were threatening to break loose from its moorings and roll off into infinite space. She felt she was going mad and nervously asked the Professor what was happening.

He looked over her shoulder for a few moments and then explained that the spaceship was turning. "And I expect that means the Yat is now fully in command once more," he said. "He's probably furious with the rebels for attempting to get away from the Earth, and now no doubt we shall return. But the question is whether we shall have enough fuel left to carry out the landing maneuver."

The escorting spaceship, which had caught up to them some time before, was still with them and now it also started to turn. "That other ship seems to know exactly what we're up to," Jim remarked, "so I guess the radio engineers have managed to patch up the equipment all right."

Both spaceships were now traveling parallel to the Earth's surface, preparing to embark upon the landing maneuver, and Ruth wondered which part of the Earth would be favored with their descent. "I suppose they'll make for Greenland or somewhere like that," she said, "which will be horrid for us. Perhaps—"

The Professor suddenly raised a hand for silence. "Listen!" he breathed. "The motors are faltering!"

There was no doubt about it. The roar of the motors, until then so steady, had now degenerated into a stuttering rumble, and the spaceship's fabric was shuddering as if caught in a violent wind. Then came four or five gigantic explosive coughs followed by silence— an absolute silence, the silence of eternity.

For some seconds no one spoke. It was as if no one liked to profane the silence's utter integrity, and each glanced at the others wondering which would have the hardihood to speak first.

At length the Professor spoke, and his voice sounded thin and unconvincing against the immensity of the silence. "Well, that's that," he said. "The fuel has run out. We don't have to ponder our fate any longer."

"What happens?" asked Ruth, faintly.

The Professor hesitated for a moment, and then decided there was no point in disguising the truth. "We shall crash," he said, briefly. "No doubt we're already falling toward the Earth, but so far our rate of fall is slow, due to the comparative weakness of gravity at this distance. Lacking the motors to break our fall, we haven't a hope of surviving the crash."

"But the parachutes?" asked Ruth.

"The only object of the parachutes," said the Professor, "is to steady the spaceship in descent. They are neither large enough nor numerous enough to take the ship's entire weight, and if they were released at this height they would either be ripped to shreds by increasing air pressure or, failing that, they would simply prolong the agony. Even so, I expect the Poppeans will try to use them."

"I hope so," said Ruth, who was too young to take quite such a gloomy view as her father.

She pressed her face against the porthole through which she could see the Earth and found it hard to believe they were falling. She kept her gaze on a dark fragment of land that might have been the southern corner of Newfoundland, and tried to decide whether or not it was growing larger; and presently, when Jim joined her, she asked him to check her observation. "We're certainly moving," she told him, "but I don't think we're falling at all."

The Professor crawled over to one of the other portholes, through which a part of the Earth's disc was also visible, and after more than a minute of silence he remarked that he was compelled to agree with Ruth. "You're quite right, my dear," he said. "We're not falling, and we appear to be traveling through the exo-sphere in an east-to-west direction, parallel with the Earth's surface. Momentum would account for—" He broke off, and Ruth could see he was excited by some new possibility dawning in his mind. He rubbed his nose, his round eyes grew rounder, then suddenly he snapped his fingers. "But of course!" he exclaimed.

"Of course what?" asked Ruth.

For some moments he was too excited to answer her. He returned his gaze to the porthole, then dragged an envelope from his pocket and hastily penciled some calculations on its back. "Yes, that's it," he muttered, as he pushed the envelope back into his pocket. "Definitely. Without a doubt."

"But what?" asked Ruth, almost beside herself with impatience.

"I think I've got it," said Jim. "We're stuck up here forever—that's it, isn't it, sir?"

The Professor glanced at him, then nodded. "Exactly," he murmured. "Yes, Jim—that's it. We're stuck up here for just as long as we live. The spaceship has become a miniature moon, held in balance between the pull of gravity and the outward thrust of centrifugal force, and it is condemned to encircle the Earth forever. Or, at least, until it eventually disintegrates under the action of the sun's rays."

Ruth was silent for some moments while she assimilated the idea, then she suddenly banged her clenched fists together with exasperation. "But it's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "There must be some way out of the predicament. Why can't the other spaceship give this one a nudge, as it were, and push it toward the Earth?"

"Well, for one thing," said the Professor, "it would be an extremely tricky maneuver and, for another, there wouldn't be any point in it. It wouldn't save us. We should simply fall to Earth and crash—without the slightest chance of survival for anyone on board."

"But at least it would be all over with," said Ruth. "It would be better than slow starvation. As it is we could last for days—weeks even—eking out the food and the water, yet all the while knowing we have no future ahead of us other than certain death."

They soon lost all count of time. No one, not even the Professor, could muster sufficient interest to keep tabs on it, and it was as much as they could do to sustain the discipline of rationed food and rationed water. All this time they were subjected to physical factors that undermined their normal optimism—the high air pressure, the comparative lack of gravity and the low diet. The hours dragged by and they no longer knew night from day in any terrestrial sense. Sometimes, when they were on the far side of the Earth, with its mass between them and the sun, they were in darkness, and sometimes the sun's hard dead light poured through the portholes, but these phases were governed by the spaceship's own rotation round the Earth rather than the Earth's rotation upon its axis, and so the terms night and day lost all vestige of meaning. They took turns to sleep, in case there should be any surprise developments, and, every eight hours by the Professor's watch, they ate a fragment of one of the coarse pancakes and drank rather less water than would fill an eggcup. Sometimes they hammered frantically on the cell's circular door, in the hope of attracting attention, but none of the Poppeans came near them, and sometimes they struggled to keep apathy at bay by playing word games and making up stories. For most of the time, however, they simply lay huddled on the floor of the cell wrapped in their rugs. Now that the motors were no longer running, the temperature had fallen nearly to freezing point, and they were glad they had sweaters and coats with them.

Their rations dwindled rapidly and alarmingly, and there came a time when the Professor had to warn the other two that there were only five pancakes left, and rather less than a quart of water. He stroked the stubble with which his round face was now covered and suggested it would be advisable for them to reduce their periodic allowances by a half.

Ruth stared at him and shook her head. "What's the point of it, Daddy?" she asked. "Sooner or later we shall starve anyway, so it might as well be sooner."

Jim nodded. "You don't think there's the slightest chance of our getting out of this, do you, sir?" he asked.

The Professor shrugged and, with visible effort, managed to smile. "There's an old and hackneyed saying," he murmured, "to the effect that while there's life there's hope. I should consider it defeatism to fail to preserve our lives for as long as we possibly can."

"Okay," muttered Jim. "You're the boss." Then, realizing that that sounded ungracious, he struggled to grin, and added, "Yes, Professor, I guess after all we've survived, we'd be crazy to throw in our hands."

Ruth agreed, too. "All right, Daddy. Half-rations, and no complaints."

It was some hours after this they discovered that the Poppeans also were not simply resigning themselves to their fate. Ruth made the discovery. She was gazing apathetically out of one of the portholes, when suddenly she stiffened and exclaimed, "Daddy, I think something's up! The escorting spaceship—it's moving in closer."

The Professor and Jim joined her at the porthole, and after a few moments agreed that the other vessel certainly appeared to be coming toward them. It had been following along in their orbit at a distance of about two hundred yards ever since their fuel ran out, traveling exactly as they were traveling, as if it were a minor satellite of the Earth, but now it had started up its motors once more. Slowly the gap between the two spaceships lessened, and, as the escort ship approached, it rose steadily until it was some hundred yards further out from the Earth than the damaged ship.

"I think its going to try and edge up to us," said Ruth, "and then somehow take the crew off. I hope to heaven they don't forget all about ml"

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Jim. "The other spaceship's turning over!"

As he spoke, he shifted to one of the other portholes to get a better view of what was happening. The escorting ship certainly looked as if it were turning over and now he could see it edgeways, with tongues of white flame streaming out from its exhaust nozzles like pale pennants against the blackness of the sky. It wheeled closer and closer until at last its outer rim touched the center part of the Yat's ship.

The two ships clashed, jarring and grating against each other and Jim was thrown onto his back by the impact. Ruth and the Professor, at the lower porthole, suffered no more damage than a severe jolt, and, as Jim scrambled to his knees, he heard the Professor telling Ruth it looked as if the Poppeans had decided to try out her original idea. "The escort ship has just shoved us out of our orbit," he said, "and now, of course, we shall fall to Earth. I imagine the Poppeans felt they couldn't put up with the suspense any longer, that it would be better to crash."

Already they could hear the wind whistling past. Jim gazed down to discover that almost the whole of the Northern Hemisphere was shrouded by clouds, brilliantly white in the sun's glare with only a few dark patches showing through here and there. He muttered to himself, "So this is it!" and yet somehow was not convinced. By now he had been living in a state of suspense for so long, with life and death as the stakes, that it had become hard to believe in either complete extinction or complete survival. He was strangely obsessed by the idea that he would continue in this state forever, eternally surviving and yet eternally frustrated.

A muffled exclamation from the Professor drew his attention back to the escorting spaceship, and he was surprised to see that it was now some two or three hundred yards to the east, and behaving oddly. It appeared to be hurtling down toward the Earth even faster than the damaged ship, and then Jim realized that all its motors were running and so were adding their thrust to the pull of gravity. Dumfounded, he saw the spaceship turn itself over as neatly as a flipped coin, and then it slid laterally across his field of vision until it was hovering in the air far below the Yat's ship and directly beneath it. In a flash the significance of this strange maneuver dawned upon him and he exclaimed aloud. "Holy cats!" he cried. "It's going to try and catch us!"

"How can it?" asked Ruth. "The collision would kill everyone on board both ships."

"Not necessarily," said the Professor. "If the commander of the other ship is sufficiently adroit I suppose it's possible he could catch us without a drastic collision, but the maneuver would require skill and judgment almost beyond the scope of human minds. He would have to keep his ship directly under ours, while dropping toward Earth at a slightly lower rate than ours. If the maneuver were carried out with absolute precision, it would be successful, but, by George, what a gamble!"

Yet it seemed it was a gamble the Poppeans were prepared to take, and, as the Yat's ship hurtled down toward the other, Jim kept his eyes glued to the porthole as if hypnotized. From his viewpoint it was more as if the other spaceship were whirling up through the air to meet the damaged ship, and at every second he expected his life to end in an appalling crash as the two ships collided. Yet the crash did not come. At first the gap between the two ships decreased with hideous rapidity, but the commander of the escort ship knew what he was about, and within a matter of seconds the gap was shrinking so slowly that Jim could not be certain it shrank at all.

"We'll make it!" cried Ruth, but Jim was not so sure. Now, with the escort ship only twenty yards beneath them he knew the climax of the maneuver was upon them and almost anything could happen. The lower ship was so close he could make out only a small part of its hull, and at the portholes he could see the faces of the Poppeans gazing anxiously upward. Suddenly they ducked away and in the same instant there came a ghastly grating sound as the upper ship touched down.

"Done it!" exclaimed Ruth, and the three of them exchanged hurried glances of relief. There was no doubt about it—one of the vast spaceships had settled upon the other in mid-air with hardly more of a jolt than would upset a glass of water, and now the fabric of the damaged ship was pulsating to the throb of the other's motors.

For a few seconds the locked ships wobbled and staggered about the sky. They were falling toward the Earth at a tremendous speed, but the commander of the lower ship kept his nerve and boosted the motors. The hulls of both ships creaked and groaned in protest, but their fall became less precipitate, and then slowed up until it seemed to Jim they were drifting rather than falling. Below them there was nothing except thick cloud, and a few moments later they plunged into it. Swirling mist streamed past the portholes, and Jim remarked he would like to know where they were likely to land.

"I think we're fairly far north," said the Professor. '1 expect the Poppeans are aiming to come down somewhere in the Arctic."

"Aiming?" murmured Jim, with a startled glance. "How do you mean?"

"I mean that the Poppeans had a free choice as to which moment they should start carrying out the maneuver we've just witnessed," said the Professor, "and, in view of their preference for a cold climate, I think it probable they chose a moment when we were over one or the other of the polar regions."

A sudden fluttering sound cut across the end of his sentence and Jim glanced through the upper porthole to discover that the spaceship had released its parachutes. They had the effect of steadying the ship's fall, and Jim murmured that he guessed they must be nearly down. "I'd hate to be in the other ship when we land," he remarked. "I mean, won't the weight of this ship crush the one underneath?"

"Possibly," said the Professor. "But perhaps the Poppeans feel that, as long as the Yat is saved, any sacrifice is worthwhile."

As he spoke, the spaceship gave a sudden lurch, and Jim swung himself back to the porthole to find that the escort ship had slid itself out from under them. Now the damaged ship was descending on its parachutes alone, and the Professor advised the others to be prepared for a fairly rough landing. "Lie on the floor,** he said, "and protect your heads with your arms. Because it's my guess we're going to hit the ground with quite a—"

The crash came before he could finish speaking and the three of them were hurled to the floor with the sounds of crumpling metal and rending fabric dinning in their ears. Momentarily it seemed as if the whole compartment would buckle under the strain and crush them, but the wrecked spaceship gave one final convulsive shudder and then was at rest.

Jim was the first to scramble to his feet. "We've landed and we re alive!" he shouted, joyously. "Are you all right, Ruth?"

"I think so," she said, faintly. "I hit my head quite a whack as I fell, but I'm all in one piece and breathing. Where's Daddy?"

"Here," said the Professor, from the farthest corner. He got up and joined them, tenderly rubbing a bruised elbow, and Ruth remarked upon how dark it was. "It's like night," she said. "What's happened?"

Jim pointed out that two of the portholes were buried, and added, as an afterthought, that the third wasn't letting in much light either. He went to it as he spoke and peered out. He could see little except a whirling storm of whiteness and then realized that outside a blizzard was raging. The spaceship had come down somewhere in the Arctic and in the few seconds that remained before the porthole finally snowed up, Jim caught a glimpse of the Poppeans as they poured from the ship's central unit. One after the other they heaved themselves from the hatches, gray bulky shadows in the Arctic gloom, and Jim could tell from the way they leaped and waved their arms that they

were in a state of considerable exhilaration, happy no doubt to be alive and happy to find themselves in surroundings so like those on Poppea. "I guess the other ship's landed somewhere nearby," he said, "and I suppose the crew of this one is going to join it. Anyway, they certainly seem happy."

"But what about us?" asked Ruth. "Surely they aren't going to leave us here to freeze and starve?"

For answer the Professor pulled off one of his shoes and started to hammer on the compartment's door with it. Ruth and Jim followed suit, but, although they made a great deal of noise, none of the Poppeans came near them.

"It's no good," said the Professor, when they had been knocking without pause for nearly a quarter of an hour. "They must have all gone by now."

He sat down on the floor to replace his shoe, and Ruth asked him anxiously what happened next. He shook his head and shrugged, and the three of them exchanged worried glances. There was no future now. They were condemned to starve to death, trapped in a cold dark prison, and, as they thought of it, the silence suddenly seemed to intensify a hundredfold. The only sound was the eerie whistling of the wind in the spaceship's fabric, and Jim found himself wishing they had all died in the crash. . . .

CkaptCt 12 Official Broadcast

r\ RTHTJR BOOTIIWAITE awoke to the sound of running j water and then, opening his eyes, discovered he 11 was lying in a puddle. He sat up with a jerk and looked about him in bewilderment. Still not properly awake, he could not for the life of him think what he was doing sitting in a puddle on the floor of a strange kitchen. He shook his head confusedly and tried to rub his eyes. Then he discovered he was wearing a gas mask and in a flash it all came back to him-—the Poppean invasion, the white dust, his attempts to broadcast to America, and the drive to Hampstead.

He got shakily to his feet and steadied himself against the kitchen table. The cold tap was still running and water was overflowing from the sink onto the floor. In fact, the kitchen was awash, and Booth-waite hurriedly went to the sink and turned off the tap. Then he noticed that the fine dust that covered the drainboard, the window sill and every other surface had totally changed in appearance. It was no longer white and powdery, but had turned green and now had the look of something curdled. It made Boothwaite think of decay and putrescence, and he had the idea that the bacteria composing the dust had all died a long time since. Gingerly he pulled off the

gas mask and drew a deep breath. He did so with some anxiety, half-expecting to lose consciousness again, but nothing of the sort happened. The Poppean dust had lost its potency.

He had waked up with an appalling thirst, and he greedily drank three cupfuls of water. He was also extremely hungry, but before he looked around for some food, he went into the front room to see how the Shannons were, and found they were still unconscious. He was not surprised. They, after all, had breathed much more of the dust than he had, and they had breathed it for a much longer period. He thought it likely they would remain unconscious for some hours yet.

He went back into the kitchen to look for some food. There was a loaf of bread in the bread bin, and when he cut it he found it was dry and stale. He decided it was at least four days old and fell to wondering just how long he had lain in a coma on the kitchen floor, then realized there was no way of telling. What he wanted, he told himself, was to come upon a clock that told the date as well as the time. Failing that, there was no way of finding what day of the month it was or even what day of the week.

By the time he had eaten several slices of bread, butter and marmalade and had made himself a cup of tea, he began to feel better. Then he went upstairs to look for a change of clothes, since his own were wet through. He found an old suit of tweeds that presumably belonged to his unconscious host and tried it on. It fitted him only approximately and when he glanced at himself in the long glass, it was as much as he could do to repress a shudder. Anyone except an archaeologist would have given the suit to a scarecrow years before, and, as Boothwaite eyed himself in the glass, his opinion of scientists, never high, plumbed fresh depths. He noticed also he had at least four days' growth of beard, and so went into the bathroom and shaved.

Before he left the house he wrote an explanatory note for the Shannons and left it on the mantelpiece where they would see it. Outside, rain was oozing steadily from a leaden sky and Boothwaite borrowed a mackintosh from the hall-stand. The rain had turned the Poppean dust into a green glutinous slime that lay on the sidewalks and roadway like duckweed on stagnant water, and, as Boothwaite climbed into his borrowed car, he reflected it would take days to get London looking decent again. He coasted slowly down the hill and, keeping a wary eye out for stray Poppeans, decided to head for the West End. He had a vague idea that he ought to go to Downing Street and wait for the Prime Minister to recover. After all, he knew more of what had happened than anyone else, and it was his duty to report upon how he had warned the Western Hemisphere.

He pulled up outside Belsize Park subway station to rescue an unconscious policeman from the rain. The policeman was lying on the pavement with his head in the gutter, and Boothwaite, who had an ingrained respect for law and order, felt he couldn't just leave him there to get wetter than he already was. He was a particularly fat policeman and the effort of dragging him into the shelter of the station nearly killed Boothwaite, but he managed it and then retrieved the man's helmet, emptied the rain water out of it and carefully placed it on its owner's chest.

He was about to get back into the car when he heard a steady roaring sound from above and glanced up. Dark objects were scudding low through the clouds and after a moment or two he realized they were spaceships. There were about twenty of them, flying north, and at first Boothwaite suspected them of spreading a fresh dose of the white dust. He wished fervently he had had the sense to bring the gas mask with him, and watched the spaceships anxiously until they were swallowed by the clouds. However, his fears were unjustified. No dust fell, and after a few minutes he climbed back into the car and drove off.

It was like driving through a city of the dead. He saw no one and expected to see no one and when, as he coasted down Camden High Street, he was hailed by a sudden shout of "Hey!" he was so startled his hair quite literally stood on end. He jammed on the brakes and looked nervously about him. The street seemed utterly deserted and he was on the verge of persuading himself that he had imagined the shout, when a tall man wearing a transparent mackintosh and a waterproof hat emerged from a shop doorway and lounged across the pavement toward him.

The tall man, Boothwaite decided, was not English, or, at least, if he were English, then he had spent most of his life abroad. His face was as brown as a walnut, his blue eyes looked as if they were accustomed to scanning wider horizons than London can afford and when he spoke it was difficult to say whether his accents reminded Boothwaite most of Australia or Texas. "Hullo, brother," he drawled. "How come you're not hots de combat?"

"Well, actually, at the time of the invasion, I was wearing a gas mask," said Boothwaite. "And you?"

The tall man shrugged. "Can't figure it out myself," he said, and opened the car door. "Mind if I get in?"

"No, of course not," said Boothwaite. "But I can't think how you managed to avoid unconsciousness."

"Just one of those things," said the tall man, as he got into the car. "Could be that I'm sort of immune. You see, I've spent most of my life in hot countries, and I guess I've had about half the tropical diseases there are. So maybe one of them sort of inoculated me against the Poppean stuff. Even so, I had to fight not to go under."

"Where were you when they invaded?" asked Boothwaite, letting the car roll forward once more.

"Just sitting in my hotel bedroom listening to the radio. The radio flaked out after a time, so I went down to the vestibule to see what was happening. There I found everybody asleep—the manager, the reception clerk and two waiters. Truth to tell I was feeling sort of strange myself, and I haven't any clear notion of just what I did next. I think I took a walk and certainly I remember seeing some of those Poppeans loping down Piccadilly as if the town belonged to them. I had the sense to keep out of their way, and later on I remember breaking into a grocery store to get something to eat. I fell asleep several times, but I always came to again, and this morning when I woke up I knew I was going to be all right, that I'd beaten the Poppean stuff for good, if you get me. I was wandering around, figuring out what to do next, when you came along."

His name, he told Boothwaite, was Jason Clarke and he remarked he was in England for the first time in twenty years. "Only got in from Mexico City two days before the invasion," he said, "but that's the way it goes—never can take a vacation but what something happens. Anyway, where are we heading for now?"

"Downing Street," said Boothwaite. "I want to be with the Prime Minister when he comes round so that I can tell him what's been happening. And I want to tell him what's become of Professor Elrick."

"Okay," said Clarke, "but maybe we could go via Regent's Park? I want to see if those spaceships are still there. They were there early this morning when I came by, but I've a hunch they'll be taking off soon."

"Why?"^

"Couldn't say exactly, but you can take it from me those Poppeans are on the move. Since early today three formations of spaceships have passed over this town, all heading north."

"I saw one of them," said Boothwaite. "What do you think it means?"

"I don't know, but it could mean total evacuation. Maybe after all we're going to be allowed to run our own planet in our own way."

"But why should they go?" asked Boothwaite.

Once more Jason Clarke admitted he didn't know, but said that perhaps the Poppeans just didn't like the Earth. "From all I've heard about Poppea," he said, "I gather it's fairly different from the Earth. It could be they're finding it too hot for them."

He had hardly finished speaking when a sudden blast of sound shook the air and they both glanced out of the side window to see a spaceship rising behind the houses in the direction of Regent's Park. It was followed by four others, and all five of them ascended almost vertically into the sky until they vanished into the low banks of clouds. Boothwaite and Clarke watched for several seconds longer and caught one final glimpse of the ships through a break in the clouds. Now they were in arrow formation, speeding toward the north.

"It certainly looks to me as if they're withdrawing," murmured Clarke. "I can think of no other explanation."

Boothwaite did not reply as his attention was taken up by another matter. A dazed and frightened dog suddenly appeared in front of the car and he had to swerve to avoid it. It was a spaniel and as the car skidded past it broke into a frenzy of hysterical yapping. Clarke watched it through the back window until it was out of sight and remarked that it didn't seem to know where it was. "I guess it's only just come to," he drawled. "And if the dogs are recovering, so, I expect, are the people."

He was right and at the next corner they passed a group of three street cleaners, all of them looking damp, bewildered and thoroughly miserable. One of the men waved, but, although Boothwaite waved back, he did not stop the car. He felt that if he didn't get to Downing Street quickly, before more people recovered, his chances of seeing the Prime Minister would be slight. Already, bewildered householders, some in dressing gowns and some fully dressed, were appearing at the doors of their houses, and, as the car sped down the Tottenham Court Road, it overtook at least a score of pedestrians making their way, presumably, toward Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament. "At least, that's where I should make for," said Boothwaite, "if I'd found myself waking up in an inexplicably changed world."

Naturally there were no traffic fights working and this fact all but involved them in total disaster. Booth-waite raced across St. Giles' Circus without slowing down for an instant and at the same moment a taxi emerged from Oxford Street. Both drivers jammed on their brakes, but they acted too late to prevent a crash, and the radiator of Boothwaite's car came into violent collision with the taxi's front wheel and mudguard.

The taxi driver gazed witheringly at Boothwaite and then climbed from his seat with ominous deliberation. "You perishing Poppean, you!" he said, as Boothwaite also got out of his car. "What's your name and where do you live?"

Boothwaite apologized hastily. He pleaded exceptional circumstances and touched upon the absence of traffic lights, but the taxi driver refused to be mollified. "That's all very well," he said, "but I'm a badly used man, I am. Haven't had a bite to eat for heaven knows how many days, and now, just when I'm on my way home to get some grub, this has to happen. And know what? I had a fare when those Poppeans dropped their perishing powder—a bloke what I was driving home from a party—and of course he passed out as soon as he breathed that perishing powder, the same as I did, and ten minutes ago I woke up and what do I find? Why, that he's woke up first and has cleared off—yus, with eighteen quid, eleven shillings on the clock. How am I going to explain that lot to the boss, eh?"

"Well, surely, in the circumstances—"

"Circumstances be blowed!" snapped the taxi driver. "You've got circumstances on the brain, you have. You don't look where you're going and that's circumstances. You run slap into my cab and that's circumstances.

Strewth, if I had any sense, I'd circumstance your head off. Yus, I would."

For some seconds he glowered at Boothwaite ferociously, then, quite suddenly, his fury evaporated. He turned from Boothwaite as from something beneath contempt, stared moodily at his damaged mudguard, then climbed into his cab and drove off without another word.

There was no doubt Booth wait e's car had had the worst of the encounter. In fact, with its leaking radiator and buckled wheel, it was too badly damaged to be driven, and Boothwaite remarked to Clarke that they would have to walk the rest of the way. "By now I don't suppose I've got an earthly chance of seeing the Prime Minister," he said, "but I feel that at least I must make the attempt."

Clarke agreed with him and together they set off down the Charing Cross Road, and by the time they arrived in Whitehall, Boothwaite could see his task was just as hopeless as he had imagined it would be. Downing Street and the lower part of Whitehall were choked solid with people, and although Boothwaite and Clarke pushed and elbowed their way deep into the crowd they were not able to get within a hundred yards of No. 10. The numerous umbrellas made progress particularly difficult and finally Boothwaite threw in his hand. "I'm afraid we shan't make it," he told Clarke. "And now I suppose we're stuck here for the day."

Clarke agreed that it looked like it. "They say a Cabinet meeting's been called," he remarked. "So maybe later on they'll make some sort of an announcement."

He was right, but they had to wait more than an hour in the teeming rain before the announcement was made. Then the door of No. 10 opened and the Prime Minister himself stepped out, attended by a young private secretary who held an umbrella over him. Smiling blandly, the Prime Minister waited patiently for the cheering to cease and somehow managed to convey that he alone was responsible for the deliverance of the British Isles from the Poppean invasion. Finally, he held up a hand for silence and spoke briefly. "Well, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "as you all know, the Poppean invaders have withdrawn. Their hideous spaceships no longer disfigure our parks and fields, and the poisonous dust with which they sought to incapacitate us has dispersed. Certain radio stations in other parts of the world—in Europe and in Asia-have resumed transmission and their messages have been picked up by our technicians using locally powered receiving sets. They all tell the same story— that the Poppeans have retreated. Whither they have gone cannot yet be said for certain, but the probability is that they have left our planet altogether. Yes, the probability is they found the conditions on this planet totally unsuitable for them and so decided not to stay. Consequently, the mood in which I address you this morning is one of tempered optimism. It is my opinion, and that of my colleagues in the Cabinet, that the Poppeans have left us for good, and now it is the duty of us all to set to with a will and get the world back into running order. . . ."

The rest of his speech consisted of platitudes, and Boothwaite let his thoughts wander. He was conscious of feeling vaguely disappointed and dissatisfied. He had had his hour of glory. Only a short time before he had been the most important man in England, but

now he was just a nobody once more, just one of the crowd. No doubt when the newspapers resumed publication he would be interviewed and feted to some extent, but inevitably the tale of his adventures would be overshadowed by that of Professor Elrick and his companions—if they were still alive. And he fell to wondering what had become of them. . . .

ChaptCr IS Plans forEscape

I

HE DARKNESS was absolute. The only glimmer of hght in the compartment was the luminous dial of Professor Elrick's watch, strapped to Jim's wrist. He was wearing it because it was his spell of duty, and he still had more than an hour to go. Ruth and the Professor were asleep, huddled under their rugs in the corner, and alternately Jim breathed on his hands in his struggle to keep warm and bit his fingers in his struggle to keep awake. His senses were numbed to everything except hunger, thirst and the cold, and when presently the subdued howling of the blizzard ceased altogether some time elapsed before he became conscious of it. Then he shook his head free of the rug and sat for some moments listening. There was no doubt about it. The wind had dropped and now nothing broke the silence except the Professor's faint snore and the ticking of the wrist watch.

Jim gathered his rugs about him and got to his feet. They had been waiting for this moment virtually ever since the Poppeans had abandoned the wrecked spaceship—or, at least, ever since they had decided that to force the compartment's heavy circular door was beyond their powers. Once the door was ruled out their thoughts had turned to the upper porthole, and their

spirits had lifted considerably when they had discovered that the porthole's glass was cracked right across. Jim had been all for trying to knock the glass out there and then, but the Professor had restrained him. "Well have to wait till the blizzard blows itself out," he had said. "Otherwise we'll simply make conditions worse for ourselves, without being sure that we're any further ahead."

Now Jim took out his cigarette lighter and struck a flame. He went over to the porthole and, taking off his shoe, started hammering at the cracked glass. Ruth stirred in her sleep, and the Professor woke up and asked Jim what he was doing.

Jim explained, and the Professor got up and came over to him. He watched Jim hammer away at the glass for a few seconds, then shook his head. "You won't do it like that, Jim," he said. "The glass is too thick. Try running the flame of your lighter along the crack, and see if that does any good. Mind your eyes, though."

Jim followed his suggestion and the results were curious. Almost as soon as he put the flame to the "glass" it began to snap and bubble and, startled, he hastily withdrew the lighter. "Gee, it isn't glass at all," he muttered.

"It certainly isn't. Try again and see what happens."

Jim raised the flame once more and almost immediately the snapping and bubbling were resumed. Wisps of black smoke coiled downward from the porthole, then came a sudden sharp explosion and Jim backed away hurriedly. Fragments of the unknown substance clattered to the floor, followed by a small avalanche of snow and a swirling rush of icy air.

By this time Ruth was awake. She wrapped herself in her rugs and joined her father, who, by the pale light filtering down through the porthole, was watching Jim knock away the jagged edges with his shoe.

There was one aspect of the matter that had escaped the Professor's notice, but which Ruth put her finger on at once. "Daddy, that's all very well," she said, "but you'll never be able to squeeze yourself through that porthole. It's all right for Jim and it's all right for me, but, darling, you're simply too fat."

Her father told her sharply she was talking nonsense. "You're conjuring up difficulties where none exist," he informed her. "Anyone looks fat wrapped in a couple of rugs."

By now Jim had succeeded in getting his head and shoulders through the porthole. The snow lay deep around him and he had to knock it away with his arms before he emerged into the gray Arctic daylight. A thin wind blew and any experience he had had of cold before was nothing to that which assailed him now. His eyes, his teeth, and all the bones of his head ached with the cold and for that reason he made his reconnaissance brief. The damaged spaceship had landed on high ground and he found himself looking down upon a flat featureless landscape that stretched as far as the eye could see. And in the middle distance, perhaps a mile away, were grounded spaceships, thousands of them with others still joining them, descending from the skies.

Jim noticed that the ships were of two sorts. Some were shaped like wheels and were of the type he was already familiar with, but there were others which were solid discs and he guessed these were the ones that Kluss had mentioned, the passenger ships that had brought the women and children.

So intense was the cold he could wait to see no more and withdrew hurriedly. "It looks to me as if the Yat has summoned all the spaceships," he told the Professor. "The whole fleet seems to be here, and I think they're making some sort of a camp."

"Let me have a look," said Ruth, eagerly, and Jim helped her to scramble up through the narrow porthole.

While Ruth was making her survey, the Professor asked Jim if the Poppeans had left open any of the hatches leading into the ship's center unit.

"I guess so," said Jim, "although I didn't notice any. But then, you see, the whole ship's buried under about three feet of snow."

"If only we can get into the center unit," said the Professor, "there's a chance that we shall be able to build a transmitter after all, and then we can make contact with Europe or the States."

"Build a transmitter?" echoed Jim. "But, sir, we haven't any light to work by. Nor any heat either."

"We'll use our ingenuity," said the Professor, and, as he spoke, Ruth climbed back into the compartment.

"Jim's right," she said. "They're building a base. They've cleared all the snow from a large area and now they are using small mechanical excavators to dig holes and tunnels. And I think I've seen some Poppean women, but at this distance they don't look so very different from the men. I wish we had some field glasses."

When the Professor tried to squeeze through the porthole, Ruth's prediction proved to be only too true. Whatever he did he could not get more than his head and shoulders through the opening, and in his efforts to get out he became stuck. He yelled to Jim and

Ruth to pull on his legs, and between them they managed to get him back into the compartment.

"Well, that's that," he muttered, looking ruffled and embarrassed. "You two will have to make your way to the center unit and then see if you can open the compartment door from the other side. If you can't, I'm here for life!"

All the next part of the adventure proved to be dull, unpleasant and arduous, and by the time the short Arctic day faded they felt they had not achieved much. First, Jim and Ruth floundered through the deep snow to the ship's center unit and found, as they had expected, that the Poppeans had left the hatches open. Then, as soon as they had entered the ship, they made their way back to the outer rim from the inside and examined the door of the compartment in which the Professor was still confined. The investigation took some time, since they had no light other than the flame of Jim's cigarette lighter, and the results were negative. They could not get the door open and it was clear they would never get it open without a key.

They spent the rest of the day in replenishing their stocks of food and water, and in doing all they could to increase the comfort of their compartment. They collected a great many rugs and stuffed them through the open porthole, but none of them could think of any way of producing artificial heat. Jim tested virtually every substance on board the spaceship with his lighter, but there appeared to be nothing that would burn and so they had to resign themselves to going without a fire.

"I'm not sure," said the Professor, "that our best plan wouldn't be to throw ourselves on the mercy of the

Poppeans. We might as well face the fact that our present position is really fairly hopeless."

"Yes, Daddy," said Ruth, "but if we remind the Poppeans of our existence they'll probably just exterminate us. In fact, I think we're only still alive by default. They forgot about us."

The Professor appealed to Jim for his opinion and found that he was as much against an immediate surrender as Ruth was. "After all," he said, "that's something we can always do. So meanwhile let us at least have a shot at establishing radio communication with the rest of the world. If our governments knew we were here they'd send a relief force, wouldn't they?"

"Presumably," agreed the Professor, "but you must remember, Jim, that we don't know in the least what's happening in the world. We don't even know whether the effects of the white dust have yet worn off, and, what's more, I suppose it is just possible that the Poppeans have done what Kluss hinted they might do —yes, it's possible that they've exterminated the whole population!"

Jim whistled softly, then shook his head. "No, I guess they haven't done that," he said, "and I'm darned if I think we should just give ourselves up. If there's one thing I hate the idea of, it's disintegration!"

There appeared to be no way out of the dilemma, and the stalemate, in conjunction with the intense cold and the lack of proper food, affected their morale adversely. None of them slept much that night and when in the morning Jim's lighter refused to work, their spirits sank to zero. "Okay," said Jim. "That's the last straw. I guess there's nothing for it now but surrender."

"No," said Ruth, firmly. "I'm going to stick it out. I won't surrender! I'd sooner starve than be disintegrated."

"It's quite possible they won't disintegrate us," said the Professor. "In fact, Ruth, I seriously think the best plan is for you and Jim to go to the Poppeans and give yourselves up. And tell them to send someone up here to get me out."

Ruth was adamant. "If Jim wants to go by himself," she said, "that's his business, but I'm staying here. And if any Poppeans come up here I shall hide. I wont give in, and I'm disgusted at you two men for even considering it."

The Professor laughed uneasily. "Well, Jim, that rather puts us in our place, doesn't it?" he said. "I think we'd better let her have her way, don't you?"

"I guess so," murmured Jim. "Then—no surrender. But I sure would like to know how the whole thing's going to end. If we stay here perhaps we never shall."

Later on, he and Ruth wrapped themselves in rugs so thoroughly that only their eyes were visible and climbed out of the compartment to survey the Pop-pean camp. The creatures were digging themselves in with a vengeance. Jim counted no fewer than 183 mechanical excavators at work, and others were in process of being assembled.

The whole area swarmed with Poppeans bustling hither and thither like so many ants, and the intense cold seemed to mean nothing to them. They wore the same simple tunic-like garments they had worn on the spaceship and none of them had any sort of hat or head-covering. Most of the men were shoveling snow with huge paddle-shaped shovels, while the women, distinguishable by their slighter figures and longer limbs, busied themselves with unloading stores from the spaceships. In all their tasks, terrestrial gravity was greatly in the Poppeans favor, and the amount of work they got through during the half-hour that Jim and Ruth watched was astounding.

Suddenly something untoward caught Ruth's eye and she nudged Jim excitedly. "Look, Jim, over there on the extreme left of the camp!" she exclaimed. "No, further still to the left. See, there re two—oh, heck, now they've disappeared."

"What?" asked Jim, considerably puzzled.

Ruth explained breathlessly that she had caught sight of two indeterminate figures—"bundled up in rugs just as we are"—creeping through the snowbanks away from the camp. "They seemed anxious not to be seen," she said, "and the point is—they weren't Poppeans! I'm sure they weren't!"

"Then what-?"

"Humans, Jim! I'm certain of it!"

He stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. "Humans?" he muttered. "They can't have been!"

"You wouldn't think so, but— Look, there they are!"

She pointed again, and then Jim saw the two strange figures. They were now some way from the camp, struggling through the deep snow at the foot of the slope that led up to the damaged spaceship.

"You're right," said Jim. "They're not Poppeans." They moved too heavily and, as Ruth had suggested, they were so wrapped up in rugs they looked more like animated bundles than living creatures. Their breath condensed on the cold air, and once or twice they glanced up at the crest of the slope as if that was their destination.

"They're coming up here," said Ruth. "Let's go and meet them!"

"All right, but we'd better see what your father has to say about it."

The Professor was incredulous. He gazed up owl-ishly through the porthole and shook his head. "Nonsense, Jim," he said. "You two must be suffering from snow delirium, or something. How could there be any human beings in the Poppean camp?"

"Search me," said Jim, "but I'll swear we're not making a mistake. Anyway, may Ruth and I go and meet them?"

"Of course, but don't blame me if, when you approach them, they disappear into thin air. They're probably a couple of Abominable Snowmen."

Jim laughed and went back to Ruth. The two strangers were no longer visible, and Ruth explained that they were hidden from sight behind a ridge of snow. "The slope is particularly tricky at that point," she said, "and when I last saw them they were crawling on hands and knees. Coming?"

Jim nodded and they started off into the soft powdery snow, at once sinking in it up to the knees so that it took them the best part of ten minutes to reach the brow of the slope. Then, below them, and not more than a hundred yards away, they could see the two strangers struggling upward.

Jim shouted a greeting and the leading man looked up in astonishment, then waved. He turned to his companion and pointed, and Ruth glanced at him. "They're certainly human beings," she said. "Eskimos, do you think?"

"I don't know," said Jim. "Let's go meet them."

"Yes," said Ruth, hurrying forward. She floundered down the slope as fast as she could go, while Jim followed rather more cautiously.

As Ruth neared the leading stranger, he loosened the scarf that was wound around the lower part of his face, and then startled her by greeting her in English. "Hullo, there," he said, grinning. "Miss Elrick?"

"Yes," said Ruth. "But who are you?"

The man laughed and repeated his greeting as Jim came up. "I'm Captain John Whicher of the U. S. Air Force," he explained. "And this is Sergeant Baker-Chips Baker to his pals."

"But—but where do you come from?" asked Ruth.

"Chattanooga," said Sergeant Baker, who, it seemed, was a man with a literal mind.

"No, I mean—"

Captain Whicher laughed again. "I guess we know what you mean, Miss Elrick," he said, "but let's get out of sight of the camp and then we can talk."

Jim led the way back to the spaceship, and climbed down through the porthole ahead of the others. "Well, we met up with the Abominable Snowmen," he told the Professor, "and they're coming right in—"

He broke off as Captain Whicher appeared at the porthole, and helped him to climb down into the compartment. The Captain was followed by Chips Baker and then by Ruth, and Jim introduced his compatriots to the Professor.

The Professor shook hands with them, and asked them how they had come to be with the Poppeans.

"Well, I guess we were sort of prisoners of war," said Whicher, sitting down. "You see, Chips and I were in one of the planes that attacked the spaceships over the Atlantic, and we got shot down—or it would be more accurate to say that our plane simply dispersed in mid-air."

"We know what you mean," said Jim. "In fact, we had a close-up view of the whole proceedings. But I still don t see how—"

"I do!" cried Ruth, interrupting him. "You baled out and then later you were picked up by the spaceship that stayed behind. That's what happened, isn't it?"

Whicher nodded. He was a tall, loose-limbed young man with a tanned leathery face and the steadiest gray eyes that Ruth had ever seen. "Yes, that's what happened," he said, "and, as a matter of fact, the Poppeans picked up more than a dozen of us, but we were the only two that stuck."

Ruth stared at him in dismay. "Then what became of the others?" she asked. "They—they weren't disintegrated?"

*- Captain Whicher grinned and shook his head. "No, nothing like that," he said. "They were taken off by a ship, but Chips and I weren't so lucky. You see, after we baled out we just floated around on the water hoping for the best and expecting the worst, and it sure was a surprise to us when that spaceship alighted and started rescuing people. Naturally, they saved the Poppeans first, but when they'd got all them on board, they started in on us. Chips and I happened to be the first of the Americans to be rescued, and then they lined us up in the spaceship's rim with the rescued Poppeans to await our turn in the decompression chamber. Several of the Poppeans knew a little English and they let us know what was happening, and presently a cargo ship hove in sight steaming toward the wrecked spaceship. Our senior officer, Major Shaw, tried to persuade the Poppeans to let us all get back into the water so we could be picked up by the ship, and while they were arguing about it Chips and I were hustled off into the decompression chamber— and, well, we missed the boat."

"Sure did," said Chips. "When we came out of that decompression chamber the argument had been settled in Major Shaw's favor and the spaceship had taken off. And we've been on it ever since."

"I see," said the Professor. "And how did you come to hear about us?"

"From the Poppeans," said Whicher. "Yes, we got along all right with the Poppeans, and they more or less gave us the run of the ship. You see, it was this way—the spaceship had wrecked one of its motors when it landed on the ocean, and, after we were picked up, it was ordered to a sort of temporary base in Southern Greenland for repairs. As a matter of fact, they had established a regular sort of city down there in the snow, and all the Poppean women were there, together with all the spaceships they had come in. Little by little we learned about you, and the way we heard it was that you'd commandeered the Yat's spaceship. No one knew precisely what was happening, but presently we were told that the Yat's ship had landed safely somewhere in the North and that all the other spaceships had had orders to assemble in the vicinity. None of the Poppeans could tell us for a certainty whether or not you were still alive, and when Chips and I got here and found no sign of you we were considerably worried. And, say, are things in a frenzy down there! I guess you've seen something of the way they're working on that camp and, gee, we couldn't get anyone to spare us a moment. That's right, isn't it, Chips?"

"Sure is," drawled the man from Chattanooga. "We thought maybe you'd been disposed of some way or other, but in the end we did get to talk to a couple of guys off the Yat's spaceship, and they told us the guy we should see was a cuss named Kluss—"

Ruth grimaced sourly, and Chips glanced at her. "You know him, do you?" he said.

"Yes, I know him," said Ruth, smiling, "and I don't like him."

Captain Whicher nodded, and remarked that he and Chips didn't like him either. "At first he'd hardly speak to us at all," he said, "and then he told us offhandedly that he just didn't know what had become of you— told us you'd probably been killed in the crash, and he said it as if he thought it would've been a good thing, too. Well, anyway, Chips and I talked it over and in the end we decided to come up here and see for ourselves. And here we are!"

"Good," said the Professor, "and I'm only sorry we can't celebrate the occasion. But, as you no doubt know, Poppean fare isn't exactly festive."

"You're telling us!" sighed Chips. "We've had nothing else for a week, and, oh boy, what I could do to a plateful of fried chicken right now!"

He grinned ruefully, and rubbed his stomach. He had a plump, amusing face with an upturned nose and dark curly hair, and, of the five people in the compartment, he looked the least concerned. In fact, he looked almost as if he enjoyed being marooned in the Arctic some thousands of miles from civilization.

There was silence for some moments, then Whicher said: "And now I suppose the question is where do we go from here?" He turned to the Professor. "Have you any ideas, sir?"

The Professor told him that the general intention was to build a wireless transmitter, but that there were obstacles in the way. "For instance, we have no heat, no light, and no power," he said, "and, to add to the difficulties, I seem to be confined to this compartment for life!"

Ruth giggled. "He's too fat to go through the porthole," she explained, and her father turned on her fiercely.

"Nonsense," he said. "It's not that I'm too fat—I'm not fat at all—it's simply that the porthole's too small! But, Captain Whicher—let's hear what you've got to say."

"Well, I don't know," said Whicher, "but I somehow don't feel things are as hopeless as they look. You see, while Chips and I were on the spaceship, we were allowed a pretty free run and naturally, as airmen, we took quite an interest. And then later we watched them repairing the damaged motor, and one way and another, we learned quite a lot. For instance," he rapped the bulkhead with his knuckles, "this stuff isn't metal, you know. As far as we can gather, it's some sort of compressed mineral, and to cut it they use a tool like a blowtorch—and, gee, does it cut it! It goes through it like a hot knife through butter!"

"Sure does," murmured Chips, "and we know where they keep those blowtorches, and all the other tools, don't we, Captain? And they've got dynamos, too-small ones for the light supply—that aren't so very different from any other dynamos. Oh, I guess we can get something fixed up."

"And motors?" asked Jim.

"Naturally," said Whicher, "and in principle, they're not so very different from diesels. We'll be able to get them to go, all right."

"Then what do they use for fuel?" asked the Professor.

"Why, they burn the same sort of fuel as the main motors—" began Whicher, then his jaw dropped and he interrupted himself to say: "Oh, heck, I was forgetting—the ship's out of fuel, isn't she?"

The Professor nodded, and for some minutes the problem of power to work the dynamos held them, until Chips suddenly slapped his knee and exclaimed: "I've got it—manpower I Let's build us a treadle-operated generator and take turns to work it!"

Jim seconded the idea with enthusiasm, and Captain Whicher nodded his approval. "I guess that will serve," he murmured. "What say you, Professor?"

"No reason at all why it shouldn't," agreed the Professor. "So the program is first to find the blowtorches and cut me out of here, and then we'll all of us set to work to build the treadle generator—"

"Chip's a trained mechanic," Whicher put in, "so maybe we'd better have him in charge of that."

"Fine," said Professor Elrick. "Then once the generator is functioning and we've got a light supply again, well start work on the transmitter. Agreed?"

"Swell," said Whicher, jumping up. "Then let's get busy!"

Chapter 14

Caught by a Monster

THE BUSINESS of getting the Professor out of the com-I partment did not take long, then he and Captain I Whicher wired up the communications chamber for I light and power. Chips, helped by Jim and Ruth, built the treadle generator immediately outside the door of the communications chamber, hauling the dynamo thither from the spaceship's rim, together with certain parts of one of the motors—a crankshaft, a flywheel and two sets of bearings.

The darkness was only relieved by a little daylight filtering down from the portholes, but, in spite of that, work went smoothly and by the end of the day the generator was a practicality. The machine in its finished form was rather more elaborate than Chips's original conception, and, on Captain Whicher's suggestion, he had provided it with four treadles to be operated by two people sitting facing each other.

"Here goes," said Chips, as he sat himself astride one of the generator's two seats. "Jim, you take the other side and treadle for dear life. You and I are going to get hot for the first time in a week!"

Jim grinned and sat down, placing a foot on each of the two remaining treadles. "Okay," he murmured. "All set?"

"Sure," said Chips, and Captain Whicher, to give them a start, put his hand on the flywheel and swung

it. Jim and Chips treadled away desperately, and slowly the dynamo came up to speed.

Jim's eyes were on the light bulb immediately above his head and within a minute he saw that his efforts were being rewarded. "Gee, it works!" he exclaimed. "Look, the filament's starting to glow red."

"Sure has," muttered Chips, who was already a little breathless. "We're a success!"

The light grew in intensity, changing from red to yellow, and then to white, and by then all the fights in the communications chamber were burning steadily.

"Fine!" gasped Chips. "The only thing that worries me is how long we can keep it up."

"For hours," said Jim, but he wasn't as confident as he sounded. It was hard work treadling that generator, and already he was sweating profusely. His heart was thumping like a triphammer and during the next few minutes he discarded, first, his scarf, then one of his pull-overs and finally his gloves.

Now that the generator was in going order, everyone began to feel the effects of the day's exertions. They had been at it for fourteen hours almost without a break, with nothing to eat except a few Poppean pancakes and biscuits. Ruth was yawning almost continuously and presently the Professor suggested they call it a day. "And then tomorrow," he said, "we'll make an early start on the transmitter."

Ruth, Jim and Chips ate a sketchy meal and turned in, but the Professor and Captain Whicher sat up for some time longer and worked out a schedule for the following day.

"Well, whatever else we decide," said Captain Whicher, "you, Professor, must be in charge of the building of the transmitter. You know more about radio matters than all the rest of us put together. That being so, I think it'd be a mistake for you to take any turns on the treadle generator."

The Professor demurred vigorously. "Nonsense!" he snorted. "I'll take my turn like everyone else and—"

Captain Whicher interrupted him with a gesture. "No, no, wait a minute," he said. "The main consideration is speed. We want the relief forces to be here before the Poppeans finish getting themselves dug in. Agreed?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Then in that case we don't want to keep swapping horses in midstream, so let's say that you take full charge of the building of the transmitter, and each one of us will act as your assistant in turn. That will leave two to work the treadle generator, while the fifth member of the party takes a rest."

It wasn't easy to ignore the common sense of this proposal, and in the end the Professor agreed to it, although with some reluctance. It was upon that basis they drew up the schedule for the following day's work.

Six hours' sleep was all anyone was allowed that night, but when the Captain woke each of his companions in turn, none of them grumbled. "Today's the day," he told them. "And if we get as far ahead with the transmitter today as we did with the generator, we'll sure be going places!"

He handed round biscuits and then explained what their duties would be. "The Professor is going to make a start on the transmitter right away," he said, with a glance at his notes, "and Jim will assist him. Chips and myself will work the generator, and, as for you, Ruth, you can have an extra half-hour in bed."

"But I'm wide awake now!" said Ruth.

"Fine. Then maybe it would be a good idea if you took a look at the Poppean camp to see if there's anything to report. But whatever you do don't forget to relieve Chips on the generator in half-an-hour's time."

Professor Elrick had already left the compartment, and now Jim went after him, followed by the other two. Ruth, left alone, wrapped herself up, then dragged away the rugs that had been used to plug the uppermost porthole. Cold air and some dislodged snow swirled down into the compartment, and, looking up, Ruth could see a calm sky of such a pale-gray as to be almost white.

She climbed out of the compartment and, clutching the rugs tightly around her, surveyed the scene. Light snow had fallen during the night, but the morning promised to be fine and she had a clear view of the Poppean camp. She shaded her eyes against the glare of the snow and was surprised to see that the cleared area was almost deserted. The mechanical excavators had gone, and no further excavation was taking place, and those few Poppeans that were about were all wearing breathing apparatus which Ruth was sure had not been the case the previous day. Another curious fact was that all the spaceships now had their hatches closed.

She stood there for perhaps a minute trying to think of some explanation, then decided the change that had taken place was sufficiently momentous to be reported right away. It could be, she told herself, that the whole fleet was preparing to take off!

She turned and, floundering back through the snow, re-entered the spaceship by one of the open hatches. Electric light burned brightly in the vicinity of the communications chamber and outside the chamber

Whicher and Chips were treadling away as if then-lives depended upon their exertions—which, in a sense, was the case. Ruth grinned at them as she squeezed by, then, shouting to make herself heard above the whirr of the generator, told her father that it looked as if the Poppeans were going. "They've stopped all the excavations," she said.

He swung round. "What do you mean?"

"Well, just that. They've stopped digging holes and there's hardly a Poppean to be seen."

The Professor told Jim to carry on, and joined Ruth. "Ill come and have a look," he said, and Ruth lost no time in finding him a couple of rugs and wrapping him up in them.

A pale sun broke through the clouds as they struggled through the snow to the top of the slope, and then Ruth had an even better view of the Poppean camp than before. "Daddy, I'm sure I'm right!" she exclaimed. "The whole fleet's preparing to take off, isn't it?"

"But why should it?"

"I don't know, but maybe they've found out this site isn't suitable for some reason or other. Perhaps one of their reconnaissance parties has discovered a much better site."

"But, my dear, that wouldn't explain why it is that today they're wearing breathing gear when previously they weren't."

"No, I suppose not," murmured Ruth, then she pointed excitedly to one of the spaceships from which a score or so of Poppeans were emerging. "Look, Daddy, something's going on!" she cried. "What are those bundles they're lifting out of the ship?"

The Professor did not reply. His attention was taken up by some Poppeans who were struggling to lift a machine out of another of the ships, and then he and Ruth watched fascinated as the creatures dragged the bundles and the machine out to the center of the cleared space. The bundles were three in number, and each was a good deal longer than it was wide or deep, and one was not much more than half as large as the other two. The Professor estimated that the larger bundles were about five feet long, and, as he made his guess, an idea of what they might contain suddenly dawned upon him and he all but exclaimed aloud.

Ruth realized that something was agitating him, and glanced at him. "What's wrong, Daddy?" she asked.

"Nothing," he grunted. "Nothing at all, but I'd certainly like to know what they think they're going to do with that machine."

"It looks something like an arc lamp, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but it's bigger than any arc lamp I've ever seen."

The machine's top part was hemispherical and black. It was mounted upon a large cylindrical box, and the whole contraption rested on a broad sled. The Poppeans appeared to have no difficulty in dragging either that or the bundles over the frozen ground, and when they were about a hundred yards from the foremost spaceships they stopped and placed the small bundle on top of the other two. Then they moved away and one of their number climbed onto the machine. He turned the hemispherical part of it round until its flat surface directly faced the bundles, then he quickly pulled a lever and jumped clear.

For about five seconds nothing happened, then suddenly the three bundles vanished. There was no explosion, no flash, no smoke, nothing, but at one moment the bundles were there and at the next they were gone, vanished without leaving more than a gray smear of dust to show they had ever existed. Then the handful of Poppeans went to the machine and briskly dragged it back to the spaceship whence it had come.

"Disintegration!" breathed Ruth. "But why?"

"A funeral, my dear," said the Professor, somberly. "We've been witnessing a funeral. Two adult Poppeans and a child."

Ruth's eyes widened. "So that's what it was," she murmured. "But of course! . . . Daddy, do you think plague has broken out amongst them, or something?"

"It's possible, I suppose, though I doubt it. There are, after all, very few germs that can survive at this temperature, you know."

Nothing more happened, and presently the Professor led the way back to the open hatch. "Well, I don't know what the Poppeans' plans are," he said, as they climbed in, "but our course is as clear as it ever was. We must get that transmitter built!"

All that day the work went on, and as each person's rest period came round, he made a point of going out and viewing the Poppean camp, but there were no more changes to report. It was as if the whole vast space fleet had fallen asleep, and as time went on the Poppeans moving about among the spaceships became increasingly fewer until, with the last of daylight, there were none at all.

"I shan't be surprised," said Ruth, "if the whole fleet takes off during the night. Perhaps they're going back to Poppea!"

"Unlikely," said her father. "How ever little future they may have here, they've got none at all there."

Less than twenty minutes after that conversation, the Professor suddenly stepped back from the complicated apparatus he had been working on and cried, "Eureka! The transmitter's complete! That is, except for the aerial."

It was now quite dark outside, but Captain Whicher and Chips volunteered to erect the aerial and, after a long struggle with thirty-foot rods in a rising wind, they succeeded in doing so. The task took them the best part of an hour and meanwhile Ruth and Jim rode the treadle generator, and the Professor heated a pan of water. When the water boiled, he added several biscuits and some sweetening material to it, and made a sort of porridge. The result, at any other time, would have been peculiarly unappetizing, but at least it was hot, and when Whicher and Chips came in from their miserable task, they both declared it was delicious.

"Better than fried chicken Maryland?" the Professor asked Chips.

"Oh, sure. Who'd want fried chicken, when they can get Poppean porridge a la Elrick?"

The Professor laughed, and glanced at Captain Whicher. "It's just occurred to me," he said, "that we haven't been very bright. We've taken tremendous trouble to build a generator and a transmitter, but have neglected to find out the most important detail of all—our position. It rather looks as if we'll have to spend most of tonight constructing a sextant, so that tomorrow we can shoot the sun—if there is a sun. Until we know our position there's not much point in starting transmission."

Captain Whicher grinned and shook his head. "No, it's not as bad as that," he said. "I guess Chips and I can help you there. When we were down in the camp we took quite a bit of trouble to work out the position, because we thought it might come in handy. Of course, we couldn't do anything about longitude, but as regards latitude we're about eighteen degrees south of the seventy-sixth parallel. Once the relief force knows that it will just have to reconnoiter along the parallel until it finds us."

"That's wonderful," exclaimed the Professor. "Then we can embark on a transmission right away?"

The message they finally decided upon was brief and to the point. It ran: "This is Professor Elrick calling the world. The entire Poppean space fleet is encamped at a point eighteen degrees south of the seventy-sixth parallel. I, with four companions, am marooned in a wrecked spaceship about a mile north of the camp. I request that a relief force be sent without delay."

The Professor had built the transmitter with both a microphone and an improvised Morse key, and now he and Captain Whicher settled down to the work of transmission. Alternately, the Professor read the message and Captain Whicher tapped it out in Morse, while Chips and Jim treadled the generator. After an hour of this, the two teams changed places and then it was Jim's turn to read the message and Chips's to attend to the Morse transmission. The transmitter worked excellently, but they had no receiving set, and therefore no means of knowing whether their signals were getting through. For the time being, their only course was to persevere with the transmissions and hope for the best.

While this was going on Ruth did what she could to make their living compartment more habitable, by cleaning it up and fetching in a further supply of rugs. She had heat and light, as earlier in the day Chips had run a cable from the generator to the compartment, and now all her homemaking instincts came to the fore. She made up five beds from the rugs and arranged them with their feet pointing toward the center of the compartment, and then started to build a table from empty food canisters. Suddenly she heard a sound above her head and glanced up.

The rug that had been stuffed into the open porthole was moving, as if someone was trying to pull it out from outside, and it was as much as Ruth could do to prevent herself screaming. In the next moment the rug was jerked from the porthole and freezing air streamed down into the compartment. Ruth caught a glimpse of huge Poppean eyes staring down at her, then swung away in panic and hurled herself toward the exit that led in the direction of the communications chamber.

Poppeans were invading the wrecked spaceship, and, as Ruth stumbled through the semidarkness, she could hear them clambering over the debris above her head. Then another sound made her halt abruptly and she threw herself back against the wall. Only a yard or so ahead of her was an open hatch, and now a Poppean was climbing through it into the spaceship. He was carrying a flashlight, low-powered, but giving enough light for Poppean purposes. Its reddish beam fell on Ruth's face and, with a grunt, the creature came toward her. She darted away from him, floundering back through the darkness and hoping against hope that she would now find the open porthole unguarded.

She reached the compartment just ahead of her pursuer and slammed the heavy circular door on him, crushing his hand against the jamb. The Poppean roared with pain and staggered back. Ruth used the momentary respite to force a food canister under the door's lower edge, jamming it. She knew this would not gain her more than a few minutes, but there was no other way of securing the door, since the lock had been destroyed by Whicher and Chips when they released the Professor.

The open porthole was unguarded and, grabbing a rug, Ruth climbed up to it. Behind her she could hear her pursuer grunting and panting as he struggled to force the door, then she thrust her head through the porthole and peered round. Moonlight, white and clear, flooded the scene and by it she could see that the wrecked spaceship was swarming with Poppeans, all wearing breathing gear. One of them spotted her, and as he came bounding toward her over the ragged mounds of snow she hastily dropped back to the floor of the compartment and retreated to the far wall. The Poppean was too bulky to follow her, but he thrust his long arm down into the compartment and tried to grab her by the hair. He shouted something to his colleague at the door, then the electric light faded, and, with a sinking heart, Ruth guessed that her companions had been discovered and overpowered. By the last dying flicker of light, she saw the food canister crumple, then heard the door burst open.

She hurled herself forward into the darkness in an attempt to dodge the Poppean and gain the passage, but he was too quick for her. He caught her by the waist, then his other arm came round her, pinning her arms to her sides. She could not even struggle and in that terror-haunted moment she experienced all the bitterness of defeat when within sight of victory. . . .

Chapter 75

Death Sentence for Man!

1

HERE WAS no light except the moonlight streaming in through the belt of portholes far above her head, but Ruth knew that she was in the control chamber of one of the spaceships and that all around her lay the sleeping forms of the Poppeans. One of the creatures was guarding her and he had been with her ever since she was taken prisoner on the wrecked spaceship. He had carried her down to the camp in his arms, bounding over the moonlit snow, while in both mind and body she was numbed by the bitter cold that would have killed her had not the journey only lasted a few minutes. Once in the spaceship he had treated her with a rough kindliness, and in the decompression chamber had given her a couple of rugs and some biscuits.

Now she was lying huddled under the rugs in the spaceship's control chamber, knowing neither what was expected of her nor what had become of the others. Somewhere in the semidarkness an amplifier crackled and burbled, and behind the atmospherics was a distorted voice overlaid with a sound like the sound of sea waves. Ruth took it for granted the voice was speaking Poppean and paid no attention until presently she caught the word "Davidson," and pricked up her ears. A minute or so's concentration told her

the voice was not speaking Poppean, but one of the terrestrial languages—German, perhaps, or Dutch.

Her pulse quickened and she glanced at her guard. "What's going on?" she asked, with a gesture toward the amplifier, but he either did not understand her or preferred not to.

Atmospherics crackled and snapped, then the volume of sound swelled and Ruth was astounded to realize that the voice was now speaking English. It said: "This is General Davidson addressing the Poppean authorities on behalf of the Government of the United States and all associated governments. The approximate position of your space fleet is now known to us and we demand that you leave our planet within twelve hours or take the consequences! . . ." At that point an eerie shriek drowned the fading voice, but Ruth had heard enough to set the blood racing through her veins and she came near to giving a whoop of exultation. The civilized world had recovered its senses, and the Professor's message had been picked up!

The sound of someone descending the spiral staircase made her glance up and at the same moment she caught Chips's unmistakable Southern drawl. "I sure don't like the look of this, Captain," she heard him say. "You know which spaceship this is, don't you?"

Ruth jumped up, but her guard caught her by the shoulder and forced her to sit down again. The Pop-peans escorting the Americans were carrying flashlights, and dimly Ruth made out the forms not only of Chips and Whicher, but also of the Professor and Jim. "Daddy!" she cried, almost overwhelmed by relief. "Jim!"

They answered her and by then they were picking their way toward her through the crowd of sleeping

Poppeans. Captain Whicher was limping badly, supported on one side by a guard, and Ruth guessed he had fought desperately to avoid capture. Later she was to discover that Chips and Jim had also been damaged—Chips had sustained the blackest black eye of his life, and Jim had lost two teeth. They had been taken by surprise and outnumbered, but even so they had given a good account of themselves, breaking the arm of one Poppean and stunning another.

The guards made all the humans sit down on the floor, and threw them some rugs.

"I guess I don't like this one little bit," muttered Chips. "This is the penal spaceship—a sort of flying Sing Sing."

"Then who are all these creatures?" asked Ruth, indicating the slumbering forms surrounding them.

"Police guards, mostly," Chips told her. "And trustees. The real bad guys are kept in punishment cells in the outer rim. And it's on board this ship they house the disintegrator."

Ruth shuddered and the Professor hastily changed the subject by asking her how she had come to get captured. "As far as we were concerned," he said, "they were upon us before we knew what was happening, but at least we managed to keep the transmission going until the last moment. What really broke my heart was that they smashed the transmitter —smashed it to smithereens, and the generator as well. But what about you, my dear—were you in the living compartment?"

"Yes, I was cleaning it up," said Ruth, and went on to explain in detail what had happened.

When she finished, her father remarked mildly that their luck must have run out. "No doubt the Poppeans picked up the transmission," he said. "I knew there was a risk of that, but I'd hoped they would be too busy to bother. And so they might have been if they'd only kept on with their excavations."

"Gee, I wonder what made them change their plans?" murmured Jim. "You notice, sir, that they take off their breathing gear as soon as they've been through the decompression chamber? So maybe it is a germ that's got them scared. Or maybe there's something wrong with our air."

Ruth told her father that at least his transmission had been picked up, and he glanced at her sharply. "How do you know?" he asked.

Ruth pointed upward in the direction of the amplifier and told him it was tuned in to an American station. "General Davidson's been telling the Poppeans to clear out in every known language," she said. "Listen!"

They listened, but now the atmospherics were too concentrated for them to hear anything more than an isolated phrase.

"I think it's Spanish," muttered the Professor, and then his attention was caught by a squat bulky Pop-pean making his way toward them from the foot of the spiral stairs. It was Kluss, and as soon as Ruth recognized him she shuddered. "They don't spare us anything, do they?" she breathed. "But now perhaps we'll learn what's what."

Kluss seemed to be in a state of considerable nervous tension. He halted a few feet short of the humans and, with the moonlight shining on his froglike face, glared at them balefully. "Well, Professor," he grunted. "This is serious."

"Serious?" echoed the Professor. "What do you mean?"

Kluss did not explain, but abruptly launched into a strange, panic-stricken tirade of abuse against the whole human race and its filthy planet. "It's not fit for us to live in," he screamed, "and soon I hope we shall leave it."

"And why do you hope that?"

"Because we cannot breathe your foul atmosphere with impunity," spluttered Kluss, "and it has taken us until now to discover it. When we first landed we either kept to the spaceships or wore breathing apparatus, but lately we have taken no such precautions. The fact is that your atmosphere contains small quantities of gases that are proving fatal to us. Neon is one and argon is another, and already eight of our people have died as a result of breathing your contaminated air, while nearly half our population is ill from it in varying degrees." He paused, then, dropping his voice, added, "The Yat is seriously ill."

"So now you're all going back to Poppea?"

"I do not know," said Kluss, with an edge of hysteria to his voice. "I do not know what will happen!" He half turned and indicated the amplifier with a wild gesture. "And now you people have made matters worse by bringing these threats upon us!"

"Yes, but where's the argument?" asked the Professor. "We want you to go, you want to go, so why not just go?"

"It isn't easy," muttered Kluss, sulkily. "The Yat is too ill to make decisions."

"But surely you have some alternative authority? A Regency Council or something of that sort?"

"We have the Council of Eight," agreed Kluss, "but only three of its members are well enough to confer, and constitutionally the Council is unable to make decisions with fewer than five members. You see, the members are all elderly, and it is the old people and the women and the children who have been most affected. You devils!"

Professor Elrick smiled. "But surely, Kluss, you don't hold us responsible for the incidental gases in our atmosphere?" he murmured.

"No, but you and your friends have added another menace to the existing menace, and, mark my words, you will be punished for it!"

The Professor ignored the threat and asked Kluss what ultimate solution for the problem he foresaw. "You can't go on living on Poppea," he said, "and now it seems that you can't live on the Earth, either."

"That is a problem for our scientists," said Kluss, "and there are very few problems that science cannot solve. Meanwhile, we shall probably return to Poppea as soon as a decision can be constitutionally arrived at."

"And one day you'll come back, you think?"

"But certainly," said Kluss. "Yes, in a few years' time we shall come back, but on the next occasion we may take the precaution of exterminating your population first!"

On those words he swung away and slouched moodily back to the spiral staircase. Everyone was silent for some minutes, then the Professor suggested they should all try to get some sleep.

"Sound advice," murmured Captain Whicher. "We don't know what faces us tomorrow, but whatever it is won't seem half so bad after a good night's sleep."

Ruth gazed doubtfully into the semidarkness. "Yes, it will," she muttered. "Disintegration will seem just as bad no matter how much we sleep."

And, in fact, she was unable to sleep at all that night. She wrapped herself up tightly in her rugs and lay on her back gazing up at the portholes through which the moonlight slanted. One of the Poppeans had switched the amplifier off, and now the only sounds that disturbed the silence were the occasional snores and sighs of the sleeping creatures surrounding her and the mutterings of the guards as they talked among themselves. Slowly the round patches of moonlight crept across the control chamber and grew elliptical. After what seemed an eternity Ruth noticed a softening of their light and focus, and realized dawn was breaking.

She rubbed her eyes and propped herself up on an elbow. The Poppeans were stirring and one of their number was moving among them, here and there rousing a man by touching him on the shoulder. Suddenly Ruth became conscious of a whisper of sound from outside, a whisper that grew to a murmur and then to a roar—a roar that was sustained for a moment before it abruptly faded.

Several of the Poppeans started up in alarm, and an animated chatter broke out among them. Ruth caught her breath with excitement and tugged frantically at Jim's rug until he woke up. "Wassamatter?" he grumbled.

"Jets!" hissed Ruth, pointing upward. "Reconnaissance planes! Two or three of them passed over only a moment or so ago. Jim, they must have located the camp! Listen!"

Suddenly wide awake, Jim sat up and then came the growing whisper of sound again—the jets were returning.

Captain Whicher was awake, listening attentively, and as the roar of sound reached its climax the Professor started up and gazed about him in bewilderment.

"JF38s," murmured the Captain, professionally. ''Three of them by the sound of it, and now anything can happen/7

By then all the Poppeans were awake, grunting and muttering excitedly, and presendy one of them switched on the amplifier, but nothing came from it except a confused burble of sound punctuated by catcalls and screams. Only Chips was still asleep, snoring softly with an angelic smile on his round face, and Captain Whicher leaned over and shook him. "Wake up, you idle dozey nidnod," he said.

Chips opened his eyes and gazed at his superior in mock resentment. "Who's a nidnod?" he murmured. "Captain, I'll have you know that in Chattanooga I'm considered a ball of fire! And, gee, am I hungry!"

One of the guards understood this and glanced toward the spiral staircase. "Food comes," he grunted. "Come soon."

Then the amplifier crackled and an incisive Poppean voice cut across the hubbub. At once all the creatures fell silent, listening, and the humans could tell from the expressions on their faces that the news they were hearing was of paramount importance. The message was a fairly long one and for a few moments after it had ended the silence was maintained. Then the hubbub broke out in greater volume than before and the creatures started rushing hither and thither rolling up the rugs and mats, and clearing the space in front of the control panel.

Ruth noticed that all the Poppeans were now careful not to look in their direction, and shivered. "I think we're in for it," she whispered to Jim. "I think that some of that message had to do with us." "What makes you think so?"

"The Poppeans' attitude," she murmured. "They don't look at us. You know—it's like at the Old Bailey. If the jury has found the prisoner guilty they don't look at him as they file back into the box."

Chips caught the attention of the guard who had spoken before. "Food?" he asked, rubbing his stomach, but the guard made a negative gesture with his weird three-fingered hand.

"No food," he grunted. "You not need food."

Jim and Ruth exchanged glances, and Ruth was about to say something when Captain Whicher stopped her. "Listen," he said, pointing to the amplifier. "English."

Behind the din of atmospherics another message in English was coming through: "This is General Davidson addressing the Poppean authorities. We now know your exact position and you have less than three hours' grace left to you. We are mustering incomparable forces and unless you leave before the time limit expires we shall not hesitate to strike! Our first attack will be launched with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, but if those constitute an insufficient proof of our determination to be rid of you, we shall have no compunction about following up with atomic weapons! Never let it be said that you weren't warned of our intentions, and that ends the message which will now be repeated by interpreters in languages other than English. . . ."

The Professor glanced at Whicher. "Our Governments are certainly doing all they can to avoid provocation," he murmured.

"Sure," said Whicher. "But then no one likes to provoke an enemy that's capable of putting the whole world to sleep in twenty-four hours! All we want is our planet to ourselves."

Ruth suddenly touched the Professor's arm. "Kluss!" she exclaimed, and everyone looked toward the spiral staircase.

Kluss descended the stairs slowly, and, as he crossed the floor toward them, he lowered his eyes and avoided their gaze.

"Good morning, Kluss," said the Professor cheerily, but the Poppean did not respond, and when at last he spoke his tones were formal and official.

"I have been instructed to convey certain information to you," he said. "During the night a Deputy Yat Extraordinary has been appointed. He is now the supreme authority, and his first decisions have already been proclaimed. One of them concerns you and it is my painful duty to inform you of it—to inform you that you have been sentenced to immediate disintegration!"

Ruth's hand flew to her mouth, stifling a scream. Disintegration—the clumsy word echoed and re-echoed through her mind until it lost all semblance of meaning, and for a moment she thought she would faint. Then she became conscious of her father's arm about her shoulders and rallied. The worst had come to the worst, and now her only concern was to find the courage to face the end with fortitude and calm. . , .

Chapter 16 ^t„m*>

f% LIGHT powdery snow was falling as the five humans climbed down from the spaceship. The morning was bright, and hardly colder than a really cold morning in England. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they moved across the snow field in single file with a guard in front followed by the Professor, Captain Whicher and Ruth, with Chips, Jim and more guards bringing up the rear. The disintegrator was already in position, and they could just make out its shape through the swirling snow nearly half a mile ahead of them. Rammed into the frozen earth to one side of it were five black stakes with Poppeans still hammering them down.

Over on their left a number of large bundles were being hauled across the snow toward the disintegrator, and the Professor remarked over his shoulder to Whicher that there was going to be another funeral.

"Yes, and six corpses," muttered the Captain. "So the death roll still mounts!"

"Sure does," grunted Chips sardonically, from the rear. "Yessuh, it certainly does, and I guess we "re just the victims of a new broom. The old Yat would never have let this happen to us."

It stopped snowing before they reached the place of execution, and, as the guard roped them to the stakes, a cheerless sun burst tentatively through the

clouds. AD the humans struggled to keep their minds off their plight, and so watched the funeral that was taking place to one side of them. It differed very little from the one witnessed by Ruth and the Professor the previous day, and as soon as the six bundles had vanished the crew of the disintegrator started to drag their sinister instrument toward their living victims.

Chips suddenly decided he wasn't going to die without putting up some sort of a fight and as the guard stooped to tie his legs kicked him violently in the chest. The guard lost his balance and fell over with a startled shout, while Chips rocked backward and forward in an attempt to drag the stake from the ground. Other guards ran to him and after a brief scuffle overpowered him and fastened him securely.

By then the disintegrator had been lined up and its crew shouted to the guard to get out of the way. There was an element of ashamed panic about the whole proceedings, and it occurred to Ruth that the disintegrator crew was hardly happier about the business than she was.

Then the chief executioner hastily mounted the machine, adjusted a couple of knobs and was on the point of pulling a lever when he paused and gazed fearfully toward the western sky. He pointed and at the same moment the humans became aware of a throbbing murmur of sound, and Ruth glanced at her father. "Bombers!" she whispered and yet she was puzzled. The time limit was still nearly two hours away, and she could not believe that the associated Governments would break their word.

A fast light bomber came streaking in from the southwest and from it a stick of three bombs fell and burst in the open space between the space fleet and the snowbanks. It was nothing, and yet it was enough for the Poppeans. The guards turned and fled toward the spaceships and, to the humans' infinite relief, the chief executioner jumped down and ordered his crew to retreat, glad of an excuse to relinquish his hateful task.

More light bombers came screaming across the cleared area, dropping small-caliber bombs, and all the time the murmur of the main force vibrated on the air.

"Gosh, we re saved!" exclaimed Ruth, and ducked as a bomb fell unpleasantly close. "Daddy, I don't think much of their marksmanship. They're missing the space fleet by miles!"

The Professor had to shout to make himself heard above the whine of the jets and the crashing of bombs. "I think that's the idea," he yelled. "I think we're about to witness a display of might, a little saber rattling to speed the parting guest."

The air shook with the noise of the approaching heavy bombers and Jim managed to twist himself round far enough to catch a glimpse of them. "Holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "Just look what's coming! Now we really are in for it!"

"Well, our position's unenviable," agreed the Professor, "but preferable, I think, to disintegration."

"I don't know," muttered Jim. "I guess it's just another form of the same thing."

The crash of a bomb interrupted him, and then everything seemed to happen at once. Wave after wave of bombers came on, and within a minute the whole snow field had taken on the aspect of a storm at sea. Bomb after bomb came swaying and shrieking down through the smoky air to burst on the outskirts of the space fleet, making the snow cascade into the air and scarring the plain with dark-brown craters.

On Captain Whicher's advice the humans yelled wildly to protect their eardrums, and the blast waves from the bursting bombs scorched their faces like dragons' breath. Ruth glimpsed a bomb, silver in the sunlight, come hurtling down directly toward them and yelled, "Look out." but, bound to posts at the very center of the target area, there was nothing they could do except cross their fingers and hope for the best.

The bomb hit the ground not a yard from the disintegrator and that deadly machine was blown to pieces, destroyed by a dose of its own medicine. It curved to break the full force of the explosion, but even so Jim felt as if he and the post at his back had been grabbed by a giant's hand, then whirled round the giant's head. The next thing he knew he was lying in the snow with the stake on top of him. He was dazed, but unhurt, and as the snow cleared he saw there were now only three stakes standing—the Professor's, Ruth's, and Chips's.

"Captain Whicher!" he shouted, and, when there was no reply, managed to wriggle himself free of the stake and rid himself of the loosened bonds.

Captain Whicher was lying on the edge of the crater with blood pouring from his chest, and Jim crawled to him. Whicher was still conscious, but when Jim started to unfasten the thongs that held him, he whispered, "No, Jim. I've had it. Go to the others." In the same moment his body was shaken by a convulsion and, stiffening, he died in Jim's arms.

Chips was wounded, too. Blood was streaming from a gash in his upper arm, but he was conscious and told Jim there was a penknife in his pocket. "Its only a small one/* he muttered, "but it'll be quicker than nothing."

"Look!" shouted the Professor and Jim swung round to see that his chief was gazing toward the space fleet. It was taking off! There was no doubt about it, and, as Jim found himself reflecting, the sight of three thousand spaceships ascending into the air in unison was something to tell one's grandchildren about. Snow mantled the ships and as they rose slowly toward the sky it was as if one part of that limitless Arctic plain had suddenly detached itself and was floating away. The blasts of scorching gas that poured from the ships' exhaust nozzles melted snow and ice instantaneously and great fountains of steam roared up hundreds of feet into the sky, partly obscuring the fleet as it rose. At about the same time the thunder of the twelve thousand motors reached the humans* ears, dwarfing the roar of the bombers and so deafening the humans that for a long while afterward they would be unable to speak to each other without shouting. As the spaceships rose, they accelerated, and within a matter of minutes the whole vast fleet had dwindled until, catching the sun, it appeared as no more than a galaxy of daylight stars against the sky's pallor.

By then the last bomb had fallen and the huge bomber force, at the end of its run and with its mission effected, wheeled toward the south, away from the abandoned camp and away from the humans. Silence took possession of the snow fields and somberly Jim completed his task of freeing his companions.

Ruth at once set about washing Chips's wound and bound it up firmly with a strip torn from his shirt sleeve, while the Professor and Jim buried Captain

Whicher in the crater of the bomb that had killed him. They shoveled dirt and snow down over him, and then the Professor found two short struts that had once been part of the disintegrator and tied them together in the form of a cross.

that's all we can do for him for the moment," he murmured, as he fixed the cross in position, "but later on he shall have a decent burial."

For a few moments the four of them stood round the grave with bowed heads, and for those few moments the silence was absolute and pervading, as if the whole Arctic were mourning the fallen Captain.

Then the Professor gestured toward their old home, the wrecked spaceship, and observed that they should be getting back to it. "That's where the rescue plane will expect to find us," he said, "and that's where we'd better be."

Ruth looked doubtful. "I suppose they will send a plane?" she murmured.

"But of course," said the Professor. "By this time tomorrow we'll probably be on our way back to civilization."

"Maybe," muttered Jim, and glanced up at the clear sky. There was, he told himself, no reason why the rescue plane should not arrive within the next twenty-four hours, no reason at all except that on the northern horizon the dark snow clouds were somberly banking, and the wind was in the north. . . .

So the four of them went back to the wrecked spaceship and the rest of the day was spent in dragging empty containers and similar dark objects out into the snow and then arranging them to form huge thirty-foot letters that could be seen easily from the air—SOS.

The task so absorbed them that it wasn't until it was nearly finished any of them noticed the bad weather coming up from the north, or realized that all the while the wind had been growing steadily colder and fiercer.

Then when the last letter was completed Ruth straightened herself and happened to glance toward the range of mountains that normally bounded their northern horizon and saw that they were hidden behind a dark swirling screen of blown snow. "Just our luck," she exclaimed, bitterly. "Were in for another blizzard!"

The Professor hugged his rug about him and nodded. "Still, there's nothing we can do about it," he said, "except retire to our compartment and hope to keep comfortable. After all, we've survived worse things than blizzards."

He had hardly finished speaking when, with a suddenness that was well-nigh incredible, the wind raced up to gale force and the snow rose like a running sea, whipped along by the fury of the storm. Ruth and the Professor threw themselves down and half-crawled, half-stumbled through the blizzard toward the spaceship, with the driven snow lashing their faces like freezing strands of wire. Chips and Jim reached the porthole ahead of them and, catching Ruth's arms, guided Ruth toward it. As soon as she was safely in, Chips climbed in after her and plugged the porthole with a rug, while Jim helped the Professor toward the center unit. As the two of them fought their way against the screaming wind the Professor's inability to use the porthole no longer seemed such a joke. . . .

In the darkness of the compartment, virtually cut off from all external stimuli, the great difficulty was not to fall asleep—and sleep was dangerous. "I suggest four-hour watches as before," said the Professor, "and whoever's on duty, must keep awake. Walk about, bite your fingers, stick pins into yourself, but do anything to keep awake. We're all of us in poor physical condition and if we all fall asleep at the same time it could prove fatal. We might none of us take the trouble to wake up again."

The difficulty of keeping awake during those first spells of duty was nothing to what it became later, and the blizzard raged for twenty-four—thirty-six— forty-eight hours without showing the slightest signs of abating. In fact, it wasn't until the fourth day that the storm slackened off, and when on that day Ruth woke Jim up for his spell of duty she remarked on the change excitedly. "Jim, I think the blizzard's blown itself out!" she whispered, shaking him. "Oh, Jim, wake up! For heaven's sake, wake up! . . ."

Jim struggled against his drowsiness as against a quicksand and at last managed to get his eyes open. Ruth repeated her remark and he sat up, listening. "Okay," he mumbled, finally. "I'll go and investigate."

He wrapped his rug round him and moved cautiously through the darkness until he reached the compartment's door. Faint daylight showed at the end of the passage and he made his way toward it. Snow blocked the first open hatch he came to and he took a handful of it and rubbed it over his face. He felt better then, and knocking the snow out of the hatch he emerged into the pale light of the dawn. The blizzard had indeed blown itself out and now there was only enough wind to whip the surface snow into thin driving mists. And then, as Jim gazed up at the clear pale sky he saw the plane. . . .

It was a long way off and he could not even be sure that it was flying in his direction. Crazily he shouted at it, then whipped off his rug and waved it frantically. The bitter wind soon made him stop that and, pulling the rug round him once more, he raced back to the compartment where the Professor, Ruth and Chips were sleeping. He shook the Professor violently and implored him to wake up. "The plane, sir!" he shouted. "For Pete's sake, wake up! The plane—it's searching for us!"

But both the Professor and Chips were sleeping as heavily as if they were drugged and Jim knew from past experience it would take anything up to half an hour to rouse them. And Ruth, although she had only been asleep a few minutes, was just as bad. He shook her and shouted in her ear, and all the time he was conscious that the plane might fly over them and never realize they were there. The blizzard had buried the spaceship many feet deep in snow, and all sign of the "SOS" had long since been blotted out.

In the end, he collected all the rugs he could find and dragged them out through the hatch. He had the impression that the plane was now considerably nearer, and his spirits lifted. He spread the rugs on the snow in the shape of a huge cross, but kept one of them to use as a flag. He waved it with all his might, tirelessly and with as broad a movement as possible. Almost at once it seemed as if his efforts were to be rewarded. The plane, which had been flying east, suddenly changed its course and came north, flying in his direction.

He let out a great yell of triumph and waved the rug with renewed vigor. He could see the plane clearly now. It was a two-engined, turbo-jet reconnaissance plane and it was flying fairly slowly. It was impossible to believe its crew had not seen him, and yet it flew straight on with its shadow rippling over the snow field hardly a hundred yards from him. He tried to cheer himself with the thought that perhaps it had seen him, but for the present it was unable to land. But, if that was the case, surely it would fire a signal rocket or something to let him know.

He swung round as the plane roared past and, with a heavier heart than he had ever known, watched it as it continued toward the north. For a while it circled above the foothills of the mountain range, then it came south again, but this time it was a long way away from him and, although he waved the rug desperately, he had no real hope of being spotted. Once the plane dipped until it was only a few hundred feet above the ground, then rose again and flew inexorably on until it was out of sight.

Despair almost overwhelmed him there and then. He clambered back through the hatch and suddenly realized how cold he was, how weak and how dreadfully tired. It was a long time now since he had any proper food to eat, and suspense had worn down his resistance. He stumbled blindly back toward the compartment, still struggling against the weariness that threatened to engulf him, but it was useless. Sleep seemed to surge up from the darkness like an enemy, and the last thing he remembered was a sensation of falling headlong into a starless void. Cold, hunger and exertion had taken their toll and it had become impossible to ward off unconsciousness any longer. . . .

Then—but this seemed centuries later—there was a brilliant light shining in his eyes, the point-blank beam of a flashlight, and, as from an immeasurable distance, he heard a voice say: "Won't this baby ever wake up?"

He realized someone was shaking him and slapping his hands.

"Okay," he muttered, "I'm awake. Where am I?"

The shaking ceased and someone chuckled. Jim saw a big beefy face above his and then noticed that the owner of the face was wearing a flying suit and, beneath it, a uniform.

"Hullo there, Jim Shannon," said the man with the beefy face. "I'm Captain Crabtree of the Royal Canadian Flying Police. How do you feel?"

"Confused," said Jim, and, looking about him, discovered that he was still in the spaceship. The Professor and Ruth and Chips were there, too. They were struggling into heavy, fur-lined flying suits and when Ruth saw him looking in her direction she winked at him and smiled. He smiled back, but he was still not sure whether or not he was dreaming, and then he saw there was a sixth person in the compartment. He was also in uniform, and he was pouring out a hot drink from a flask. He brought the drink to Jim and held it to his lips. "Tea laced with rum," he explained. "It could do you good."

Jim drank the tea gratefully and when he had finished it Captain Crabtree asked him if he felt fit enough to get to his feet. "We've brought a flying suit for you," he said. "And the plane's right outside."

The two uniformed men helped him up and into the flying suit. "Did you see us earlier this morning?" asked the Captain. "We must have flown right over here."

"Yes, I saw you all right," said Jim. "And I still don't understand how it was you didn't see me."

"It was the glare," said Crabtree. "The rising sun turned the snow field into a blaze of whiteness. We couldn't see a thing on the ground. That's right, isn't it, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir," said the Sergeant. "That's right."

And that, virtually, was the end of the adventure. The plane flew the four of them to Thule, where they were met by a six-engined military plane, which took them to Ottawa and thence to Washington—"the heroes of the invasion." The Poppeans had promised to return and the whole world looked to Professor Elrick for advice. "I am not an expert on the Poppeans," he said, in his first public statement after the rescue, "and I cannot tell whether they will return as friends or as enemies, but one thing is clear to me and that is that the world, faced with this threat, can no longer afford to be anything other than united. We are faced with a common problem, and we must meet it in common. If the invasion we have already suffered produces in its wake a greater co-operation and a greater understanding between nations—and I think it may—then it will have been, as schoolboys say, a Good Thing. . . ."

Events proved his implication correct, and in the period following the Poppean invasion the nations of the world did in fact succeed in achieving a greater measure of co-operation than they had achieved in all the preceding periods put together. They awaited the return of the Poppeans and forgot their quarrels.

Meanwhile year succeeded year and still the expected invasion did not materialize. The Poppeans did not return and it seemed more than likely their failure to do so was connected with Nero's strange behavior in the years that followed the first invasion. For Nero presently ceased to be a dark star and became tele-scopically visible to astronomers as a dull-red orb

glowing dimly in the deserts of cosmic space. What dread catastrophes were responsible for the phenomenon could only be guessed at, and what effects they might have had on the planet Poppea were beyond conjecture, but the fact remained that the Poppeans did not revisit the Earth. And exactly what happened —whether all life on Poppea was destroyed or whether the rise in temperature made the planet once more habitable—must remain a mystery until such time as we have developed space travel sufficiently to enable us to return the Poppeans' solitary visit.