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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August
+1930, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2009 [EBook #29768]
+[Last updated: March 20, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              ASTOUNDING
+
+                               STORIES
+
+                           OF SUPER-SCIENCE
+
+                                 20c
+
+
+
+              _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_
+
+
+W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher HARRY BATES, Editor DR. DOUGLAS M. DOLD,
+Consulting Editor
+
+
+The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees
+
+     _That_ the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by
+     leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions
+     approved by the Authors' League of America;
+
+     _That_ such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by
+     American workmen;
+
+     _That_ each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;
+
+     _That_ an intelligent censorship guards their advertising
+     pages.
+
+_The other Clayton magazines are_:
+
+ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
+MONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY
+MAGAZINE, and WESTERN ADVENTURES.
+
+_More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand
+for Clayton Magazines._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VOL. III, No. 2 CONTENTS AUGUST, 1930
+
+
+COVER DESIGN      H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
+    _Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "The Planet of Dread."_
+
+THE PLANET OF DREAD      R. F. STARZL           147
+    _A Stupid Blunder--and Mark Forepaugh Faces a Lifetime of Castaway
+     Loneliness in the Savage Welter of the Planet Inra's Monster-ridden
+     Jungles._
+
+THE LORD OF SPACE        VICTOR ROUSSEAU        158
+    _A Black Caesar Had Arisen on Eros--and All Earth Trembled at His
+     Distant Menace._
+
+THE SECOND SATELLITE     EDMOND HAMILTON        175
+    _Earth-men War on Frog-vampires for the Emancipation of the Human Cows
+     of Earth's Second Satellite._ (A Novelet.)
+
+SILVER DOME              HARL VINCENT           192
+    _In Her Deep-buried Kingdom of Theros, Phaestra Reveals the Amazing
+     Secret of the Silver Dome._
+
+EARTH, THE MARAUDER      ARTHUR J. BURKS        210
+    _Deep in the Gnome-infested Tunnels of the Moon, Sarka and Jaska Are
+     Brought to Luar the Radiant Goddess Against Whose Minions the
+     Marauding Earth Had Struck in Vain._  (Part Two of a Three-Part
+     Novel.)
+
+MURDER MADNESS           MURRAY LEINSTER        237
+    _Bell Has Fought through Tremendous Obstacles to Find and Kill The
+     Master, Whose Diabolical Poison Makes Murder-mad Snakes of the Hands;
+     and, as He Faces the Monster at Last--His Own Hands Start to Writhe!_
+     (Conclusion.)
+
+THE FLYING CITY          H. THOMPSON RICH       260
+    _From Space Came Cor's Disc-city of Vada--Its Mighty, Age-old Engines
+     Weakening--Its Horde of Dwarfs Hungry for the Earth!_
+
+THE READERS' CORNER      ALL OF US              279
+    _A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents) Yearly Subscription,
+$2.00
+
+Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St.,
+New York, N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
+Entered as second-class matter December 7, 1929, at the Post Office at
+New York, N. Y., under Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered as a
+Trade Mark in the U. S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group--Men's
+List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co., Inc., 25
+Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Planet of Dread
+
+_By R. F. Starzl_
+
+[Illustration: _This time Forepaugh was ready for it._]
+
+[Sidenote: A stupid blunder--and Mark Forepaugh faces a life of
+castaway loneliness in the savage welter of the planet Inra's
+monster-ridden jungles.]
+
+
+There was no use hiding from the truth. Somebody had blundered--a
+fatal blunder--and they were going to pay for it! Mark Forepaugh
+kicked the pile of hydrogen cylinders. Only a moment ago he had broken
+the seals--the mendacious seals that certified to the world that the
+flasks were fully charged. And the flasks were empty! The supply of
+this precious power gas, which in an emergency should have been
+sufficient for six years, simply did not exist.
+
+He walked over to the integrating machine, which as early as the year
+2031 had begun to replace the older atomic processes, due to the
+shortage of the radium series metals. It was bulky and heavy compared
+to the atomic disintegrators, but it was much more economical and very
+dependable. Dependable--provided some thick-headed stock clerk at a
+terrestrial supply station did not check in empty hydrogen cylinders
+instead of full ones. Forepaugh's unwonted curses brought a smile to
+the stupid, good-natured face of his servant, Gunga--he who had been
+banished for life from his native Mars for his impiety in closing his
+single round eye during the sacred Ceremony of the Wells.
+
+The Earth man was at this steaming hot, unhealthful trading station
+under the very shadow of the South Pole of the minor planet Inra for
+an entirely different reason. One of the most popular of his set on
+the Earth, an athletic hero, he had fallen in love, and the devoutly
+wished-for marriage was only prevented by lack of funds. The
+opportunity to take charge of this richly paid, though dangerous,
+outpost of civilization had been no sooner offered than taken. In
+another week or two the relief ship was due to take him and his
+valuable collection of exotic Inranian orchids back to the Earth, back
+to a fat bonus, Constance, and an assured future.
+
+It was a different young man who now stood tragically before the
+useless power plant. His slim body was bowed, and his clean features
+were drawn. Grimly he raked the cooling dust that had been forced in
+the integrating chamber by the electronic rearrangement of the
+original hydrogen atoms--finely powdered iron and silicon--the "ashes"
+of the last tank of hydrogen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gunga chuckled.
+
+"What's the matter?" Forepaugh barked. "Going crazy already?"
+
+"Me, haw! Me, haw! Me thinkin'," Gunga rumbled. "Haw! We got, haw!
+plenty hydr'gen." He pointed to the low metal roof of the trading
+station. Though it was well insulated against sound, the place
+continually vibrated to the low murmur of the Inranian rains that fell
+interminably through the perpetual polar day. It was a rain such as is
+never seen on Earth, even in the tropics. It came in drops as large as
+a man's fist. It came in streams. It came in large, shattering masses
+that broke before they fell and filled the air with spray. There was
+little wind, but the steady green downpour of water and the brilliant
+continuous flashing of lightning shamed the dull soggy twilight
+produced by the large, hot, but hidden sun.
+
+"_Your_ idea of a joke!" Forepaugh growled in disgust. He understood
+what Gunga's grim pleasantry referred to. There was indeed an
+incalculable quantity of hydrogen at hand. If some means could be
+found to separate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen in the world of
+water around them they would not lack for fuel. He thought of
+electrolysis, and relaxed with a sigh. There was no power. The
+generators were dead, the air drier and cooler had ceased its rhythmic
+pulsing nearly an hour ago. Their lights were gone, and the automatic
+radio utterly useless.
+
+"This is what comes of putting all your eggs in one basket," he
+thought, and let his mind dwell vindictively on the engineers who had
+designed the equipment on which his life depended.
+
+An exclamation from Gunga startled him. The Martian was pointing to
+the ventilator opening, the only part of this strange building that
+was not hermetically sealed against the hostile life of Inra. A dark
+rim had appeared at its margin, a loathsome, black-green rim that was
+moving, spreading out. It crept over the metal walls like the
+low-lying smoke of a fire, yet it was a solid. From it emanated a
+strong, miasmatic odor.
+
+"The giant mold!" Forepaugh cried. He rushed to his desk and took out
+his flash pistol, quickly set the localizer so as to cover a large
+area. When he turned he saw, to his horror, Gunga about to smash into
+the mold with his ax. He sent the man spinning with a blow to the ear.
+
+"Want to scatter it and start it growing in a half-dozen places?" he
+snapped. "Here!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He pulled the trigger. There was a light, spiteful "ping" and for an
+instant a cone of white light stood out in the dim room like a solid
+thing. Then it was gone, and with it was gone the black mold, leaving
+a circular area of blistered paint on the wall and an acrid odor in
+the air. Forepaugh leaped to the ventilating louver and closed it
+tightly.
+
+"It's going to be like this from now on," he remarked to the shaken
+Gunga. "All these things wouldn't bother us as long as the machinery
+kept the building dry and cool. They couldn't live in here. But it's
+getting damp and hot. Look at the moisture condensing on the ceiling!"
+
+Gunga gave a guttural cry of despair. "It knows, Boss; look!"
+
+Through one of the round, heavily framed ports it could be seen, the
+lower part of its large, shapeless body half-floating in the lashing
+water that covered their rocky shelf to a depth of several feet, the
+upper part spectral and gray. It was a giant amoeba, fully six feet in
+diameter in its present spheroid form, but capable of assuming any
+shape that would be useful. It had an envelope of tough, transparent
+matter, and was filled with a fluid that was now cloudy and then
+clear. Near the center there was a mass of darker matter, and this was
+undoubtedly the seat of its intelligence.
+
+The Earth man recoiled in horror! A single cell with a brain! It was
+unthinkable. It was a biological nightmare. Never before had he seen
+one--had, in fact, dismissed the stories of the Inranian natives as a
+bit of primitive superstition, had laughed at these gentle, stupid
+amphibians with whom he traded when they, in their imperfect language,
+tried to tell him of it.
+
+They had called it the Ul-lul. Well, let it be so. It was an amoeba,
+and it was watching him. It floated in the downpour and watched him.
+With what? It had no eyes. No matter, it was watching him. And then it
+suddenly flowed outward until it became a disc rocking on the waves.
+Again its fluid form changed, and by a series of elongations and
+contractions it flowed through the water at an incredible speed. It
+came straight for the window, struck the thick, unbreakable glass with
+a shock that could be felt by the men inside. It flowed over the glass
+and over the building. It was trying to eat them, building and all!
+The part of its body over the port became so thin that it was almost
+invisible. At last, its absolute limit reached, it dropped away,
+baffled, vanishing amid the glare of the lightning and the frothing
+waters like the shadows of a nightmare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The heat was intolerable and the air was bad.
+
+"Haw, we have to open vent'lator, Boss!" gasped the Martian.
+
+Forepaugh nodded grimly. It wouldn't do to smother either. Though to
+open the ventilator would be to invite another invasion by the black
+mold, not to mention the amoebae and other fabulous monsters that had
+up to now been kept at a safe distance by the repeller zone, a simple
+adaptation of a very old discovery. A zone of mechanical vibrations,
+of a frequency of 500,000 cycles per second, was created by a large
+quartz crystal in the water, which was electrically operated. Without
+power, the protective zone had vanished.
+
+"We watch?" asked Gunga.
+
+"You bet we watch. Every minute of the 'day' and 'night.'"
+
+He examined the two chronometers, assuring himself that they were well
+wound, and congratulated himself that they were not dependent on the
+defunct power plant for energy. They were his only means of measuring
+the passage of time. The sun, which theoretically would seem to travel
+round and round the horizon, rarely succeeded in making its exact
+location known, but appeared to shift strangely from side to side at
+the whim of the fog and water.
+
+"Th' fellas," Gunga remarked, coming out of a study. "Why not come?"
+He referred to the Inranians.
+
+"Probably know something's wrong. They can tell the quartz oscillator
+is stopped. Afraid of the Ul-lul, I suppose."
+
+"'Squeer," demurred the Martian. "Ul-lul not bother fellas."
+
+"You mean it doesn't follow them into the underbrush. But it would
+find tough going there. Not enough water; trees there, four hundred
+feet high with thorny roots and rough bark--they wouldn't like that.
+Oh no, these natives ought to be pretty snug in their dens. Why,
+they're as hard to catch as a muskrat! Don't know what a muskrat is,
+huh? Well, it's the same as the Inranians, only different, and not so
+ugly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the next six days they existed in their straitened quarters, one
+guarding while the other slept, but such alarms as they experienced
+were of a minor nature, easily disposed of by their flash pistol. It
+had not been intended for continuous service, and under the frequent
+drains it showed an alarming loss of power. Forepaugh repeatedly
+warned Gunga to be more sparing in its use, but that worthy persisted
+in his practice of using it against every trifling invasion of the
+poisonous Inranian cave moss that threatened them, or the warm, soggy
+water-spiders that hopefully explored the ventilator shaft in search
+of living food.
+
+"Bash 'em with a broom, or something! Never mind if it isn't nice.
+Save our flash gun for something bigger."
+
+Gunga only looked distressed.
+
+On the seventh day their position became untenable. Some kind of sea
+creature, hidden under the ever-replenished storm waters, had found
+the concrete emplacements of their trading post to its liking. Just
+how it was done was never learned. It is doubtful that the creatures
+could gnaw away the solid stone--more likely the process was chemical,
+but none the less it was effective. The foundations crumbled; the
+metal shell subsided, rolled half over so that silty water leaked in
+through the straining seams, and threatened at any moment to be
+buffeted and urged away on the surface of the flood toward that
+distant vast sea which covers nine-tenths of the area of Inra.
+
+"Time to mush for the mountains," Forepaugh decided.
+
+Gunga grinned. The Mountains of Perdition were, to his point of view,
+the only part of Inra even remotely inhabitable. They were sometimes
+fairly cool, and though perpetually pelted with rain, blazing with
+lightning and reverberating with thunder, they had caves that were
+fairly dry and too cool for the black mold. Sometimes, under favorable
+circumstances on their rugged peaks, one could get the full benefit of
+the enormous hot sun for whose actinic rays the Martian's starved
+system yearned.
+
+"Better pack a few cans of the food tablets," the white man ordered.
+"Take a couple of waterproof sleeping bags for us, and a few hundred
+fire pellets. You can have the flash pistol; it may have a few more
+charges in it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forepaugh broke the glass case marked "Emergency Only" and removed two
+more flash pistols. Well he knew that he would need them after passing
+beyond the trading area--perhaps sooner. His eyes fell on his personal
+chest, and he opened it for a brief examination. None of the contents
+seemed of any value, and he was about to pass when he dragged out a
+long, heavy, .45 caliber six-shooter in a holster, and a cartridge
+belt filled with shells. The Martian stared.
+
+"Know what it is?" his master asked, handing him the weapon.
+
+"Gunga not know." He took it and examined it curiously. It was a fine
+museum piece in an excellent state of preservation, the metal overlaid
+with the patina of age, but free from rust and corrosion.
+
+"It's a weapon of the Ancients," Forepaugh explained. "It was a sort
+of family heirloom and is over 300 years old. One of my grandfathers
+used it in the famous Northwest Mounted Police. Wonder if it'll still
+shoot."
+
+He leveled the weapon at a fat, sightless wriggler that came squirming
+through a seam, squinting unaccustomed eyes along the barrel. There
+was a violent explosion, and the wriggler disappeared in a smear of
+dirty green. Gunga nearly fell over backward in fright, and even
+Forepaugh was shaken. He was surprised that the ancient cartridge had
+exploded at all, though he knew powder making had reached a high level
+of perfection before explosive chemical weapons had yielded to the
+newer, lighter, and infinitely more powerful ray weapons. The gun
+would impede their progress. It would be of very little use against
+the giant Carnivora of Inra. Yet something--perhaps a sentimental
+attachment, perhaps what his ancestors would have called a
+"hunch"--compelled him to strap it around his waist. He carefully
+packed a few essentials in his knapsack, together with one chronometer
+and a tiny gyroscopic compass. So equipped, they could travel with a
+fair degree of precision toward the mountains some hundred miles on
+the other side of a steaming forest, a-crawl with feral life, and hot
+with blood-lust.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Man and master descended into the warm waters and, without a backward
+glance, left the trading post to its fate. There was not even any use
+in leaving a note. Their relief ship, soon due, would never find the
+station without radio direction.
+
+The current was strong, but the water gradually became shallower as
+they ascended the sloping rock. After half an hour they saw ahead of
+them the loom of the forest, and with some trepidation they entered
+the gloom cast by the towering, fernlike trees, whose tops disappeared
+in murky fog. Tangled vines impeded their progress. Quagmires lay in
+wait for them, and tough weeds tripped them, sometimes throwing one or
+another into the mud among squirming small reptiles that lashed at
+them with spiked, poisonous feet and then fell to pieces, each piece
+to lie in the bubbling ooze until it grew again into a whole animal.
+
+Several times they almost walked under the bodies of great,
+spheroidal creatures with massive short legs, whose tremendously long,
+sinuous necks disappeared in the leafy murk above, swaying gently like
+long-stalked lilies in a terrestial pond. These were azornacks,
+mild-tempered vegetarians whose only defense lay in their thick,
+blubbery hides. Filled with parasites, stinking and rancid, their
+decaying covering of fat effectively concealed the tender flesh
+underneath, protecting them from fangs and rending claws.
+
+Deeper in the forest the battering of the rain was mitigated. Giant
+neo-palm leaves formed a roof that shut out not only most of the weak
+daylight, but also the fury of the downpour. The water collected in
+cataracts, ran down the boles of the trees, and roared through the
+semi-circular canals of the snake trees, so named by early explorers
+for their waving, rubbery tentacles, multiplied a millionfold, that
+performed the duties of leaves. Water gurgled and chuckled everywhere,
+spread in vast dim ponds and lakes writhing with tormented roots,
+up-heaved by unseen, uncatalogued leviathans, rippled by translucent
+discs of loathsome, luminescent jelly that quivered from place to
+place in pursuit of microscopic prey.
+
+Yet the impression was one of calm and quiet, and the waifs from other
+worlds felt a surcease of nervous tension. Unconsciously they relaxed.
+Taking their bearings, they changed their course slightly for the
+nesting place of the nearest tribe of Inranians where they hoped to
+get food and at least partial shelter; for their food tablets had
+mysteriously turned to an unpleasant viscous liquid, and their
+sleeping bags were alive with giant bacteria easily visible to the
+eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were doomed to disappointment. After nearly twelve hours of
+desperate struggling through the morass, through gloomy aisles, and
+countless narrow escapes from prowling beasts of prey in which only
+the speed and tremendous power of their flash pistols saved them from
+instant death, they reached a rocky outcropping which led to the
+comparatively dry rise of land on which a tribe of Inranians made its
+home. Their faces were covered with welts made by the hanging
+filaments of blood-sucking trees as fine as spider webs, and their
+senses reeled with the oppressive stench of the abysmal jungle. If the
+pampered ladies of the Inner Planets only knew where their
+thousand-dollar orchids sprang from!
+
+Converging runways showed the opening of one of the underground dens,
+almost hidden from view by a bewildering maze of roots, rendered more
+formidable by long, sharp stakes made from the iron-hard thigh-bones
+of the flying kabo.
+
+Forepaugh cupped his hands over his mouth and gave the call.
+
+"Ouf! Ouf! Ouf! Ouf! Ouf!"
+
+He repeated it over and over, the jungle giving back his voice in a
+muffled echo, while Gunga held a spare flash pistol and kept a sharp
+lookout for a carnivore intent on getting an unwary Inranian.
+
+There was no answer. These timid creatures, who are often rated the
+most intelligent life native to primitive Inra, had sensed disaster
+and had fled.
+
+Forepaugh and Gunga slept in one of the foul, poorly ventilated dens,
+ate of the hard, woody tubers that had not been worth taking along,
+and wished they had a certain stock clerk at that place at that time.
+They were awakened out of deep slumber by the threshing of an evil
+looking creature which had become entangled among the sharpened
+spikes. Its tremendous maw, splitting it almost in half, was opened in
+roars of pain that showed great yellow fangs eight inches in length.
+Its heavy flippers battered the stout roots and lacerated themselves
+in the beast's insensate rage. It was quickly dispatched with a flash
+pistol and Gunga cooked himself some of the meat, using a fire pellet;
+but despite his hunger Forepaugh did not dare eat any of it, knowing
+that this species, strange to him, might easily be one of the many on
+Inra that are poisonous to terrestials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They resumed their march toward the distant invisible mountains, and
+were fortunate in finding somewhat better footing than they had on
+their previous march. They covered about 25 miles on that "day,"
+without untoward incident. Their ray pistols gave them an insuperable
+advantage over the largest and most ferocious beasts they could expect
+to meet, so that they became more and more confident, despite the
+knowledge that they were rapidly using up the energy stored in their
+weapons. The first one had long ago been discarded, and the charge
+indicators of the other two were approaching zero at a disquieting
+rate. Forepaugh took them both, and from that time on he was careful
+never to waste a discharge except in case of a direct and unavoidable
+attack. This often entailed long waits or stealthy detours through
+sucking mud, and came near to ending both their lives.
+
+The Earth man was in the lead when it happened. Seeking an uncertain
+footing through a tangle of low-growing, thick, ghastly white
+vegetation, he placed a foot on what seemed to be a broad, flat rock
+projecting slightly above the ooze. Instantly there was a violent
+upheaval of mud; the seeming rock flew up like a trap-door, disclosing
+a cavernous mouth some seven feet across, and a thick, triangular
+tentacle flew up from its concealment in the mud in a vicious arc.
+Forepaugh leaped back barely in time to escape being swept in and
+engulfed. The end of the tentacle struck him a heavy blow on the
+chest, throwing him back with such force as to bowl Gunga over, and
+whirling the pistols out of his hands into a slimy, bulbous growth
+nearby, where they stuck in the phosphorescent cavities the force of
+their impact had made.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no time to recover the weapons. With a bellow of rage the
+beast was out of its bed and rushing at them. Nothing stayed its
+progress. Tough, heavily scaled trees thicker than a man's body
+shuddered and fell as its bulk brushed by them. But it was momentarily
+confused, and its first rush carried it past its dodging quarry. This
+momentary respite saved their lives.
+
+Rearing its plumed head to awesome heights, its knobby bark running
+with brown rivulets of water, a giant tree, even for that world of
+giants, offered refuge. The men scrambled up the rough trunk easily,
+finding plenty of hand and footholds. They came to rest on one of the
+shelflike circumvoluting rings, some twenty-five feet above the
+ground. Soon the blunt brown tentacles slithered in search of them,
+but failed to reach their refuge by inches.
+
+And now began the most terrible siege that interlopers in that
+primitive world can endure. From that cavernous, distended throat came
+a tremendous, world-shaking noise.
+
+"HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM!"
+
+Forepaugh put his hand to his head. It made him dizzy. He had not
+believed that such noise could be. He knew that no creature could long
+live amidst it. He tore strips from his shredded clothing and stuffed
+his ears, but felt no relief.
+
+"HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM!"
+
+It throbbed in his brain.
+
+Gunga lay a-sprawl, staring with fascinated eye into the pulsating
+scarlet gullet that was blasting the world with sound. Slowly, slowly
+he was slipping. His master hauled him back. The Martian grinned at
+him stupidly, slid again to the edge.
+
+Once more Forepaugh pulled him back. The Martian seemed to acquiesce.
+His single eye closed to a mere slit. He moved to a position between
+Forepaugh and the tree trunk, braced his feet.
+
+"No you don't!" The Earth man laughed uproariously. The din was making
+him light-headed. It was so funny! Just in time he had caught that
+cunning expression and prepared for the outlashing of feet designed to
+plunge him into the red cavern below and to stop that hellish racket.
+
+"And now--"
+
+He swung his fist heavily, slamming the Martian against the tree. The
+red eye closed wearily. He was unconscious, and lucky.
+
+Hungrily the Earth man stared at his distant flash pistols, plainly
+visible in the luminescence of their fungus bedding. He began a slow,
+cautious creep along the top of a vine some eight inches thick. If he
+could reach them....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Crash! He was almost knocked to the ground by the thud of a frantic
+tentacle against the vine. His movement had been seen. Again the
+tentacle struck with crushing force. The great vine swayed. He managed
+to reach the shelf again in the very nick of time.
+
+"HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM!"
+
+A bolt of lightning struck a giant fern some distance away. The crash
+of thunder was hardly noticeable. Forepaugh wondered if his tree would
+be struck. Perhaps it might even start a fire, giving him a flaming
+brand with which to torment his tormentor. Vain hope! The wood was
+saturated with moisture. Even the fire pellets could not make it burn.
+
+"HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM!"
+
+The six-shooter! He had forgotten it. He jerked it from its holster
+and pointed it at the red throat, emptied all the chambers. He saw the
+flash of yellow flame, felt the recoil, but the sound of the
+discharges was drowned in the Brobdignagian tumult. He drew back his
+arm to throw the useless toy from him. But again that unexplainable,
+senseless "hunch" restrained him. He reloaded the gun and returned it
+to its holster.
+
+"HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM! HOOM!"
+
+A thought had been struggling to reach his consciousness against the
+pressure of the unbearable noise. The fire pellets! Couldn't they be
+used in some way? These small chemical spheres, no larger than the end
+of his little finger, had long ago supplanted actual fire along the
+frontiers, where electricity was not available for cooking. In contact
+with moisture they emitted terrific heat, a radiant heat which
+penetrated meat, bone, and even metal. One such pellet would cook a
+meal in ten minutes, with no sign of scorching or burning. And they
+had several hundred in one of the standard moisture-proof containers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As fast as his fingers could work the trigger of the dispenser
+Forepaugh dropped the potent little pellets down the bellowing throat.
+He managed to release about thirty before the bellowing stopped. A
+veritable tornado of energy broke loose at the foot of the tree. The
+giant maw was closed, and the shocking silence was broken only by the
+thrashing of a giant body in its death agonies. The radiant heat,
+penetrating through and through the beast's body, withered nearby
+vegetation and could be easily felt on the perch up the tree.
+
+Gunga was slowly recovering. His iron constitution helped him to rally
+from the powerful blow he had received, and by the time the jungle was
+still he was sitting up mumbling apologies.
+
+"Never mind," said his master. "Shin down there and cut us off a good
+helping of roast tongue, if it has a tongue, before something else
+comes along and beats us out of a feast."
+
+"Him poison, maybe," Gunga demurred. They had killed a specimen new to
+zoologists.
+
+"Might as well die of poison as starvation," Forepaugh countered.
+
+Without more ado the Martian descended, cut out some large, juicy
+chunks as his fancy dictated, and brought his loot back up the tree.
+The meat was delicious and apparently wholesome. They gorged
+themselves and threw away what they could not eat, for food spoils
+very quickly in the Inranian jungles and uneaten meat would only serve
+to attract hordes of the gauzy-winged, glutinous Inranian swamp flies.
+As they sank into slumber they could hear the beginning of a bedlam of
+snarling and fighting as the lesser Carnivora fed on the body of the
+fallen giant.
+
+When they awoke the chronometer recorded the passing of twelve hours,
+and they had to tear a network of strong fibers with which the tree
+had invested them preparatory to absorbing their bodies as food. For
+so keen is the competition for life on Inra that practically all
+vegetation is capable of absorbing animal food directly. Many an
+Inranian explorer can tell tales of narrow escapes from some of the
+more specialized flesh-eating plants; but they are now so well known
+that they are easily avoided.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A clean-picked framework of crushed and broken giant bones was all
+that was left of the late bellowing monster. Six-legged water dogs
+were polishing them hopefully, or delving into them with their long,
+sinuous snouts for the marrow. The Earth man fired a few shots with
+his six-shooter, and they scattered, dragging the bodies of their
+fallen companions to a safe distance to be eaten.
+
+Only one of the flash pistols was in working order. The other had been
+trampled by heavy hoofs and was useless. A heavy handicap under which
+to traverse fifty miles of abysmal jungle. They started with nothing
+for breakfast except water, of which they had plenty.
+
+Fortunately the outcroppings of rocks and gravel washes were becoming
+more and more frequent, and they were able to travel at much better
+speed. As they left the low-lying jungle land they entered a zone
+which was faintly reminiscent of a terrestial jungle. It was still
+hot, soggy, and fetid, but gradually the most primitive aspects of the
+scene were modified. The over-arching trees were less closely packed,
+and they came across occasional rock clearings which were bare of
+vegetation except for a dense carpet of brown, lichenlike vegetation
+that secreted an astonishing amount of juice. They slipped and sloshed
+through this, rousing swarms of odd, toothed birds, which darted
+angrily around their heads and slashed at them with the razor-sharp
+saw edges on the back of their legs. Annoying as they were, they could
+be kept away with branches torn from trees, and their presence
+connoted an absence of the deadly jungle flesh-eaters, permitting a
+temporary relaxation of vigilance and saving the resources of the last
+flash gun.
+
+They camped that "night" on the edge of one of these rock clearings.
+For the first time in weeks it had stopped raining, although the sun
+was still obscured. Dimly on the horizon could be seen the first of
+the foothills. Here they gathered some of the giant, oblong fungus
+that early explorers had taken for blocks of porous stone because of
+their size and weight, and, by dint of the plentiful application of
+fire pellets, managed to set it ablaze. The heat added nothing to
+their comfort, but it dried them out and allowed them to sleep
+unmolested.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An unwary winged eel served as their breakfast, and soon they were on
+their way to those beckoning hills. It had started to rain again, but
+the worst part of their journey was over. If they could reach the top
+of one of the mountains there was a good chance that they would be
+seen and rescued by their relief ship, provided they did not starve
+first. The flyer would use the mountains as a base from which to
+search for the trading station, and it was conceivable that the
+skipper might actually have anticipated their desperate adventure and
+would look for them in the Mountains of Perdition.
+
+They had crossed several ranges of the foothills and were beginning to
+congratulate themselves when the diffused light from above was
+suddenly blotted out. It was raining again, and above the
+echo-augmented thunder they heard a shrill screeching.
+
+"A web serpent!" Gunga cried, throwing himself flat on the ground.
+
+Forepaugh eased into a rock cleft at his side. Just in time. A great
+grotesque head bore down upon him, many-fanged as a medieval dragon.
+Between obsidian eyes was a fissure whence emanated a wailing and a
+foul odor. Hundreds of short, clawed legs slithered on the rocks under
+a long sinuous body. Then it seemed to leap into the air again. Webs
+grew taut between the legs, strumming as they caught a strong uphill
+wind. Again it turned to the attack, and missed them. This time
+Forepaugh was ready for it. He shot at it with his flash pistol.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nothing happened. The fog made accurate shooting impossible, and the
+gun lacked its former power. The web serpent continued to course back
+and forth over their heads.
+
+"Guess we'd better run for it," Forepaugh murmured.
+
+"Go 'head!"
+
+They cautiously left their places of concealment. Instantly the
+serpent was down again, persistent if inaccurate. It struck the place
+of their first concealment and missed them.
+
+"Run!"
+
+They extended their weary muscles to the utmost, but it was soon
+apparent that they could not escape long. A rock wall in their path
+saved them.
+
+"Hole!" the Martian gasped.
+
+Forepaugh followed him into the rocky cleft. There was a strong draft
+of dry air, and it would have been next to impossible to hold the
+Martian back, so Forepaugh allowed him to lead on toward the source of
+the draft. As long as it led into the mountains he didn't care.
+
+The natural passageway was untenanted. Evidently its coolness and
+dryness made it untenable for most of Inra's humidity and heat loving
+life. Yet the floor was so smooth that it must have been artificially
+leveled. Faint illumination was provided by the rocks themselves. They
+appeared to be covered by some microscopic phosphorescent vegetation.
+
+After hundreds of twists and turns and interminable straight galleries
+the cleft turned more sharply upward, and they had a period of stiff
+climbing. They must have gone several miles and climbed at least
+20,000 feet. The air became noticeably thin, which only exhilarated
+Gunga, but slowed the Earth man down. But at last they came to the end
+of the cleft. They could go no further, but above them, at least 500
+feet higher, they saw a round patch of sky, miraculously bright blue
+sky!
+
+"A pipe!" Forepaugh cried.
+
+He had often heard of these mysterious, almost fabulous structures
+sometimes reported by passing travelers. Straight and true, smooth as
+glass and apparently immune to the elements, they had been
+occasionally seen standing on the very tops of the highest
+mountains--seen for a few moments only before they were hidden again
+by the clouds. Were they observatories of some ancient race, placed
+thus to pierce the mysteries of outer space? They would find out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The inside of the pipe had zigzagging rings of metal, conveniently
+spaced for easy climbing. With Gunga leading, they soon reached the
+top. But not quite.
+
+"Eh?" said Forepaugh.
+
+"Uh?" said Gunga.
+
+There had not been a sound, but a distinct, definite command had
+registered on their minds.
+
+"Stop!"
+
+They tried to climb higher, but could not unclasp their hands. They
+tried to descend, but could not lower their feet.
+
+The light was by now relatively bright, and as by command their eyes
+sought the opposite wall. What they saw gave their jaded nerves an
+unpleasant thrill--a mass of doughy matter of a blue-green color about
+three feet in diameter, with something that resembled a cyst filled
+with transparent liquid near its center.
+
+And this thing began to flow along the rods, much as tar flows. From
+the mass extended a pseudopod; touched Gunga on the arm. Instantly the
+arm was raw and bleeding. Terrified, immovable, he writhed in agony.
+The pseudopod returned to the main mass, disappearing into its
+interior with the strip of bloody skin.
+
+Its attention was centered so much on the luckless Martian that its
+control slipped from Forepaugh. Seizing his flash pistol, he set the
+localized for a small area and aimed it at the thing, intent on
+burning it into nothingness. But again his hand was stayed. Against
+the utmost of his will-power his fingers opened, letting the pistol
+drop. The liquid in the cyst danced and bubbled. Was it laughing at
+him? It had read his mind--thwarted his will again.
+
+Again a pseudopod stretched out and a strip of raw, red flesh adhered
+to it and was consumed. Mad rage convulsed the Earth man. Should he
+throw himself tooth and nail on the monster? And be engulfed?
+
+He thought of the six-shooter. It thrilled him.
+
+But wouldn't it make him drop that too?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A flash of atavistic cunning came to him.
+
+He began to reiterate in his mind a certain thought.
+
+"This thing is so I can see you better--this thing is so I can see you
+better."
+
+He said it over and over, with all the passion and devotion of a
+celibate's prayer over a uranium fountain.
+
+"This thing is harmless--but it will make me see you better!"
+
+Slowly he drew the six-shooter. In some occult way he knew it was
+watching him.
+
+"Oh, this is harmless! This is an instrument to aid my weak eyes! It
+will help me realize your mastery! This will enable me to know your
+true greatness. This will enable me to know you as a god."
+
+Was it complacence or suspicion that stirred the liquid in the cyst so
+smoothly? Was it susceptible to flattery? He sighted along the barrel.
+
+"In another moment your great intelligence will overwhelm me,"
+proclaimed his surface mind desperately, while the subconscious tensed
+the trigger. And at that the clear liquid burst into a turmoil of
+alarm. Too late. Forepaugh went limp, but not before he had loosed a
+steel-jacketed bullet that shattered the mind cyst of the pipe
+denizen. A horrible pain coursed through his every fibre and nerve. He
+was safe in the arms of Gunga, being carried to the top of the pipe to
+the clean dry air, and the blessed, blistering sun.
+
+The pipe denizen was dying. A viscous, inert mass, it dropped lower
+and lower, lost contact at last, shattered into slime at the bottom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miraculous sun! For a luxurious fifteen minutes they roasted there on
+the top of the pipe, the only solid thing in a sea of clouds as far as
+the eye could reach. But no! That was a circular spot against the
+brilliant white of the clouds, and it was rapidly coming closer. In a
+few minutes it resolved itself into the _Comet_, fast relief ship of
+the Terrestial, Inranian, Genidian, and Zydian Lines, Inc. With a low
+buzz of her repulsion motors she drew alongside. Hooks were attached
+and ports opened. A petty officer and a crew of roustabouts made her
+fast.
+
+"What the hell's going on here?" asked the cocky little terrestial who
+was skipper, stepping out and surveying the castaways. "We've been
+looking for you ever since your directional wave failed. But come on
+in--come on in!"
+
+He led the way to his stateroom, while the ship's surgeon took Gunga
+in charge. Closing the door carefully, he delved into the bottom of
+his locker and brought out a flask.
+
+"Can't be too careful," he remarked, filling a small tumbler for
+himself and another for his guest. "Always apt to be some snooper to
+report me. But say--you're wanted in the radio room."
+
+"Radio room nothing! When do we eat?"
+
+"Right away, but you'd better see him. Fellow from the Interplanetary
+News Agency wants you to broadcast a copyrighted story. Good for about
+three years' salary, old boy."
+
+"All right. I'll see him"--with a happy sigh--"just as soon as I put
+through a personal message."
+
+[Advertisement: Everyone Is Invited
+_To "Come Over in_
+'THE READERS' CORNER'!"]
+
+
+
+
+The Lord of Space
+
+_By Victor Rousseau_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Sidenote: A Black Caesar had arisen on Eros--and all Earth trembled
+at his distant menace.]
+
+
+"On the day of the next full moon every living thing on earth will be
+wiped out of existence--unless you succeed in your mission, Lee."
+
+Nathaniel Lee looked into the face of Silas Stark, President of the
+United States of the World, and nodded grimly. "I'll do my best, Sir,"
+he answered.
+
+"You have the facts. We know who this self-styled Black Caesar is, who
+has declared war upon humanity. He is a Dane named Axelson, whose
+father, condemned to life imprisonment for resisting the new
+world-order, succeeded in obtaining possession of an interplanetary
+liner.
+
+"He filled it with the gang of desperate men who had been associated
+with him in his successful escape from the penitentiary. Together they
+sailed into Space. They disappeared. It was supposed that they had
+somehow met their death in the ether, beyond the range of human ken.
+
+"Thirty years passed, and then this son of Axelson, born, according to
+his own story, of a woman whom the father had persuaded to accompany
+him into Space, began to radio us. We thought at first it was some
+practical joker who was cutting in.
+
+[Illustration: _It was like struggling with some vampire creatures in
+a hideous dream._]
+
+"When our electricians demonstrated beyond doubt that the voice came
+from outer space, it was supposed that some one in our Moon Colony had
+acquired a transmitting machine. Then the ships we sent to the Moon
+Colony for gold failed to return. As you know, for seven weeks there
+has been no communication with the Moon. And at the last full moon
+the--blow--fell.
+
+"The world depends upon you, Lee. The invisible rays that destroyed
+every living thing from China to Australia--one-fifth of the human
+race--will fall upon the eastern seaboard of America when the moon is
+full again. That has been the gist of Axelson's repeated
+communications.
+
+"We shall look to you to return, either with the arch-enemy of the
+human race as your prisoner, or with the good news that mankind has
+been set free from the menace that overhangs it.
+
+"God bless you, my boy!" The President of the United States of the
+World gripped Nat's hand and stepped down the ladder that led from the
+landing-stage of the great interplanetary space-ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immense landing-field reserved for the ships of the Interplanetary
+Line was situated a thousand feet above the heart of New York City, in
+Westchester County. It was a flat space set on the top of five great
+towers, strewn with electrified sand, whose glow had the property of
+dispersing the sea fogs. There, at rest upon what resembled nothing so
+much as iron claws, the long gray shape of the vacuum flyer bulked.
+
+Nat sneezed as he watched the operations of his men, for the common
+cold, or coryza, seemed likely to be the last of the germ diseases
+that would yield to medical science, and he had caught a bad one in
+the Capitol, while listening to the debate in the Senate upon the
+threat to humanity. And it was cold on the landing-stage, in contrast
+to the perpetual summer of the glass-roofed city below.
+
+But Nat forgot the cold as he watched the preparations for the ship's
+departure. Neon and nitrogen gas were being pumped under pressure into
+the outer shell, where a minute charge of leucon, the newly discovered
+element that helped to counteract gravitation, combined with them to
+provide the power that would lift the vessel above the regions of the
+stratosphere.
+
+In the low roof-buildings that surrounded the stage was a scene of
+tremendous activity. The selenium discs were flashing signals, and the
+radio receivers were shouting the late news; on the great power boards
+dials and light signals stood out in the glow of the amylite tubes. On
+a rotary stage a thousand feet above the ship a giant searchlight,
+visible for a thousand miles, moved its shaft of dazzling luminosity
+across the heavens.
+
+Now the spar-aluminite outer skin of the ship grew bright with the red
+neon glare. Another ship, from China, dropped slowly to its stage near
+by, and the unloaders swarmed about the pneumatic tubes to receive the
+mail. The teleradio was shouting news of a failure of the Manchurian
+wheat crop. Nat's chief officer, a short cockney named Brent, came up
+to him.
+
+"Ready to start, Sir," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat turned to him. "Your orders are clear?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Send Benson here."
+
+"I'm here, Sir." Benson, the ray-gunner in charge of the battery that
+comprised the vessel's armament, a lean Yankee from Connecticut,
+stepped forward.
+
+"You know your orders, Benson? Axelson has seized the Moon and the
+gold-mines there. He's planning to obliterate the Earth. We've got to
+go in like mad dogs and shoot to kill. No matter if we kill every
+living thing there, even our own people who are inmates of the Moon's
+penal settlement, we've got to account for Axelson."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"We can't guess how he got those gold-ships that returned with neon
+and argon for the Moon colonists. But he mustn't get us. Let the men
+understand that. That's all."
+
+"Very good, Sir."
+
+The teleradio suddenly began to splutter: A-A-A, it called. And
+instantly every sound ceased about the landing-stage. For that was the
+call of Axelson, somewhere upon the Moon.
+
+"Axelson speaking. At the next full moon all the American Province of
+the World Federation will be annihilated, as the Chinese Province was
+at the last. There's no hope for you, good people. Send out your
+vacuum liners. I can use a few more of them. Within six months your
+world will be depopulated, unless you flash me the signal of
+surrender."
+
+Would the proud old Earth have to come to that? Daily those ominous
+threats had been repeated, until popular fears had become frenzy. And
+Nat was being sent out as a last hope. If he failed, there would be
+nothing but surrender to this man, armed with a super-force that
+enabled him to lay waste the Earth from the Moon.
+
+Within one hour, those invisible, death-dealing rays had destroyed
+everything that inhaled oxygen and exhaled carbon. The ray with which
+the liner was equipped was a mere toy in comparison. It would kill at
+no more than 500 miles, and its action was quite different.
+
+As a prelude to Earth's surrender, Axelson demanded that World
+President Stark and a score of other dignitaries should depart for
+the Moon as hostages. Every ray fortress in the world was to be
+dismantled, every treasury was to send its gold to be piled up in a
+great pyramid on the New York landing-stage. The Earth was to
+acknowledge Axelson as its supreme master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The iron claws were turning with a screwlike motion, extending
+themselves, and slowly raising the interplanetary vessel until she
+looked like a great metal fish with metal legs ending with suckerlike
+disks. But already she was floating free as the softly purring engines
+held her in equipoise. Nat climbed the short ladder that led to her
+deck. Brent came up to him again.
+
+"That teleradio message from Axelson--" he began.
+
+"Yes?" Nat snapped out.
+
+"I don't believe it came from the Moon at all."
+
+"You don't? You think it's somebody playing a hoax on Earth? You think
+that wiping out of China was just an Earth-joke?"
+
+"No, Sir." Brent stood steady under his superior's sarcasm. "But I was
+chief teleradio operator at Greenwich before being promoted to the
+Province of America. And what they don't know at Greenwich they don't
+know anywhere."
+
+Brent spoke with that self-assurance of the born cockney that even the
+centuries had failed to remove, though they had removed the cockney
+accent.
+
+"Well, Brent?"
+
+"I was with the chief electrician in the receiving station when
+Axelson was radioing last week. And I noticed that the waves of sound
+were under a slight Doppler effect. With the immense magnification
+necessary for transmitting from the Moon, such deflection might be
+construed as a mere fan-like extension. But there was ten times the
+magnification one would expect from the Moon; and I calculated that
+those sound-waves were shifted somewhere."
+
+"Then what's your theory, Brent?"
+
+"Those sounds come from another planet. Somewhere on the Moon there's
+an intercepting and re-transmitting plant. Axelson is deflecting his
+rays to give the impression that he's on the Moon, and to lure our
+ships there."
+
+"What do you advise?" asked Nat.
+
+"I don't know, Sir."
+
+"Neither do I. Set your course Moonward, and tell Mr. Benson to keep
+his eyes peeled."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Moon Colony, discovered in 1976, when Kramer, of Baltimore, first
+proved the practicability of mixing neon with the inert new gas,
+leucon, and so conquering gravitation, had proved to be just what it
+had been suspected of being--a desiccated, airless desolation.
+Nevertheless, within the depths of the craters a certain amount of the
+Moon's ancient atmosphere still lingered, sufficient to sustain life
+for the queer troglodytes, with enormous lung-boxes, who survived
+there, browsing like beasts upon the stunted, aloe-like vegetation.
+
+Half man, half ape, and very much unlike either, these vestiges of a
+species on a ruined globe had proved tractable and amenable to
+discipline. They had become the laborers of the convict settlement
+that had sprung up on the Moon.
+
+Thither all those who had opposed the establishment of the World
+Federation, together with all persons convicted for the fourth time of
+a felony, had been transported, to superintend the efforts of these
+dumb, unhuman Moon dwellers. For it had been discovered that the Moon
+craters were extraordinarily rich in gold, and gold was still the
+medium of exchange on Earth.
+
+To supplement the vestigial atmosphere, huge stations had been set up,
+which extracted the oxygen from the subterranean waters five miles
+below the Moon's crust, and recombined it with the nitrogen with
+which the surface layer was impregnated, thus creating an atmosphere
+which was pumped to the workers.
+
+Then a curious discovery had been made. It was impossible for human
+beings to exist without the addition of those elements existing in the
+air in minute quantities--neon, krypton, and argon. And the ships that
+brought the gold bars back from the Moon had conveyed these gaseous
+elements there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The droning of the sixteen atomic motors grew louder, and mingled with
+the hum of gyroscopes. The ladder was drawn up and the port hole
+sealed. On the enclosed bridge Nat threw the switch of durobronze that
+released the non-conducting shutter which gave play to the sixteen
+great magnets. Swiftly the great ship shot forward into the air. The
+droning of the motors became a shrill whine, and then, growing too
+shrill for human ears to follow it, gave place to silence.
+
+Nat set the speed lever to five hundred miles an hour, the utmost that
+had been found possible in passing through the earth's atmosphere,
+owing to the resistance, which tended to heat the vessel and damage
+the delicate atomic engines. As soon as the ether was reached, the
+speed would be increased to ten or twelve thousand. That meant a
+twenty-two hour run to the Moon Colony--about the time usually taken.
+
+He pressed a lever, which set bells ringing in all parts of the ship.
+By means of a complicated mechanism, the air was exhausted from each
+compartment in turn, and then replaced, and as the bells rang, the men
+at work trooped out of these compartments consecutively. This had been
+originated for the purpose of destroying any life dangerous to man
+that might unwittingly have been imported from the Moon, but on one
+occasion it had resulted in the discovery of a stowaway.
+
+Then Nat descended the bridge to the upper deck. Here, on a platform,
+were the two batteries of three ray-guns apiece, mounted on swivels,
+and firing in any direction on the port and starboard sides
+respectively. The guns were enclosed in a thin sheath of osmium,
+through which the lethal rays penetrated unchanged; about them, thick
+shields of lead protected the gunners.
+
+He talked with Benson for a while. "Don't let Axelson get the jump on
+you," he said. "Be on the alert every moment." The gunners,
+keen-looking men, graduates from the Annapolis gunnery school, grinned
+and nodded. They were proud of their trade and its traditions; Nat
+felt that the vessel was safe in their hands.
+
+The chief mate appeared at the head of the companion, accompanied by a
+girl. "Stowaway, Sir," he reported laconically. "She tumbled out of
+the repair shop annex when we let out the air!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat stared at her in consternation, and the girl stared back at him.
+She was a very pretty girl, hardly more than twenty-two or three,
+attired in a businesslike costume consisting of a leather jacket,
+knickers, and the black spiral puttees that had come into style in the
+past decade. She came forward unabashed.
+
+"Well, who are you?" snapped Nat.
+
+"Madge Dawes, of the Universal News Syndicate," she answered,
+laughing.
+
+"The devil!" muttered Nat. "You people think you run the World
+Federation since you got President Stark elected."
+
+"We certainly do," replied the girl, still laughing.
+
+"Well, you don't run this ship," said Nat. "How would you like a long
+parachute drop back to Earth?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, my dear man," said Madge. "Don't you know you'll
+get wrinkles if you scowl like that? Smile! Ah, that's better. Now,
+honestly, Cap we just had to get the jump on everybody else in
+interviewing Axelson. It means such a lot to me."
+
+Pouts succeeded smiles. "You're not going to be cross about it, are
+you?" she pleaded.
+
+"Do you realize the risk you're running, young woman?" Nat demanded.
+"Are you aware that our chances of ever getting back to Earth are
+smaller than you ought to have dreamed of taking?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right," the girl responded. "And now that we're
+friends again, would you mind asking the steward to get me something
+to eat? I've been cooped up in that room downstairs for fifteen hours,
+and I'm simply starving."
+
+Nat shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He turned to the chief mate.
+"Take Miss Dawes down to the saloon and see that Wang Ling supplies
+her with a good meal," he ordered. "And put her in the Admiral's
+cabin. That good enough for you?" he asked satirically.
+
+"Oh that'll be fine," answered the girl enthusiastically. "And I shall
+rely on you to keep me posted about everything that's going on. And a
+little later I'm going to take X-ray photographs of you and all these
+men." She smiled at the grinning gunners. "That's the new fad, you
+know, and we're going to offer prizes for the best developed skeletons
+in the American Province, and pick a King and Queen of Beauty!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A radio, Sir!"
+
+Nat, who had snatched a brief interval of sleep, started up as the man
+on duty handed him the message. The vessel had been constantly in
+communication with Earth during her voyage, now nearing completion,
+but the dreaded A-A-A that prefaced this message told Nat that it came
+from Axelson.
+
+"Congratulations on your attempt," the message ran, "I have watched
+your career with the greatest interest, Lee, through the medium of
+such scraps of information as I have been able to pick up on the
+Moon. When you are my guest to-morrow I shall hope to be able to offer
+you a high post in the new World Government that I am planning to
+establish. I need good men. Fraternally, the Black Caesar."
+
+Nat whirled about. Madge Dawes was standing behind him, trying to read
+the message over his shoulder.
+
+"Spying, eh?" said Nat bitterly.
+
+"My dear man, isn't that my business?"
+
+"Well, read this, then," said Nat, handing her the message. "You're
+likely to repent this crazy trick of yours before we get much
+farther."
+
+And he pointed to the cosmic-ray skiagraph of the Moon on the curved
+glass dome overhead. They were approaching the satellite rapidly. It
+filled the whole dome, the craters great black hollows, the mountains
+standing out clearly. Beneath the dome were the radium apparatus that
+emitted the rays by which the satellite was photographed
+cinematographically, and the gyroscope steering apparatus by which the
+ship's course was directed.
+
+Suddenly a buzzer sounded a warning. Nat sprang to the tube.
+
+"Gravitational interference X40, gyroscopic aberrancy one minute 29,"
+he called. "Discharge static electricity from hull. Mr. Benson, stand
+by."
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Madge.
+
+"It means I shall be obliged if you'll abstain from speaking to the
+man at the controls," snapped Nat.
+
+"And what's that?" cried Madge in a shriller voice, pointing upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Across the patterned surface of the Moon, shown on the skiagraph, a
+black, cigar-shaped form was passing. It looked like one of the
+old-fashioned dirigibles, and the speed with which it moved was
+evident from the fact that it was perceptibly traversing the Moon's
+surface. Perhaps it was travelling at the rate of fifty thousand miles
+an hour.
+
+Brent, the chief officer, burst up the companion. His face was livid.
+
+"Black ship approaching us from the Moon, Sir," he stammered.
+"Benson's training his guns, but it must be twenty thousands miles
+away."
+
+"Yes, even our ray-guns won't shoot that distance," answered Nat.
+"Tell Benson to keep his guns trained as well as he can, and open fire
+at five hundred."
+
+Brent disappeared. Madge and Nat were alone on the bridge. Nat was
+shouting incomprehensible orders down the tube. He stopped and looked
+up. The shadow of the approaching ship had crossed the Moon's disk and
+disappeared.
+
+"Well, young lady, I think your goose is cooked," said Nat. "If I'm
+not mistaken, that ship is Axelson's, and he's on his way to knock us
+galley-west. And now oblige me by leaving the bridge."
+
+"I think he's a perfectly delightful character, to judge from that
+message he sent you," answered Madge, "and--"
+
+Brent appeared again. "Triangulation shows ten thousand miles, Sir,"
+he informed Nat.
+
+"Take control," said Nat. "Keep on the gyroscopic course, allowing for
+aberrancy, and make for the Crater of Pytho. I'll take command of the
+guns." He hurried down the companion, with Madge at his heels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gunners stood by the ray-guns, three at each. Benson perched on a
+revolving stool above the batteries. He was watching a periscopic
+instrument that connected with the bridge dome by means of a tube, a
+flat mirror in front of him showing all points of the compass. At one
+edge the shadow of the black ship was creeping slowly forward.
+
+"Eight thousand miles, Sir," he told Nat. "One thousand is our extreme
+range. And it looks as if she's making for our blind spot overhead."
+
+Nat stepped to the speaking-tube. "Try to ram her," he called up to
+Brent. "We'll open with all guns, pointing forward."
+
+"Very good, Sir," the Cockney called back.
+
+The black shadow was now nearly in the centre of the mirror. It moved
+upward, vanished. Suddenly the atomic motors began wheezing again. The
+wheeze became a whine, a drone.
+
+"We've dropped to two thousand miles an hour, Sir," called Brent.
+
+Nat leaped for the companion. As he reached the top he could hear the
+teleradio apparatus in the wireless room overhead begin to chatter:
+
+"A-A-A. Don't try to interfere. Am taking you to the Crater of Pytho.
+Shall renew my offer there. Any resistance will be fatal. Axelson."
+
+And suddenly the droning of the motors became a whine again, then
+silence. Nat stared at the instrument-board and uttered a cry.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Madge.
+
+Nat swung upon her. "The matter?" he bawled. "He's neutralized our
+engines by some infernal means of his own, and he's towing us to the
+Moon!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The huge sphere of the Moon had long since covered the entire dome.
+The huge Crater of Pytho now filled it, a black hollow fifty miles
+across, into which they were gradually settling. And, as they settled,
+the pale Earth light, white as that of the Moon on Earth, showed the
+gaunt masses of bare rock, on which nothing grew, and the long
+stalactites of glassy lava that hung from them.
+
+Then out of the depths beneath emerged the shadowy shape of the
+landing-stage.
+
+"You are about to land," chattered the radio. "Don't try any tricks;
+they will be useless. Above all, don't try to use your puny ray. You
+are helpless."
+
+The ship was almost stationary. Little figures could be seen swarming
+upon the landing-stage, ready to adjust the iron claws to clamp the
+hull. With a gesture of helplessness, Nat left the bridge and went
+down to the main deck where, in obedience to his orders, the crew had
+all assembled.
+
+"Men, I'm putting it up to you," he said. "Axelson, the Black Caesar,
+advises us not to attempt to use the Ray-guns. I won't order you to.
+I'll leave the decision with you."
+
+"We tried it fifteen minutes ago, Sir," answered Benson. "I told
+Larrigan to fire off the stern starboard gun to see if it was in
+working order, and it wasn't!"
+
+At that moment the vessel settled with a slight jar into the clamps.
+Once more the teleradio began to scream:
+
+"Open the port hold and file out slowly. Resistance is useless. I
+should turn my ray upon you and obliterate you immediately. Assemble
+on the landing-stage and wait for me!"
+
+"You'd best obey," Nat told his men. "We've got a passenger to
+consider." He glared at Madge as he spoke, and Madge's smile was a
+little more tremulous than it had been before.
+
+"This is the most thrilling experience of my life, Captain Lee," she
+said. "And I'll never rest until I've got an X-Ray photograph of Mr.
+Axelson's skeleton for the Universal News Syndicate."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One by one, Nat last, the crew filed down the ladder onto the
+landing-stage, gasping and choking in the rarefied air that lay like a
+blanket at the bottom of the crater. And the reason for this was only
+too apparent to Nat as soon as he was on the level stage.
+
+Overhead, at an altitude of about a mile, the black ship hung, and
+from its bow a stupendous searchlight played to and fro over the
+bottom of the crater, making it as light as day. And where had been
+the mining machinery, the great buildings that had housed convicts and
+Moon people, and the huge edifice that contained the pumping station,
+there was--nothing.
+
+The devilish ray of Axelson had not merely destroyed them, it had
+obliterated all traces of them, and the crew of the liner were
+breathing the remnants of the atmosphere that still lay at the bottom
+of the Crater of Pytho.
+
+But beside the twin landing-stages, constructed by the World
+Federation, another building arose, with an open front. And that front
+was a huge mirror, now scintillating under the searchlight from the
+black ship.
+
+"That's it, Sir!" shouted Brent.
+
+"That's what?" snapped Nat.
+
+"The deflecting mirror I was speaking of. That's what deflected the
+ray that wiped out China. The ray didn't come from the Moon. And
+that's the mirror that deflects the teleradio waves, the
+super-Hertzian rays that carry the sound."
+
+Nat did not answer. Sick at heart at the failure of his mission, he
+was watching the swarm of Moon men who were at work upon the
+landing-stage, turning the steel clamps and regulating the mechanism
+that controlled the apparatus. Dwarfed, apish creature, with tiny
+limbs, and chests that stood out like barrels, they bustled about,
+chattering in shrill voices that seemed like the piping of birds.
+
+It was evident that Axelson, though he had wiped out the Moon convicts
+and the Moon people in the crater, had reserved a number of the latter
+for personal use.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The black ship was dropping into its position at the second
+landing-stage, connected with the first by a short bridge. The
+starboard hold swung open, and a file of shrouded and hooded forms
+appeared, masked men, breathing in condensed air from receptacles upon
+their chests, and staring with goggle eyes at their captives. Each one
+held in his hand a lethal tube containing the ray, and, as if by
+command, they took up their stations about their prisoners.
+
+Then, at a signal from their leader, they suddenly doffed their masks.
+
+Nat looked at them in astonishment. He had not known whether these
+would be Earth denizens or inhabitants of some other planet. But they
+were Earth men. And they were old.
+
+Men of sixty or seventy, years, with long, gray beards and wrinkled
+faces, and eyes that stared out from beneath penthouses of shaggy
+eyebrows. Faces on which were imprinted despair and hopelessness.
+
+Then the first man took off his mask and Nat saw a man of different
+character.
+
+A man in the prime of life, with a mass of jet black hair and a black
+beard that swept to his waist, a nose like a hawk's, and a pair of
+dark blue eyes that fixed themselves on Nat's with a look of
+Luciferian pride.
+
+"Welcome, Nathaniel Lee," said the man, in deep tones that had a
+curious accent which Nat could not place. "I ought to know your name,
+since your teleradios on Earth have been shouting it for three days
+past as that of the man who is to save Earth from the threat of
+destruction. And you know me!"
+
+"Axelson--the Black Caesar," Nat muttered. For the moment he was taken
+aback. He had anticipated any sort of person except this man, who
+stood, looked, and spoke like a Viking, this incarnation of pride and
+strength.
+
+Axelson smiled--and then his eyes lit upon Madge Dawes. And for a
+moment he stood as if petrified into a block of massive granite.
+
+"What--who is this?" he growled.
+
+"Why, I'm Madge Dawes, of the Universal News Syndicate," answered the
+girl, smiling at Axelson in her irrepressible manner. "And I'm sure
+you're not nearly such a bold, bad pirate as people think, and you're
+going to let us all go free."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Instantly Axelson seemed to become transformed into a maniac. He
+turned to the old men and shouted in some incomprehensible language.
+Nat and Madge, Brent and Benson, and two others who wore the uniforms
+of officers were seized and dragged across the bridge to the
+landing-stage where the black ship was moored. The rest of the crew
+were ordered into a double line.
+
+And then the slaughter began.
+
+Before Nat could even struggle to break away from the gibbering Moon
+men to whom he and the other prisoners had been consigned, the aged
+crew of the Black Caesar had begun their work of almost instantaneous
+destruction.
+
+Streams of red and purple light shot from the ray-pistols that they
+carried, and before them the crew of the ether-liner simply withered
+up and vanished. They became mere masses of human debris piled on the
+landing-stage, and upon these masses, too, the old men turned their
+implements, until only a few heaps of charred carbon remained on the
+landing-stage, impalpable as burned paper, and slowly rising in the
+low atmospheric pressure until they drifted over the crater.
+
+Nat had cried out in horror at the sight, and tried to tear himself
+free from the grasp of the Moon dwarfs who held him. So had the rest.
+Never was struggle so futile. Despite their short arms and legs, the
+Moon dwarfs held them in an unshakable grip, chattering and squealing
+as they compressed them against their barrel-like chests until the
+breath was all but crushed out of their bodies.
+
+"Devil!" cried Nat furiously, as Axelson came up to him. "Why don't
+you kill us, too?" And he hurled furious taunts and abuse at him, in
+the hope of goading him into making the same comparatively merciless
+end of his prisoners.
+
+Axelson looked at him calmly, but made no reply. He looked at Madge
+again, and his features were convulsed with some emotion that gave him
+the aspect of a fiend. And then only did Nat realize that it was Madge
+who was responsible for the Black Caesar's madness.
+
+Axelson spoke again, and the prisoners were hustled up the ladder and
+on board the black vessel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Kommandant-Kommissar will see you!" The door of their prison had
+opened, letting in a shaft of light, and disclosing one of the
+graybeards, who stood there, pointing at Nat.
+
+"The--who?" Nat demanded.
+
+"The Kommandant-Kommissar, Comrade Axelson," snarled the graybeard.
+
+Nat knew what that strange jargon meant. He had read books about the
+political sect known as Socialists who flourished in the Nineteenth
+and Twentieth Centuries, and, indeed, were even yet not everywhere
+extinct. And with that a flash of intuition explained the presence of
+these old men on board.
+
+These were the men who had been imprisoned in their youth, with
+Axelson's father, and had escaped and made their way into space, and
+had been supposed dead long since. Somewhere they must have survived.
+
+And here they were, speaking a jargon of past generations, and
+ignorant that the world had changed, relics of the past, dead as the
+dead Moon from which the black ship was winging away through the
+ether.
+
+"Don't go, Captain," pleaded Madge. "Tell him we'll all go together."
+
+Nat shook his head. "Maybe I'll be able to make terms with him," he
+answered, and stepped out upon the vessel's deck.
+
+The graybeard slammed the door and laughed savagely. "You'll make no
+terms with the Black Caesar," he said. "This is the reign of the
+proletariat. The bourgeois must die! So Lenin decreed!"
+
+But he stopped suddenly and passed his hand over his forehead like a
+man awakening from a dream.
+
+"Surely the proletariat has already triumphed on earth?" he asked. "A
+long time has passed, and daily we expect the summons to return and
+establish the new world-order. What year is this? Is it not 2017? It
+is so hard to reckon on Eros."
+
+"On Eros?" thought Nat. "This is the year 2044," he answered. "You've
+been dreaming, my friend. We've had our new world-order, and it's not
+in the least like the one you and your friends anticipated."
+
+"Gott!" screamed the old man. "Gott, you're lying to me, bourgeois!
+You're lying, I tell you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Eros was their destination! Eros, one of the asteroids, those tiny
+fragments of a broken planet, lying outside the orbit of Mars. Some of
+these little worlds, of which more than a thousand are known to exist,
+are no larger than a gentleman's country estate; some are mere rocks
+in space. Eros, Nat knew, was distinguished among them from the fact
+that it had an eccentric orbit, which brought it at times nearer Earth
+than any other heavenly body except the Moon.
+
+Also that it had only been known for thirty years, and that it was
+supposed to be a double planet, having a dark companion.
+
+That was in Nat's mind as he ascended the bridge to where Axelson was
+standing at the controls, with one of the graybeards beside him. The
+door of his stateroom was open, and suddenly there scuttled out of it
+one of the most bestial objects Nat had ever seen.
+
+It was a Moon woman, a dwarfish figure, clothed in a shapeless garment
+of spun cellulose, and in her arms she held a heavy-headed Moon baby,
+whose huge chest stood up like a pyramid, while the tiny arms and legs
+hung dangling down.
+
+"Here is the bourgeois, Kommandant," said Nat's captor.
+
+Axelson looked at Nat, eye meeting eye in a slow stare. Then he
+relinquished the controls to the graybeard beside him, and motioned
+Nat to precede him into the stateroom.
+
+Nat entered. It was an ordinary room, much like that of the captain of
+the ether-liner now stranded on the Moon. There were a bunk, chairs, a
+desk and a radio receiver.
+
+Axelson shut the door. He tried to speak and failed to master his
+emotion. At last he said:
+
+"I am prepared to offer you terms, Nathaniel Lee, in accordance with
+my promise."
+
+"I'll make no terms with murderers," replied Nat bitterly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Axelson stood looking at him. His great chest rose and fell. Suddenly
+he put out one great hand and clapped Nat on the shoulder.
+
+"Wise men," he said, "recognize facts. Within three weeks I shall be
+the undisputed ruler of Earth. Whether of a desert or of a cowed and
+submissive subject-population, rests with the Earth men. I have never
+been on Earth, for I was born on Eros. My mother died at my birth. I
+have never seen another human woman until to-day."
+
+Nat looked at him, trying to follow what was in Axelson's mind.
+
+"My father fled to Eros, a little planet seventeen miles in diameter,
+as we have found. He called it a heavenly paradise. It was his
+intention to found there a colony of those who were in rebellion
+against the tyrants of Earth.
+
+"His followers journeyed to the Moon and brought back Moon women for
+wives. But there were no children of these unions. Later there were
+dissensions and civil war. Three-fourths of the colony died in battle
+with one another.
+
+"I was a young man. I seized the reins of power. The survivors--these
+old men--were disillusioned and docile. I made myself absolute. I
+brought Moon men and women to Eros to serve us as slaves. But in a few
+years the last of my father's old compatriots will have died, and thus
+it was I conceived of conquering Earth and having men to obey me. For
+fifteen years I have been experimenting and constructing apparatus,
+with which I now have Earth at my mercy.
+
+"But I shall need assistance, intelligent men who will obey me and aid
+me in my plans. That is why I saved you and the other officers of
+your ether-lines. If you will join me, you shall have the highest post
+on Earth under me, Nathaniel Lee, and those others shall be under
+you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Axelson paused, and, loathing the man though he did, Nat was conscious
+of a feeling of pity for him that he could not control. He saw his
+lonely life on Eros, surrounded by those phantom humans of the past,
+and he understood his longing for Earth rule--he the planetary exile,
+the sole human being of all the planetary system outside Earth,
+perhaps, except for his dwindling company of aged men.
+
+"To-day, Nathaniel Lee," Axelson went on, "my life was recast in a new
+mould when I saw the woman you have brought with you. I did not know
+before that women were beautiful to look on. I did not dream that
+creatures such as she existed. She must be mine, Nathaniel Lee.
+
+"But that is immaterial. What is your answer to my offer?"
+
+Nat was trying to think, though passion distorted the mental images as
+they arose in his brain. To Axelson it was evidently incomprehensible
+that there would be any objection to his taking Madge. Nat saw that he
+must temporize for Madge's sake.
+
+"I'll have to consult my companions," he answered.
+
+"Of course," answered Axelson. "That is reasonable. Tell them that
+unless they agree to join me it will be necessary for them to die. Do
+Earth men mind death? We hate it on Eros, and the Moon men hate it,
+too, though they have a queer legend that something in the shape of an
+invisible man raises from their ashes. My father told me that that
+superstition existed on Earth in his time, too. Go and talk to your
+companions, Nathaniel Lee."
+
+The Black Caesar's voice was almost friendly. He clapped Nat on the
+shoulder again, and called the graybeard to conduct him back to his
+prison.
+
+"Oh, Captain Lee, I'm so glad you're back!" exclaimed Madge. "We've
+been afraid for you. Is he such a terrible man, this Black Caesar?"
+
+Nat sneered, then grinned malevolently. "Well, he's not exactly the
+old-fashioned idea of a Sunday-school teacher," he answered. Of course
+he could not tell the girl about Axelson's proposal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little group of prisoners stood on the upper deck of the black
+ship and watched the Moon men scurrying about the landing-stage as she
+hovered to her position.
+
+Axelson's father had not erred when he had called the tiny planet,
+Eros, a heavenly paradise, for no other term could have described it.
+
+They were in an atmosphere so similar to that of Earth that they could
+breathe with complete freedom, but there seemed to be a lightness and
+a vigor in their limbs that indicated that the air was supercharged
+with oxygen or ozone. The presence of this in large amounts was
+indicated by the intense blueness of the sky, across which fleecy
+clouds were drifting.
+
+And in that sky what looked like threescore moons were circling with
+extraordinary swiftness. From thirty to forty full moons, of all
+sizes, from that of a sun to that of a brilliant planet, and riding
+black against the blue.
+
+The sun, hardly smaller than when seen from Earth, shone in the
+zenith, and Earth and Mars hung in the east and north respectively,
+each like a blood-red sun.
+
+The moons were some of the thousand other asteroids, weaving their
+lacy patterns in and out among each other. But, stupendous as the
+sight was, it was toward the terrestrial scene that the party turned
+their eyes as the black ship settled.
+
+A sea of sapphire blue lapped sands of silver and broke into soft
+lines of foam. To the water's edge extended a lawn of brightest green,
+and behind this an arm of the sea extended into what looked like a
+tropical forest. Most of the trees were palmlike, but towered to
+immense heights, their foliage swaying in a gentle breeze. There were
+apparently no elevations, and yet, so small was the little sphere that
+the ascending curve gave the illusion of distant heights, while the
+horizon, instead of seeming to rise, lay apparently perfectly flat,
+producing an extraordinary feeling of insecurity.
+
+Near the water's edge a palatial mansion, built of hewn logs and of a
+single story, stood in a garden of brilliant flowers. Nearer, beyond
+the high landing-stage, were the great shipbuilding works, and near
+them an immense and slightly concave mirror flashed back the light of
+the sun.
+
+"The death ray!" whispered Brent to Nat.
+
+Axelson came up to the party as the ship settled down. "Welcome to
+Eros," he said cordially. "My father told me that in some Earth tongue
+that name meant 'love'."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Never, perhaps, was so strange a feast held as that with which Axelson
+entertained his guests that day. Dwarfish Moon men passed viands and a
+sort of palm wine in the great banquet-room, which singularly
+resembled one of those early twentieth century interiors shown in
+museums. Only the presence of a dozen of the aged guards, armed with
+ray-rods, lent a grimness to the scene.
+
+Madge sat on Axelson's right, and Nat on his left. The girl's
+lightheartedness had left her; her face grew strained as Axelson's
+motives--which Nat had not dared disclose to her--disclosed themselves
+in his manner.
+
+Once, when he laid his finger for a moment against her white throat,
+she started, and for a moment it seemed as if the gathering storm must
+break.
+
+For Nat had talked with his men, and all had agreed that they would
+not turn traitor, though they intended to temporize as long as
+possible, in the hope of catching the Black Caesar unawares.
+
+Then slowly a somber twilight began to fall, and Axelson rose.
+
+"Let us walk in the gardens during the reign of Erebos," he said.
+
+"Erebos?" asked Nat.
+
+"The black world that overshadows us each sleeping period," answered
+Axelson.
+
+Nat knew what he meant. The dark companion of Eros revolves around it
+every six hours; the day of Eros would therefore never be longer than
+six hours, this without reckoning the revolution of Eros around the
+sun. But owing to its small size, it was probable that it was bathed
+in almost perpetual sunshine.
+
+The sweet scent of the flowers, much stronger than of any flowers on
+earth, filled the air. They walked across the green lawn and entered a
+jungle path, with bamboos and creeping plants on either side, and huge
+palmlike trees. Behind them stalked the guards with their ray-rods.
+
+A lake of deepest black disclosed itself. Suddenly Madge uttered a
+scream and clung to Nat. "Look, look!" she cried. "It's horrible!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly Nat realized that the lake swarmed with monsters. They were
+of crocodilian form, but twice the size of the largest crocodile, and
+sprawled over one another in the shallows beside the margin. As the
+party drew near, an enormous monster began waddling on its clawed feet
+toward them.
+
+A mouth half the length of the creature opened, disclosing a purplish
+tongue and hideous fangs. Madge screamed again.
+
+"Ah, so fear exists on Earth, too?" asked Axelson blandly. "That makes
+my conquest sure. I suspected it, and yet I was not sure that science
+had not conquered it. But there is no cause for fear. A magnetic field
+protects us. See!"
+
+For the waddling monster suddenly stopped short as if brought up
+sharply by the bars of a cage, and drew back.
+
+Axelson turned and wheezed in the Moon language--if the gibbering of
+the dwarfs could be called speech--and one of the guards answered him.
+
+"These primitive dwellers on Eros I have preserved," said Axelson, "as
+a means of discipline. The Moon animals are afraid of them. I keep a
+supply of those who have transgressed my laws to feed them. See!"
+
+He turned and pointed. Two guards were bringing a gibbering,
+screeching, struggling Moon man with them. Despite his strength, he
+seemed incapable of making any resistance, but his whole body
+quivered, and his hideous face was contorted with agony of terror.
+
+At a distance of some fifty feet they turned aside into a little
+bypath through the jungle, reappearing close beside the Lake upon a
+raised platform. And what happened next happened so swiftly that Nat
+was unable to do anything to prevent it.
+
+The guards disappeared; the Moon man, as if propelled by some
+invisible force, moved forward jerkily to the lake's edge. Instantly
+one of the saurians had seized him in its jaws, and another had
+wrenched half the body away, and the whole fighting, squirming mass
+vanished in the depths.
+
+And from far away came the screeching chant of the Moon men, as if in
+invocation to some hideous deity.
+
+And, moving perceptibly, the huge black orb of Eros's dark satellite
+crept over the sky, completely covering it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Axelson stepped forward to where Nat stood, supporting Madge in his
+arms. The girl had fainted with horror at the scene.
+
+"Your answer Nathaniel Lee," he said softly. "I know you have been
+postponing the decision. Now I will take the girl, and you shall give
+me your answer. Will you and these men join me, or will you die as the
+Moon man died?" He spoke wheezily, as if he, like Nat, had a cold.
+
+And he put his arm around Madge.
+
+Next moment something happened to him that had never happened in his
+life before. The Black Caesar went down under a well-directed blow to
+the jaw.
+
+He leaped to his feet trembling with fury and barked a command.
+Instantly the old guards had hurled themselves forward. And behind
+them a horde of Moon men came, ambling.
+
+While the guards covered their prisoners with their ray-rods, two Moon
+men seized each of them, imprisoning him in their unbreakable grasp.
+
+Axelson pointed upward. "When the reign of Erebos is past," he said,
+"you become food for the denizens of the lake, unless you have agreed
+to serve me."
+
+And he raised Madge in his arms, laughing as the girl fought and
+struggled to resist him.
+
+"Madge!" cried Nat, trying to run toward her.
+
+So furious were his struggles that for a moment he succeeded in
+throwing off the Moon men's grasp. Then he was caught again, and,
+fighting desperately, was borne off by the dwarfs through the shadows.
+
+They traversed the border of the lake until a small stone building
+disclosed itself. Nat and the others were thrust inside into pitch
+darkness. The door clanged; in vain they hurled themselves against it.
+It was of wood, but it was as solid as the stone itself, and it did
+not give an inch for all their struggles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Where is your Kommandant?" The whisper seemed in the stone hut
+itself. "Your Nathaniel Lee. I must speak to him. I am the guard who
+brought him to the Black Caesar on board the ship."
+
+"I'm here," said Nat. "Where are you?"
+
+"I am in the house of the ray. I am on guard there. I am speaking into
+the telephone which runs only to where you are. You can speak anywhere
+in the hut, and I shall hear you."
+
+"Well, what do you want?" asked Nat.
+
+"You love the Earth woman. I remember, when I was a boy, we used to
+love. I had forgotten. There was a girl in Stamford.... Tell me, is it
+true that this is the year 2044 and that the proletariat has not yet
+triumphed?"
+
+"It's true," said Nat. "Those dreams are finished, We're proud of the
+World Federation. Tell me about Madge Dawes--the Earth woman. Is she
+safe?"
+
+"He has taken her to his house. I do not think she is harmed. He is
+ill. He is closely guarded. There are rumors afoot. I do not know."
+
+"What do you want, then?"
+
+"If the Black Caesar dies will you take me back to Earth again? I long
+so for the old Earth life. I will be your slave, if only I can set
+foot on Earth before I die."
+
+"Can you rescue us?" Nat held his breath.
+
+"The Moon men are on guard."
+
+"They have no ray-guns and you have."
+
+"The penalty would be terrible. I should be thrown to the monsters."
+
+"Can you get us each a ray-gun? Will you risk it, to get back to
+Earth?" asked Nat.
+
+A pause. Then, "My friend, I am coming."
+
+Nat heard Benson hissing in his ear, "If we can surprise them, we can
+get possession of the black ship and return."
+
+"We must get Madge Dawes."
+
+"And smash the mirror," put in Brent.
+
+After that there was nothing to do but wait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door clicked open. An indistinct form stood in the entrance. It
+was already growing light; the dark satellite that eclipsed Eros was
+passing.
+
+"Hush! I have brought you ray-rods!" It was the old man with whom Nat
+had spoken on the boat. Under his arm he held five metallic rods,
+tipped with luminous glass. He handed one to each of the prisoners.
+"Do you know how to use them?" he asked.
+
+Nat examined his. "It's an old-style rod that was used on earth fifty
+years ago," he told his men. "I've seen them in museums. It came into
+use in the Second World War of 1950 or thereabouts. You slip back the
+safety catch and press this button, taking aim as one did with the
+pistol. You fellows have seen pistols?"
+
+"My father had an old one," said the chief mate, Barnes.
+
+"How many times can they be fired without reloading?" Nat asked the
+old guard.
+
+"Ten times; sometimes more; and they were all freshly loaded
+yesterday."
+
+"Take us to where Axelson is."
+
+"First you must destroy the guards. I sent the one on duty here away
+on some pretext. But the others may be here at any moment. Talk lower.
+Are you going to kill them?"
+
+"We must," said Nat.
+
+The old fellow began to sob. "We were companions together. They seized
+us and imprisoned us together, the capitalists, years ago. I thought
+the proletariat would have won, and you say it is all different. I am
+an old man, and life is sad and strange."
+
+"Listen. Is Axelson in the house?" demanded Nat.
+
+"He is in his secret room. I do not know the way. None of us has ever
+entered it."
+
+"And Madge?"
+
+"She was with him. I do not know anything more." He sank down,
+groaning, broken.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat pushed his way past him. It was fast growing light now. A ray of
+sunshine shot from beneath the edge of the dark sphere overhead, which
+still filled almost all the heavens. At that moment the hideous face
+and squat body of one of the Moon men came into view at the end of
+the path. The creature stopped, gibbering with surprise, and then
+rushed forward, mewing like a cat.
+
+Nat aimed his ray-rod and pressed the button. The streak of light, not
+quite aimed, in Nat's excitement, sheared off one side of the Moon
+man's face.
+
+The creature rocked where it stood, raised its voice in a screech, and
+rushed forward again, arms flailing. And this time Nat got home. The
+streak passed right through the body of the monster, which collapsed
+into a heap of calcined carbon.
+
+But its screech had brought the other dwarfs running to the scene. In
+a moment the path was blocked by a score of the hideous monsters,
+which, taking in what was happening, came forward in a yelling bunch.
+
+The ray-rods streaked their message of death into the thick of them.
+Yet so fierce was the rush that some parts got home. Arms, legs, and
+barrel chests, halves of men, covering the five with that impalpable
+black powder into which their bodies were dissolving. Nat remembered
+afterward the horror of a grinning face, apparently loose in the air,
+and a flailing arm that lashed his chest.
+
+For fifteen seconds, perhaps, it was like struggling with some vampire
+creatures in a hideous dream. And then, just when it seemed to Nat
+that he was going mad, he found the path free, and the huddled
+remnants of the Moon men piled up about him on every side.
+
+He emptied two more ray-shots into the writhing mass, and saw it cease
+to quiver and then dissolve into the black powder. He turned and
+looked at his companions. They, too, showed the horror of the strain
+they had undergone.
+
+"We must kill the guards now," Nat panted. "And then find Madge and
+save her."
+
+"We're with you," answered Brent, and together the five rushed into
+the sunlight and the open.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were no guards on duty at the entrance of the house, and the
+door stood wide open. Nat rushed through the door at the head of his
+men. A single guard was in the hall, but he only looked up as they
+came in. And it was evident that he was in no condition to resist, for
+he was in the grip of some terrible disease.
+
+His features were swollen so that they were hardly recognizable, and
+hoarse, panting breaths came from his lungs. He was so far gone that
+he hardly registered surprise at the advent of the five.
+
+"Where's Axelson?" demanded Nat.
+
+The guard pointed toward the end of the corridor, then let his arm
+fall. Nat led his men along the half-dark passage.
+
+At the end of the corridor two more guards were on duty, but one was
+collapsed upon the floor, apparently unconscious, and the other,
+making a feeble attempt to draw his ray-rod, crumbled into ashes as
+Brent fired. The five burst through the door.
+
+They found themselves in the banquet-hall. The remnants of the meal
+were still upon the table, and three Moon men, looking as if they had
+been poisoned, were writhing on the floor. At the farther end of the
+hall was another door.
+
+This gave upon a central hall, with a door in each of its four sides,
+and a blaze of sunlight coming through the crystal roof. The five
+stopped, baffled. Then of a sudden Axelson's voice broke the
+silence--his voice, yet changed almost beyond recognition, hoarse,
+broken, and gasping:
+
+"Try the doors, Nathaniel Lee. Try each door in turn, and then go
+back. And know that in an instant I can blast you to nothingness where
+you stand!"
+
+And suddenly there came Madge's voice, "He can't! He can't, Nat. He's
+dying, and he knows it. I won't let him, and he hasn't got the
+strength to move."
+
+"Which door?" cried Nat in desperation.
+
+"None of the doors. They're a trick," came Madge's voice. "Go forward
+and press the grooved panel upon the wall in front of you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nat stepped forward, found the panel, and pressed it. The wall swung
+open, like two folded doors, revealing another room within, perfectly
+circular.
+
+It contained a quantity of pieces of apparatus, some glowing with
+light, some dark, and a radio transmitting set; it was evidently the
+secret lair of the Black Caesar. And there he was, trapped at last by
+the mortal illness that had overtaken him!
+
+He was lying upon the couch, his great form stretched out, his
+features hideously swollen by the same disease that had attacked the
+guards.
+
+Nat raised his ray-rod, but Axelson feebly put up his hand, and Nat
+lowered the weapon. And, as the five gathered about the dying man,
+again Nat felt that strange sense of pathos and pity for him.
+
+He had never known Earth life, and he was not to be measured by the
+common standards applicable on Earth.
+
+"Don't fire, Nat," said Madge in a shaky voice. She was seated beside
+Axelson, and--the wonder of it--she was sponging the foam from his
+lips and moistening his forehead. She raised a crystal that contained
+some fluid to his lips, and he drained it greedily.
+
+"So--Earth wins, Nathaniel Lee," whispered Axelson hoarsely. "I am
+dying. I know it. It is the same dreaded disease that came to the Moon
+at the time of my father's landing there. Three-fourths of the Moon
+animals died. It is mortal. The lungs burn away.
+
+"My father told me that on Earth it is not mortal. He called it
+'cold'--but I am burning hot."
+
+Then only did Nat understand, and the irony of it made him catch his
+breath and grit his teeth to check his hysterical laughter. The Black
+Caesar, the terror of Earth, was dying of a common cold which he
+himself had given him.
+
+The coryza germ, almost harmless on Earth, among a population
+habituated to it for countless generations, had assumed the potency of
+a plague here, where no colds had ever been known--among the Moon men,
+and even among the guards, after their lifetime in the germless
+climate of Eros.
+
+"I've failed, Nathaniel Lee," came the Black Caesar's voice. "And yet
+that hardly troubles me. There is something more that I do not
+understand. She is a creature like ourselves--with will and reason.
+She is not like the Moon women. She told me that she did not wish to
+be queen of the Earth because she did not love me. I do not
+understand. And so--I am glad to go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gasp came from Axelson's throat as he raised his head and tried to
+speak, but the death-rattle was already in his throat. A slight
+struggle, and the massive form upon the couch was nothing but
+inanimate clay.
+
+Madge rose from beside him, and the tears were streaming down her
+face.
+
+"He wasn't a bad man, Nat," she said. "He was--gentle with me. He
+didn't understand; that was all. When I refused to be his queen, he
+was overcome with bewilderment. Oh, Nat, I can never, never write this
+story for the Universal News Syndicate."
+
+Nat led her, sobbing, from the room.
+
+Soon he succeeded in getting into teleradio communication with Earth.
+He broadcast the news that the Black Caesar was dead, and that his
+power for evil was at an end forever.
+
+Then, in the few hours of daylight that remained, he set his men to
+work to smash the ray outfit that had destroyed China. There was some
+principle involved which he did not altogether understand, though
+Brent professed to have a clue to it, but it was evident that, except
+for the ray, Axelson had possessed no knowledge superior to that of
+the Earth scientists.
+
+Of the guards, a few were already recovering, principally those of
+comparatively younger age. Not a Moon man, on the other hand, had
+survived the epidemic. As soon as Nat had got the guards out of the
+house, he reduced it to ashes by the aid of an old-fashioned box of
+phosphoric matches.
+
+As the dark satellite was again creeping over Eros, the black ship set
+sail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But of the return journey to the Moon, where they transferred to their
+own ship, of their landing at New York, and of the triumphal reception
+that was accorded them, this is no place to speak. Nat's journey with
+Madge from the center of the city, in what was the old Borough of
+Westchester, to his home in the suburb of Hartford, was a continual
+ovation.
+
+Crowds lined the air-route, and every few miles, so thick was the
+air-traffic, he was forced to hover and address the cheering
+multitudes. Hartford itself was _en fete_, and across the main road
+the City Bosses had hung an old-fashioned banner, strung from house to
+house on either side, bearing the legend: For World President:
+NATHANIEL LEE!
+
+Nat turned to Madge, who was seated beside him silently. "Ever hear of
+'getting married?'" he asked.
+
+"Of course I've heard of it," replied the girl indignantly. "Do you
+think I'm as dumb as that, Nat Lee? Why, those old-fashioned novels
+are part of the public schools' curriculum."
+
+"Pity those days can't come back. You ought to be a World
+Presidentess, you know," said Nat. "I was thinking, if we registered
+as companionates, I could take you into the White House, and you'd
+have a swell time there taking X-rays on visiting days."
+
+"Well," answered Madge slowly. "I never thought of that. It might be
+worth trying out."
+
+
+
+
+The Second Satellite
+
+_By Edmond Hamilton_
+
+[Illustration: _The city of the frog-men!_]
+
+[Sidenote: Earth-men war on frog-vampires for the emancipation of the
+human cows of Earth's second satellite.]
+
+
+Norman and Hackett, bulky in their thick flying suits, seemed to fill
+the little office. Across the room Harding, the field superintendent,
+contemplated them. Two planes were curving up into the dawn together
+from the field outside, their motors thunderous as they roared over
+the building. When their clamor had receded, Harding spoke:
+
+"I don't know which of you two is crazier," he said. "You, Norman, to
+propose a fool trip like this, or you, Hackett, to go with him."
+
+Hackett grinned, but the long, lean face of Norman was earnest. "No
+doubt it all sounds a little insane," he said, "but I'm convinced I'm
+right."
+
+The field superintendent shook his head. "Norman, you ought to be
+writing fiction instead of flying. A second satellite--and Fellows and
+the others on it--what the devil!"
+
+"What other theory can account for their disappearance?" asked Norman
+calmly. "You know that since the new X-type planes were introduced,
+hundreds of fliers all over Earth have been trying for altitude
+records in them. Twenty-five miles--thirty--thirty-five--the records
+have been broken every day. But out of the hundreds of fliers who
+have gone up to those immense heights, four have never come down nor
+been seen again!
+
+"One vanished over northern Sweden, one over Australia, one over Lower
+California, and one, Fellows, himself, right here over Long Island.
+You saw the globe on which I marked those four spots, and you saw that
+when connected they formed a perfect circle around the Earth. The only
+explanation is that the four fliers when they reached a forty-mile
+height were caught up by some body moving round Earth in that circular
+orbit, some unknown moon circling Earth inside its atmosphere, a
+second satellite of Earth's whose existence has until now never been
+suspected!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harding shook his head again. "Norman, your theory would be all right
+if it were not for the cold fact that no such satellite has ever been
+glimpsed."
+
+"Can you glimpse a bullet passing you?" Norman retorted. "The two
+fliers at Sweden and Lower California vanished within three hours of
+each other, on opposite sides of the Earth. That means that this
+second satellite, as I've computed, circles Earth once every six
+hours, and travelling at that terrific speed it is no more visible to
+us of Earth than a rifle bullet would be."
+
+"Moving through Earth's atmosphere at such speed, indeed, one would
+expect it to burn up by its own friction with the air. But it does
+not, because its own gravitational power would draw to itself enough
+air to make a dense little atmosphere for itself that would cling to
+it and shield it as it speeds through Earth's upper air. No, I'm
+certain that this second satellite exists, Harding, and I'm as certain
+that it's responsible for the vanishing of those four fliers."
+
+"And now you and Hackett have figured when it will be passing over
+here and are going up in an X-type yourselves to look for it,"
+Harding said musingly.
+
+"Look for it?" echoed Hackett. "We're not going to climb forty miles
+just to get a look at the damn thing--we're going to try landing on
+it!"
+
+"You're crazy sure!" the field superintendent exploded. "If Fellows
+and those others got caught by the thing and never came down again,
+why in the name of all that's holy would you two want--" He stopped
+suddenly. "Oh, I think I see," he said, awkwardly. "Fellows was rather
+a buddy of you two, wasn't he?"
+
+"The best that ever flew a crippled Nieuport against three Fokkers to
+pull us out of a hole," said Norman softly. "Weeks he's been gone, and
+if it had been Hackett and I he'd be all over the sky looking for
+us--the damned lunatic. Well, we're not going to let him down."
+
+"I see," Harding repeated. Then--"Well, here comes your mechanic,
+Norman, so your ship must be ready. I'll go with you. It's an event to
+see two Columbuses starting for another world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gray dawn-light over the flying field was flushing to faint rose
+as the three strode out to where the long X-type stood, its strangely
+curved wings, enclosed cabin and flat, fan-like tail gleaming dully.
+Its motor was already roaring with power and the plane's stubby wheels
+strained against the chocks. In their great suits Norman and Hackett
+were like two immense ape-figures in the uncertain light, to the eyes
+of those about them.
+
+"Well, all the luck," Harding told them. "You know I'm pulling for
+you, but--I suppose it's useless to say anything about being careful."
+
+"I seem to have heard the words," Hackett grinned, as he and Norman
+shook the field superintendent's hand.
+
+"It's all the craziest chance," Norman told the other. "And if we
+don't come down in a reasonable time--well, you'll know that our
+theory was right, and you can broadcast it or not as you please."
+
+"I hope for your sake that you're dead wrong," smiled the official.
+"I've told you two to get off the Earth a lot of times, but I never
+meant it seriously."
+
+Harding stepped back as the two clambered laboriously into the cramped
+cabin. Norman took the controls, the door slammed, and as the chocks
+were jerked back and the motor roared louder the long plane curved up
+at a dizzy angle from the field into the dawn. Hackett waved a thick
+arm down toward the diminishing figures on the field below; then
+turned from the window to peer ahead with his companion.
+
+The plane flew in a narrow ascending spiral upward, at an angle that
+would have been impossible to any ship save an X-type. Norman's eyes
+roved steadily over the instrument as they rose, his ears
+unconsciously alert for each explosion of the motor. Earth receded
+swiftly into a great gray concave surface as they climbed higher and
+higher.
+
+By the time the five-mile height was reached Earth's surface had
+changed definitely from concave to convex. The plane was ascending by
+then in a somewhat wider spiral, but its climb was as steady and sure
+as ever. Frost begin to form quickly on the cabin's windows, creeping
+out from the edges. Norman spoke a word over the motor's muffled
+thunder, and Hackett snicked on the electrical radiators. The frost
+crept back as their warm, clean heat flooded the cabin.
+
+Ten miles--fifteen--they had reached already altitudes impossible but
+a few years before, though it was nothing to the X-types. As they
+passed the ten-mile mark, Hackett set the compact oxygen-generator
+going. A clean, tangy odor filled the cabin as it began functioning.
+Twenty miles--twenty-two--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a time Norman pointed mutely to the clock on the instrument
+board, and Hackett nodded. They were well within their time schedule,
+having calculated to reach the forty-mile height at ten, the hour
+when, by its computed orbit, the second satellite should be passing
+overhead. "--26--27--28--" Hackett muttered the altimeter figures to
+himself as the needle crept over them.
+
+Glancing obliquely down through the window he saw that Earth was now a
+huge gray ball beneath them, white cloud-oceans obscuring the drab
+details of its surface here and there. "--31--32--" The plane was
+climbing more slowly, and at a lesser angle. Even the X-type had to
+struggle to rise in the attenuated air now about them. Only the
+super-light, super-powered plane could ever have reached the terrific
+height.
+
+It was at the thirty-four mile level that the real battle for altitude
+began. Norman kept the plane curving steadily upward, handling it with
+surpassing skill in the rarefied air. Frost was on its windows now
+despite the heating mechanism. Slowly the altimeter needle crept to
+the forty mark. Norman kept the ship circling, its wings tilted
+slightly, but not climbing, Earth a great gray misty ball beneath.
+
+"Can't keep this height long," he jerked. "If our second satellite
+doesn't show up in minutes we've had a trip for nothing."
+
+"All seems mighty different up here," was Hackett's shouted comment.
+"Easy enough to talk down there about hopping onto the thing, but up
+here--hell, there's nothing but air and mighty little of that!"
+
+Norman grinned. "There'll be more. If I'm right about this thing we
+won't need to hop it--its own atmosphere will pick us up."
+
+Both looked anxious as the motor sputtered briefly. But in a moment it
+was again roaring steadily. Norman shook his head.
+
+"Maybe a fool's errand after all. No--I'm still sure we're right! But
+it seems that we don't prove it this time."
+
+"Going down?" asked Hackett.
+
+"We'll have to, in minutes. Even with its own air-feed the motor can't
+stand this height for--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman never finished the words. There was a sound, a keen rising,
+rushing sound of immense power that reached their ears over the
+motor's roar. Then in an instant the universe seemed to go mad about
+them: they saw the gray ball of Earth and the sun above skyrocketing
+around them as the plane whirled madly.
+
+The rushing sound was in that moment thunderous, terrible, and as
+winds smashed and rocked the plane like giant hands, Hackett glimpsed
+another sphere that was not the sphere of Earth, a greenish globe that
+expanded with lightning speed in the firmament beside their spinning
+plane! The winds stilled; the green globe changed abruptly to a
+landscape of green land and sea toward which the plane was falling!
+Norman was fighting the controls--land and sea were gyrating up to
+them with dizzy speed--crash!
+
+With that cracking crash the plane was motionless. Sunlight poured
+through its windows, and great green growths were all around it.
+Hackett, despite Norman's warning cry, forced the door open and was
+bursting outside, Norman after him. They staggered and fell, with
+curious lightness and slowness, on the ground outside, then clutched
+the plane for support and gazed stupefiedly around them.
+
+The plane had crashed down into a thicket of giant green reeds that
+rose a yard over their heads, its pancake landing having apparently
+not damaged it. The ground beneath their feet was soft and soggy, the
+air warm and balmy, and the giant reeds hid all the surrounding
+landscape from view.
+
+In the sky the sun burned near one horizon with unusual brilliance.
+But it was dwarfed, in size, by the huge gray circle that filled half
+the heavens overhead. A giant gray sphere it was, screened here and
+there by floating white mists and clouds, that had yet plain on it
+the outlines of dark continents and gleaming seas. A quaking
+realization held the two as they stared up at it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Earth!" Norman was babbling. "It's Earth, Hackett--above us; my God,
+I can't believe even yet that we've done it!"
+
+"Then we're on--the satellite--the second satellite!--" Hackett fought
+for reality. "Those winds that caught us--"
+
+"They were the atmosphere of this world, of the second satellite! They
+caught us and carried us on inside this smaller world's atmosphere,
+Hackett. We're moving with it around Earth at terrific speed now!"
+
+"The second satellite, and we on it!" Hackett whispered,
+incredulously. "But these reeds--it can't all be like this--"
+
+They stepped together away from the plane. The effort sent each of
+them sailing upward in a great, slow leap, to float down more than a
+score of feet from the plane. But unheeding in their eagerness this
+strange effect of the satellite's lesser gravitational power, they
+moved on, each step a giant, clumsy leap. Four such steps took them
+out of the towering reeds onto clear ground.
+
+It was a gentle, grassy slope they were on, stretching away along a
+gray-green sea that extended out to the astoundingly near horizon on
+their right. To the left it rose into low hills covered with dense
+masses of green junglelike vegetation. Hackett and Norman, though,
+gazed neither at sea or hills for the moment, but at the half-score
+grotesque figures who had turned toward them as they emerged from the
+reeds. A sick sense of the unreal held them as they gazed, frozen with
+horror. For the great figures returning their gaze a few yards from
+them were--frog-men!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frog-men! Great mottled green shapes seven to eight feet in height,
+with bowed, powerful legs and arms that ended in webbed paws. The
+heads were bulbous ones in which wide, unwinking frog-eyes were set at
+the sides, the mouths white-lipped and white-lined. Three of the
+creatures held each a black metal tube-and-handle oddly like a
+target-pistol.
+
+"Norman!" Hackett's voice was a crescendo of horror. "_Norman!_"
+
+"Back to the plane!" Norman cried thickly. "The plane--"
+
+The two staggered back, but the frog-men, recovering from their own
+first surprise, were running forward with great hopping steps! The two
+fliers flung themselves back in a floating leap toward the reeds, but
+the green monsters were quick after them. A croaking cry came from one
+and as another raised his tube-and-handle, something flicked from it
+that burst close beside Norman. There was no sound or light as it
+burst, but the reeds for a few feet around it vanished!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hoarse cry from Hackett--the creatures had reached him, grasped him
+at the edge of the reeds! Norman swerved in his floating leap to
+strike the struggling flier and frog-men. The scene whirled around him
+as he fought them, great paws reaching for him. With a sick, frantic
+rage he felt his clenched fist drive against cold, green, billowy
+bodies. Croaking cries sounded in his ears; then, Hackett and he were
+jerked to their feet, held tightly by four of the creatures.
+
+"My God, Norman," panted Hackett, helpless. "What are
+they--frog-things?--"
+
+"Steady, Hackett. They're the people of the second satellite, it
+seems; wait!"
+
+One of the armed frog-men approached and inspected them, and then
+croaked an order in a deep voice. Then, still holding the two tightly,
+the party of monsters began to move along the slope, skirting the
+sea's edge. In a few minutes they reached two curious objects resting
+on the slope. They seemed long black metal boats, slender and with
+sharp prow and stern. A compact mechanism and control-board filled
+the prow, while at the stern and sides were long tubes mounted on
+swivels like machine-guns.
+
+The frog-men motioned Norman and Hackett into one, fastening the two
+prisoners and themselves into their seats with metal straps provided
+for the purpose. Four had entered the one boat, the others that of the
+captives. One at the prow moved his paws over the control-board and
+with a purring of power the boat, followed by the other, rose smoothly
+into the air. It headed out over the gray-green sea, land dropping
+quickly from sight behind, the horizons water-bounded on all sides.
+From their nearness Norman guessed that this second satellite of
+Earth's was small indeed beside its mother planet. He had to look up
+to earth's great gray sphere overhead to attain a sense of reality.
+
+Hackett was whispering beside him, the frog-men watchful. "Norman, it's
+not real--it can't be real! These things--these boats--intelligent like
+men--"
+
+The other sought to steady him. "It's a different world, Hackett.
+Gravitation different, light different, everything different, and
+evolution here has had a different course. On Earth men evolved to be
+the most intelligent life-forms, but here the frog-races, it seems."
+
+"But where are they taking us? Could we ever find the plane again?"
+
+"God knows. If we ever get away from these things we might. And we've
+got to find Fellows, too; I wonder where he is on this world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For many minutes the two boats raced on at great speed over the
+endless waters before the watery skyline was broken far ahead by
+something dark and unmoving. Hackett and Norman peered with intense
+interest toward it. It seemed at first a giant squat mountain rising
+from the sea, but as they shot nearer they saw that its outline was
+too regular, and that colossal as it was in size it was the work of
+intelligence. They gasped as they came nearer and got a better view of
+it.
+
+For it was a gigantic dome of black metal rising sheer from the lonely
+sea, ten miles if anything in diameter, a third that in greatest
+height. There was no gate or window or opening of any kind in it. Just
+the colossal, smooth black dome rearing from the watery plain. Yet the
+two boats were flashing lower toward it.
+
+"They can't be going inside!" Hackett conjectured. "There's no way in
+and what could be in there? The whole thing's mad--"
+
+"There's some way," Norman said. "They're slowing--"
+
+The flying-boats were indeed slowing as they dipped lower. They were
+very near the dome now, its curving wall a looming, sky-high barrier
+before them. Suddenly the boats dipped sharply downward toward the
+green sea. Before the two fliers could comprehend their purpose, could
+do aught more than draw instinctive great breaths in preparation, the
+two craft had shot down into the waters and were arrowing down through
+the green depths.
+
+Blinded, flung against his metal strap by the resistance of the waters
+they ripped through, Norman yet retained enough of consciousness to
+glimpse beams of light that stabbed ahead from the prows of their
+rushing boats, to see vaguely strange creatures of the deep blundering
+in and out of those beams as the boats hurtled forward. The water that
+forced its way between his lips was fresh, he was vaguely aware, and
+even as he fought to hold his breath was aware too that the frog-men
+seemed in no way incommoded by the sudden transition into the water,
+their amphibian nature allowing them to stay under it far longer than
+any human could do.
+
+The boats ripped through the waters at terrific speed and in a few
+seconds there loomed before them the giant metal wall of the great
+dome, going down into the depths here. Norman glimpsed vaguely that
+the whole colossal dome rested on a vast pedestal-like mountain of
+rock that rose from the sea's floor almost to the surface. Then a
+great round opening in the wall; the boats flashed into it and were
+hurtling along a water-filled tunnel. Norman felt his lungs near
+bursting--when the tunnel turned sharply upward and the boats whizzed
+up and abruptly out of the water-tunnel into air!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was not the open air again. They were beneath the gigantic
+dome! For as Norman and Hackett breathed deep, awe fell on their faces
+as they took in the scene. Far overhead stretched the dome's
+colossally curving roof, and far out on all sides. It was lit beneath
+that roof by a clear light that the two would have sworn was sunlight.
+The dome was in effect the roof of a gigantic, illuminated building,
+and upon its floor there stretched a mighty city.
+
+The city of the frog-men! Their boats were rising up over it and
+Norman and Hackett saw it clear. Square mile upon square mile of
+structures stretched beneath the dome, black buildings often of
+immense size, varying in shape, but all of square, rectangular
+proportions. Between them moved countless frog-hordes, swirling
+throngs in streets and squares, and over the roofs darted thick swarms
+of flying-boats. And at the city's center, in a great, circular, clear
+space, lay a wide, round, green pool--the opening of the water-tunnel
+up through which they had come.
+
+Norman pointed down toward it. "That's your answer!" he cried. "The
+only entrance to this frog-city is from the sea, up through that
+water-tunnel!"
+
+"Good God, an amphibian city!" Hackett was shaken, white-faced.
+
+The two boats were driving quickly over the city, through the swarming
+craft. Norman glimpsed towering buildings that might have been
+palaces, temples, laboratories. They slowed and dipped toward one
+block-like building not far from the water-tunnel's opening. Armed
+frog-guards were on its roof, and other boats rested there. The two
+came to rest and the two captives were jerked out, the guards seizing
+them.
+
+Half-dragged and half-floating they were led toward an opening in the
+roof from which a stair led downward. They passed down thus into the
+building's interior, lit by many windows. Norman glimpsed long halls
+ending in barred doors, guards here and there. Tube-lines ran along
+the walls and somewhere machines were throbbing dully. They came at
+last to a barred door whose guard opened it at the croaking order of
+the frog-men who held the two, and they were thrust inside, as the
+door clanged. They turned, and exclaimed in amazement. The room held
+fully a half-hundred men!
+
+They were men such as the two fliers had never seen before, like
+humans except that their skins were a light green instead of the
+normal white and pink. They were dressed in dark short tunics, and
+kept talking to each other in a tongue quite unintelligible to Norman
+and Hackett. They came closer, flocking curiously around the two men,
+with a babel of voices quite meaningless to the two. Then one of the
+men uttered an exclamation, and all turned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The barred door had swung open and a half-dozen frog-guards entered,
+followed by two frog-men carrying a square little mechanism from which
+tubing led back out through the door.
+
+"Norman--these men--" Hackett was whispering rapidly. "If there are
+men in this world too, it may be that--"
+
+"Quiet, Hackett--look at what they're doing."
+
+The two frog-men had set their mechanism in place and then croaked out
+a brief word or order. Slowly, reluctantly, one of the green men moved
+toward them. Quickly they removed a metal disk fastened to his arm,
+exposing a small orifice like an unhealed wound. Onto this they
+fastened a suckerlike object from which a transparent tube led back
+through the mechanism. The machine hummed and at once a red stream
+pulsed through the tube and back through the mechanism. The man to
+whom it was attached was growing rapidly pale!
+
+Norman, sick with horror, clutched his companion. "Hackett--these
+frog-men are sucking his blood from him!"
+
+"Good God! And look--they're doing it with another!"
+
+"All of these men--kept prisoners to furnish them with blood. It must
+be the damned creatures' food! And we here with the others--"
+
+A common horror shook the two. It did not seem to affect the green men
+in the room, though, who advanced to the mechanism one by one with a
+reluctant air as of cows unwilling to be milked. Each was attached to
+the mechanism by the sucking disk on his arm, and out of each the
+blood poured through the tube. The metal disk was replaced on his arm
+then and he went back to the others. Norman saw that the frog-men took
+only from each an amount of blood that they could lose and yet live,
+since, though each came back pale and weak from the mechanism, they
+were able to walk.
+
+"It must be their food--human blood!" Norman repeated. "They may have
+thousands on thousands of humans penned up like this, like so many
+herds of cows, and perhaps they live entirely on the life-blood they
+milk from them. Human cows--God!"
+
+"Norman--look--they're calling to us!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two stiffened. All the others in the room had taken their turn at
+the blood-sucking mechanism and now the frog-men croaked their order
+to the two fliers. They had forgotten their own predicament in the
+horror of the scene, but now it became real to them. They backed
+against the room's wall, quivering, dangerous.
+
+The frog-guards came forward to drag them to the machine. A webbed paw
+was outstretched but Hackett with a wild blow drove the frog-man back
+and downward. The frog-guards leaped, and Norman and Hackett struck
+them back with all the greater strength the lesser gravitation gave
+them. The room was in an uproar, the green men shouting hoarsely and
+seeming on the point of rushing to their aid.
+
+But the menacing force-pistols of the other frog-guards held back the
+shouting men and in moments the two fliers were overpowered by sheer
+weight of frog-bodies. Norman felt himself dragged to the machine.
+
+Pain needled his upper arm as an incision was made. He felt the
+sucking-disk attached; then the machine hummed, and a sickening nausea
+swept him as the blood drained from his body. Held tightly by the
+guards he went dizzy, weak, but at last felt the sucker removed and a
+metal disk fastened over the incision. He was jerked aside and
+Hackett, his face deathly white, was dragged into his place. In a
+moment some of the latter's blood had been pumped from him also.
+
+The machine was withdrawn, Norman and Hackett were released, and the
+frog-men, with their black force-pistols watchfully raised, withdrew,
+the door clanging. The room settled back to quietness, the green men
+stretching in lassitude on the metal bunks around it. The two fliers
+crouched down near the door, shuddering nausea and weakness still
+holding them.
+
+Norman found that Hackett was laughing weakly. "To think that
+twenty-four hours ago I was in New York," he half-laughed,
+half-sobbed. "On Earth--Earth--"
+
+The other gripped his arm. "It's horrible, Hackett, I know. But it
+isn't instant death, and we've still a chance to escape. Hell, can
+damn frog-men keep us here? Where's your nerve, man?"
+
+A voice beside them made them turn in amazement. "You are men from
+Earth?" it asked, in queerly accented English. "From Earth?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Astonishment held them as they saw who spoke. It was one of the green
+men in the room, who had settled down by their side. A tall figure
+with superb muscles and frank, clean countenance, his dark eyes afire
+with eagerness.
+
+"English?" Norman exclaimed. "You know English--you understand me?"
+
+The other showed his teeth in a smile. "I know, yes. I'm Sarja, and I
+learned to speak it from Fallas, in my city, before the Ralas caught
+me."
+
+"Fallas--" Norman repeated, puzzled; then suddenly he flamed. "By God,
+he means Fellows!"
+
+"Fallas, yes," said the other. "From the sky he fell into our city in
+a strange flying-boat that was smashed. He was hurt but we cared for
+him, and he taught me his speech, which I heard you talking now."
+
+"Then Fellows is in your city now?" asked Hackett eagerly. "Where is
+that?"
+
+"Across this sea--back in the hills," the other waved. "It is far from
+the sea but I was rash one day and came too near the water in my
+flying-boat. The Ralas were out raiding and they saw me, caught me,
+and brought me here. No escape now, until I die."
+
+"The Ralas--you mean these frog-men?" Norman asked.
+
+Sarja nodded. "Of course. They are the tyrants and oppressors of this
+world. Our little world is but a tenth or less the size of your great
+Earth which it circles, but it has its lands and rivers, and this one
+great fresh-water sea into which the latter empty. In this sea long
+ago developed the Ralas, the great frog-men who acquired such
+intelligence and arts that they became lords of this world.
+
+"Through the centuries, while on the land our races of green men have
+been struggling upward, the Ralas have oppressed them. Long ago the
+Ralas left all their other cities to build this one great amphibian
+city at the sea's center. Entrance to it is only by the water-tunnel
+from without, and being frog-people entrance thus is easy for them
+since they can move for many minutes under water, though they drown
+like any other breathing animal if kept under too long. Humans dare
+not try to enter it thus by the water-tunnel, since, before they could
+find it and make their way up through it, they would have drowned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So the Ralas have ruled from this impregnable amphibian city. Its
+colossal metal dome is invulnerable to ordinary attack, and though
+solid and without openings it is always as light beneath the dome here
+as outside, since the Ralas' scientists contrived light-condensers and
+conductors that catch light outside and bring it in to release inside.
+So when it is day outside the sunlight is as bright here, and when
+night comes the Earth-light shines here the same as without.
+
+"From this city their raiding parties have gone out endlessly to swoop
+down on the cities of us green men. Since we learned to make
+flying-boats like theirs, with molecular-motors, and to make the guns
+like theirs that fire shells filled with annihilating force, we have
+resisted them stoutly but their raids have not ceased. And always they
+have brought their prisoners back in to this, their city.
+
+"Tens of thousands of green men they have prisoned here like us, for
+the sole purpose of supplying them with blood. For the Ralas live on
+this blood alone, changing it chemically to fit their own bodies and
+then taking it into their bodies. It eliminates all necessity for food
+here for them. Every few days they drain blood from us, and since we
+are well fed and cared for to keep us good blood-producers, we will be
+here for a long time before we die."
+
+"But haven't you made any attempt to get out of here--to escape?"
+Norman asked.
+
+Sarja smiled. "Who could escape the city of the Ralas? In all recorded
+history it has never been done, for even if by some miracle you got a
+flying-boat, the opening of the water-tunnel that leads outward is
+guarded always."
+
+"Guards or no guards, we're going to try it and not sit here to
+furnish blood for the Ralas," Norman declared. "Are you willing to
+help, to try to get to Fellows and your city?"
+
+The green man considered. "It is hopeless," he said, "but as well to
+die beneath the force-shells of the Ralas as live out a lifetime here.
+Yes, I will help, though I cannot see how you expect to escape even
+from this room."
+
+"I think we can manage that," Norman told him. "But first--not a word
+to these others. We can't hope to escape with them all, and there is
+no knowing what one might not betray us to the frog-men."
+
+He went on then to outline to the other two the idea that had come to
+him. Both exclaimed at the simpleness of the idea, though Sarja
+remained somewhat doubtful. While Hackett slept, weak still from his
+loss of blood, Norman had the green man scratch on the metal floor as
+well as possible a crude map of the satellite's surface, and found
+that the city, where Fellows was, seemed some hundreds of miles back
+from the sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While they talked, the sunlight, apparently sourceless, that came
+through the heavily barred windows of the room faded rapidly, and dusk
+settled over the great amphibian city beneath the giant dome, kept
+from total darkness by a silvery pervading light that Norman reflected
+must be the light from Earth's great sphere. With the dusk's coming
+the activities in the frog-city lessened greatly.
+
+With dusk, too, frog-guards entered the room bearing long metal
+troughs filled with a red jellylike substance, that they placed on
+racks along the wall. As the guards withdrew the men in the room
+rushed toward the troughs, elbowing each other aside and striking
+each other to scoop up and eat as much of the red jelly as possible.
+It was for all the world like the feeding of farm-animals, and Hackett
+and Norman so sickened at the sight that they had no heart to try the
+food. Sarja, though, had no such scruples and seemed to make a hearty
+meal at one of the troughs.
+
+After the meal the green men sought the bunks and soon were stretched
+in sonorous slumber. It was, Norman reflected, exactly the existence
+of domesticated animals--to eat and sleep and give food to their
+masters. A deeper horror of the frog-men shook him, and a deeper
+determination to escape them. He waited until all in the room were
+sleeping before beckoning to Sarja and Hackett.
+
+"Quiet now," he whispered to them. "If these others wake they'll make
+such a clamor we won't have a chance in the world. Ready, Sarja?"
+
+The green man nodded. "Yes, though I still think such a thing's
+impossible."
+
+"Probably is," Norman admitted. "But it's the one chance we've got,
+the immensely greater strength of our Earth-muscle that the frog-men
+must have forgotten when they put us in here."
+
+They moved silently to the room's great barred door, outside which a
+frog-guard paced. They waited until he had passed the door and on down
+the hall, then Norman and Hackett and Sarja grasped together one of
+the door's vertical bars. It was an inch and a half in thickness, of
+solid metal, and it seemed ridiculous that any men could bend it by
+the sheer strength of their muscles.
+
+Norman, though, was relying on the fact that on the second satellite,
+with its far lesser gravitational influence, their Earth-muscles gave
+them enormous strength. He grasped the bar, Hackett and Sarja gripping
+it below him, and then at a whispered word they pulled with all their
+force. The bar resisted and again, with sweat starting on their
+foreheads, they pulled. It gave a little.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They shrank back from it as the guard returned, moving past. Then
+grasping the bar again they bent all their force once more upon it.
+Each effort saw it bending more, the opening in the door's bars
+widening. They gave a final great wrench and the bent bar squealed a
+little. They shrank back, appalled, but the guard had not heard or
+noticed. He moved past it on his return along the hall, and no sooner
+was past it than Norman squeezed through the opening and leaped
+silently for the great frog-man's back.
+
+It went down with a wild flurry of waving webbed paws and croaking
+cries, stilled almost instantly by Norman's terrific blows. There was
+silence then as Hackett and Sarja squeezed out after him, the
+momentary clamor of the battle having aroused no one.
+
+The three leaped together toward the stairs. In two great floating
+leaps they were on the floor above, Hackett and Norman dragging Sarja
+between them. They were not seen, were sailing in giant steps up
+another stair, hopes rising high. The last stair--the roof-opening
+above; and then from beneath a great croaking cry swelled instantly
+into chorus of a alarmed shouts.
+
+"They've found the door--the guard!" panted Hackett.
+
+They were bursting out onto the roof. Frog-guards were on it who came
+in a hopping rush toward them, force-pistols raised. But a giant leap
+took Hackett among them, to amaze them for a moment with great
+flailing blows. Sarja had leaped for the nearest flying-boat resting
+on the roof, and was calling in a frantic voice to Norman and Hackett.
+Norman was turning toward Hackett, the center of a wild combat, but
+the latter emerged from it for a brief second to motion him
+frantically back.
+
+"No use, Norman--get away--get away!" he cried hoarsely, frenziedly.
+
+"Hackett--for God's sake--!" Norman half-leaped to the other, but an
+arm caught him, pulled him desperately onto the boat's surface. It was
+Sarja, the long craft flying over the roof beneath his control.
+
+"They come!" he panted. "Too late now--" Frog-men were pouring up onto
+the roof from below. Sarja sent the craft rocketing upward, as Hackett
+gestured them away for a last frantic time before going down beneath
+the frog-men's onslaught.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The roof and the combat on it dropped back and beneath them like a
+stone as their craft ripped across the silvery dusk over the mighty
+frog-city. They were shooting toward the city's center, toward the
+green pool that was the entrance to the water-tunnel, while behind and
+beneath an increasing clamor of alarm spread swiftly. Norman raged
+futilely.
+
+"Hackett--Hackett! We can't leave him--"
+
+"Too late!" Sarja cried. "We cannot help him but only be captured
+again. We escape now and come back--come back--"
+
+The truth of it pierced Norman's brain even in the wild moment.
+Hackett had fought and held back the frog-guards only that they might
+escape. He shouted suddenly.
+
+"Sarja--the water-tunnel!" A half-dozen boats with frog-guards on them
+were rising round it in answer to the alarm!
+
+"The force-gun!" cried the green man. "Beside you--!"
+
+Norman whirled, glimpsed the long tube on its swivel beside him,
+trained it on the boats rising ahead as they rocketed nearer. He
+fumbled frantically at a catch at the gun's rear, then felt a stream
+of shells flicking out of it. Two of the boats ahead vanished as the
+shells released their annihilating force, another sagged and fell.
+From the remaining three invisible force-shells flicked around them,
+but in an instant Sarja had whirled the boat through them and down
+into the water-tunnel!
+
+Norman clung desperately to his seat as the boat flashed down through
+the waters, and then, as Sarja sent it flying out through the great
+tunnel's waters, glimpsed, close behind, the beams of the three Rala
+boats as they pursued them through the tunnel, overtaking them. Could
+the force-shells be fired under water? Norman did not know, but
+desperately he swung the force-gun back as they rushed through the
+waters, and pressed the catch. An instant later beams and boats behind
+them in the tunnel vanished.
+
+His lungs were afire; it seemed that he must open them to the
+strangling water. The boat was ripping the waters at such tremendous
+speed that he felt himself being torn from his hold on it. Pain seemed
+poured like molten metal through his chest--he could hold out no
+longer; and then the boat stabbed up from the waters into clear air!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman panted, sobbed. Behind them rose the colossal metal dome of the
+frog-city, gleaming dully in the silvery light that flooded the
+far-stretching seas. That light poured down from a stupendous silver
+crescent in the night skies. Norman saw dully the dark outlines on it
+before he remembered. Earth! He laughed a little hysterically. Sarja
+was driving the flying-boat out over the sea and away from the
+frog-city at enormous speed. At last he glanced back. Far behind them
+lay the great dome and up around it gleaming lights were pouring,
+lights of pursuing Rala boats.
+
+"We escape," Sarja cried, "the city of the Ralas, from which none ever
+before escaped!"
+
+Remembrance smote Norman. "Hackett! Held off those frog-men so we
+could get away--we'll come back for him, by God!"
+
+"We come back!" said Sarja. "We come back with all the green men of
+this world to the Ralas' city, yes! I know what Fallas has planned."
+
+"Can you find your way to him--to your city?" Norman asked.
+
+Sarja nodded, looking upward. "Before the next sun has come and gone
+we can reach it."
+
+The boat flew onward, and the great dome and the searching lights
+around it dropped beneath the horizon. Norman felt the warm wind
+drying his drenched garments as they rushed onward. Crouched on the
+boat he gazed up toward the silver crescent of Earth sinking toward
+the horizon ahead. That meant, he told himself, that the satellite
+turned slowly on its axis as it whirled around Earth. It came to him
+that its night and day periods must be highly irregular.
+
+When the sun climbed from the waters behind them they were flying
+still over a boundless waste of waters, but soon they sighted on the
+horizon ahead the thin green line of land. Sarja slowed as they
+reached it, took his bearings, and sent the craft flying onward.
+
+They passed over a green coastal plain and then over low hills joined
+in long chains and mantled by dense and mighty jungles, towering green
+growths of unfamiliar appearance to Norman. He thought he glimpsed,
+more than once, huge beastlike forms moving in them. He did see twice
+in the jungles great clearings where were fair-sized cities of
+bright-green buildings, a metal tower rising from each. But when he
+pointed to them Sarja shook his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last, as they passed over another range of hills and came into
+sight of a third green city with its looming tower, the other pointed,
+his face alight.
+
+"My city," he said. "Fallas there."
+
+Fellows! Norman's heart beat faster.
+
+They shot closer and lower and he saw that the buildings were
+obviously green to lend them a certain protective coloration similar
+to that of the green jungles around them. The tower with its
+surmounting cage puzzled him though, but before he could ask Sarja
+concerning it his answer came in a different way. A long metal tube
+poked slowly out of the cage on the tower's top and sent a hail of
+force-shells flicking around them.
+
+"They're firing on us!" Norman cried. "This can't be your city!"
+
+"They see our black boat!" Sarja exclaimed. "They think we're Rala
+raiders and unless we let them know they'll shoot us out of the air!
+Stand up--wave to them--!"
+
+Both Norman and Sarja sprang to their feet and waved wildly to those
+in the tower-cage, their flying-boat drifting slowly forward.
+Instantly the force-shells ceased to hail toward them, and as they
+moved nearer a sirenlike signal broke from the cage. At once scores of
+flying-boats like their own, but glittering metal instead of black,
+shot up from the city where they had lain until now, and surrounded
+them.
+
+As Sarja called in his own tongue to them the green men on the
+surrounding boats broke into resounding cries. They shot down toward
+the city, Norman gazing tensely. Great crowds of green men in their
+dark tunics had swarmed out into its streets with the passing of the
+alarm, and their craft and the others came to rest in an open square
+that was the juncture of several streets.
+
+The green men that crowded excitedly about Norman and Sarja gave way
+to a half-dozen hurrying into the square from the greatest of the
+buildings facing on it. All but one were green men like the others.
+But that one--the laughing-eyed tanned face--the worn brown clothing,
+the curious huge steps with which he came--Norman's heart leapt.
+
+"Fellows!"
+
+"Great God--Norman!" The other's face was thunderstruck. "Norman--how
+by all that's holy did you get here?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman, mind and body strained to the breaking point, was incoherent.
+"We guessed how you'd gone--the second satellite, Fellows--Hackett
+and I came after you--taken to that frog-city--"
+
+As Norman choked the tale, Fellows' face was a study. And when it was
+finished he swallowed, and gripped Norman's hand viselike.
+
+"And you and Hackett figured it out and came after me--took that risk?
+Crazy, both of you. Crazy--"
+
+"Fellows, Hackett's still there, if he's alive! In the Rala city!"
+
+Fellows' voice was grim, quick. "We'll have him out. Norman, if he
+still lives. And living or dead, the Ralas will pay soon for this and
+for all they've done upon this world in ages. Their time nears--yes."
+
+He led Norman, excited throngs of the green men about them, into the
+great building from which he had emerged. There were big rooms inside,
+workshops and laboratories that Norman but vaguely glimpsed in
+passing. The room to which the other led him was one with a long metal
+couch. Norman stretched protestingly upon it at the other's bidding,
+drifted off almost at once into sleep.
+
+He woke to find the sunlight that had filled the room gone and
+replaced by the silvery Earth-light. From the window he saw that the
+silver-lit city outside now held tremendous activity, immense hordes
+of green men surging through it with masses of weapons and equipment,
+flying-boats pouring down out of the night from all directions. He
+turned as the door of the room clicked open behind him. It was his old
+friend Fellows.
+
+"I thought you'd be awake by now, Norman. Feeling fit?"
+
+"As though I'd slept a week," Norman said, and the other laughed his
+old care-free laugh.
+
+"You almost have, at that. Two days and nights you've slept, but it
+all adds up to hardly more than a dozen hours."
+
+"This world!" Norman's voice held all his incredulity. "To think that
+we should be on it--a second satellite of Earth's--it seems almost
+beyond belief."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Sometimes it seems so to me, too," Fellows said thoughtfully. "But
+it's not a bad world--not the human part of it, at least. When this
+satellite's atmosphere caught me and pitchforked me down among these
+green men, smashing the plane and almost myself, they took care of me.
+You say three others vanished as I did? I never heard of them here;
+they must have crashed into the sea or jungles. Of course, I'd have
+got back to Earth on one of these flying-boats if I'd been able, but
+their molecular power won't take them far from this world's surface,
+so I couldn't.
+
+"As it was, the green men cared for me, and when I found how those
+frog-men have dominated this world for ages, how that city of the
+Ralas has spread endless terror among the humans here, I resolved to
+smash those monsters whatever I did. I taught some of the green men
+like Sarja my own speech, later learning theirs, and in the weeks I've
+been here I've been working out a way to smash the Ralas.
+
+"You know that amphibian city is almost impregnable because humans can
+hardly live long enough under the water to get into it, let alone
+fight under water as the frog-men can. To meet them on even terms the
+green men needed diving-helmets with an oxygen supply. They'd never
+heard of such an idea, too afraid of the sea ever to experiment in it,
+but I convinced them and they've made enough helmets for all their
+forces. In them they can meet the Ralas under water on equal terms.
+
+"And there's a chance we can destroy that whole Rala city with their
+help. It's built on a giant pedestal of rock rising from the sea's
+floor, as you saw, and I've had some of the green men make huge
+force-shells or force-bombs that ought to be powerful enough to split
+that pedestal beneath the city. If we can get a chance to place those
+bombs it may smash the frog-men forever on this world. But one thing
+is sure: we're going to get Hackett out if he still lives!"
+
+"Then you're, going to attack the Rala city now?" Norman cried.
+
+Fellows nodded grimly. "While you have slept all the forces of the
+green men on this world have been gathering. Your coming has only
+precipitated our plans, Norman--the whole soul of the green races has
+been set upon this attack for weeks!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman, half bewildered at the swiftness with which events rushed upon
+him, found himself striding with Fellows in great steps out through
+the building into the great square. It was shadowed now by mass on
+mass of flying-boats, crowded with green men, that hung over it and
+over the streets. One boat, Sarja at its controls, waited on the
+ground and as they entered and buckled themselves into the seats the
+craft drove up to hang with the others.
+
+A shattering cheer greeted them. Norman saw that in the silvery light
+of Earth's great crescent there stretched over the city and
+surrounding jungle now a veritable plain of flying-boats. On each were
+green men and each bristled with force-guns, and had as many great
+goggled helmets fastened to it as it had occupants. He glimpsed larger
+boats loaded with huge metal cylinders--the force-bombs Fellows had
+mentioned.
+
+Fellows rose and spoke briefly in a clear voice to the assembled green
+men on their craft, and another great shout roared from them, and from
+these who watched in the city below. Then as he spoke a word, Sarja
+sent their craft flying out over the city, and the great mass of
+boats, fully a thousand in number, were hurtling in a compact column
+after them.
+
+Fellows leaned to Norman as the great column of purring craft shot on
+over the silver-lit jungles. "We'll make straight for the Rala city
+and try setting into it before they understand what's happening."
+
+"Won't they have guards out?"
+
+"Probably, but we can beat them back into the city before their whole
+forces can come out on us. That's the only way in which we can get
+inside and reach Hackett. And while we're attacking the force-bombs
+can be placed, though I don't rely too much on them."
+
+"If the attack only succeeds in getting us inside," Norman said,
+grim-lipped, "we'll have a chance--"
+
+"It's on the knees of the gods. These green men are doing an
+unprecedented thing in attacking the Ralas, the masters of this world,
+remember. But they've got ages of oppression to avenge; they'll
+fight."
+
+The fleet flew on, hills and rivers a silver-lit panorama unreeling
+beneath them. Earth's crescent sank behind them, and by the time they
+flashed out over the great fresh-water sea, the sun was rising like a
+flaming eye from behind it. Land sank from sight behind and the green
+men were silent, tense, as they saw stretching beneath only the gray
+waters that for ages had been the base of the dread frog-men. But
+still the fleet's column raced on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last the column slowed. Far ahead the merest bulge broke the level
+line where sky and waters met. The amphibian city of the Ralas! At
+Fellows' order-the flying-boats sank downward until they moved just
+above the waters. Another order made the green hosts don the grotesque
+helmets. Norman found that while cumbersome their oxygen supply was
+unfailing. They shot on again at highest speed, but as the gigantic
+black dome of the frog-city grew in their vision there darted up from
+around it suddenly a far-flung swarm of black spots.
+
+"Rala boats!"
+
+The muffled exclamation was Fellows'. There needed now no order on his
+part, though. Like hawks, leaping for prey, the fleet of the green men
+sprang through the air. Norman, clutching the force-gun between his
+knees, had time only to see that the Rala craft were a few hundred in
+number and that, contemptuous of the greater odds that favored these
+humans they had so long oppressed, they were flying straight to meet
+them. Then the two fleets met--and were spinning side by side above
+the waters.
+
+Norman saw the thing only as a wild whirl of Rala boats toward and
+beside them, great green frog-men crowding the craft, their force-guns
+hailing shells. Automatically, with the old air-fighting instinct, his
+fingers had pressed the catch of the gun between his knees and as its
+shells flicked toward the rushing boats he saw areas of nothingness
+opening suddenly in their mass, shells striking and exploding in
+annihilating invisibility there and in their own fleet.
+
+The two fleets mingled and merged momentarily, the battle becoming a
+thing of madness, a huge whirl of black and glittering flying-boats
+together, striking shells exploding nothingness about them. The Ralas
+were fighting like demons.
+
+The merged, terrific combat lasted but moments; could last but
+moments. Norman, his gun's magazine empty, seemed to see the mass of
+struggling ships splittering, diverging; then saw that the black craft
+were dropping, plummeting downward toward the waves! The Ralas,
+stunned by that minute of terrific combat, were fleeing. Muffled cries
+and cheers came from about him as the glittering flying-boats of the
+green men shot after them. They crashed down into the waters and
+curved deeply into their green-depths, toward the gigantic dome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ahead the Rala boats were in flight toward their city, and now their
+pursuers were like sharks striking after them. There in the depths the
+force-guns of black and glittering boats alike were spitting, and
+giant waves and underwater convulsions rocked pursued and pursuers as
+the exploding shells annihilated boats and water about them. The
+tunnel! Its round opening yawned in the looming wall ahead, and Norman
+saw the Rala craft, reduced to scores in number, hurtling into it, to
+rouse all the forces of the great amphibian city. Their own boats were
+flashing into the opening after them. He glimpsed as he glanced back
+for a moment the larger craft with the great force-bombs veering aside
+behind them.
+
+It was nightmare in the water-tunnel. Flashing beams of the craft
+ahead and waters that rocked and smashed around them as in flight the
+Ralas still rained back force-shells toward them in a chaos of action.
+Once the frog-men turned to hold them back in the tunnel, but by sheer
+weight the rushing ships of the green men crashed them onward. Boats
+were going into nothingness all around them. A part of Norman's brain
+wondered calmly why they survived even while another part kept his gun
+again working, with refilled magazine. Fellows and Sarja were
+grotesque shapes beside him. Abruptly the tunnel curved upward and as
+they flashed up after the remaining Rala craft their boats ripped up
+into clear air! They were beneath the giant dome!
+
+The frog-men chased inward spread out in all directions over their
+mighty, swarming city and across it a terrific clamor of alarm ran
+instantly as the green men emerged after them! Norman saw flying-boats
+beginning to rise across all the city and realized that moments would
+see all the immense force of the Ralas, the thousands of craft they
+could muster, pouring upon them. He pointed out over the city to a
+block-like building, and shouted madly through his helmet to Fellows
+and Sarja:
+
+"Hackett!"
+
+But already Sarja had sent their craft whirling across the city toward
+the structure, half their fleet behind it, with part still emerging
+from the water-tunnel. Rala boats rose before them, but nothing could
+stop them now, their force-shells raining ahead to clear a path for
+their meteor-flight. They shot down toward the block-structure, and
+Norman, half-crazed by now, saw that to descend and enter was suicide
+in the face of the frog-forces rising now over all the city. He cried
+to Fellows, and with two of the guns as they swooped lower they
+sprayed force-shells along the building's side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The shells struck and whiffed away the whole side, exposing the level
+on the building's interior. Out from it rushed swarms of crazed green
+men, sweeping aside the frog-men guards, while far over the city the
+invading craft were loosing shells on the block-like buildings that
+held the prisoners, tens of thousands of them swarming forth. In the
+throng below as they raced madly forth Norman saw one, and shouted
+wildly. The one brown garbed figure looked up, saw their boat swooping
+lower, and leaped for it in a tremendous forty-foot spring that
+brought his fingers to its edge. Norman pulled him frenziedly up.
+
+"Norman!" he babbled. "In God's name--Fellows--!"
+
+"That helmet, Hackett!" Fellows flung at him. "My God, look at those
+prisoners--Norman!"
+
+The countless thousands of green men released from the buildings whose
+walls had vanished under the shells of the invaders had poured forth
+to make the amphibian city a chaos of madness. Oblivious to all else
+they were throwing themselves upon the city's crowding frog-men in a
+battle whose ferocity was beyond belief, disregarding all else in this
+supreme chance to wreak vengeance on the monstrous beings who had fed
+upon their blood. In the incredible insanity of that raging fury the
+craft of the green men hanging over the city were all but forgotten.
+
+Suddenly the city and the mighty dome over it quivered violently, and
+then again. There came from beneath a dull, vast, grinding roar.
+
+"The great force-bombs!" Fellows screamed. "They've set them off--the
+city's sinking--out of here, for the love of God!"
+
+The boat whirled beneath Sarja's hands toward the pool of the
+water-tunnel, all their fleet rushing with them. The grinding roar was
+louder, terrible; dome and city were shaking violently now; but in the
+insensate fury of their struggle the frog-men and their released
+prisoners were hardly aware of it. The whole great dome seemed sinking
+upon them and the city falling beneath it as Sarja's craft ripped down
+into the tunnel's waters, and then out, at awful speed, as the great
+tunnel's walls swayed and sank around them! They shot out into the
+green depths from it to hear a dull, colossal crashing through the
+waters from behind as the great pedestal of rock on which the city had
+stood, shattered by the huge force-bombs, collapsed. And as their
+boats flashed up into the open air they saw that the huge dome of the
+city of the Ralas was gone.
+
+Beneath them was only a titanic whirlpool of foaming waters in which
+only the curved top of the settling dome was visible for a moment as
+it sank slowly and ponderously downward, with a roar as of the roar of
+falling worlds. Buckling, collapsing, sinking, it vanished in the
+foam-wild sea with all the frog-men who for ages had ruled the second
+satellite, and with all those prisoners who had at the last dragged
+them down with them to death! Ripping off their helmets, with all the
+green men shouting crazily about them, Norman and Fellows and Hackett
+stared down at the colossal maelstrom in the waters that was the tomb
+of the masters of a world.
+
+Then the depression's sides collapsed, the waters rushing together ...
+and beneath them was but troubled, tossing sea....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Earth's great gray ball was overhead again and the sun was sinking
+again to the horizon when the three soared upward in the long,
+gleaming plane, its motor roaring. Norman, with Hackett and Fellows
+crowding the narrow cabin beside him, waved with them through its
+windows. For all around them were rising the flying-boats of the green
+men.
+
+They were waving wildly, shouting their farewells, Sarja's tall figure
+erect at the prow of one. Insistent they had been that the three
+should stay, the three through whom the monstrous age-old tyranny of
+the frog-men had been lifted, but Earth-sickness was on them, and they
+had flown to where the plane lay still unharmed among the reeds, a
+hundred willing hands dragging it forth for the take-off.
+
+The plane soared higher, motor thundering, and they saw the
+flying-boats sinking back from around them. They caught the wave of
+Sarja's hand still from the highest, and then that, too, was gone.
+
+Upward they flew toward the great gray sphere, their eyes on the dark
+outlines of its continents and on one continent. Higher--higher--green
+land and gray tea receding beneath them; Hackett and Fellows intent
+and eager as Norman kept the plane rising. The satellite lay, a
+greenish globe, under them. And as they went higher still a rushing
+sound came louder to their ears.
+
+"The edge of the satellite's atmosphere?" Fellows asked, as Norman
+nodded.
+
+"We're almost to it--here we go!"
+
+As he shot the plane higher, great forces smote it, gray Earth and
+green satellite and yellow sun gyrating round it as it reeled and
+plunged. Then suddenly it was falling steadily, gray Earth and its
+dark continent now beneath, while with a dwindling rushing roar its
+second satellite whirled away above them, passing and vanishing.
+Passing as though, to Norman it seemed, all their strange sojourn on
+it were passing; the frog-men and their mighty city, Sarja and their
+mad flight, the green men and the last terrific battle; all whirling
+away--whirling away.
+
+
+HISTORIC EXPERIMENT PROVES EARTH'S ROTATION
+
+The famous experiment which proves that the "earth do move" by letting
+the observer actually see it twisting underneath his feet, an
+experiment invented by the French mathematician Jean B. L. Foucault
+nearly a century ago was repeated recently under unusually impressive
+circumstances before an international scientific congress at Florence,
+Italy, the same city where Galileo once was persecuted for holding the
+same opinion.
+
+From the center of the dome of the Church of Santa Maria di Fiore,
+Father Guido Alfani, director of the Astronomical Observatory,
+suspended a 200-pound weight on a wire 150 feet long. On the bottom of
+this weight was a tiny projecting point which traced a line on a
+table-top sprinkled with sand, as the great pendulum swung slowly back
+and forth. At a given signal Father Alfani set the pendulum to
+swinging. While the assembled scientists watched it, slowly the line
+traced across the sand table-top changed direction.
+
+As Foucault proved long ago and as the watching scientists well knew,
+the table was being twisted underneath the pendulum by the rotation of
+the earth.
+
+
+A REVOLUTIONARY AIRPLANE
+
+A new airplane propeller has recently been patented by J. Kalmanson of
+Brooklyn, N. Y. Greater speed and marked saving in fuel is claimed for
+the invention, which may be attached to any type of airplane.
+
+The device is in two parts, which may be used separately as front and
+rear propellers or combined into a single blade. The principle is that
+the front one acts to bring air to the other, giving the propeller
+more of a hold, so to speak, and greater power. This is accomplished
+by four air-spoons, one on each side of each blade of the propeller.
+
+It is said that the device can double the speed of an airplane and
+raise it from the ground in ninety feet instead of the 200 feet most
+airplanes now require. It is also claimed that the new propeller will
+prevent the plane from making a nose drive unless the pilot forces it
+to do so, and enable it to make a safe landing within a short
+distance. Because of the increase in power and speed, the device would
+save a large amount of gasoline and oil, as well as guarding the motor
+from part of the strain on it.
+
+The device is said to be also applicable to ships, the same principle
+operating in water as well as air.
+
+
+
+
+Silver Dome
+
+_By Harl Vincent_
+
+[Illustration: _Orris led the way to a great underground city._]
+
+[Sidenote: In her deep-buried kingdom of Theros, Phaestra reveals the
+amazing secret of the Silver Dome.]
+
+
+In a secluded spot among the hills of northern New Jersey stood the
+old DeBost mansion, a rambling frame structure of many wings and
+gables that was well-nigh hidden from the road by the half-mile or
+more of second-growth timber which intervened. High on the hill it
+stood, and it was only by virtue of its altitude that an occasional
+glimpse might be obtained of weatherbeaten gable or partly
+tumbled-down chimney. The place was reputed to be haunted since the
+death of old DeBost, some seven years previously, and the path which
+had once been a winding driveway was now seldom trod by human foot.
+
+It was now two years since Edwin Leland bought the estate for a song
+and took up his residence in the gloomy old house. And it had then
+been vacant for five years since DeBost shot himself in the northeast
+bedroom. Leland's associates were sure he would repent of his bargain
+in a very short time, but he stayed on and on in the place, with no
+company save that of his man-servant, an aged hunch-back who was
+known to outsiders only as Thomas.
+
+Leland was a scientist of note before he buried himself in the DeBost
+place, and had been employed in the New York research laboratory of
+one of the large electrical manufacturers, where he was much admired
+and not a little envied by his fellow workers. These knew almost
+nothing of his habits or of his personal affairs, and were much
+surprised when he announced one day that he had come into a sizable
+fortune and was leaving the organization to go in for private research
+and study. Attempts to dissuade him were of no avail, and the purchase
+of the DeBost property followed, after which Leland dropped from sight
+for nearly two years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then, on a blustery winter day, a strange telephone call was received
+at the laboratory where he had previously worked. It was from old
+Thomas, out there in the DeBost mansion, and his quavering voice asked
+for Frank Rowley, the genial young engineer whose work had been most
+closely associated with Leland's.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rowley," wailed the old man, when Frank responded to the
+call, "I wish you would come out here right away. The master has been
+acting very queerly of late, and to-day he has locked himself in his
+laboratory and will not answer my knocks."
+
+"Why don't you break in the door?" asked Frank, looking through the
+window at the snow storm that still raged.
+
+"I thought of that, Mr. Rowley, but it is of oak and very thick.
+Besides, it is bound with steel or iron straps and is beyond my
+powers."
+
+"Why not call the police?" growled Frank. He did not relish the idea
+of a sixty or seventy mile drive in the blizzard.
+
+"Oh--no--no--no!" Old Thomas was panicky at the suggestion. "The
+master told me he'd kill me if I ever did that."
+
+Before Frank could formulate a reply, there came a sharp gasp from the
+other end of the line, a wailing cry and a thud as of a falling body;
+then silence. All efforts to raise Leland's number merely resulted in
+"busy" or "line out of order" reports.
+
+Frank Rowley was genuinely concerned. Though he had never been a close
+friend of Leland's, the two had worked on many a knotty problem
+together and were in daily contact during the nearly ten years that
+the other man had worked in the same laboratory.
+
+"Say, Tommy," said Frank, replacing the receiver and turning to his
+friend, Arnold Thompson, who sat at an adjoining desk, "something has
+happened out at Leland's place in Sussex County. Want to take a drive
+out there with me?"
+
+"What? On a day like this? Why not take the train?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, Tommy," said Frank. "The place is eight miles from
+the nearest station, which is a flag stop out in the wilds. And, even
+if you could find a cab there--which you couldn't--there isn't a taxi
+driver in Jersey who'd take you up into those mountains on a day like
+this. No, we'll have to drive. It'll be okay. I've got chains on the
+rear and a heater in the old coupe, so it shouldn't be so bad. What do
+you say?"
+
+So Tommy, who usually followed wherever Frank led, was prevailed upon
+to make the trip. He had no particular feeling for Leland, but he
+sensed an adventure, and, in Frank's company, he could ask for no
+more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frank was a careful driver, and three hours were required to make the
+sixty-mile journey. Consequently, it was late in the afternoon when
+they arrived at the old DeBost estate. It had stopped snowing, but the
+drifts were deep in spots, and Frank soon found that the car could not
+be driven through the winding path from the road to the house. So
+they left it half buried in a drift and proceeded on foot.
+
+It was a laborious task they had undertaken, and, by the time they set
+foot on the dilapidated porch, even Frank, husky and athletic as was
+his build, was puffing and snorting from his exertions. Little Tommy,
+who tipped the scales at less than a hundred and twenty, could hardly
+speak. They both were wet to the waist and in none too good humor.
+
+"Holy smoke!" gasped Tommy, stamping the clinging snow from his sodden
+trouser legs and shoes, "if it snows any more, how in Sam Hill are we
+going to get out of this place?"
+
+"Rotten trip I let you in for Tommy," growled Frank, "and I hope
+Leland's worth it. But, darn it all, I just had to come."
+
+"It's all right with me, Frank. And maybe it'll be worth it yet.
+Look--the front door's open."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He pointed to the huge oaken door and Frank saw that it was ajar. The
+snow on the porch was not deep and they saw that footprints led from
+the open door to a corner of the porch. At that point the snow on the
+railing was disturbed, as if a hurrying man had clung to it a moment
+before jumping over and into the drifts below. But the tracks led no
+further, for the drifting snow had covered all excepting a hollow
+where some body had landed.
+
+"Thomas!" exclaimed Frank. "And he was in a hustle, by the looks of
+the tracks. Bet he was frightened while at the telephone and beat it."
+
+They entered the house and closed the door behind them. It was growing
+quite dark and Frank searched for the light switch. This was near the
+door, and, at pressure on the upper button, the spacious old hall with
+its open staircase was revealed dimly by the single remaining bulb in
+a cluster set in the center of the high ceiling. The hall was
+unfurnished, excepting for a telephone table and chair, the chair
+having fallen to the floor and the receiver of the telephone dangling
+from the edge of the table by its cord.
+
+"You must have heard the chair fall," commented Tommy, "and it sure
+does look as if Thomas left in a hurry. Wonder what it was that
+frightened him?"
+
+The house was eerily silent and the words echoed awesomely through the
+adjoining rooms which connected with the hall through large open
+doorways.
+
+"Spooky place, isn't it?" returned Frank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And then they were both startled into immobility by a rumble that
+seemed to shake the foundations of the house. Heavier and heavier
+became this vibration, as if some large machine was coming up to
+speed. Louder and louder grew the rumble until it seemed that the
+rickety old house must be shaken down about their ears. Then there
+came a whistling scream from the depths of the earth--from far
+underground it seemed to be--and this mounted in pitch until their
+eardrums tingled. Then abruptly the sounds ceased, the vibration
+stopped, and once more there was the eery silence.
+
+Rather white-faced, Tommy gazed at Frank.
+
+"No wonder old Thomas beat it!" he said. "What on earth do you suppose
+that is?"
+
+"Search me," replied Frank. "But whatever it is, I'll bet it has
+something to do with Leland's strange actions. And we're going to find
+out."
+
+He had with him the large flashlamp from the car, and, by its light,
+the two made their way from room to room searching for the iron-bound
+door mentioned by Thomas.
+
+They found all rooms on the first and second floors dusty and unused
+with the exception of two bedrooms, the kitchen and pantry, and the
+library. It was a gloomy and spooky old house. Floor boards creaked
+startlingly and unexpectedly and the sound of their footsteps echoed
+dismally.
+
+"Where in time is that laboratory of Leland's?" exclaimed Frank, his
+ruddy features showing impatient annoyance, exaggerated to an
+appearance of ferocity by the light of the flashlamp.
+
+"How about the cellar?" suggested Tommy.
+
+"Probably where it is," agreed Frank, "but I don't relish this job so
+much. I'd hate to find Leland stiff down there, if that's where he
+is."
+
+"Me, too," said Tommy. "But we're here now, so let's finish the job
+and get back home. It's cold here, too."
+
+"You said it. No steam in the pipes at all. He must have let the fire
+go out in his furnace, and that's probably in the cellar too--usually
+is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While talking, Frank had opened each of the four doors that opened
+from the kitchen, and the fourth revealed a stairway that led into the
+blackness beneath. With the beam of his torch directed at the steps,
+he proceeded to descend, and Tommy followed carefully. There was no
+light button at the head of the stairs, where it would have been
+placed in a more modern house, and it was not until they had reached
+the furnace room that they located a light fixture with a pull cord.
+An ordinary cellar, with furnace, coal bin, and a conglomeration of
+dust-covered trunks and discarded furniture, was revealed. And, at its
+far end, was the iron-bound door.
+
+The door was locked and could not be shaken by the combined efforts of
+the two men.
+
+"Have to have a battering ram," grunted Frank, casting about for a
+suitable implement.
+
+"Here you are," called Tommy, after a moment's search. "Just the thing
+we are looking for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had come upon a pile of logs, and one of these, evidently a section
+of an old telephone pole, was of some ten or twelve inches diameter
+and about fifteen feet long. Frank pounced upon it eagerly, and,
+supporting most of the weight himself, led the attack on the heavy
+oak door with the iron bands.
+
+No sound from within greeted the thunderous poundings. Clearly, if
+Leland was behind that door, he was either dead or unconscious.
+
+Finally the double lock gave way and Tommy and Frank were precipitated
+headlong into the brightly lighted room beyond. Recovering their
+balance, they took stock of their surroundings and were amazed at what
+they saw--a huge laboratory, fitted out with every modern appliance
+that money could buy. A completely equipped machine shop there was;
+bench after bench covered with the familiar paraphernalia of the
+chemical and physical laboratory; huge retorts and stills; complicated
+electrical equipments; dozens of cabinets holding crucibles, flasks,
+bottles, glass tubing, and what not.
+
+"Good Lord!" gasped Tommy. "Here's a laboratory to more than match our
+own. Why, Leland's got a fortune invested here!"
+
+"I should say so. And a lot of stuff that our company does not even
+have. Some of it I don't know even the use of. But where is Leland?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no sign of the man they had come to help. He was not in the
+laboratory, though the door had been locked from within and the lights
+left burning throughout.
+
+With painstaking care they searched every nook and cranny of the large
+single room and were about to give up in despair when Tommy happened
+to observe an ivory button set into the wall at the only point in the
+room where there were no machines or benches at hand. Experimentally
+he pressed the button, and, at the answering rumble from under his
+feet, jumped back in alarm. Slowly there opened in the paneled oak
+wall a rectangular door, a door of large enough size to admit a man.
+From the recess beyond there came a breath of air, foul with the
+musty odor of decayed vegetation, dank as the air of a tomb.
+
+"Ah-h-h!" breathed Frank. "So that is where Ed Leland is hiding! The
+secret retreat of the gloomy scientist!"
+
+He spoke half jestingly, yet when he squeezed his stalwart bulk
+through the opening and flashed the beam of his light into the
+darkness of a narrow passage ahead he was assailed with vague
+forebodings. Tommy followed close behind and spoke not a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The passage floor was thick with dust, but the marks of many footsteps
+going and returning gave mute evidence of the frequency of Leland's
+visits. The air was heavy and oppressive and the temperature and
+humidity increased as they progressed along the winding length of the
+rock-walled passageway. The floor sloped, ever downward and, in spots,
+was slippery with slimy seepage. It seemed that they turned back on
+their course on several occasions but were descending deeper and
+deeper into the heart of the mountain. Then, abruptly, the passage
+ended at the mouth of a shaft, which dropped vertically from almost
+beneath their feet.
+
+"Whew!" exclaimed Frank. "Another step and I'd have dropped into it.
+That's probably what happened to Leland."
+
+He knelt at the rim of the circular opening and looked into the depths
+of the pit, Tommy following suit. The feeble ray of the flashlight was
+lost in the blackness below.
+
+"Say, Frank," whispered Tommy, "turn off the flash. I think I saw a
+light down there."
+
+And, with the snapping of the catch, there came darkness. But, miles
+below them, it seemed, there was a tiny pin-point of brilliance--an
+eery green light that was like a wavering phosphorescence of
+will-o'-the-wisp. For a moment it shone and was gone. Then came the
+dreadful vibration they had experienced in the hall of the house--the
+whistling scream that grew louder and louder until it seemed they
+must be deafened. The penetrating wail rose from the depths of the
+pit, and the vibration was all around them, in the damp rock floor on
+which they knelt, and in the very air of the cavern. Hastily Frank
+snapped on the light of his flash.
+
+"Oh boy!" he whispered. "Leland is certainly up to something down
+there and no mistake! How're we going to get down?"
+
+"Get down?" asked Tommy. "You don't want to go down there, do you?"
+
+"Sure thing. We're this far now and, by George, we're going to find
+out all there is to learn."
+
+"How deep do you suppose it is?"
+
+"Pretty deep, Tommy. But we can get an idea by dropping a stone and
+counting the seconds until it strikes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He played the light of the flash over the floor and soon located a
+smooth round stone of the size of a baseball. This he tossed over the
+rim of the pit and awaited results.
+
+"Good grief!" exclaimed Tommy. "It's not falling!"
+
+What he said was true, for the stone poised lightly over the opening
+and drifted like a feather. Then slowly it moved, settling gradually
+into oblivion. Frank turned the flash downward and they watched in
+astonishment as the two-pound pebble floated deliberately down the
+center of the shaft at the rate of not more than one foot in each
+second.
+
+"Well, I'll be doggoned," breathed Frank admiringly. "Leland has done
+it. He has conquered gravity. For, in that pit at least, there is no
+gravity, or at any rate not enough to mention. It has been almost
+completely counteracted by some force he has discovered and now we
+know how to follow him down there. Come on Tommy, let's go!"
+
+And, suiting action to his words, Frank jumped into the mouth of the
+pit where he bobbed about for a moment as if he had jumped into a
+pool of water. Then slowly he sank from view, and Tommy followed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a most unique experience, that drop into the heart of the
+mountain. Practically weightless, the two young men found it quite
+difficult to negotiate the passage. For the first hundred or more feet
+they continued to bump about in the narrow shaft and each sustained
+painful bruises before he learned that the best and simplest method of
+accommodating himself to the strange condition was to remain
+absolutely motionless and allow the greatly weakened gravity to take
+its course. Each movement of an arm or leg was accompanied by a change
+in direction of movement, and contact with the hard stone walls
+followed. If they endeavored to push themselves from the contact the
+result was likely to be an even more serious bump on the opposite side
+of the shaft. So they continued the leisurely drop into the unknown
+depth of the pit.
+
+Frank had turned off the flashlamp, for its battery was giving out and
+he wished to conserve its remaining energy for eventualities. Thus
+they were in Stygian darkness for nearly a half-hour, though the green
+luminosity far beneath them grew stronger with each passing minute. It
+now revealed itself as a clearly defined disc of light that flickered
+and sputtered continually, frequently lighting the lower end of the
+shaft with an unusual burst of brilliance. Remotely distant it seemed
+though, and unconscionably slow in drawing nearer.
+
+"How far do you think we must drop?" called Tommy to Frank, who was
+probably fifty feet below him in the shaft.
+
+"Well, I figure we have fallen about a thousand feet so far," came the
+reply, "and my guess is that we are about one third of the way down."
+
+"Then this shaft is over a half-mile deep, you think?"
+
+"Yes, at least a thousand yards, I should say. And I hope his gravity
+neutralizing machinery doesn't quit all of a sudden and let us down."
+
+"Me, too," called Tommy, who had not thought of that possibility.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was no joke, this falling into an unknown region so far beneath
+the surface of good old mother earth, thought Tommy. And how they
+would ever return was another thing that was not so funny. Frank was
+always rushing into things like this without counting the possible
+cost and--well--this might be the last time.
+
+Gradually the mysterious light became stronger and soon they could
+make out the conformation of the rock walls they were passing at such
+a snail's pace. Layers of vari-colored rock showed here and there,
+and, at one point there was a stratum of gold-bearing or mica-filled
+rock that glistened with a million reflections and re-reflections. The
+air grew warmer and more humid as they neared the mysterious light
+source. They moved steadily, without acceleration, and Frank estimated
+the rate at about forty feet a minute. Then, with blinding suddenness,
+the light was immediately below and they drifted into a tremendous
+cavern that was illuminated by its glow.
+
+Directly beneath the lower end of the shaft through which they had
+passed, there was a glowing disc of metal about fifteen feet in
+diameter. They drifted to its surface and sprawled awkwardly where
+they fell. Scrambling to gain a footing, they bounced and floated
+about like toy balloons before realizing that it would be necessary to
+creep slowly from the influence of that repelling force which had made
+the long drop possible without injury. Gravity met them at the disc's
+edge with what seemed to be unusual violence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first it seemed that their bodies weighed twice the normal amount,
+but this feeling soon passed and they looked about them with
+incredulous amazement. The metal disc was quite evidently the medium
+through which the repelling force was set up in the shaft, and to this
+disc was connected a series of heavy cables that led to a pedestal
+nearby. On the pedestal was a controlling lever and this moved over a
+quadrant that was graduated in degrees, one end of the quadrant being
+labeled "Up" and the other "Down." The lever now stood at a point but
+a very few degrees from the center or "Zero" mark and on the down
+side. Frank pulled this lever over to the full "Down" position and
+they found that they could walk over the disc with normal gravity.
+
+"I suppose," said Frank, "that if the lever is at the other end of the
+scale one would fall upward with full gravity acceleration--reversed.
+At zero, gravity is exactly neutralized, and the intermediate
+positions are useful in conveying materials or human beings up and
+down the shaft as desired. Very clever; but what is the reason for it
+all?"
+
+In the precise center of the great cavern there was a dome or
+hemisphere of polished metal, and it was from this dome that the eery
+light emanated. At times, when the light died down, this dome gleamed
+with dull flickerings that threatened to vanish entirely. Then
+suddenly it would resume full brilliance, and the sight was marvelous
+beyond description. A slight hissing sound came from the direction of
+the dome, and this varied in intensity as did the light.
+
+"Gosh!" said Tommy. "That looks like silver to me. And, if it is, what
+a wealthy man our friend Leland has become. He has spent his fortune
+well, even if he used it all to get to this."
+
+"Yes, but where is he?" commented Frank. Then: "Leland! Leland!" he
+called.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His voice echoed through the huge vault and re-echoed hollowly. But
+there was no reply save renewed flickerings from the dome.
+
+Leaving the vicinity of the gravity disc, the two men advanced in the
+direction of the shining dome, which was about a quarter-mile from
+where they stood. Both perspired freely, for the air was very close
+and the temperature high. But the light of the dome was as cold as the
+light of a firefly and they had no hesitancy in drawing near. It was a
+beautiful sight, this dome of silver with its flickering lights and
+perfect contour.
+
+"By George, I believe it _is_ silver," exclaimed Frank, when they were
+within a few feet of the dome. "No other metal has that precise color.
+And look! There is a wheelbarrow and some mining tools. Leland has
+been cutting away some of the material."
+
+Sure enough, there was indisputable evidence of the truth of his
+statement. And the material was undoubtedly silver!
+
+"Silver Dome," breathed Tommy, holding a lump of the metal in his
+hand. "A solid dome of pure silver--fifty feet high and a hundred in
+diameter. How much does that figure in dollars and cents, Frank?"
+
+"Maybe it isn't solid," said Frank dryly, "though it's worth a
+sizeable fortune even if it is hollow. And we haven't found Leland."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They circled the dome twice and looked into every corner of the great
+cavern, but there was no sign of the man for whom they searched. The
+wheelbarrow was half filled with lumps of the heavy metal, and maul
+and drill lay where they had been dropped by the lone miner. A cavity
+three feet across, and as many deep, appeared in the side of the dome
+to show that considerably more than one wheelbarrow load had been
+removed.
+
+"Funny," grunted Tommy. "Seems almost like the old dome had swallowed
+him up."
+
+At his words there came the terrific vibration. The light of the dome
+died out, leaving them in utter darkness, and from its interior there
+rose the mounting scream that had frightened old Thomas away. From so
+close by it was hideous, devastating; and the two men clung to each
+other in fright, expecting momentarily that the earth would give way
+beneath their feet and precipitate them into some terrible depth from
+which there could be no return.
+
+Then the sound abruptly ceased and a gleam of light came from under
+the dome of silver. A crack appeared between its lower edge and the
+rocky floor of the cavern, and through this crack there shone a light
+of dazzling brilliancy--a warm light of rosy hue. Wider grew the
+opening until there was a full three feet between the floor and the
+bottom of the dome. Impelled by some irresistible force from within,
+the two men stumbled blindly to the opening, fell to the floor and
+rolled inside.
+
+There was a heavy thud and the dome had returned to its normal
+position, with Frank and Tommy prisoners within its spacious hollow.
+The warm light bathed them with fearful intensity for a moment, then
+faded to a rosy glow that dulled their senses and quieted their
+nerves. Morpheus claimed them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Frank awoke he found himself between silken covers, and for a
+moment he gazed thoughtfully at a high arched ceiling that was
+entirely unfamiliar. Then, remembering, he sprang from the downy bed
+to his feet. The room, the furnishings, his silken robe, everything
+was strange. His bed, he saw, was a high one, and the frame was of the
+same gleaming silver as the dome under which they had been trapped.
+The arched ceiling glowed softly with the same rosy hue as had the
+inner surface of the dome. A large pool of water invited him, the
+surface of the pool being no more than a foot below the point where it
+was built into the tile floor of the room. A large open doorway
+connected with a similar adjoining room, where he suspected Tommy had
+been taken. On his bare toes, he moved silently to the other room and
+saw that his guess had been correct. Tommy lay sleeping quietly
+beneath covers as soft as his own and amidst equal luxury of
+surroundings.
+
+"Well," he whispered, "this doesn't look as though we would come to
+any harm. And I might as well take a dive in that pool."
+
+Returning to his own room, he removed the silken garment with which he
+had been provided and was quietly immersed in the cool, invigorating
+water of the bath. His head cleared instantly.
+
+"Hi there!" called Tommy from the doorway. "Why didn't you wake me up?
+Where are we, anyway?"
+
+With dripping head and shoulders above the water, Frank was compelled
+to laugh at the sleepy-eyed, wondering expression on the blue-jowled
+face of his friend. "Thought you were dead to the world," he returned,
+"you old sleepy-head. And I don't know where we are, excepting that it
+is somewhere under the silver dome. What's more, I don't much care.
+You should get into this water. It's great!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So saying, he dived to the bottom of the pool and stood on his hands,
+his feet waving ludicrously above the surface. Tommy sniffed once and
+then made a quick dash for the pool in his own room. He was not to be
+outdone by his more energetic partner.
+
+A half-hour later, shaved and attired in their own garments, which had
+been cleaned and pressed and hung neatly in the closets, they settled
+themselves for a discussion of the situation. Having tried the doors
+of both rooms and found them locked from the outside, there was no
+other course open to them. They must await developments.
+
+"Looks like Leland has quite an establishment down here inside the
+mountain," ventured Tommy.
+
+"Hm!" snorted Frank, "this place is none of Leland's work. He is
+probably a prisoner here, as are we. He just stumbled on to the
+silver dome and was captured by whatever race is living down here
+beneath it, the same as we were. Who the real inhabitants are, and
+what the purpose of all this is, remains to be seen."
+
+"You think we are in friendly hands?"
+
+"These quarters do not look much like prison cells, Tommy, but I must
+admit that we are locked in. Anyhow, I'm not worrying, and we will
+soon learn our fate and have to be ready to meet it. The people who
+own this place must have everything they want, and they sure have some
+scientific knowledge that is not known to us on the surface."
+
+"Wonder if they are humans?"
+
+"Certainly they are. You never heard of wild beasts sleeping in beds
+like these, did you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy laughed at he examined the exquisite hand-wrought figures on the
+silver bedstead. "No, I didn't," he admitted; "but where on earth did
+they come from, and what are they doing here?"
+
+"You ask too many questions," replied Frank, shrugging his broad
+shoulders. "We must simply wait for the answers to reveal themselves."
+
+There was a soft rap at the door of Frank's room, where the two men
+were talking.
+
+"Come in," called Frank, chuckling at the idea of such consideration
+from their captors.
+
+A key rattled in the lock and the door swung open to admit the
+handsomest man they had ever set eyes on. He was taller than Frank by
+several inches, standing no less than six feet five in his thin-soled
+sandals, and he carried himself with the air for an emperor. His
+marble-white body was uncovered with the exception of a loin cloth of
+silver hue, and lithe muscles rippled beneath his smooth skin as he
+advanced to meet the prisoners. His head, surmounted by curly hair of
+ebon darkness, was large, and his forehead high. The features were
+classic and perfectly regular. The corners of his mouth drew upward in
+a benign smile.
+
+"Greetings," he said, in perfect English and in a soft voice, "to the
+domain of Theros. You need fear no harm from our people and will be
+returned to the upper world when the time comes. We hope to make your
+stay with us enjoyable and instructive, and that you will carry back
+kind memories of us. The morning meal awaits you now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So taken aback were the two young Americans that they stared foolishly
+agape for a space. Then a tinkling laugh from the tall stranger set
+them once more at ease.
+
+"You will pardon us, I hope," apologized Frank, "but this is all so
+unexpected and so unbelievable that your words struck me speechless.
+And I know that my friend was similarly affected--We place ourselves
+in your hands."
+
+The handsome giant nodded understanding. "No offense was taken," he
+murmured, "since none was intended. And your feelings are not to be
+wondered at. You may call me Orrin."
+
+He turned toward the open door and signified that they were to follow
+him. They fell in at his side with alacrity, both suddenly realizing
+that they were very hungry.
+
+They followed in silent wonderment as Orrin led the way to a broad
+balcony that overlooked a great underground city--a city lighted by the
+soft glow from some vast lighting system incorporated in its vaulted
+ceiling high overhead. The balcony was many levels above the streets,
+which were alive with active beings of similar appearance to Orrin,
+these speeding hither and yon by means of the many lanes of traveling
+ways of which the streets were composed. The buildings--endless rows of
+them lining the orderly streets--were octagonal in shape and rose to
+the height of about twenty stories, as nearly as could be judged by
+earthly standards. There were no windows, but at about every fifth floor
+there was an outer silver-railed balcony similar to the one on which
+they walked. The air was filled with bowl-shaped flying ships that sped
+over the roof tops in endless procession and without visible means of
+support or propulsion. Yet the general effect of the busy scene was one
+of precise orderliness, unmarred by confusion or distracting noises.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Orrin vouchsafed no explanations and they soon reentered the large
+building of which the balcony was a part. Here they were conducted to
+a sumptuously furnished dining room where their breakfast awaited
+them.
+
+During the meal, which consisted of several courses of fruits and
+cereals entirely strange to Frank and Tommy, they were tended by Orrin
+with the utmost deference and most painstaking attention. He
+anticipated their every want and their thoughts as well. For, when
+Frank endeavored to ask one of the many questions with which his mind
+was filled, he was interrupted by a wave of the hand and a smile from
+their placid host.
+
+"It is quite clear to me that you have many questions to propound,"
+said Orrin, "and this is not a matter of wonder. But it is not
+permitted that I enlighten you on the points you have in mind. You
+must first finish your meal. Then it is to be my privilege to conduct
+you to the presence of Phaestra, Empress of Theros, who will reveal
+all. May I ask that you be patient until then?"
+
+So friendly was his smile and so polished his manner that they
+restrained their impatience and finished the excellent breakfast in
+polite silence.
+
+And Orrin was as good as his word, for, no sooner had they finished
+when he led them from the room and showed the way to the elevator
+which conveyed them to the upper floor of the building.
+
+From the silver-grilled cage of the lift they stepped into a room of
+such beauty and magnificence of decoration that they gazed about them
+in wondering admiration. The paneling and mouldings were of hammered
+silver that gleamed with polished splendor in the soft rose glow of
+the hidden lights. The hangings were of heavy plush of deep green hue
+and bore intricate designs of silver thread woven into the material.
+At the opposite side of the room there was a pair of huge double doors
+of chased silver and on either side of this pretentious portal there
+stood an attendant attired as was Orrin, but bearing a silver scepter
+to denote his official capacity.
+
+"Phaestra awaits the visitors from above," intoned one of the
+attendants. Both bowed stiffly from the waist when Orrin led the two
+young scientists through the great doors which had opened silently and
+majestically at their approach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If the outer room was astonishing in its sumptuousness of decoration
+and furnishing, the one they now entered was positively breath-taking.
+On every side there were the exquisite green and silver hangings.
+Tables, divans, and rugs of priceless design and workmanship. But the
+beauty of the surroundings faded into insignificance when they saw the
+empress.
+
+A canopied dais in the center of the room drew their attention and
+they saw that Phaestra had risen from her seat in a deeply cushioned
+divan and now stood at its side in an attitude of welcome. Nearly as
+tall as Frank, she was a figure of commanding and imperious beauty.
+The whiteness of her body was accentuated by the silver embroidered
+and tightly fitted black vestments that covered yet did not conceal
+its charms. A halo of glorious golden hair surmounted a head that was
+poised expectantly alert above the perfectly rounded shoulders. The
+exquisite oval of her face was chiseled in features of transcendent
+loveliness. She spoke, and, at sound of her musical voice, Frank and
+Tommy were enslaved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Gentlemen of the upper world," she said gently, "you are welcome to
+Theros. Your innermost thoughts have been recorded by our scientists
+and found good. With a definite purpose in mind, you learned of the
+existence of the silver dome of Theros, yet you came without greed or
+malice and we have taken you in to enlighten you on the many questions
+that are in your minds and to return you to mankind with a knowledge
+of Theros--which you must keep secret. You are about to delve into a
+mystery of the ages; to see and learn many things that are beyond the
+ken of your kind. It is a privilege never before accorded to beings
+from above."
+
+"We thank you, oh, Queen," spoke Frank humbly, his eyes rivetted to
+the gaze of those violet orbs that seemed to see into his very soul.
+Tommy mumbled some commonplace.
+
+"Orrin--the sphere!" Phaestra, slightly embarrassed by Frank's stare,
+clapped her hands.
+
+At her command, Orrin, who had stood quietly by, stepped to the wall
+and manipulated some mechanism that was hidden by the hangings. There
+was a musical purr from beneath the floor, and, through a circular
+opening which appeared as if by magic, there rose a crystal sphere of
+some four feet in diameter. Slowly it rose until it reached the level
+of their eyes and there it came to rest. The empress raised her hands
+as if in invocation and the soft glow of the lights died down, leaving
+them in momentary darkness. There came a slight murmur from the
+sphere, and it lighted with the eery green flickerings they had
+observed in the dome of silver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fascinated by the weaving lights within, they gazed into the depths of
+the crystal with awed expectancy. Phaestra spoke.
+
+"Men from the surface," she said, "you, Frank Rowley, and you, Arnold
+Thompson, are about to witness the powers of that hemisphere of metal
+you were pleased to term 'Silver Dome.' As you rightly surmised, the
+dome is of silver--mostly. There are small percentages of platinum,
+iridium, and other elements, but it is more than nine-tenths pure
+silver. To you of the surface the alloy is highly valuable for its
+intrinsic worth by your own standards, but to us the value of the dome
+lies in its function in revealing to us the past and present events of
+our universe. The dome is the 'eye' of a complicated apparatus which
+enables us to see and hear any desired happening on the surface of the
+earth, beneath its surface, or on the many inhabited planets of the
+heavens. This is accomplished by means of extremely complex vibrations
+radiated from the hemisphere, these vibrations penetrating earth,
+metals, buildings, space itself, and returning to our viewing and
+sound reproducing spheres to reveal the desired past or present
+occurrences at the point at which the rays of vibrations are directed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"In order to view the past on our own planet, the rays, which travel
+at the speed of light, are sent out in a huge circle through space,
+returning to earth after having spent the requisite number of years in
+transit. Instantaneous effect is secured by a connecting beam that
+ties together the ends of the enormous arc. This, of course, is beyond
+your comprehension, since the Ninth Dimension is involved. When it is
+desired that events of the present be observed, the rays are projected
+direct. The future can not be viewed, since, in order to accomplish
+this, it would be necessary that the rays travel at a speed greater
+than that of light, which is manifestly impossible."
+
+"Great guns!" gasped Frank. "This crystal sphere then, is capable of
+bringing to our eyes and ears the happenings of centuries past?"
+
+"It is, my dear Frank," said Phaestra, "and I would that I were able
+to describe the process more clearly." She smiled, and in the
+unearthly light of the sphere she appeared more beautiful than before,
+if such a thing were possible.
+
+On the pedestal which supported the sphere there was a glittering
+array of dials and levers. Several of these controls were now adjusted
+by Phaestra, the delicate motions of her tapered fingers being watched
+by the visitors with intense admiration. There came a change in the
+note of the sphere, a steadying of the flickerings within.
+
+"Behold!" exclaimed Phaestra.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They gazed into the depths of the sphere and lost all sense of
+detachment from the scene depicted therein. It seemed they were at a
+point several thousand miles from the surface of a planet. A great
+continent spread beneath them, its irregular shore line being clearly
+outlined against a large body of water. Here and there the surface was
+obscured by great white patches of clouds that cast their shadows
+below.
+
+"Atlantis!" breathed Phaestra reverently.
+
+The lost continent of mythology! The fabled body of land that was
+engulfed by the Atlantic thousands of years ago--a fact!
+
+Tommy glanced at Frank, noting that he had withdrawn his gaze from the
+sphere and was devouring Phaestra with his eyes. As if drawn by the
+ardor of his observation, she raised her own eyes from the sphere to
+meet those of the handsome visitor. Obviously confused, she dropped
+her long lashes and turned nervously to the controls. Tommy
+experienced a sudden feeling of dread. Surely his pal was not falling
+in love with this Theronian empress!
+
+Then there came another change in the note of the sphere and once more
+they lost themselves in contemplation of the scene within. The surface
+of the lost continent was rushing madly to meet them. With terrific
+velocity they seemed to be falling. An involuntary gasp was forced
+from Tommy's lips. Mountains, valleys, rivers could now be discerned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the scene shifted slightly and they were stationary, directly
+above a large seacoast city. A city of great beauty it was, and its
+buildings were of the same octagonal shape as were those of Theros!
+There could be but one inference--the Theronians were direct
+descendants of those inhabitants of ancient Atlantis.
+
+"Yes," sighed Phaestra, in answer to the thought she had read, "our
+ancestors were those you now see in the streets of this city of
+Atlantis. A marvelous race they were, too. When the rest of the world
+was still savage and unenlightened, they knew more of the arts and
+sciences than is known on the surface to-day. The mysteries of the
+Fourth Dimension they had already solved. Their telescopes were of
+such power that they knew of the existence of intelligent beings on
+Mars and Venus. They had conquered the air. They knew of the relation
+between gravity and magnetism but recently propounded by your
+Einstein. They were prosperous, happy. Then--but watch!"
+
+Faint sounds of the life of the city came to their ears. A swarm of
+monoplanes roared past just beneath them. The streets were crowded
+with rapidly moving vehicles, the roof-tops with air-craft. Then
+suddenly the scene darkened; a deep rumbling came from the sea. As
+they watched in fascinated wonder, a great chasm opened up through the
+heart of the city. Tall buildings swayed and crumbled, falling into
+heaps of twisted metal and crushed masonry and burying hundreds of the
+populace in their fall. The confusion was indescribable, the uproar
+terrific, and within the space of a very few minutes the entire city
+was a mass of ruins, fully half of the wrecked area having been
+swallowed up by the heaving waters of the ocean.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Phaestra stifled a sob. "Thus it began," she stated. "Trovus was
+first--the city you just saw--then came three more of the cities of
+the western coast in rapid succession. Computations of the scientists
+showed that the upheaval was widespread and that the entire continent
+was to be engulfed in a very short time. The exodus began, but it was
+too late, and only a few hundred people were able to escape the
+continent before it was finally destroyed. The ocean became the tomb
+of two hundred millions. The handful of survivors reached the coast of
+what is now North America. But the rigors of the climate proved severe
+and more than three-quarters of them perished within a few days after
+their planes landed. Then the rest took to the caves along the shore,
+and for a while were safe."
+
+She manipulated the controls once more and there was a quick shift to
+another coast, a rugged, wave-beaten shore. Closer they drew until
+they observed a lofty palisade that extended for miles along the
+barren waterfront. They saw a fire atop this elevation and active men
+and women at various tasks within the narrow circle of its warmth. A
+cave mouth opened at the brink of the precipice near the spot they
+occupied.
+
+Then came a repetition of the upheaval at Trovus. The ocean rushed in
+and beat against the cliff with such ferocity that its spray was
+tossed hundreds of feet in the air. The earth shook and the group of
+people around the fire made a hasty retreat to the mouth of the cave.
+The sky darkened and the winds howled with demoniac fury. Quake after
+quake rent the rugged cliffs: huge sections toppled into the angry
+waters. Then a great tidal wave swept in and covered everything,
+cliffs, cave mouths and all. Nought remained where they had been but
+the seething waters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But some escaped!" exulted Phaestra, "and these discovered Theros.
+Though many miles of the eastern seaboard of your United States were
+submerged and the coastline entirely altered, these few were saved.
+Their cave connected with a long passage, a tunnel that led into the
+bowels of the earth. With the outer entrance blocked by the upheaval
+they had no alternative save to continue downward."
+
+"They traveled for days and days. Some were overcome by hunger and
+fell by the wayside. The most hardy survived to reach Theros, a series
+of enormous caverns that extends for hundreds of miles under the
+surface of your country. Here they found subterranean lakes of pure
+water; forests, game. They had a few tools and weapons and they
+established themselves in this underground world. From that small
+beginning came this!"
+
+Phaestra's slim fingers worked rapidly at the controls. The scenes
+shifted in quick succession. They were once more in the present, and
+seemed to be traveling speedily through the underground reaches of
+Theros. Now they were racing through a long lighted passage; now over
+a great city similar to the one in which they had arrived. Here they
+visited a huge workshop or laboratory; there a mine where radium or
+cobalt or platinum was being wrested from the vitals of the unwilling
+earth. Then they visited a typical Theronian household, saw the
+perfect peace and happiness in which the family lived. Again they were
+in a large power plant where direct application of the internal heat
+of the earth as obtained through deep shafts bored into the interior
+was utilized in generating electricity.
+
+They saw vast quantities of supplies, fifty-ton masses of machinery,
+moved from place to place as lightly as feathers by use of the gravity
+discs, those heavily charged plates whose emanations counteracted the
+earth's attraction. In one busy laboratory they saw an immense
+television apparatus and heard scientists discussing moot questions
+with inhabitants of Venus, whose images were depicted on the screen.
+They witnessed a severe electrical storm in the huge cavern arch over
+one of the cities, a storm that condensed moisture from the
+artificially oxygenated and humidified atmosphere in such blinding
+sheets as to easily explain the necessity for well-roofed buildings in
+the underground realm. And, in all the speech and activities of the
+Theronians, there was evident that all-pervading feeling of absolute
+contentment and freedom from care.
+
+"What I can not understand," said Frank, during a quiet interval, "is
+why the Theronians have never migrated to the surface. Surely, with
+all your command of science and mechanics, that would be easy."
+
+"Why? Why?" Phaestra's voice spoke volumes. "Here--I'll show you the
+reason."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And again the scene in the sphere changed. They were on the surface
+and a few years in the past--at Chateau Thierry. They saw their fellow
+men mangled and broken; saw human beings shot down by hundreds in
+withering bursts of machine-gun fire; saw them in hand-to-hand bayonet
+fights; gassed and in delirium from the horror of it all.
+
+They traveled over the ocean; saw a big passenger liner the victim of
+torpedo fire; saw babies tossed into the water by distracted mothers
+who jumped in after them to join them in death.
+
+A few years were passed by and they saw gang wars in Chicago and New
+York; saw militia and picketing strikers in mortal combat; saw wealthy
+brokers and bank presidents turn pistols on themselves following a
+crash in the stock market; government officials serving penitentiary
+terms for betrayal of the people's trust; opium dens, speakeasies, sex
+crimes. It was a fearful indictment.
+
+"Ah, no," said Phaestra kindly, "the surface world has not yet emerged
+from savagery. We should be unwelcome were we to venture outside. And
+now we come to the reason for your visit. You come in search of one
+Edwin Leland, a fellow worker at one time. Your motives are above
+reproach. But Leland came as a greedy searcher of riches. We brought
+him within to teach him the error of his ways and to beg him to desist
+from his efforts at destroying the dome of silver. He alone knew the
+secret."
+
+"Then you followed him and we took you in for similar reasons, though
+our scientists found very quickly that your mental reactions were of
+entirely different type from Leland's and that the secret would be
+safe in your keeping. Leland remains obdurate. He threatens us with
+physical violence, and his reactions to the thought-reading machines
+are of the most treacherous sort. We must keep him with us. He shall
+remain unharmed, but he must not be allowed to return. That is the
+story. You two are free to leave when you choose. I ask not that you
+give your word to keep the secret of 'Silver Dome.' I know it is not
+necessary."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lights had resumed their normal glow, and the marvelous sphere
+returned to its receptacle beneath the floor. Phaestra resumed her
+seat on the canopied divan. Frank dropped to a seat on the edge of the
+dais. Tommy and Orrin remained standing, Tommy lost in thought and
+Orrin stolidly mute. The empress avoided Frank's gaze studiously. Her
+cheeks were flushed; her eyes bright with emotion.
+
+Frank was first to break the silence. "Leland is in solitary
+confinement?" he asked.
+
+"For the present he is under guard," replied Phaestra. "He was quite
+violent and it was necessary to disarm him after he had killed one of
+my attendants with a shot from his automatic pistol. When he agrees to
+submit peacefully, he shall be given the freedom of Theros for the
+remainder of his life."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Frank, "if I spoke to him...."
+
+"The very thing." Phaestra thanked him with her wondrous eyes.
+
+A high pitched note rang out from behind the hangings, and, in rapid
+syllables of the language of Theros, a voice broke forth from the
+concealed amplifiers. Orrin, startled from his stoicism, sprang to the
+side of his empress. She rose from her seat as the voice completed its
+excited message.
+
+"It is Leland," she said calmly. "He has escaped and recovered his
+pistol. I have been told that he is now at large in the palace,
+terrorizing the household. We have no weapons here, you see."
+
+"Good God!" shouted Frank. "Suppose he should come here?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He jumped to his feet just as a shot rang out in the antechamber.
+Orrin dashed to the portal when a second shot spat forth from the
+automatic which must certainly be in the hands of a madman. The doors
+swung wide and Leland, hair disarranged and bloodshot eyes staring,
+burst into the room. Orrin went down at the next shot and the hardly
+recognizable scientist advanced toward the dais.
+
+When he saw Frank and Tommy he stopped in his tracks. "So you two have
+been following me!" he snarled. "Well, you won't keep me from my
+purpose. I'm here to kill this queen of hell!"
+
+Once more he raised his automatic, but Frank had been watching closely
+and he literally dove from the steps of the dais to the knees of the
+deranged Leland. As beautiful a tackle as he had ever made in his
+college football days laid the maniac low with a crashing thud that
+told of a fractured skull. The bullet intended for Phaestra went wide,
+striking Tommy in the shoulder.
+
+Spun half way around by the impact of the heavy bullet, Tommy fought
+to retain his balance. But his knees went suddenly awry and gave way
+beneath him. He crumpled helplessly to the floor, staring foolishly at
+the prostrate figure of Leland and at Frank, who had risen to his feet
+and now faced the beautiful empress of Theros. Strange lights danced
+before Tommy's eyes, and he found it difficult to keep the pair in
+focus. But he was sure of one thing--his pal was unharmed. Then the
+two figures seemed to merge into one and he blinked his eyes rapidly
+to clear his failing vision. By George, they were in each other's
+arms! Funny world--above or below--it didn't seem to make any
+difference. But it was a tough break for Frank--morganatic marriage
+and all that. No chance--well--
+
+Tommy succumbed to his overpowering drowsiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The awakening was slow, but not painful. Rather there was a feeling of
+utter contentment, of joy at being alive. A delicious languor pervaded
+Tommy's being as he turned his head on a snow white silken pillow and
+stared at the figure of the white-capped nurse who was fussing with
+the bottles and instruments that lay on an enameled table beside the
+bed. Memory came to him immediately. He felt remarkably well and
+refreshed. Experimentally he moved his left shoulder. There was
+absolutely no pain and it felt perfectly normal. He sat erect in his
+surprise and felt the shoulder with his right hand. There was no
+bandage, no wound. Had he dreamed of the hammer blow of that
+forty-five caliber bullet?
+
+His nurse, observing that her patient had recovered consciousness,
+broke forth in a torrent of unintelligible Theronian, then rushed from
+the room.
+
+He was still examining his unscarred shoulder in wonder, when the
+nurse returned, with Frank Rowley at her heels. Frank laughed at the
+expression of his friend's face.
+
+"What's wrong, old-timer?" he asked.
+
+"Why--I--thought that fool of a Leland had shot me in the shoulder,"
+stammered Tommy, "but I guess I dreamed it. Where are we? Still in
+Theros?"
+
+"We are." Frank sobered instantly, and Tommy noted with alarm that his
+usually cheerful features were haggard and drawn and his eyes hollow
+from loss of sleep. "And you didn't dream that Leland shot you. That
+shoulder of yours was mangled and torn beyond belief. He was using
+soft nosed bullets, the hell-hound!"
+
+"Then how--?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Tommy, these Theronians are marvelous. We rushed you to this hospital
+and a half-dozen doctors started working on you at once. They repaired
+the shattered bones by an instantaneous grafting process, tied the
+severed veins and arteries and closed the gaping wound by filling it
+with a plastic compound and drawing the edges together with clamps.
+You were anaesthetized and some ray machine was used to heal the
+shoulder. This required but ten hours and they now say that your arm
+is as good as ever. How does it feel?"
+
+"Perfectly natural. In fact I feel better than I have in a month."
+Tommy observed that the nurse had left the room and he jumped from his
+bed and capered like a school boy.
+
+This drew no sign of merriment from Frank, and Tommy scrutinized him
+once more in consternation. "And you," he said, "what is wrong with
+you?"
+
+"Don't worry about me," replied Frank impatiently. Then, irrelevantly,
+he said "Leland's dead."
+
+"Should be. I knew we shouldn't have started out to help him. But,
+Frank, I'm concerned about you. You look badly." Tommy was getting
+into his clothes as he spoke.
+
+"Forget it, Tommy. You've been sleeping for two days, you know--part
+of the cure--and I haven't had much rest during that time. That is
+all."
+
+"It's that Phaestra woman," Tommy accused him.
+
+"Well, perhaps. But I'll get over it, I suppose. Tommy, I love her.
+But there's no chance for me. Haven't seen her since the row in the
+palace. Her council surrounds her continually and I have been advised
+to-day that we are to be returned as quickly as you are up and around.
+That means immediately now."
+
+"Good. The sooner the better. And you just forget about this queen as
+soon as you are able. She's a peach, of course, but not for you.
+There's lots more back in little old New York." But Frank had no reply
+to this sally.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came a knock at the door and Tommy called, "Come in."
+
+"I see you have fully recovered," said the smiling Theronian who
+entered at the bidding, "and we are overjoyed to know this. You have
+the gratitude of the entire realm for your part in the saving of our
+empress from the bullets of the madman."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You and your friend. And now, may I ask, are you ready to return
+to your own land?"
+
+Tommy stared. "Sure thing," he said, "or rather, I will be in a few
+minutes."
+
+"Thank you. We shall await you in the transmitting room." The
+Theronian bowed and was gone.
+
+"Well, I like that," said Tommy. "He hands me an undeserved compliment
+and then asks how soon we can beat it. A 'here's your hat, what's your
+hurry' sort of thing."
+
+"It's me they're anxious to be rid of," remarked Frank, shrugging his
+broad shoulders, "and perhaps it is just as well."
+
+"You bet it is!" agreed Tommy enthusiastically, "and I'm in favor of
+making it good and snappy." He completed his toilet as rapidly as
+possible and then turned to face the down-hearted Frank.
+
+"How do we go? The way we came?" he asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No, Tommy. They have closed off the shaft that led from the cavern of
+the silver dome. They are taking no more chances. It seems that the
+shaft down which we floated was constructed by the Theronians; not by
+Leland. They had used it and the gravity disc to transport casual
+visitors to the surface, who occasionally mixed with our people in
+order to learn the languages of the upper world and to actually touch
+and handle the things they were otherwise able to see only through the
+medium of Silver Dome and the crystal spheres. Further visits to the
+surface are now forbidden, and we are to be returned by a remarkable
+process of beam transmission of our disintegrated bodies."
+
+"Disintegrated?"
+
+"Yes. It seems they have learned to dissociate the atoms of which the
+human body is composed and to transmit them to any desired point over
+a beam of etheric vibrations, then to reassemble them in the original
+living condition."
+
+"What? You mean to say we are to be shot to the surface through the
+intervening rock and earth? Disintegrated and reintegrated? And we'll
+not even be bent, let alone busted?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This time he was rewarded by a laugh. "That's right. And I have gone
+through the calculations with one of the Theronian engineers and can
+find no flaw in the scheme. We're safe in their hands."
+
+"If you say so, Frank, it's okay with me. Let's go!"
+
+Reluctantly his friend lifted his athletic bulk from the chair. In
+silence he led the way to the transmitting room of the Theronian
+scientists.
+
+Here they were greeted by two savants with whom Frank was already
+acquainted, Clarux and Rhonus by name. A bewildering array of complex
+mechanisms was crowded into the high-ceilinged chamber and, prominent
+among them, was one of the crystal spheres, this one of somewhat
+smaller size than the one in the palace of Phaestra.
+
+"Where do you wish to arrive?" asked Clarux.
+
+"As near to my automobile as possible," replied Frank, taking sudden
+interest in the proceedings. "It is parked in the lane between
+Leland's house and the road."
+
+Tommy looked quickly in his direction, encouraged by the apparent
+change in his attitude. The scientists proceeded to energize the
+crystal sphere. They were bent upon speeding the parting guests. Their
+beloved empress was to be saved from her own emotions.
+
+Quick adjustments of the controls resulted in the locating of Frank's
+car, which was still buried to its axles in snow. The scene included
+Leland's house, or rather its site, for it appeared to have been
+utterly demolished by some explosion within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy raised questioning eyebrows.
+
+"It was necessary," explained Rhonus, "to destroy the house in
+obliterating all traces of our former means of egress. It has been
+commanded that you two be returned safely, and we are authorized to
+trust implicitly in your future silence regarding the existence of
+Theros. This is satisfactory, I presume?"
+
+Both Tommy and Frank nodded agreement.
+
+"Are you ready, gentlemen?" asked Clarux, who was adjusting a
+mechanism that resembled a huge radio transmitter. Its twelve giant
+vacuum tubes glowed into life as he spoke.
+
+"We are," chimed the two visitors.
+
+They were requested to step to a small circular platform that was
+raised about a foot from the floor by means of insulating legs. Above
+the table there was an inverted bowl of silver in the shape of a large
+parabolic reflector.
+
+"There will be no alarming sensations," averred Clarux. "When I close
+the switch the disintegrating energy from the reflector above will
+bathe your bodies for a moment in visible rays of a deep purple hue.
+You may possibly experience a slight momentary feeling of nausea.
+Then--presto!--you have arrived."
+
+"Shoot!" growled Frank from his position on the stand.
+
+Clarux pulled the switch and there was a murmur as of distant thunder.
+Tommy blinked involuntarily in the brilliant purple glow that
+surrounded him. Then all was confusion in the transmitting room.
+Somebody had rushed through the open door shouting, "Frank! Frank!" It
+was the empress Phaestra.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a growing daze Tommy saw her dash to the platform, seize Frank in a
+clutch of desperation. There was a violent wrench as if some monster
+were twisting at his vitals. He closed his eyes against the blinding
+light, then realized that utter silence had followed the erstwhile
+confusion. He sat in Frank's car--alone.
+
+The journey was over, and Frank was left behind. With awful finality
+it came to him that there was nothing he could do. It was clear that
+Phaestra had wanted his pal, needed him--come for him. From the fact
+that Frank remained behind it was evident that she had succeeded in
+retaining him. A sickening fear came to Tommy that she had been too
+late; that Frank's body was already partly disintegrated and that he
+might have paid the price of her love with his life. But a little
+reflection convinced him that if this were the case a portion of his
+friend's body would have reached the intended destination. Then,
+unexplainably, he received a mental message that all was well.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Considerably heartened, he pressed the starter button and the cold
+motor of Frank's coupe turned over slowly, protestingly. Finally it
+coughed a few times, and, after considerable coaxing by use of the
+choke, ran smoothly. He proceeded to back carefully through the drifts
+toward the road, casting an occasional regretful glance in the
+direction of the demolished mansion.
+
+He would have some explaining to do when he returned to New York.
+Perhaps--yes, almost certainly, he would be questioned by the police
+regarding Frank's disappearance. But he would never betray the trust
+of Phaestra. Who indeed would believe him if he told the story?
+Instead, he would concoct a weird fabrication regarding an explosion
+in Leland's laboratory, of his own miraculous escape. They could not
+hold him, could not accuse him of murder without producing a body--the
+_corpus delicti_, or whatever they called it.
+
+Anyway, Frank was content. So was Phaestra.
+
+Tommy swung the heavy car into the road and turned toward New York,
+alone and lonely--but somehow happy; happy for his friend.
+
+[Advertisement: ASTOUNDING STORIES
+
+_Appears on Newsstands_
+
+THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH]
+
+
+
+
+Earth, the Marauder
+
+PART TWO OF A THREE-PART NOVEL
+
+_By Arthur J. Burks_
+
+[Illustration: Closer and closer they came.]
+
+[Sidenote: Deep in the gnome-infested tunnels of the Moon, Sarka and
+Jaska are brought to Luar, the radiant goddess against whose minions
+the marauding Earth had struck in vain.]
+
+
+WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
+
+The Earth was dying. Ever since Sarka the First, king of scientists,
+had given mankind the Secret of Life, which prolonged life
+indefinitely, the Earthlings had multiplied beyond all count, and been
+forced to burrow deep into the ground and high into the air in the
+desperate search for the mere room in which to live. There was much
+civil war. The plight of the children of men was desperate. Something
+had to be done.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then Sarka the Third called the Spokesmen of the Gens of Earth around
+him, and proposed to them a new scheme which had come to him in his
+laboratory atop the Himalayas. He would swing the Earth from its
+orbit!--send it careening through space toward the Moon!--there to
+destroy its inhabitants and supplant them with a colony of Earthlings!
+And then they would surge on to Mars!
+
+One by one the twelve Spokesmen, each the head and representative of
+the teeming trillions comprising his Gens, acceded. Even Dalis, the
+jealous rival of Sarka, finally gave his sulky consent.
+
+So, under Sarka's commands, the Earth's hordes were mobilized; and in
+tune with the Master Beryl in Sarka's laboratory all the Beryls of the
+Earth vibrated, freeing the Earth from her age-old orbit and swinging
+her out towards the Moon.
+
+The Gens of Dalis--the trillions of people who swore allegiance to
+him--would lead the attack on the Moon. When within fifty thousand
+miles, they darted out, clad only in their tight green clothing and
+the helmets that held the anti-gravitational ovoids, which
+neutralized gravity for them and enabled them to instantly fly where
+they willed. Their only weapons were hand atom-disintegrators. And out
+from the Moon came mysterious aircars, with long clutching
+tentacles--the weapons of the Moon's minions! The war of the worlds
+was begun!
+
+Yet Dalis, leader of the Gens that now engaged the Moon's aircars, was
+still in the laboratory with Sarka. For Dalis' treacherous mind
+coveted control of the Earth, and though the urge to lead his Gens
+into battle was tremendous, still he stayed, watching Sarka closely,
+waiting for the moment when he could trick Sarka and assume control.
+
+And at the head of the Gens of Dalis was a woman, Jaska, whom Sarka
+loved. The Moon's aircars swept away the Gens of Dalis, and out from
+Earth poured the Gens of Cleric, who was Jaska's father. The newcomers
+fought desperately to save Jaska from the deadly clutches of the
+aircars.
+
+Dalis could stand it no longer. He sped forth from the laboratory, to
+reorganize his beaten Gens. Jaska flew for home; but behind her a
+single aircar, splashed with crimson, reached forth its tentacles to
+clutch her--and Sarka groaned with the agony of his impotence to help
+the woman he loved.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Escape--and Dalis' Laughter_
+
+But Sarka was not to be so easily beaten. There still remained an
+infinite number of possible changes of speed by manipulation of ovidum
+by vibration set up by the Beryls, without which this flight from the
+beginning would have been impossible. But for two hours, while the
+white robed men of Cleric fought against the car of the crimson
+splashes to prevent the capture of the daughter of their
+Spokesman--and died by hundreds in the grip of those grim
+tentacles--Sarka was forced to labor with the Beryls until
+perspiration bathed his whole body and his heart was heavy as he
+foresaw failure. And failure meant death or worse for Jaska.
+
+But at the end of two hours, while the men of Cleric fought like men
+inspired against the aircar of the crimson slashes, a cessation in the
+outward speed of the earth could be noted. At the end of three hours
+the body of Jaska, all this time fighting manfully to attain to
+landing place on the Earth, was at last bulking larger; but the
+tentacles of the aircar were groping after her, reaching for her,
+striving to catch and clasp her to her death.
+
+The two Sarkas watched and prayed while the might of the Beryls,
+traveling at top speed, fought against the force of whatever was used
+by the Moon-men to compel the Moon to withdraw. Still the men of
+Cleric fought that single car, and died by hundreds in the fighting.
+White robed figures which became shriveled and black in the grip of
+those tentacles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Countless of the men of Cleric deliberately cast themselves against
+those tentacles, throwing their lives away to give Jaska more leeway
+in her race for life.
+
+"Will she make it, father?" queried Sarka in a whisper.
+
+"If the courage and loyalty of her people stand for anything, she will
+make it," he replied.
+
+On she came at top speed, and now through the micro-telescopes the
+Sarkas could see the agony of effort on her face, even through the
+smooth mask used by the people of Earth for flight in space where
+there was no atmosphere. Courage was there, and the will of
+never-say-die; and Jaska, moreover, was coming back to the man she
+loved. In a nebulous sort of way Sarka realized this, for though these
+two had not mated there was a resonant inner sympathy between them
+which had rounded into an emotion of overpowering force since Jaska
+had proved to Sarka that she was to be trusted--that he had been
+something less than a faithful lover when he had mistrusted her, ever
+so little.
+
+Closer now and closer, and at last the aircar of the crimson splashes
+was drawing away, losing in the race for life. It was falling back, as
+though minded to turn about and race back for the Moon, now a ball in
+the sky, far away, the outlines of its craters growing dim and misty
+with distance. Now the men of Cleric, those who remained, were
+breaking contact with the aircar, and forming a valiant rear-guard for
+the retreat of Jaska.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Throughout the Earth, as the Beryls fought with ever increasing speed
+to lower the rate of the earth's outward race from the Moon, was such
+a trembling, such a vibration induced by conflicting, alien forces as
+there had not been even in that moment when back there in its orbit,
+the Earth could have either been kept within its orbit, or hurled
+outward into space at the touch of a finger.
+
+Now Jaska, surrounded by her father's men, was almost close enough to
+touch the Earth.
+
+She made it, weak and weary, and rested for a moment while her
+father's men steadied her. Then, thrusting them aside, with gestures
+bidding them return to their Gens, she lifted into the air again, and
+fled straight for the laboratory of Sarka.
+
+She entered tiredly through the exit dome, and all but collapsed into the
+arms of Sarka. Gently he removed her helmet of the anti-gravitational
+ovoid, noting as she leaned against him the tumultuous beating of her
+heart. Then her gentle eyes opened and she whispered to Sarka.
+
+"You trust me now?"
+
+For answer he bent and kissed her softly on the lips--for the kiss,
+from the far distant time when the first baby was kissed by the first
+mother, had been the favored caress of mankind. Her face was
+transfigured as she read his answer in his eyes, and the touch of his
+lips. Then, remembering, fear flashed across her face. She
+straightened, and grasping Sarka by the hand, hurried with him into
+the observatory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She took the seat in which Dalis had sat before he had gone out to the
+command of his Gens, studied for many minutes the battle in space
+between the two alien worlds.
+
+"Dalis is winning," said the Elder Sarka quietly, "apparently!"
+
+"The qualification is a just one," said Jaska softly. "'Apparently,'
+indeed! You will note now that, though men of the Gens of Dalis swarm
+all about the aircars, and even clamber atop them, no more are dying
+in the grasp of those tentacles? Is Dalis arranging a treacherous
+truce with the Moon-men?"
+
+"I have been wondering about that," said Sarka softly, "for it is my
+belief that nothing not conducive to his own selfish interests would
+have forced Dalis to leave this place and take command of his Gens, as
+I had first ordered, unless he had schemes planned of which father and
+I could know nothing. Now that I think of it, Jaska, how did Dalis
+know our secret code of fingers?"
+
+Jaska started, and turned a blanched face to Sarka.
+
+"_Did_ he know?" she cried. "Did he? If he did that proves a suspicion
+that I have entertained since the first moment when Dalis swept into
+the fight, and I sensed that alien signals were being flashed back and
+forth!"
+
+"Flashed back and forth!" ejaculated Sarka. "How do you mean? That
+Dalis was somehow able to communicate with the Moon-men in their own
+language, or through their own signals?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why not? He knew our secret code, did he not? I never gave it to him,
+and I know that you did not. No, Dalis has some means, never
+discovered or suspected by you Sarkas, whereby he is able to
+understand alien tongues and alien sign manuals!"
+
+"That means," said Sarka the Elder in a dead voice, "that by forcing
+Dalis to go out at the head of his Gens...."
+
+"We have," interrupted Sarka the Younger, "placed a new weapon of
+treason in his hands! Dalis, at the very moment of contact with the
+aircars, loaded with Moon-men, broke in on their signals--they must
+have had some means of signalling one another--and communicated with
+them in their own way! Do you think it possible that, with all his
+Gens, he may go over to the Moon-men, form an alliance with them?"
+
+For many moments no one dared to answer the question; yet, from what
+the Sarkas knew of him, it was not impossible at all. For Dalis was
+the master egotist always, and never overlooked opportunity to gain
+something for himself.
+
+It was Jaska who broke the silence.
+
+"Did you note carefully," she said, "those aircars which were
+partially destroyed by our ray directors and atom-disintegrators?"
+
+The Sarkas nodded.
+
+"Did you note that no men, formed like our own, no creatures of any
+sort whatever, fell from the cars?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the awesome silence, and the keen brains of the Sarkas wrestled
+with this vague hint of the uncanny.
+
+"You mean, Jaska ... you mean...."
+
+"That the occupants of aircars are part of the cars, but--Beings of
+the Moon! That they are either metal monsters endowed with brains or
+tiny creatures irrevocably attached to the cars themselves!"
+
+"But how," said Sarka at last, "are we to be sure? I can understand
+what Dalis might do if the Moon-men granted his wish for an alliance
+with them. It is easy to understand why his Gens would follow his
+lead, for with the Moon forced outward from the Earth faster than his
+Gens could retreat, there is but one direction for his Gens to
+go--toward the Moon! They would go to the Moon as captives and trust
+the keen brain of Dalis to gain the mastery, sooner or later, over the
+Moon-men. And then...."
+
+"And then--?" repeated Sarka the Elder.
+
+"Then, Dalis has already been inspired by the speed with which those
+aircars travel! You will remember that he did not take kindly to
+leaving the Earth and making his abode on some other planet! But why
+could he not do so, combine forces and knowledge with the people of
+that planet--and then return to Earth in alliance with them?--after we
+have depleted our forces by placing a large portion of our people on
+Mars and Venus and Saturn?"
+
+"Sarka, my son," said Sarka's father, "before we continue with our
+flight to Mars, we must know the truth! We must somehow learn exactly
+what is going on on the Moon! If you could reach the Moon, alone,
+undetected, and bring back a report...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment he left it there, and the faces of all three were gray
+with worry and abysmal fear.
+
+"I can't go bodily, father," said Sarka at last, "but you remember my
+secret exit dome, to the right of the observatory, from which I have
+never yet dared exit from this place for fear that it might cost me my
+life?"
+
+Sarka the Elder nodded, while Jaska looked puzzled. Another evidence
+of the fact that Sarka had not always trusted her, for she knew
+nothing of a secret exit dome. Sarka's eyes, as he looked at Jaska,
+mutely asked her forgiveness, which she gave him with her smile.
+
+"I remember, son, and now?..."
+
+"Surely it is worth risking one's life to know what new menace looms
+over the children of men!"
+
+"What is the use of this secret dome?" asked Jaska softly.
+
+"It is merely an elaboration of the regular exit dome, combined with
+certain phases of our atom-distintegrators, and the principle involved
+in the anti-gravitational ovoids. I step into the secret exit dome,
+garbed for flight Outside, and will myself to appear bodily in a
+certain place. It is instantaneous. I step into the dome, for
+example, and will myself to appear whole upon the Moon, and there I
+will appear!"
+
+"You mean that during the period of transposition you are invisible?"
+
+"Yes, invisible because non-existent, except for the essential
+elements of me, broken down by the secret exit dome, reassembled at
+the place willed in their entirety! I can't fly there, for a million
+eyes would see me approach! I must go in secret, as a spy, and wearing
+the clothing and insignia of a member of the Gens of Dalis!"
+
+Silence in the observatory for a brief breathing space, and then Jaska
+spoke that speech out of the books of antiquity, which remains the
+classic expression of loyalty.
+
+"Whithersoever thou goest, there will I go also!"
+
+From the laboratory came a sudden burst of laughter, the laughter
+which all three recognized as the laughter of Dalis; but when they
+entered the place of the Revolving Beryl, there was no one there--and
+a feeling of dread, all encompassing, held them thralled for the space
+of several heart-beats. Dalis, they knew, was thousands of miles away,
+upon the Moon; yet here in the place of the Master Beryl they all
+three had just heard his sardonic laughter!
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_Ashes of the Moon_
+
+Through the micro-telescopes it was possible to see what had happened
+after Dalis had assumed command of the Gens of Dalis. For even though
+the Moon, in spite of the speed of the Beryls, was being forced
+further and further from the Earth, the eyes of the micro-telescopes
+picked out and enlarged details to such an extent that the battle
+seemed to be transpiring under the eyes of the beholders.
+
+A terrific jumble, in which Earthlings and aircars were all tumbled
+together in mad chaos, a great mass of writhing, green-garbed figures.
+Infinite in number--in the midst of which were the gigantic aircars,
+like monster beetles being beset by armies upon armies of ants.
+
+Then, by the time Jaska had seated herself in the observatory atop the
+Himalayas, to watch what developed, the battle seemed to be over, and
+the Moon-men had won. For the huge cars swung around between the
+myriads of the Gens of Dalis, and seemed to be herding them toward the
+Moon, as though they were prisoners.
+
+Telepathically, Sarka and his father had been able to catch some hint
+of the thoughts of the Earthlings in the battle, and these thoughts
+had been tinged with doubt, fear and horror, so that even thus to
+receive them, by mental telepathy, was to feel the searing heat of
+their fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now, in the instant when the battle in Space seemed to be over and the
+Gens of Dalis were prisoners, the thought waves were no more, and a
+brooding silence took their place. Dalis, the Sarkas knew, possessed
+the power to mask his thoughts, for it was a power possessed in common
+by all the scientists of Earth. But the common people of his Gens did
+not posses that power. However, for the moment Sarka had forgotten an
+all important something: that, when people were outside the roof of
+the world, they were subservient to the will of a common commander to
+whom they had sworn allegiance.
+
+If, therefore, Dalis could mask his own thoughts from the brains of
+men, he could also mask the thoughts of the people of his Gens, merely
+by willing it! So Sarka and his father and Jaska could not know
+whether the Gens of Dalis had gone over in a body with him, in a truce
+with the people of the Moon, or whether they were dual prisoners--of
+Dalis and of the Moon-men!
+
+More than ever was it necessary for someone to somehow reach the Moon
+and make a thorough investigation, discover just what Dalis was doing,
+what mischief he was hatching.
+
+The secret exit dome seemed to be the answer.
+
+"You can manage without me, father?" asked Sarka.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The elder Sarka nodded.
+
+"Of the other Spokesmen of Earth," went on Sarka, "I trust Gerd the
+most. Might I suggest that you bring him here, trust him in all
+details, and let him take my place wherever possible? Or, better
+still, keep Jaska here with you! I ... I may not be able to return!
+I'll try to find a way, but--we can always communicate telepathically.
+Jaska...."
+
+"Jaska," said that young lady grimly, "goes with Sarka wherever Sarka
+goes!"
+
+"But it may mean death! We can only guess at the cunning of the Moon
+dwellers! They may have been in secret communication with Dalis for
+centuries! Dalis, who somehow discovered our secret finger code, may
+also know of the secret exit dome, and the principle upon which it
+operates! If he does, he may know how to combat it! Perhaps that
+explains his laughter! Perhaps he heard and understood every word we
+spoke, hears and understands every word we speak now! Who knows? He
+may wait until I have passed through the secret exit dome, and then
+make it impossible for me to be reincarnated on the Moon--or
+elsewhere!"
+
+"No matter," said Jaska softly, "wherever Sarka goes, there goes
+Jaska! It is useless to attempt to dissuade me, and it is time you
+learned that!"
+
+In spite of himself Sarka smiled, and his father met his smile with a
+quizzical one of his own. Both men had the same thought.
+
+"The eternal woman!" said Sarka the Elder. "No man has ever understood
+her--no man ever will! And all men are ruled by her!"
+
+Sarka shrugged, and Jaska spoke again.
+
+"Don't you think it is time we tried this new experiment?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka nodded, and his face was suddenly alight with the excitement
+which burned within him.
+
+"First," he said, "we need accoutrements of the Gens of Dalis for two
+people!"
+
+Jaska smiled.
+
+"Forseeing that we might have need of such equipment, I had several
+complete outfits sent here when I took charge of the Gens of Dalis as
+its Spokesman!"
+
+Two minutes later, arrayed in the green clothing of the House of
+Dalis, swathed in it from neck to toe, wearing their belts and the
+masks which were necessary to life in space where there was no
+atmosphere, the whole topped by the gleaming helmets whose skull-pans
+held the infinitesimally small anti-gravitational ovoids, Jaska and
+Sarka entered the secret exit dome, side by-side.
+
+On the breast and back of each showed the yellow stars of the Gens of
+Dalis. There was no hiding their identity otherwise, and if any of the
+Gens saw them, both would be immediately recognized--for Jaska had
+commanded the Gens, and Sarka was the world's greatest scientist known
+to every human being. But they planned on carrying out their
+investigations by stealth.
+
+"Father," said Sarka, "when the inner door is closed upon us, you have
+but to press the button to the right of the door. Press it when the
+light beside it glows red, which will indicate that we have willed
+ourselves to go to a certain destination!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The inner door closed upon Sarka and Jaska, and, hand in hand, side by
+side, their bodies glowing with knowledge of warm, sympathetic
+contact, they waited for a miracle which had never before been
+attempted.
+
+"Are you afraid, beloved?" queried Sarka.
+
+"When I am with you," she said softly, "I have no fear."
+
+"Then face the outer door, and will to go wherever I will to take
+you!"
+
+Side by side, hand-in-hand still, they faced the outer door, and Sarka
+willed:
+
+"Let us appear together in a deserted spot, within sight but unseen,
+of the Moon crater from which those aircars were sent against us!"
+
+A sudden blur, a cessation of all knowledge, and then....
+
+Sarka and Jaska stood side by side in a desolate expanse surrounded by
+bleak and appalling mountains of grotesque shape, in a light that was
+weirdly, awesomely blue. Their feet were invisible, deeply rooted in
+some soft, fine material which looked like snow.
+
+After a swift glance around to see if anything lived or moved in this
+awful desolation, Sarka stooped and dipped up some of the fine stuff
+with his fingers, touched it to his lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The material seemed to be fine blue ashes and on his tongue it had a
+soapy savor. He peered at Jaska, whose eyes were glowing with
+excitement, whose lips were parted with anticipation, and instantly he
+opened a mental conversation with her.
+
+"We must speak with each other telepathically, but do not speak with
+me until I have explained to you how to mask your thoughts from all
+persons save the one with whom you hold converse! First, I love you!
+Second, let us see if, searching the sky, we can find the Earth!"
+
+In a few brief, highly technical words, Sarka told his beloved how to
+talk with him in the manner which he had never before explained to
+her. They had used telepathy before, countless times, but they had not
+cared who heard--while now secrecy in all things was the prime
+essential for success, even for life.
+
+When he had told her, and she replied, "I understand perfectly, and it
+seems quite easy," they turned and surveyed the heavens, out of which,
+by this new miracle of the secret exit dome, they had dropped to the
+face of the Moon.
+
+Away across the space between worlds, its transfiguration plainly
+visible to the two, they could make out and identify the world from
+which they had come. Save that they knew themselves standing on the
+Moon, they would have thought as far as appearances went, that the
+place where they had come was the Moon, many times enlarged. It seemed
+incredible that they had come so far in the twinkling of an eye; but
+that they had was proved by the fact of their physical presence.
+
+"Look, Jaska!" said Sarka suddenly. "See how our Earth glows, as
+though it were afire inside!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They stared at the great circular yellowish flame that he pointed out,
+and Sarka, always the scientist whose science was one of exactness,
+tried to estimate just where, on the Earth's surface, the glow was.
+
+"Jaska," he said again, "that glow comes out of the heart of the Gens area
+which Dalis ruled! And no one lives there, since Dalis' Gens flew out to do
+battle! That's why we did not know of it before we left! That glow,
+somehow, beloved, is the cause of the outward-from-the-Earth journey of the
+Moon! First we must locate the Moon-source of the glow, and render it
+incapable of further forcing itself away! For do you realize that, unless
+we do so, we will never again see home?"
+
+Jaska said nothing, but her eyes were troubled for a moment. Then she
+smiled again.
+
+"What care I if I become a prisoner on the Moon, if you are with me?"
+
+Sarka was just now realizing the wonder of this raven-haired woman
+whom, knowing her for half a century as he had, he had just known so
+little after all.
+
+"If we seem in danger of discovery, Jaska," he said to her, "drop down
+instantly into the ashes, for if we are discovered by Dalis...."
+
+He left it there and, with a deep intake of breath, started away for
+the nearest and highest hill. They desired to walk, yet found walking
+almost impossible, as they could not keep their feet on the ground
+save by the exercise of a really incredible effort of will. So,
+despairing of keeping their feet in contact with the ashes, they flew
+just above them, heading for the nearest weird-looking ridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the strange light, which was oddly like moonlight in some painted
+desert of Earth, shapes were distorted and somehow menacing, colors
+were raw, almost bleeding--and distances that seemed but a step
+required hours to traverse.
+
+Ever and anon, as they traveled they looked back up at the Earth which
+was their home. It still was visible, though plainly smaller with
+distance, and for a time Sarka's heart misgave him; but he only
+clasped tighter the hand of Jaska and moved on.
+
+They were just at the base of the first hill, which had now become a
+mountain of gloomy, forbidding aspect, when the first sound they had
+heard on the moon came to them. A sound that was a commingling of the
+laughter of Dalis, the barking of jackals of the olden times, the
+humming of a million Beryls revolving at top speed, and a strident
+buzzing such as neither had ever heard.
+
+Had they been discovered? Was the sound a warning? They could not
+know; but as they stared at the crest of the hill, two long, snaky,
+waving things appeared above the crest, undulating, waving to and
+fro, as though questing for something. They crouched low in the white
+ashes at the base of the mountain, and waited, scarcely breathing.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_The Lunar Cubes_
+
+For a long time Sarka and Jaska remained still, like sentinels,
+listening to the strange discord which seemed to emanate from behind
+the hill at whose base they crouched.
+
+"Look!" said Sarka at last. "There against the sky, beyond and between
+those two waving tentacles! Note that column of light, scarcely
+lighter than the light which surrounds it everywhere? It looks like a
+massive column just lighter than everything around it, yet so little
+lighter that you have to watch closely to see it at all?"
+
+Jaska stared for all of a minute, before she thought back her answer.
+
+"I see it," she said.
+
+"Note now whether it goes, as it reaches outward into Space!"
+
+Jaska followed the mighty height of the thing, outward and outward,
+and then gasped.
+
+"Sarka," she said, "its end touches the Earth in the very heart of
+that strange glow we spoke about!"
+
+"Exactly! And people of Earth know nothing about it, because it is
+invisible to them! It is only from Outside that the glow it makes
+against the Earth is visible! If we can divert its direction, or
+render it useless in any way, the Moon will no longer be thrust away
+by its force!"
+
+A pause of indecision, then Sarka thought again:
+
+"Let us go, Jaska! Keep behind me, right on my heels!"
+
+Slowly, fighting against something that seemed determined to pull, or
+hurl, them outward from the surface of the Moon with each forward
+movement they made, they essayed the side of the hill, pausing at the
+end of what seemed like hours in a sort of hollow just large enough
+to mask their bodies and stared over its edge into one of the craters
+of the Moon. Out of the depths of that crater came the discordant
+sounds, which now were almost deafening, and out of that crater too
+came the almost invisibly bluish column whose outer tip touched the
+Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Right before them, so close that they all but rested in its shadow,
+was one of those monster aircars, its tentacles moving to and fro as
+though wafted into motion by some vagrant breeze. But since neither
+Sarka nor Jaska could feel the breeze, Sarka knew that it was life
+which caused the waving motion of those tentacles of terror.
+
+"Note," he said to Jaska, "that there is a tiny trap-door in the
+bottom of the aircar, and that the thing rests on a half-dozen of
+those tentacles!"
+
+"I see," came Jaska's reply.
+
+Jaska went on:
+
+"Note the gleaming thing on the ground, right below the aircar? I
+wonder what it is?"
+
+They studied the thing there, which seemed to be a huge jewel of some
+sort that glittered balefully in the eery light of the Moon. It was,
+perhaps, twice the size of an average man's torso, and was almost
+exactly cubical in shape. As Sarka studied the thing, he sensed that
+feeling flowed out of it--that the cube, whatever it was, was alive!
+
+He tore his glance away from it, and realized that he accomplished the
+feat with a distinct effort of will--as though the cube had willed to
+hold his gaze, knew he was there. His eyes, peering around the inner
+slope of the crater--which dipped over, some hundreds of feet down,
+and plunged downward to some unknown depth--noted a broad, flat stone,
+off to his right; and around the rim of the crater he counted a full
+hundred of the aircars, all with their tentacles waving as if they
+belonged to sentient creatures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Below each one, as he studied them and strained his eyes to make out
+details, he caught the baleful gleam of other cubes like the first he
+had seen. The aircars, it seemed, were either sentinels, at the lip of
+the crater, or were the dwelling places of sentinels--and the cubes
+were those sentinels!
+
+It seemed absurd, but it came to Sarka in a flash that that was the
+answer, and his eyes came back to the first cube, because it was
+nearer and more easy to study.
+
+"I will not be swayed by the will of the thing," Sarka told himself.
+"Nor will I allow it to analyze me! Jaska, do you do likewise!"
+
+Beside him, Jaska shivered. He turned to look at her. Her face was
+coldly white, and her eyes were big with terror and fascination as she
+stared at that first cube, resting so balefully there under the first
+aircar.
+
+He shook her, and she seemed to bring her eyes to his with a terrific,
+will-straining effort.
+
+"Look at me!" he told her, telepathically. "Keep your eyes on me, for
+to look at the cube spells danger!"
+
+But his own eyes went back to the thing, and he studied it closely. A
+cold chill raced through his body as he noted that its gleam was
+becoming dull, fading slowly out. It had gleamed brightly at first,
+and now was losing its sheen, fading away to invisibility. He thought
+he should be able, regardless of gleam or color, to see its outline;
+but its outline, too, seemed to be becoming faint, indistinct.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then, in a trice, it was gone, and a feeling of uneasiness, more
+compelling than he had ever known before, coursed through the soul of
+Sarka. Where had the cube gone? What was it? What was its purpose? He
+tore his eyes away from the spot where he had last seen it, and stared
+away to the shadow beneath the second nearest aircar, where he had
+glimpsed another of the cubes.
+
+The cube there, too, was fading out.
+
+"Sarka! Sarka! Look!" came to his brain the thoughts of Jaska.
+
+Sarka turned and stared at her, and a feeling of fear for which he
+could not account at all took fast hold of him. The eyes of Jaska,
+wide and staring as they had been when he commanded her to look away
+from the cube under the aircar, were staring at that flat, table-like
+rock, off to his right.
+
+There, almost in the center of the rock, a gleaming something was
+taking shape! Just a dull spot, in the center of the yellow glow; then
+the beginning of the outline of a cube. Then, all at once, the cube
+itself, gleaming and baleful!
+
+Sarka gasped in terror. He had seen the cube vanish, its glow
+disappear, and now here it was, almost close enough to touch, on a
+rock beside him, gleaming and baleful as before! That it was the same
+cube he had seen under the first aircar, he somehow knew without being
+told. That it was a sentient _thing_ he also knew, for now there was
+no mistaking the fact that, but for the presence in the little hollow
+of Jaska and Sarka, the cube would not have moved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Swift as light, Sarka's right hand darted to his belt, where his ray
+director should be nestled against his need of it. And with his first
+movement, the cube's brilliance vanished instantly, the cube
+disappeared, and appeared again right before the face of Sarka, so
+close he could touch it! Yet he did not turn the ray director against
+it, nor did he extend his hand to touch the thing--because he was
+afraid to do so!
+
+Even as the cube appeared before his eyes, thrice baleful and menacing
+in its close proximity, his eyes darted back to that broad flat rock,
+where the second gleaming cube now appeared!
+
+"Great God, Jaska!" he sent mentally, "what does it mean?"
+
+"These," she answered bravely back, "are Moon-soldiers! And, unless
+we manage not to appear furtive, we are undone!"
+
+Still Sarka made no move, while other gleaming cubes appeared on the
+flat rock. Five other cubes appeared beside the first, at the rim of
+the hollow which held the forms of Jaska and Sarka. The cubes were
+closing on them, oddly like a squad of Earthlings in the olden times,
+advancing by rushes against an entrenched enemy!
+
+The buzzing sound which they had first heard now seemed accentuated,
+but, instead of being outside of the listeners, seemed inside them,
+hammering against their very brains! Messages were being sent to them,
+or passed back and forth between and among the cube-men about
+them--and they hadn't the slightest idea how to make answer, know
+whether an answer was expected of them, or what the cube-men thought
+about them!
+
+Since there was nothing else to do, they lay there, hands clasped, as
+children in the dark clasp hands, and waited for what might transpire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly the discord from the inside of the crater ceased, and all was
+still, while it came to Sarka that the cube-men who stood before him
+were in grim communication with something invisible to Sarka and
+Jaska, somebody, perhaps, deep in the bowels of the Moon, over inside
+the crater.
+
+They knew, those two, that the cube-soldiers were reporting their
+presence, and asking instructions; that the Moon had gone silent to
+listen, and that within a few moments their fate would be decided.
+What should they do?
+
+In his hand Sarka held his ray director, with which he knew he could
+blast one or all of the cubes into nothingness. But still he held his
+hand, made no move.
+
+Something, however, had to be done, for the discord was starting
+again, growing in volume. It made Sarka think, oddly enough, of a deaf
+mute fighting for speech! Then came the first intelligible sound....
+
+A burst, from the depths of the crater, of sardonic laughter!
+
+"Dalis!" said Sarka, and moved. While Sarka moved, Jaska held fast to
+his arm. Casting her fear to the winds, furious because of the
+laughter of Dalis, Sarka thrust his ray director back into his belt
+and stood upright.
+
+Bending over he seized the first of the gleaming cubes and hurled it
+over the edge of the crater, saw it start plummeting down. But even
+before it fell out of sight within the crater its gleam had dulled
+until it was almost impossible to see the thing. Racing as though
+racing against time, Sarka caught up cube after cube and hurled them
+all after the first.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Out of the crater there came no sound of heavy objects striking,
+though Sarka felt there should have, for the cubes were almost as
+heavy as a man.
+
+Then his hair almost stood on end under his helmet, for under that
+first aircar, where he had first seen it, the initial cube was again
+gleaming into life!
+
+The thing had dissolved while being hurled over the rim, and reformed
+in its proper place, its station as silent sentinel under the aircar!
+
+These cubes then, were indeed sentinels--sentinels impossible to
+injure. Though no force had been used against Sarka and Jaska, Sarka
+had the feeling that they were powerless, and that here on the edge of
+a crater of the Moon awful forces were being mustered against them.
+Mustered slowly, sluggishly, yet surely, as though the mentality which
+mustered them knew them helpless, and that there was no need to hurry!
+
+As for Jaska, she merely clung to Sarka and waited--trusting him no
+matter what might transpire.
+
+On a blind chance, Sarka brought out his ray director again, turned
+its muzzle toward that invisibly-blue column, pressed with his
+fingers, moving the director back and forth.
+
+Instantly the blue column seemed to break short off, while the broken
+upper portion started racing outward toward the Earth. Sarka watched
+it, and noted that the yellowish glow on the Earth, even as he
+watched, was fading out--disappearing!
+
+"If the ray will smash the blue column, Jaska," he said, "it will also
+destroy its source! Come! We will go look for it!"
+
+And, holding her hand tightly, he rose to his feet and strode boldly
+down the inner slope of the vast crater.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_The Crater Gnomes_
+
+It seemed to Sarka, as he moved down the inner slope of the crater,
+that the cubes were somehow making sport of him, laughing at him,
+though no hint of laughter or anything resembling laughter emanated
+from them.
+
+But, shutting his lips grimly, holding fast to Jaska's hand, he
+proceeded on, reached the lower portion of the inner slope, where it
+dropped off into a seeming black abyss, and dropped, keeping to a safe
+speed because of the fact that both he and Jaska were attired for
+movement in the air--though their manner of aerial transportation
+could scarcely be called flying.
+
+The anti-gravitational ovoids simply rendered ineffectual the law of
+gravity.
+
+Down they dropped, endlessly it seemed, while all about them, growing
+gradually, a bluish glow began to make itself manifest. Sarka turned
+and looked at the face of Jaska and noted that it--all her being--was
+glowing with this strange radiance.
+
+He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
+
+Looking down now, to what seemed still a vast depth, they could see
+figures moving, tiny, almost infinitesimal, about a great circular
+cone, out of the depths of which came that strange bluish column whose
+outer tip touched the Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some inner sense warned Sarka not to touch that column, or to permit
+Jaska to do so. They dropped down beside it, while Sarka, for no
+reason that he could assign, once more took his ray director in his
+free hand and held it in readiness. It seemed so tiny and futile--so
+foolish for two people, one of them a woman--to go into the very heart
+of an alien world, against an unknown enemy, armed with such a tiny
+weapon. Two people against unguessed myriads, whose very nature was an
+enigma, even to Sarka.
+
+Closer now appeared the bottom of the crater, whose floor seemed to be
+covered with something that looked like blue sand, or rock. From this
+bluish substance the glow which bathed the two Earthlings seemed to
+emanate.
+
+The funnel of the crater had now given away to the immensities of
+space, in all directions, and the cold of outside was being replaced
+by a warmth which promised soon to be even uncomfortable.
+
+Then, without a jar, the two landed at the bottom of the crater, side
+by side, close enough almost to that great cone to touch it. Out of
+the cone came that bluish column, to shoot up through the funnel down
+which the two had lightly dropped ... and the motion of the--whatever
+it was--was accompanied by a muted moaning sound, like that of a
+distant waterfall.
+
+They paused there, in amazement, taking stock of their surroundings.
+Huge tunnels, whose roofs were lost to invisibility in the bluish
+haze, whose extremities could only be guessed at, reached off in all
+directions. As far as the two could tell they were the only living
+souls within the crater, though both knew better.
+
+Sarka had the feeling, and he knew Jaska shared it with him, that
+innumerable eyes were studying them, innumerable intellects were
+cataloguing them. And somehow he sensed the presence, somewhere near,
+of the traitor Dalis!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then that discordant sound again, breaking so swiftly that it fell
+upon the eardrums of Sarka and Jaska like the crack of doom. Out of
+the many tunnels, from all directions, came hordes of beings which
+would have made the nightmares of Paracelsus--first of the scientists
+of Earth--pale to insignificance.
+
+Paracelsus had written and illustrated his nightmares. Had hinted of
+strange acts of flesh-grafting--as the grafting of legs on the head of
+man. He had spoken, and written about, ghastly operations, from which
+men came forth as part men, part spiders; part men, part scorpions,
+dogs, cats, crocodiles....
+
+Sarka thought, as his mind went back to those ancient books of his
+people in which still remained vestiges of the theories of Paracelsus,
+that somehow, in his dreams, Paracelsus must have visited the craters
+of the Moon.
+
+These people ... if they could be called people....
+
+They had heads like the heads of Earthlings, broad-domed of brow,
+lacking eyelashes or lids, so that their eyes were perpetually
+staring. They possessed no bodies at all, and their legs, thin and
+attenuated to the size of the wrists of average men, seemed to support
+the massive heads with difficulty!
+
+From all directions they came, looking like spiders such as Sarka the
+First had described to Sarka, when Sarka had been a mere boy. They
+came on the floor, out of the tunnels; they dropped from the walls of
+the tunnels, and down from the invisible roofs, landing on the floor
+as lightly as feathers--and all converged on Jaska and Sarka.
+
+They seemed to have no fear at all, but only a vast curiosity.
+
+Closer and closer they came.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jaska's grip tightened on the hand of Sarka, for one of the creatures,
+with a spiderish leap, had jumped upon her, fastening its legs in her
+tight-fitting costume, where he hung, his face within an inch or two
+of hers. His lidless eyes, unblinking, stared deeply into hers.
+
+Others jumped up beside the first, and still others clambered over
+Sarka, until both Sarka and Jaska were covered by them like beetles
+attacked by ants. But these strange gnomelike creatures, who did not
+fear these strangers, apparently meant them no harm.
+
+Then, after a thorough scrutiny, began the strangest talking Sarka had
+ever heard. The crater-Gnomes seemed to communicate by making strange
+clucking sounds with their tongues, sounds which were unmusical and
+discordant, and which, as the Gnomes who stood back from them, because
+already the two were covered until no more could cling to Jaska or
+Sarka, joined in the speech--mounted in the cavern to a vast crescendo
+of sound.
+
+Sarka knew then that this was the sound which had come out to them
+while they crouched at the crater rim. These were people of the Moon:
+but if these were Moon-men, what, or who, were those gleaming cubes?
+
+"Stand perfectly still," Sarka mentally admonished Jaska, "they
+apparently mean us no harm!"
+
+He had not spoken aloud, had not allowed his thought to reach any but
+Jaska; yet instantly the discordant clucking ceased, and the Gnomes
+were quiet, as though they politely listened to someone who had
+interrupted them, yet whose interruption they resented, or were
+curious about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wondering how the creature would regard his action, Sarka reached
+forth and plucked away the first Gnome which had jumped upon Jaska,
+and placed him gently on the ground. The thing merely stared at Sarka
+with his lidless eyes, as though wondering at Sarka's meaning. Then
+his lips, which were triangular, rather than straight as those of
+Earthlings, began again that strange clucking.
+
+Immediately the Gnomes which clung to Jaska and Sarka dropped away,
+and scuttled into the midst of the myriads that stood and watched.
+They did not understand the speech of these Earthlings, but they were
+unusually clever in comprehending the meaning of gestures.
+
+"Hold fast to me, Jaska," thought Sarka toward her--and wondered anew
+as the Gnomes instantly ceased their clucking sounds--"for I am going
+to try an experiment."
+
+Holding her hand still, he turned and strode straight toward the huge
+cone out of which rose the bluish column.
+
+Instantly the Gnomes broke into a frightful clucking of tongues, a
+sound that mounted to ear-drum-breaking intensity, and in a trice,
+climbing over one another to get into position, they moved in between
+Sarka and the cone. So eager were they to bar his further progress
+that they stood atop one another, until the depth of them was as tall
+as Sarka standing upright.
+
+Yet, though they plainly said to Sarka: "You must not approach the
+cone," they did not seem to be angry with their visitors, but only
+curious. Sarka looked at Jaska, noted how wanly she smiled.
+
+Then he turned, and headed for the nearest of the monster tunnels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Instantly he detected a surprising eagerness in the renewed clucking
+of tongues, while the Gnomes raced ahead, behind, all about the two,
+capering like pet animals, showing these strangers the way into the
+tunnel.
+
+As they entered it, Sarka tried to discover whence came the bluish
+glow. The floor seemed to be of bluish sandstone, though its color,
+too, might have been caused by the glow. It was warm, too, so warm
+that perspiration was breaking out on the cheeks of Sarka.
+
+Whence came the glow? Apparently from the very walls of the tunnel, or
+its roof; but surely from somewhere, surely from some secret place,
+whence it was diffused all over.
+
+"And Jaska," said Sarka, "the Moon, according to my father's
+researches, is literally honeycombed with craters like this one!"
+
+Again, as he thought, that strange, sudden cessation of the clucking
+of the Gnomes. Whither were they leading them? It was plain to be seen
+that the Gnomes were heading for some destination, almost herding
+Sarka and Jaska toward it. Capering creatures, who behaved witlessly,
+yet were far from witless. If Sarka were not sadly mistaken, these
+were Moon-men--and women, too, perhaps, since he could not tell the
+sex of them--and those gleaming cubes were their outer guards, perhaps
+slaves.
+
+If the cubes were really of metal--they had felt warm to Sarka's
+touch--then these Moon-men had gone further in science than
+Earthlings, as they had imbued at least some metals, or stones, with
+intelligence sufficiently advanced for them to perform actions
+independently of their masters' wills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka, too, was remembering another thing: that he had touched one of
+these Gnomes, to remove it from Jaska--and had felt a distinct shock
+that was patently electrical!
+
+The bluish glow was increasing, becoming more soft and mellow, shading
+gradually into golden, as they advanced--shading still as they
+preceded until it was almost white, almost blinding, in its radiance.
+
+Then, of a sudden, the clucking of the Gnomes ended, and the creatures
+ceased their capering, fell into something that might have been an
+ordered military formation, and with Jaska and Sarka in the midst of
+them, moved straight toward a broad expanse of the tunnel wall, in the
+face of which appeared three long lines, deeply cut in the shape of a
+triangle.
+
+The Gnome who had first leaped upon Jaska advanced to the wall, paused
+with his face almost against the lower line of the triangle, and
+remained there, intently staring, while the other Gnomes remained
+mute and unmoving.
+
+Stronger and stronger appeared the blinding light. Slowly the inner
+portion of the triangle began to give inward, like a door. And out of
+the opening came that blinding radiance.
+
+As the triangular door stood entirely open, Sarka and Jaska stood in
+thunderstruck silence, staring like people bereft of their senses. For
+there, standing in the opening, the now white radiance itself a mantle
+to cover her, was a woman, unclothed save for the radiance, who might
+have been of the Earth, save that she was more beautiful than any
+woman of Earth.
+
+Beside her the radiant beauty of Jaska paled, became wan and sickly.
+
+But Sarka noted immediately her eyes, whose depths bewildered, amazed
+him. For in them he could see no expression, no feeling, but only
+abysmal cruelty. That she was Sarka's master, and Jaska's master, and
+master of all these Gnomes, became instantly apparent for
+telepathically she addressed Sarka.
+
+"I am busy now. The Moon-people will hold you prisoners in the Place
+of the Blue light, until I am ready to give you to the Cone!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_The Place of the Blue Light_
+
+So the Gnomes were Moon-people, masters of the Moon cubes! And people
+and cubes were ruled by a woman who resembled a woman of Earth!
+
+The Gnomes took them back the way they had come.
+
+Where, Sarka wondered, were the people of the Gens of Dalis? And where
+was Dalis himself! Sarka was sure that, in those first discords which
+had come out of the crater, he had heard at least a hint of the
+laughter of Dalis.
+
+And this woman clothed in radiance--who was she? And what? That she
+was a creature of the Moon, and yet resembled in all ways a woman of
+Earth, save that she was more beautiful than any woman Sarka had ever
+seen, seemed almost impossible to believe. Yet he had seen her. So had
+Jaska, and as Sarka and Jaska, with the capering Gnomes still about
+them, were led away to a fate at which they could only guess, Sarka
+wondered at Jaska's silence and at the strange lack of expression on
+her face.
+
+He pressed her hand, but somehow she failed to return the pressure,
+mystifying more than ever. This sudden coldness was not like Jaska.
+
+Back they went through the vast cavern where the cone of the bluish
+column still moaned and murmured. Sarka moved as close to the cone as
+the Gnomes would permit, and peered up along the mighty length of the
+column. At its tip was still the Earth, like a star viewed from the
+bottom of a deep well.
+
+Smaller, too, it seemed, which proved that Sarka's breaking of the
+blue column had been but momentary, that the column had almost
+instantly regained its contact with the Earth. What was its source,
+what the composition of the column?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the moment there could be no answer to the question. Now the Gnomes
+were escorting them into another tunnel, whose glow was even bluer
+than that which the two had experienced in the other tunnels. And the
+deeper they penetrated, the more distant from the cavern of the Cone,
+the deeper in color became that light.
+
+Finally the Gnome who had mentally asked permission of the Radiant
+Woman to show her Jaska and Sarka passed before another expanse of
+wall, identical in appearance with that of the wall of the triangle
+from which the Radiant Woman had appeared.
+
+This time the Gnome managed ingress by a strange clucking sound, with
+his triangular lips held close to the base-line of the triangle.
+
+Now the door swung open; but the radiance which now came out was not
+clear white, as in the case of the outer door, but deeply, coldly
+blue. For the first time the Gnomes used force with their prisoners,
+thus proving to them that they were indeed prisoners. Their tiny feet
+caught at Sarka and at Jaska, and forced them through the door, which
+swung shut behind them.
+
+Sarka looked at Jaska who, in this strange new light, had taken on the
+color of indigo, and smiled at her. She did not return his smile, but
+her eyes looked deeply, somewhat sorrowfully, into his. As though she
+asked him a question he could not understand, to which he could
+therefore give no answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka was now conscious of the fact that the heat of their
+prison-house--whose character they did not as yet know--was becoming
+almost unbearable. They were alone, too, for the Gnomes had not
+entered the door of triangle. Sarka partially removed his life mask,
+and testing the atmosphere of the place, found it capable of being
+breathed without the mask. He signalled mentally to Jaska to remove
+her mask, and when the girl had done so he took her in his arms and
+kissed her on the lips.
+
+She accepted his caress, but did not return it, and her eyes still
+peered deeply into his.
+
+"Well, beloved," he said. "I am terribly sorry. But I did not want you
+to come because I was afraid that something of this sort would
+happen."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"What is it, Jaska?" he said at last.
+
+"What did you think of that woman?" she asked softly.
+
+"Beautiful!" he said enthusiastically. "Fearfully beautiful! But did
+you see her eyes? She had no more mercy in her heart than if she were
+made of stone! And she hated us both the moment she saw us!"
+
+"And you, Sarka--did you hate her, too?"
+
+Sarka stared at her, not comprehending.
+
+"I feel," he said, "that if we are ever to escape her, we must kill
+her, or render her incapable of retaining us!"
+
+Then, of her own accord, Jaska placed her arms around Sarka, and gave
+him her lips. Her new behavior was as incomprehensible to Sarka as her
+former enigmatic expression had been. Wise in the ways of science was
+Sarka, but he knew nothing of women!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now hand in hand again, they began a survey of their prison house. The
+bluish glow was unbearable to the eyes, and tears came unbidden and
+ran down the cheeks of the prisoners. In a minute or two, perspiration
+was literally bathing the bodies of the two. After a questioning
+exchange of glances, Sarka swiftly divested himself of his costume,
+stripping down to the gray toga of Earth's manhood. With a shrug,
+Jaska removed her clothing to her own toga, and the two suits Sarka
+carried under his arm.
+
+They started ahead, exploring, then sprang back with a cry of fright.
+Sarka did not know whether it was Jaska or himself who had cried out;
+for just as they moved forward, a rent opened in the floor at their
+feet, and their eyes for a moment--they could stand no longer--peered
+into a bluely flaming abyss which, save for the color, reminded Sarka
+of the word pictures of Hell he had read in Earth's books of
+antiquity!
+
+As the two stepped back, the rent in the floor closed instantly. Sarka
+had noted where the end of it had been, and started to detour, his
+eyes on the floor.
+
+Over to his left the bluely glowing wall reached up to invisible
+immensity. But as he would have passed along the wall, the rent opened
+again, effectually barring his way.
+
+Beyond the rent he could see a vast continuation of the cavern, and he
+felt that, could they only pass the rent, they might reach a place
+where the heat was not so unbearable, and they could stay and talk in
+comfort.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Releasing Jaska, he stepped back and prepared to leap the spot where
+the rent had been. High he jumped, and far, surprised at the length of
+his own leap. He landed lightly, far beyond the area where the rent
+had been, and even as he landed, a rent opened again at his feet, thus
+effectually barring further progress!
+
+"It could just as easily," he told himself, "have opened under my
+feet, and dropped me into the abyss!"
+
+From behind him came the sudden sound of screaming. He whirled to look
+back, to see Jaska standing there, arms outstretched toward him, her
+eyes wide with fear and horror, and as he stood watching, she raced to
+him, unmindful of abysses that might open under her feet, and flung
+herself into his arms.
+
+"Come back!" she moaned. "Come back! Don't you see? _They_ don't wish
+you to explore further! We are in their power, and must simply await
+their pleasure, whoever or whatever they are! They see all we do!"
+
+So they turned back, and stood against the door which held them
+prisoners; and the heat of the place seemed to enter into them, to
+gnaw at their very vitals. After a time Sarka found himself almost
+tearing at his throat, fighting for breath.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gasping, the tears bathing their cheeks until even their tears and
+their perspiration would flow no more, they huddled now just inside
+the massive stone door, arms about each other, and almost prayed for
+death. Sarka at least prayed for death for both of them; but Jaska
+prayed for a way of deliverance, prayed that herself and Sarka might
+somehow win free, and be together again.
+
+Sarka, who knew little of women, marveled at the grandeur of her
+courage, and wondered that he really knew this radiant woman so
+little. He compared her in his mind with the unclothed woman who had
+ordered them here as prisoners, and it came to him that Jaska was all
+perfection, all tender womanhood, while the Radiant Woman was a
+monster, without soul or compassion--a creature of horror who mocked
+God with her outward seeming of perfection.
+
+Jaska read his thoughts, and smiled wanly to herself, and Sarka
+wondered how, suffering as he knew she must be suffering, she could
+find the courage to smile.
+
+Then, for a time, the two became comatose, mastered by the blue heat,
+and in dreamlike imaginings wandered in strange fields which could
+only, to these two, have been racial memories, since neither had ever
+seen such fields. There were cool streams, all a-murmur, and breezes
+which cooled their sun-tanned cheeks. Water touched their tongues, and
+cooled their whole bodies as they gratefully imbibed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In their wanderings, in which Sarka was a faun and Jaska a nymph, they
+talked together in a language which only these two comprehended--a
+language which dealt in figures of speech, a language which depended
+upon handclasps for periods, glances of the eyes for commas, and the
+singing of their hearts for complete understanding.
+
+Then a cool breeze, cool by comparison, caressed their pain-distorted
+cheeks, and the Gnomes came in, found them lying there, and clucked
+endlessly as though wondering what to do with them.
+
+From hand to tiny hand, their feet serving as hands, the Gnomes passed
+garments--garments of the Gens of Dalis, and clothed again the two
+whom the Place of the Blue Light had all but slain. Of that ghastly
+experiment Sarka retained but one real memory....
+
+That bluish light, in the midst of the abyss, shifting and swaying
+like blue serpents swimming in Hades ... that bluish light of the
+Cone, which he had broken up for a brief moment by the use of his ray
+director. Was this bluish light in the abyss the source of the light
+in the Cone? If one were to destroy it at its source....
+
+The two regained consciousness completely as the triangular door
+closed behind Sarka and Jaska and the Gnomes, and they were taken into
+the refreshing coolness of the tunnel, led back again in the direction
+of the room where they had seen the Radiant Woman. Both Jaska and
+Sarka noticed that they were clothed in new clothing, and a shy blush
+tinged the cheeks of Jaska as her eyes met those of Sarka.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This time they entered the vast chamber of radiance behind the first
+triangular door, and were forced to their knees to do obeisance to the
+Radiant Woman, who sat on a gleaming yellow stone for dais! The guards
+who forced Sarka and Jaska to their knees, were clothed in the green
+of the Gens of Dalis, and Dalis himself, his face stern, but bearing
+no sign of recognition of these two, stood at the right hand of the
+Radiant Woman!
+
+"You come to us as spies," the thought of the Radiant Woman impinged
+upon the brains of Sarka and of Jaska, "and as spies you should be
+given to the Cone. But if you swear eternal allegiance to me, to obey
+me in all things, to forego your allegiance to Earth, your lives will
+be spared! What say you?"
+
+Boldly Sarka stared into the almost opaque eyes of the woman. Then his
+glance went to the face of Dalis.
+
+"What," he asked boldly, in the language of Earth, "does the traitor
+Dalis say?"
+
+"I have sworn allegiance to Luar, who addresses you, and am her ally
+in all things! I have but one addition to make to what she says: Jaska
+belongs to me!"
+
+The sudden leering grin of Dalis was hideous.
+
+Sarka peered at Jaska, framing his answer. But Jaska spoke first.
+
+"For myself, O Dalis," she said swiftly, "I can answer in but one way.
+Return me to the Place of the Blue Light, and forget me there!"
+
+Sarka smiled, while his heart leaped with joy.
+
+"And I, O Luar," he said mentally to the Radiant Woman, "prefer death
+with Jaska, at the Place of the Blue Light, than life as a traitor to
+the world of my nativity!"
+
+Instantly Luar began the clucking sound which was the language of the
+Gnomes, at the same time allowing her thoughts as she spoke to impress
+themselves upon the brains of the prisoners.
+
+"Take them away! Take them to the Cavern of the Cone, and when they
+have suffered as much as such inferior beings are capable of
+suffering, thrust them into the base of the Cone!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_Cavern of the Cone_
+
+The Gnomes had been bidden to take the prisoners to the Cavern of the
+Cone, but to the surprise of Sarka and Jaska, they were taken back to
+the Place of the Blue Light! This time the Gnomes entered the place
+with them, closing and securing the door behind them.
+
+But the Place of the Blue Light had changed!
+
+Now it had no floor of blue, as it had had before, but only a corridor
+perhaps wide enough to allow the passage of four grown men, walking
+side by side, while the abyss of which the two had got but the merest
+hint through the opening and closing rents filled all the center of
+the place!
+
+The Gnomes seemed impervious to the unendurable heat, and these,
+moving together, one behind the other, one beside the other, one atop
+the other, formed a living wall between Sarka and Jaska and the rim of
+the flaming blue abyss, to protect them from the heat.
+
+Yet through the bodies of this living wall of Gnomes, a wall which was
+higher than the heads of Sarka and Jaska, the heat forced its way to
+the prisoners, and burned them anew with its agony.
+
+To what dread rendezvous were they going? Where, save for the few
+guards at the house of Luar, were the people of the Gens of Dalis?
+Sarka felt, somehow, that the answers to all these questions would
+soon be made manifest, and a feeling of exaltation he could not
+explain was possessing him as he advanced. Around the corridor, whose
+one side was the wall reaching up to invisibility, whose other side
+dropped off into the abyss, the Gnomes herded the prisoners.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The leader of the Gnomes was again the Gnome who had first leaped upon
+Jaska to examine her curiously. Now, watching the lidless eyes of this
+being, Sarka fancied he could detect a hint of some expression. The
+Gnome was excited at some prospect, some climax which they were
+approaching. What? On and on they moved. The blue flames from the
+abyss, roaring in a way that neither of the prisoners had ever
+experienced, reached upward in searing tongues toward the invisible
+roof of this place.
+
+Then, when they had progressed far from the door of entry, Sarka
+gasped at a new manifestation. Out of the abyss, some distance ahead,
+came a gleaming thing, something that had apparently evolved itself
+out of the flames of the abyss. Blue of color it was, because of the
+flames from the pit; but Sarka recognized it with a start which he
+could not suppress nor understand.
+
+It was one of those cubes, such as he and Jaska had seen at the lip of
+the Moon-crater! As they approached, guided by the Gnomes, other cubes
+appeared out of the abyss, others in numbers swiftly augmented, until
+a veritable battalion of them had marshalled itself, there at the lip
+of the abyss.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Straight toward these cubes the Gnomes led Sarka and Jaska, and when
+they had reached the center of the group, they halted, forming a
+circle, still a wall to mask the prisoners from the heat of the abyss.
+The leader of the Gnomes stopped with his face, his lidless eyes,
+close to one of the cubes.
+
+For a moment he paused thus, and Sarka felt sure that somehow the
+Gnome was holding thought converse with the cube; but, try as he
+might, he could find no meaning in the weird conversation for himself.
+It was oddly like listening to a conversation in a code beyond his
+knowledge.
+
+Then the Gnome turned back to Sarka and Jaska. By a pressure of tiny
+feet, he tried to indicate that Sarka and Jaska should unclasp their
+hands. But they only clung the tighter, and now threw their arms about
+each other.
+
+The Gnome desisted, much to the joy of the lovers, while Sarka studied
+the cubes, wondering what their mission was with Jaska and himself.
+
+Slowly, together, the cubes began to lose their bluish glow, their
+cube shape--to vanish utterly.
+
+In a trice, still locked in each other's arms, Sarka and Jaska saw the
+Gnomes through what appeared to be an even bluer haze. Besides, the
+heat of the abyss no longer tortured them, and their bodies were
+cooling in a way that was unbelievably refreshing.
+
+"What is it, beloved?" whispered Jaska. "What is it?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka stared at the Gnomes, now in retreat, capering as they had first
+capered when the two had fallen into their hands, toward the door by
+which all had entered. Mystified, Sarka put forth his hand. It came in
+contact with something solid, and oddly warm, which stirred an
+instantly responsive chord in the brain of Sarka.
+
+This feeling was the same as he experienced when he had lifted those
+cubes and hurled them into the crater--where they had dissolved in
+falling, and instantly reappeared, each under its own aircar!
+
+"Jaska!" he explained. "Jaska! The cubes have dissolved themselves,
+and have reformed in the shape of a globe, as a protective covering
+about us, to protect us from the heat of the abyss! Apparently we are
+not to be killed at once! These cubes are slaves of the Gnomes, of
+whom Luar is ruler!"
+
+They were indeed locked inside a globe, a globe whose integral parts
+were the cubes of their acquaintance; and the atmosphere of the
+interior was not uncomfortable, but otherwise. Sarka and Jaska were
+feeling normal for the first time since they had landed on the Moon.
+But what was the meaning of this strange imprisonment?
+
+They were soon to know!
+
+For the globe which enclosed them, moved to the edge of the flaming
+abyss, and dropped into the bluish glow! It did not drop heavily, like
+a falling object on Earth, but rather floated downward, right into the
+heart of the flames. At this new manifestation of the strangeness of
+science on the Moon, Sarka was at once all scientist himself, striving
+to find adequate answers for things which, from cause to effect, were
+entirely new to him. With Jaska still clasped close against him, he
+seated himself in the base of the globe and studied the area through
+which they were passing.
+
+Blue flames which seemed to be born somewhere, an infinite distance
+below them; blue flames which he knew to be the element that, shot
+outward from the great cone, had forced the Moon away from the Earth.
+
+No sound of the roaring flames came through the globe, but every
+movement of them was visible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka turned and peered through the bottom of the globe; but all he
+could see below were the flames, a molten indigo lake of them. Now, as
+they floated downward, the glow was giving away to lighter blue, to
+white, almost pure white, like the radiance which covered Luar like a
+mantle.
+
+Sarka felt himself on the eve of vast important discoveries, and the
+scientist in him made him, for the moment, almost forget the woman at
+his side. Jaska, unbothered about anything, now that Sarka was at her
+side, regarded his expression of deep concentration with a tolerant
+smile.
+
+Whiter now was the light, and faster fell the globe which held the
+two.
+
+The color of the globe, now fallen below the area of blue, had taken
+on, chameleonlike, the color of the white flames that bathed it.
+
+Then, apparently right in the center of a lake of white flames, though
+Sarka could see no solid place on which the globe had landed, the
+globe came to rest.
+
+Now everything was plain to see, and Sarka studied his surroundings
+with new interest. He felt a mounting sensation of scalp-prickling
+horror.
+
+For, scattered throughout the lake of white flames, in all directions,
+as far as the eye could reach--standing alone, suffering untold
+agonies, from the expressions on their faces--were people of the Gens
+of Dalis!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No longer were they clothed in green and wearing on breast and back
+the yellow stars of their Gens. Now they were nude as they had come
+into the world and standing there, each was holding out hands in
+horror, to hold back myriads of the Gnomes, who would have forced them
+to submerge themselves in the white flames of the lake!
+
+Was the Gens of Dalis being burned alive? What was the meaning of
+this?
+
+For a moment, filled with horror, Sarka looked away from the
+spectacle. Off to his right, as he sat, he noted that the flames,
+which here seemed lighter than they had in high levels, were
+converging on a single spot toward the side of the lake of white
+flames--as smoke converges on the base of a chimney leading outward to
+the air!
+
+He knew as he stared that he was gazing at the spot where the bluish
+column of the cone was born!
+
+Shaking his head, he turned back to the mighty spectacle of this
+horrible thing that was being done to the people of the Gens of Dalis.
+
+In his brain there suddenly crashed a thought whose source he could
+only guess at, whose meaning mystified him more than anything yet
+experienced. The thought might have emanated from Luar, or from Dalis.
+But the more he thought of the matter, the more he thought how the
+phrasing of the thought was like the telepathy of Sarka the Second,
+now thousands of miles away, upon the Earth. And this was the thought:
+
+"If they fight the flames, the flames will destroy them! If they go
+into them freely, voluntarily, they will be rendered immune to heat
+and to cold, to life and to death. But it is better that they die, for
+Earth's sake!"
+
+What did it mean?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka thought of the radiant white light which perpetually bathed the
+person of Luar, and thought that he had somehow been given a hint of
+its source. If the Gens of Dalis were voluntarily bathed in the lake
+of white flames, would they become as Luar?
+
+Somehow, though he knew that such bathing would save their lives, the
+idea filled him anew with horror. He found himself torn between two
+duties. If he sent his thought out there to the Gens of Dalis, people
+of Earth, his people, they would be saved, but might forever become
+allies of the people of the Moon. If Sarka did not tell them, they
+would die--and there were millions of them.
+
+But his science had always been a science of Life, and it still was.
+
+"Enter the flames!" he telepathically bade his people. "Enter the
+flames!"
+
+But they did not heed him, and for the first time the atmosphere of
+the interior of the globe seemed filled with savage, abysmal menace!
+Plain to Sarka was the meaning of that menace: The cubes which
+composed this globe were loyal to their masters, the masters to a
+mistress, Luar, and would countenance no meddling.
+
+Likewise it was impossible, if the Gnomes willed it to the cubes, for
+Sarka to transmit his thoughts to the Gens of Dalis through the
+transparent walls of the globe!
+
+They were prisoners, indeed, of Dalis and of Luar!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But could Sarka and Jaska turn their new-found knowledge to their own
+use? Sarka was thinking back, back to one of the ancient tomes of his
+people. It spoke, someplace, of a man who had got trapped in the heart
+of a seething volcano, where the heat of it had cured him of his
+illnesses, made him whole again, given him new youth and freshness.
+
+But since the cubes could forestall his transmission of thought, and
+perhaps could read and understand thoughts, how was he to tell Jaska?
+How show her that a way of deliverance had been given into their
+hands, if they only possessed the courage to use it!
+
+Again came that thought, which Sarka recognized as the telepathy of
+his father:
+
+"Courage! You will win, and Jaska with you!"
+
+Thoughts could come in to them then, but could not go out. Or did it
+mean that the cubes, or the masters of the cubes, did not care if the
+prisoners received messages from outside, because they knew themselves
+capable of frustrating anything the prisoners planned? Perhaps. More
+than likely that was it.
+
+But, looking through the bottom of the globe, into the sea of white
+flames below, Sarka gripped more tightly his ray director, and tried
+to marshal the forces of his courage. There was surely some way of
+escape. Some way out of their strange predicament.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_Casting the Die_
+
+Somehow Sarka believed that this white radiance of the abyss held the
+secret of the omnipotence of Luar, if omnipotence she possessed. That
+she did seemed sure, else Dalis would not have been with her. Besides,
+she had asked Sarka and Jaska to swear allegiance to her. Yes the
+secret was here, in the heart of the lake of white flames.
+
+It might have been the Moon Fountain of Youth, or of omnipotence.
+There was no telling, unless Sarka tried an experiment.
+
+His fury at Dalis now knew no bounds, and he was conscious of a
+desire, too poignant almost to be borne, in some way to circumvent the
+arch-traitor. For here in the craters of the Moon Dalis was working
+out a strange amplification of the scheme which he had, centuries
+before, proposed to Sarka the First. He was subjecting the people of
+his Gens to the white flames.
+
+If they immersed themselves voluntarily, they became as Luar was, but
+still subservient to the will of Dalis--and, in his hands, invincible
+instruments of war! Dalis had doubtless already been bathed in the
+flames. Sarka was not sure, for in the home of Luar the white light
+was so blinding it would have been impossible to make sure that the
+white radiance clothed the others with Luar.
+
+"That's it!" said Sarka to himself. "That's it! Dalis and those guards
+at the dais of Luar have already been subjected to the white flames!
+The rest who immerse themselves, voluntarily, come forth as Luar and
+Dalis! Who do not, die. Dalis' manner of forcing the survival of the
+fittest! His idea of the flood in grandfather's time, only now he
+causes his selection by flames instead of flood! He believes that only
+those worthy to survive, and to stand at his back in whatever he
+conceives to be his need, will guess the secret of the immersion. The
+others will die!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What a terrible alternative, when Dalis could as easily have given the
+secret to all his people! Could have told them how to save themselves!
+But it was not Dalis' way. Here, in the beginning of what was to
+become a dual sovereignty of the Moon, Dalis had already taken thought
+on the matter of over-population, and was destroying the many that the
+few--the strongest, most ruthless--might survive! Hundreds of
+thousands, millions of the Gens of Dalis, stood at the door of life,
+and did not know how to enter, merely because Dalis withheld the key!
+And, pausing in terror before the flames, they died, when a step and a
+plunge would have saved them all!
+
+"If he lives to be a million, if he lives through everlasting life,"
+said Sarka to himself, "and does penance through a thousand
+reincarnations, Dalis can never atone for this wholesale destruction
+of humanity! But I ... I wonder!"
+
+Sarka realized the nicety of the revenge of Dalis upon Jaska and
+himself. Dalis had not given the secret to the prisoners, but by his
+use of the cubes, he had plunged them into the very heart of the
+horror, where they could see the suffering of the people of the Gens.
+Then, when they had seen and appreciated the horror of it all, they
+would follow the people of the Gens to death!
+
+But Luar had spoken of thrusting them into the base of the Cone!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then they were not for the flames after all! How could it be done? The
+globe composed of the cubes had but to transport the prisoners to the
+base of the Cone, press against that base, and open to let the
+prisoners free--and in the heart of the white-blue column they would
+be hurled outward from the Moon, into space. The mere prospect of such
+horror caused the perspiration to break forth anew on the body of
+Sarka.
+
+But there might be a way.
+
+"I wonder," he asked himself, "if the Earth people in _this_ crater
+could read my thoughts in spite of their agonies, if I could get my
+thought to them through the globe? I wonder if, reading my thoughts,
+they would obey?"
+
+Bit by bit, as parts of a puzzle fall into place, he made his plan,
+and his heart beat high with excitement. Jaska bent before him to look
+into his eyes, and he knew that she was trying to read his face. She
+knew, wise Jaska, that this brilliant lover of hers was making a plan,
+and she believed in the sure success of it because it would be _his_!
+
+She smiled at him, her courage high, and waited!
+
+Holding the ray director between his body and that of Jaska, he took a
+terrible, ghastly chance. Dalis had known the secret sign manual of
+these two; but would the intelligence of the cubes comprehend it? He
+must take the chance, slender as it seemed. His free hand began to
+spell out, with all speed, the mad plan he had conceived.
+
+"The white flames are harmless if one plunges into them voluntarily.
+Are you afraid to attempt it? No? Then unfasten your clothing, and
+have it so arranged that you can drop entirely out of it when I give
+you the signal, which will be a mere widening of the eyes, like this!
+You understand? We must go nude into the flames, so that they will
+bathe our whole bodies! But, when you slip out of your clothing, tear
+your anti-gravitational ovoid from the skull-pan of your helmet, and
+hold it in your mouth! Then depend upon me, and have no fear!"
+
+"I have no fear," replied the fingers of Jaska. "I go to death with
+you if you wish--or to Life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Feeling the menace of the cubes almost gripping at his throat as he
+got into action, Sarka unfastened his own clothing, ripped the ovoid
+from his helmet, placed it in his mouth. Then, looking at Jaska, he
+gave her the signal.
+
+Instantly, at her nod, he brought forth the ray director, pressed it
+with his fingers, directing its muzzle toward the curve of the globe,
+swinging it around in a circle, cutting out the bottom of the globe of
+cubes.
+
+The action must have been one of untold surprise to the cubes which
+made up the globe, for before anything could be done to stay the hand
+of Sarka, his ray director had cut out the bottom of the globe, and
+Jaska and himself, divested now of all clothing, had fallen from the
+globe.
+
+Unbearable heat slashed and tore at them. They still held hands, and
+when their feet touched upon something solid, they were gasping with
+the unbelievable heat; and it was ripping at their lungs like talons
+of white hot steel. But, pausing not at all, Sarka raced ahead with
+Jaska, and dived straight into the lake of white flames.
+
+As he dived he directed his thoughts toward the people of the Gens who
+stood, undecided, dying by slow inches, on their little oases in the
+lake. And this was the thought, which was a command.
+
+"Plunge into the flames! They will not hurt you! Plunge in, and obey
+my commands, O people of the Gens of Dalis! I, Sarka, command that you
+obey me! Jaska, who commanded you at the will of Dalis, also commands.
+Gather with Jaska and me at the base of the Cone! You have but to
+follow the converging of the flames!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Together the two plunged in, and it seemed all at once as though the
+fire had gone out of the white flames, for they were cool and soothing
+to the touch. Sarka could feel new life being borne in him, could feel
+himself revitalized, exalted, lifted to the heights. He suddenly
+experienced the desire to run, and shout his joy for all to hear. But
+reason held him. Not thus easily would Luar and Dalis, the traitor,
+give over their designs against these two.
+
+But in the heart of the flames, they dropped down, while they turned
+their faces toward the base of the Cone, or where they thought the
+base to be, even as Sarka gave another command to the now invisible
+people of the Gens of Dalis.
+
+"Hold your ovoids in your mouths and follow! Obey my will!"
+
+They dropped now to what seemed to be cool flagstones, while above
+them showed an orifice in a wall, into which those tongues of flame
+were darting. They paused there, side by side, their faces radiant,
+and looked back the way they had come.
+
+Coming out of the white flames, like battalions on parade, were the
+people of the Gens of Dalis--scores and hundreds of them, who had
+sensed and heeded the mental commands of Sarka. Like genii appearing
+out of the flames they came, to muster about Sarka and Jaska.
+
+Then, when it seemed that no more were coming, Sarka turned to the
+base of the Cone, his face high shining with courage and confidence,
+and stepped straight into the flames that led into the Cone. Beside
+him came Jaska, while behind him came the people of the Gens of Dalis
+who dared to do as he had commanded.
+
+They were sucked into the Cone like chips sucked into a whirlpool, and
+Sarka willed a last command as they entered:
+
+"Quit the column at the lip of the crater, and muster about the
+aircars!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_The People of Radiance_
+
+The exaltation of Sarka knew no bounds, and looking into the eyes of
+Jaska, he knew she felt it, too. For her face was shining, and all of
+her, the wondrous shining brilliance of her, was bathed in the white
+radiance that mantled Luar. And now, since Jaska too knew that
+radiance, her beauty was greater even than that of Luar. Sarka
+thrilled anew at the glory of her.
+
+But even as he stepped into the base of the Cone, he stepped out of
+the blue column at the lip of the Moon-crater. Swift as light, and
+swifter, had been the flight upward from the Cavern of the Cone; yet,
+so keen were his perceptions, he knew when he had passed through the
+chamber of the bluish glow, into which he and Jaska had first dropped
+upon arrival.
+
+Now they were on the lip of the crater, and the people of the Gens who
+had followed him, were slipping out of the blue column, like insects
+out of a flame, and converging on the aircars whose tentacles still
+waved as they had when Sarka had last seen them.
+
+Sarka looked at these people in amazement. To him there was a divinity
+now about their nudeness which nudity never before had suggested to
+him. For the people shone, and there was something glorious in those
+divinely white bodies. They reminded Sarka of his people's books of
+antiquity, and his childhood's pictures of angels....
+
+But the effect of those white flames!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no explaining it. But Sarka felt that whatever he willed to
+do he could do; that whatever he wished for was his, whether it was
+his by right or no. He felt that he could move mountains, with only
+the aid of his hands. Looking at Jaska he conceived all sorts of new
+beauty in her, for she was the brightest, to him, of all the people
+who had passed through the lake of white flames, and been cleansed in
+their heat.
+
+"No wonder Luar has mastered the Moon!" he cried to Jaska. "For when
+she was bathed in the white flames, her will is paramount!"
+
+"But how, if she passes the people of the Gens of Dalis through the
+flames, will she retain her sovereignty?"
+
+"Because Dalis, too, has passed through, and his will is the will of
+the Gens! They will obey him, and he has sworn allegiance to Luar, or
+given some sort of oath of fealty!"
+
+"How strange that but one person on the Moon has been bathed in the
+white flames!"
+
+"How do we know," Sarka almost whispered it, "that she is, originally,
+of the Moon? Does she not look too much like our people, to be from
+another world entirely?"
+
+"I do not know, but ... you mean ... you mean...?"
+
+"I scarcely know; but Dalis would swear allegiance to no man, much
+less to a woman, unless he knew that man, or woman, far better than he
+has had opportunity, in a matter of hours only, to know Luar!"
+
+He left it there then, as he strode boldly, with Jaska by his side, to
+the nearest of the aircars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he approached the car, the gleam cube beneath it seemed to gleam
+brighter and brighter, as though it echoed the radiance of Sarka.
+Sarka knew, studying this phenomenon, that he possessed at least a
+hint of the secret of Luar's omnipotence. There had been a hint
+before, but by now its meaning was clearer. The white flames, out of
+the heart of the dying Moon, gave new life, exaltation, not only to
+the bodies but to the brains of those who passed through it, and with
+their brains quickened, they possessed such knowledge as men of Earth,
+for ages, had wished to possess.
+
+Transmutation of metals ... the ability, at will, to endow the higher,
+more selective metals with intelligence ... and the ability to retain
+command of the intelligences thus endowed. This explained the power of
+Luar over the Gnomes, and the power of the Gnomes over the cubes--if
+they possessed that power.
+
+But the Gnomes, what of them? What were they?
+
+But for a space Sarka must await the answer to that question, for
+there was little time. Already he knew that the tale of his escape,
+and his taking over of a portion of the Gens of Dalis, must have gone
+like wildfire through all the crater, and from this crater, perhaps,
+had been transmitted to all the craters of the Moon. All the
+craters....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That explained to him the absence from the lake of white flames, where
+he had seen so few, comparatively, of the people of Dalis' Gens. The
+Moon was honeycombed by such craters, and perhaps the white flame
+connected them all, made them all one. And Luar commanded all from her
+dais in this crater Sarka and his people were escaping. The millions
+of the Gens had been swallowed by the craters of the Moon, at command
+of Luar, acceded to by Dalis--and all over the Moon the very things
+which Sarka and Jaska had witnessed were taking place.
+
+Even now, as Sarka raced for the aircar, and Jaska with him, he could
+feel a backward pulling that was well-nigh invincible. Someone was
+willing him to return, willing the Gnomes to pursue him, willing the
+cubes to refuse obedience to him; but he laughed and stepped to the
+aircar, passing by the nearest writhing tentacle as though he knew it
+possessed no power to harm him. The tentacle swept aside, and did not
+try to bar him, while he sent his will crashing against that brightly
+gleaming cube. "Into the aircar! We enter with you!"
+
+The cube vanished instantly, and it seemed to Sarka that invisible
+hands caught at his feet, lifting him up through the trap-door in the
+belly of the aircar, up and inside. The door swung shut, and in the
+forward end of the vast aircar gleamed the cube which had obeyed his
+command!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sarka sent one thought careening outward from the aircar, a command to
+the cubes which stood watch beneath the other aircars.
+
+"Obey the Radiant People, and through them, _me_!"
+
+The light of the cube made the interior of the aircar as light as day,
+and Sarka was struck at once with another phenomenon. He could see
+through the sides of the car in any direction.
+
+And what he saw filled him with a sudden fear!
+
+Out of the crater poured myriads of the Gnomes, and up the sides of it
+came myriads of the gleaming cubes, all racing toward the cars.
+
+"Get back! Get back!" he commanded the Gnomes and the cubes.
+
+At the same time he issued his commands to the cube within his own
+car, and to the cubes which by now were inside the other aircars,
+realizing that the cubes themselves were the motive power of the
+aircars--and that his will was the will of these individual cubes.
+
+"Fly at once! Fly outward at top speed toward the Earth!"
+
+Instantly, as though a single signal had started all the cars, a dozen
+aircars rose majestically from the crater, while Sarka studied the
+Gnomes and the cubes in turmoil on the rim. He noted then, a strange
+circumstance: that when he commanded the Gnomes and the pursuing cubes
+to keep back, they hesitated, dazedly, as though they did not know
+whether to advance or to retreat; that when he merely watched them,
+they came on.
+
+He laughed aloud at this measuring of mental swords with Luar, and
+with Dalis. For he could sense the conflict very plainly. She
+commanded the Gnomes and the cubes to attack, he commanded them to
+retreat, and they remained undecided, like people drawn between two
+extremities, and uncertain which direction to take.
+
+Upward, side by side now, floated the aircars of the Moon, and in the
+forepeak of each, one of the gleaming cubes, like--like
+anti-gravitational ovoids of the Moon! At the fast falling rim of the
+crater boiled the Gnomes and the cubes, stirring and tumbling,
+hampered by their very numbers, as they tried to attack at will of
+Luar and retreated in confusion at the will of Sarka.
+
+Then there was Jaska beside Sarka, her face fearful, as he pointed off
+across the gloomy expanse of the Moon.
+
+From all sides, from all directions, from other craters which these
+two had not even seen, came scores and hundreds of the monster cars!
+
+They had beaten Luar and Dalis but for a moment, then! Now, at her
+command, the countless other aircars were coming in to head them off,
+to fight them back to the surface of the Moon. It would be a race
+against time, and against death. But of at least a dozen of the
+aircars, Sarka was master, and he did not fear the issue. That strange
+exaltation which the white flames had given him filled him with a
+confidence that nothing could shake.
+
+He shot a thought at the gleaming cube in the forepeak.
+
+"Faster! Faster! There is no limit to your speed! Faster! Faster! Even
+faster!"
+
+Instantly the Moon seemed literally to drop away beneath the dozen
+aircars which carried the Radiant People, while the aircars of Luar
+and of Dalis fell hopelessly behind.
+
+Sure that they would win in this race now, since he was just beginning
+to realize the vastness of his power--the all-encompassing,
+all-mastering power of the human mind and will, which the white flames
+of the Moon had made almost god-like--Sarka turned his eyes toward a
+coldly gleaming sphere in the star-spangled heavens ahead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the Earth, and it seemed ringed in flames! From its edges there
+seemed to shoot long streamers of yellow or golden flames, which broke
+into sunlike pinwheels of radiance at their tips. Something, there on
+the precious Earth, was decidedly wrong!
+
+Instantly, telepathically, he sought to gain mental contact with his
+father.
+
+"Father, we are coming!" he said, across those countless miles. "What
+is happening?"
+
+For a full minute there was no answer. Then it came, feeble, broken,
+weighted with fear; but it was a thought-message, unmistakably, of
+Sarka the Second.
+
+"Hurry, son! Hurry! For Dalis has indeed betrayed us! I could not
+maintain control of the Earth with the Beryls, for some strange
+catastrophe has destroyed all the Beryls in the area Dalis ruled! The
+shifting of positions of the Earth and the Moon has so altered the
+relative effects of the pull of gravity exerted by the planets that
+Mars has been brought into dangerous proximity to us and is already so
+close that her ether-lights are playing over us! Surely you must be
+able to see them! We have received messages, but as yet I have only
+been partially able to decode them! What I have decoded, however,
+presages catastrophe--for I am sure that Mars and the Moon are in
+confederation, and that the Moon-people have deliberately forced us
+into contact with her ally!"
+
+Cold fear clutched at the throat of Sarka as he caught the message. He
+decided not to tell Jaska for the moment. He looked to right and left,
+at the aircars on either side of him, then issued his commands.
+
+"Faster! Faster! Be prepared to land in the area of the Gens of
+Cleric, as close as possible to my laboratory!"
+
+A strange, awesome sight, that flight of the rebels of Dalis' Gens
+from the Moon to the Earth--like gleaming stars across the void. Far
+out in Space they fled at terrific speed through almost utter
+darkness, but their light was still blinding, lighting the way.
+
+(_Concluded in the next issue_)
+
+
+
+
+Murder Madness
+
+CONCLUSION OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL
+
+_By Murray Leinster_
+
+[Illustration: _The deck was covered with panic-stricken folk who had
+come in awful terror to watch. And all were slaves to The Master._]
+
+[Sidenote: Bell has fought through tremendous obstacles to find and
+kill The Master, whose diabolical poison makes murder-mad snakes of
+the hands; and, as he faces the monster at last--his own hands start
+to writhe!]
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The door of the car swung wide, and Ortiz's pale grim face peered in
+behind the blue steel barrel of his automatic. He smiled queerly as
+Jamison, with a grunt of relief, tapped Bell's wrist in sign to put
+away his weapon.
+
+"Ah, very well," said Ortiz, with the same queer smile upon his face.
+"One moment."
+
+He disappeared. On the instant there was the thunderous crashing of a
+weapon. Bell started up, but Jamison thrust him back. Then Ortiz
+appeared again with smoke still trickling from the barrel of his
+pistol.
+
+"I have just done something that I have long wished to do," he
+observed coolly. "I have killed the chauffeur and his companion. You
+may alight, now. I believe we will have half an hour or more. It will
+do excellently."
+
+He offered his hand to Paula as she stepped out. She seemed to shudder
+a little as she took it.
+
+"I do not blame you for shuddering, Senorita," he said politely, "but
+men who are about to die may indulge in petty spites. And the
+chauffeur was a favorite with the deputy for whom I am substituting.
+Like all favorites of despots, he had power to abuse, and abused it. I
+could tell you tales, but refrain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car had come to a stop in what seemed to be a huge warehouse, and
+by the sound of water round about, it was either near or entirely
+built out over the harbor. A large section near the outer end was
+walled off. Boxes, bales, parcels and packages of every sort were
+heaped all about. Bell saw crated air engines lying in a row against
+one wall. There were a dozen or more of them. Machinery, huge cases of
+foodstuffs....
+
+"The Buenos Aires depot," said Ortiz almost gaily. "This was the point
+of receipt for all the manufactured goods which went to the _fazenda_
+of Cuyaba, Senor Bell. Since you destroyed that place, it has not been
+so much used. However, it will serve excellently as a tomb. There are
+cases of hand grenades yonder. I advise you to carry a certain number
+with you. The machine guns for the air-craft, with their ammunition,
+are here...."
+
+He was hurrying them toward the great walled-off space as he talked,
+his automatic serving as a pointer when he indicated the various
+objects.
+
+"Now, here," he added as he unlocked the door, "is your vessel. The
+Master bought only amphibian planes of late. Those for Cuyaba were
+assembled in this little dock and took off from the water. Your
+destruction up there, Senor Bell, left one quite complete but
+undelivered. I think another, crated, is still in the warehouse. I
+have been very busy, but if you can fuel and load it before we are
+attacked...."
+
+They were in a roofed and walled but floorless shed, built into the
+warehouse itself. Water surged about below them, and on it floated a
+five passenger plane, fully assembled and apparently ready to fly,
+but brand new and so far unused.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'll look it over," said Bell, briefly. He swung down the catwalk
+painted on the wings. He began a swift and hasty survey. Soot on the
+exhaust stacks proved that the motors had been tried, at least.
+Everything seemed trim and new and glistening in the cabin. The fuel
+tanks showed the barest trace of fuel. The oil tanks were full to
+their filling-plugs.
+
+He swung back up.
+
+"Taking a chance, of course," he said curtly. "If the motors were all
+right when they were tried, they probably are all right now. They may
+have been tuned up, and may not. I tried the controls, and they seem
+to work. For a new ship, of course, a man would like to go over it
+carefully, but if we've got to hurry...."
+
+"I think," said Ortiz, and laughed, "that haste would be desirable.
+Herr Wiedkind--No! _Amigo mio_, it was that damned Antonio Calles who
+listened to us last night. I found pencil marks beside the listening
+instrument. He must have sat there and eavesdropped upon me many weary
+hours, and scribbled as men do to pass the time. He had a pretty taste
+in monograms.... I gave all the orders that were needful for you to
+take off from the flying field. I even went there myself and gave
+additional orders. And Calles was there. Also others of The Master's
+subjects. My treason would provoke a terrible revenge from The Master,
+so they thought to prove their loyalty by permitting me to disclose my
+plan and foil it at its beginning.
+
+"I would have made the journey with you to The Master, but as a
+prisoner with the tale of my treason written out. So I returned and
+changed the orders to the chauffeur, when all the Master's loyal
+subjects were waiting at the flying field. But soon it will occur to
+them what I have done. They will come here. Therefore, hasten!"
+
+"We want food," said Bell evenly, "and arms, but mostly we want fuel.
+We'll get busy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He shed his coat and picked up a hand-truck. He rammed it under a drum
+of gasoline and ran it to the walkway nearest to the floating plane.
+Coiled against the wall there was a long hose with a funnel at its
+upper end. In seconds he had the hose end in one of the wing
+fuel-tanks. In seconds more he had propped the funnel into place and
+was watching the gasoline gurgling down the hose.
+
+"Paula," he said curtly, "watch this. When it's empty roll the drum
+away so I can put another in its place."
+
+She moved quickly beside it, throwing him a little smile. She set
+absorbedly about her task.
+
+Jamison arrived with another drum of gas before the first was emptied,
+and Bell was there with a third while the second still gurgled. They
+heaped the full drums in place, and Jamison suddenly abandoned his
+truck to swear wrathfully and tear off his spectacles and fling them
+against the wall. The bushy eyebrows and beard peeled off. His coat
+went down. He began to rush loads of foodstuffs, arms, and other
+objects to a point from which they could be loaded on the plane. Ortiz
+pointed out the things he pantingly demanded.
+
+In minutes, it seemed, he was demanding: "How much can we take? Any
+more than that?"
+
+"No more," said Bell. "All the weight we can spare goes for fuel. See
+if you can find another hose and funnel and get to work on the other
+tank. I'm going to rustle oil."
+
+He came staggering back with heavy drums of it. A thought struck him.
+
+"How do we get out? What works the harbor door?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ortiz pointed, smiling.
+
+"A button, Senor, and a motor does the rest." He looked at his watch.
+"I had better see if my fellow subjects have come."
+
+He vanished, smiling his same queer smile. Bell worked frantically. He
+saw Ortiz coming back, pausing to light a cigarette, and taking up a
+hatchet, with which he attacked a packing case.
+
+"They are outside, Senor," he called. "They have found the signs of
+the car entering, and now are discussing."
+
+He plucked something carefully from the packing box and went leisurely
+back toward the door. Bell began to load the food and stores into the
+cabin, with sweat streaming down his face.
+
+There was the sound of a terrific explosion, and Bell jumped savagely
+to solid ground.
+
+"Keep loading! I'll hold them back!" he snapped to Jamison.
+
+But when he went pounding to the back of the warehouse he found Ortiz
+laughing.
+
+"A hand grenade, Senor," he said in wholly unnatural levity. "Among
+the subjects of The Master. I believe that I am going mad, to take
+such pleasure in destruction. But since I am to die so shortly, why
+not go mad, if it gives me pleasure?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He peered out a tiny hole and aimed his automatic carefully. It
+spurted out all the seven shots that were left.
+
+"The man who poisoned me," he said pleasantly. "I think he is dead. Go
+back and make ready to leave, Senor Bell, because they will probably
+try to storm this place soon, and then the police will come, and
+then.... It is amusing that I am the one man to whom those enslaved
+among the city authorities would look for The Master's orders."
+
+Bell stared out. He saw a small horde of people, frantically agitated,
+milling in the cramped and unattractive little street of Buenos Aires'
+waterfront. Sheer desperation seemed to impel them, desperation and a
+frantic fear. They surged forward--and Ortiz flung a hand grenade. Its
+explosion was terrific, but he had perhaps purposely flung it short.
+Bell suddenly saw police uniforms, fighting a way through to the front
+of the crowd and the source of all this disturbance.
+
+"Go back," said Ortiz seriously. "I shall die, Senor Bell. There is
+nothing else for me to do. But I wish to die with Latin melodrama." He
+managed a smile. "I will give you ten minutes more. I can hold off the
+police themselves for so long. But you must hasten, because there are
+police launches."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He held out his hand. Bell took it.
+
+"Good luck," said Ortiz.
+
+"You can come--" began Bell, wrenched by the gaiety on Ortiz's face.
+
+"Absurd," said Ortiz, smiling. "I should be murder mad within three
+days. This is a preferable death, I assure you. Ten minutes, no more!"
+
+And Bell went racing back and found Jamison rolling away the last of
+the fuel drums and Paula looking anxiously for him.
+
+"Tanks full," said Jamison curtly. "Everything set. What next?"
+
+"Engines," said Bell.
+
+He swung down and jerked a prop over. Again, and again.... The motor
+caught. He went plunging to the other. Minutes.... They caught. He
+throttled them down to the proper warming up roaring, while the air in
+the enclosed space grew foul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more to the warehouse. Ortiz shouted and waved his hand. He was
+filling his pockets with hand grenades. Bell made a gesture of
+farewell and Ortiz seemed to smile as he went back to hold the
+entrance for a little longer.
+
+"We're going," said Bell grimly. "Get your guns ready, Jamison, for
+when the door goes up."
+
+He pressed on the button Ortiz had pointed out. There were more
+explosions and the rattle of firearms from the front of the warehouse.
+There was a sudden rumble of machinery and the blank front of the
+little covered dock rose suddenly. The sunlit waters of Buenos Aires
+harbor spread out before them. To Bell, who had not looked on sunlight
+that day, the effect was dazzling. He blinked, and then saw a fast
+little launch approaching. There were uniformed figures crowded about
+its bows.
+
+"All set!" he snapped. "I'm going to give her the gun."
+
+"Go to it," said Jamison. "We're--"
+
+The motors bellowed and drowned out the rest. The plane shuddered and
+began to move. The sound of explosions from the back of the warehouse
+was loud and continuous, now. Out into the bright sunlight the plane
+moved, at first heavily, then swiftly....
+
+Bell saw arms waving wildly in the launch with the uniformed men.
+Sunlight glittered suddenly on rifle barrels. Puffs of vapor shot out.
+Something spat through the wall beside Bell. But the roaring of the
+motors kept up, and the pounding of the waves against the curved bow
+of the boat-body grew more and more violent.... Sweat came out on
+Bell's face. The ship was not lifting....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it did lift. Slowly, very slowly, carrying every pound with which
+it could have risen from the water. It swept past the police launch at
+ninety miles an hour, but no more than five feet above the waves. A
+big, clumsy tramp flying the Norwegian flag splashed up river with its
+propeller half out of water. Bell dared to rise a little so he could
+bank and dodge it. He could not rise above it.
+
+He had one glimpse of blonde, astonished beards staring over the stern
+of the tramp as he swept by it, his wing tips level with its rail and
+barely twenty feet away. And then he went on and on, out to sea.
+
+He began to spiral for height fully four miles offshore, and looked
+back at the sprawling city. Down by the waterfront a thick, curling
+mass of smoke was rising from one spot abutting on the water. It
+swayed aside and Bell saw the rectangular opening out of which the
+plane had come.
+
+"Ortiz's in there," he said, sick at heart. "Dying as he planned."
+
+But there was a sudden upheaval of timbers and roof. A colossal burst
+of smoke. A long time later the concussion of a vast explosion. There
+was nothing left where the warehouse had been.
+
+Bell looked, and swore softly to himself, and felt a fresh surge of
+the hatred he bore to The Master and all his works. And then filmy
+clouds loomed up but a little above the rising plane, and Bell shot
+into them and straightened out for the south.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For many long hours the plane floated on to southward, high above a
+gray ocean which seemed deceptively placid beneath a canopy of thin
+clouds. The motors roared steadily in the main, though once Bell
+instructed Jamison briefly in the maintenance of a proper course and
+height, and swung out into the terrific blast of air that swept past
+the wings. He clung to struts and handholds and made his way out on
+the catwalk to make some fine adjustment in one motor, with six
+thousand feet of empty space below the swaying wing.
+
+"Carburetter wrong," he explained when he had closed the cabin window
+behind him again and the motors' roar was once more dulled. "It was
+likely to make a lot of carbon in the cylinders. O.K., now."
+
+Paula's hand touched his shyly. He smiled abstractedly at her and went
+back to the controls.
+
+And then the plane kept on steadily. Time and space have become purely
+relative in these days, in startling verification of Mr. Einstein, and
+the distance between Buenos Aires and Magellan Strait is great or
+small, a perilous journey or a mere day's travel, according to the
+mind and the transportation facilities of the voyager. Before four
+o'clock in the afternoon the coast was low and sandy to the westward,
+and it continued sterile and bare for long hours while the plane hung
+high against the sky with a following wind driving it on vastly more
+swiftly than its own engines could have contrived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was little before sunset when the character of the shore changed
+yet again, and the sun was low behind a bank of angry clouds when the
+stubby forefinger of rock that Magellan optimistically named the Cape
+of the Eleven Thousand Virgins reached upward from the seemingly
+placid water. Bell swept lower, then, much lower, looking for a
+landing place. He found it eight or nine miles farther on, on a wide
+sandy beach some three miles from a lighthouse. The little plane
+splashed down into tumbling sea and, half supported by the waves and
+half by the lift remaining to its wings, ran for yards up upon the
+hard packed sand.
+
+The landing had been made at late twilight, and Bell moved stiffly
+when he rose from the pilot's seat.
+
+"I'm going over to that lighthouse," he said curtly. "There won't be
+enough men there to be dangerous and they probably haven't frequent
+communication with the town. I'll learn something, anyway. You two
+stay with the plane."
+
+Jamison lifted his eyebrows and was about to speak, but looked at
+Bell's expression and stopped. Leadership is everywhere a matter of
+emotion and brains together, and though Jamison had his share of
+brains, he had not Bell's corroding, withering passion of hatred
+against The Master and all who served him gladly. All the way down the
+coast Bell had been remembering things he had seen of The Master's
+doing. His power was solely that of fear, and the deputies of his
+selection had necessarily been men who would spread that terror with
+an unholy zest. The nature of his hold upon his subjects was such that
+no honorable man would ever serve him willingly, and for deputies he
+had need of men even of enthusiasm. His deputies, then, were men who
+found in the assigned authority of The Master full scope for the
+satisfaction of their own passions. And Bell had seen what those
+passions brought about, and there was a dull flame of hatred burning
+in his eyes that would never quite leave them until those men were
+powerless and The Master dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You'll look after the ship and Paula," said Bell impatiently. "All
+right?"
+
+Jamison nodded. Paula looked appealingly at Bell, but he had become a
+man with an obsession. Perhaps the death of Ortiz had cemented it, but
+certainly he was unable to think of anything, now, but the necessity
+of smashing the ghastly hold of The Master upon all the folk he had
+entrapped. Subconsciously, perhaps, Bell saw in the triumph of The
+Master a blow to all civilization. Less vaguely, he foresaw an attempt
+at the extension of The Master's rule to his own nation. But when Bell
+thought of The Master, mainly he remembered certain disconnected
+incidents. The girl at Ribiera's luxurious _fazenda_ outside of Rio,
+who had been ordered to persuade him to be her lover, on penalty of a
+horrible madness for her infant son if she failed. Of a pale and
+stricken _fazendiero_ on the Rio Laurenco who thought him a deputy and
+humbly implored the grace of The Master for a moody twelve year old
+girl. Of a young man who kept his father, murder mad, in a barred room
+in his house and waited despairingly for that madness to be meted out
+upon himself and on his wife and children. Of a white man who had been
+kept in a cage in Cuyaba, with other men....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell trudged on through the deepening night with his soul a burning
+flame of hatred. He clambered amid boulders, guided by the tall
+lighthouse of Cape Possession with the little white dwelling he had
+seen at its base before nightfall. He fell, and rose, and forced his
+way on and upward, and at last was knocking heavily at a trim and
+neatly painted door.
+
+He was so absorbed in his rage that his talk with the lighthouse
+keeper seemed vague in his memory, afterward. The keeper was a wizened
+little Welshman from the Chibut who spoke English with an
+extraordinary mixture of a Spanish intonation and a Cimbrian accent.
+Bell listened heavily and spoke more heavily still. At the end he went
+back to the plane with a spindle-shanked boy with a lantern
+accompanying him.
+
+"All settled," he said grimly, when Jamison came out into the darkness
+with a ready revolver to investigate the approaching light. "We get a
+boat from the lighthouse keeper to go to Punta Arenas in. He's a
+devout member of some peculiar sect, and he's seen enough of the hell
+Punta Arenas amounts to, to believe what I told him of its cause. His
+wife will look after Paula, and this boy will hitch a team to the
+plane and haul it out of sight early in the morning. With the help of
+God, we'll kill Ribiera and The Master before sunset to-morrow."
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+But they did not kill The Master before nightfall. It was not quite
+practicable. Bell and Jamison started out well before dawn with a
+favorable wind and tide, in the small launch the wizened Welshman
+placed at their disposal. His air was one of dour piety, but he
+accepted Bell's offer of money with an obvious relief, and criticized
+his Paraguayan currency with an acid frankness until Jamison produced
+Argentine pesos sufficient to pay for the boat three times over.
+
+"I think," said Jamison dryly, "that Pau--that Miss Canalejas is safe
+enough until we come back. The keeper is a godly man and knows we
+have money. She'll be in no danger, except of her soul. They may try
+to save that."
+
+Bell did not answer. He could think of nothing but the mission he had
+set himself. He tinkered with the engine to make it speed up, and set
+the sails with infinite care to take every possible advantage of the
+stiff breeze that blew. During the day, those sails proved almost as
+much of a nuisance as a help. The fiendish, sullen williwaws that blow
+furiously and without warning about the Strait required watching, and
+more than once it was necessary to reef everything and depend on the
+motor alone.
+
+Bell watched the horizon ahead with smouldering eyes. Jamison watched
+him almost worriedly.
+
+"Look here, Bell," he said at last, "you'll get nowhere feeling like
+you do. I know you've done The Master more damage than I have, but
+you'll just run your head into a trap unless you use your brains. For
+instance, you didn't ask about communications. There's a direct
+telegraph wire from Cape Virgins to Buenos Aires, and there's
+telephonic communication between the Cape and Punta Arenas. Do you
+imagine that the plane wasn't seen when it came in the Cape? And do
+you imagine The Master doesn't know we're here?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell turned, then, and frowned blackly.
+
+"I hadn't thought of it," he said grimly, "but I put some hand
+grenades in the locker, there."
+
+"You damned fool!" said Jamison angrily. "Stop being bloodthirsty and
+use your head! You haven't even asked what I've done! I've done
+something, anyhow. That bundle I chucked in the bow has a couple of
+sheepmen's outfits in it. Lots of sheep raised around here. We'll put
+'em on before we land. And like a good general, I arranged a method of
+retreat before we left B. A. There'll be a naval vessel here in two or
+three days. She's carrying a party of Government scientists. She'll
+anchor in Punta Arenas harbor and announce a case of some infectious
+disease on board. No shore leave, you see, and nobody from shore
+permitted on board her. And she has one or two damned good analytical
+chemists with a damned good laboratory on board her, too. It's a long
+gamble, but if we can get hold of some of The Master's poison.... Do
+you see?"
+
+"Yes," said Bell heavily. "I see. But you haven't been through what
+I've been through. What I've done, fighting that devil, has caused men
+to be deserted after being enslaved. There's one place, Cuyaba...."
+
+His face twitched. That place was in his dreams, now. That place and
+others where human beings had watched their bodies go mad, and had
+been carried about screaming with horror at the crimes those bodies
+committed....
+
+"I'm going to kill The Master," he rasped. "That's all."
+
+He settled down to his grim watch for the city. All during the cloudy,
+overcast day he strained his eyes ahead. Jamison could make nothing of
+him. In the end he had to leave Bell to his moody waiting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morning passed, and midday, and a long afternoon. Three times Bell
+came restlessly back to the engine and tried to coax more speed out of
+it. But when darkness fell the town was still not in sight. They kept
+on, then, steering by the stars with the motor putt-putt-putting
+sturdily away in the stern. The water splashed and washed all about
+them. The little boat rose, and fell, and rose and fell again.
+
+"That's the town," said Bell grimly.
+
+It was eleven at night, or later. Lights began to appear, very far
+away, dancing miragelike on the edge of the water. They grew nearer
+with almost infinite slowness. Two wide bands of many lights, with a
+darker space in which a few much brighter lights showed clearly.
+Presently a single red light appeared, the Punta Arenas harbor light,
+twenty-five feet up on an iron pole. They passed it.
+
+"Bell," said Jamison curtly, "it's time you showed some sense, now.
+We're going to find out some things before we get reckless. This town
+isn't a big one, but it always was a hell on earth. No extradition
+from here. It's full of wanted men. It's dying, now, from the old days
+when all ships passed the Straits before the Panama Canal opened up,
+but it ought to be still a hell on earth. And we're going to put on
+these sheepmen outfits, and put up at some low caste sailors' and
+sheepmen's hotel on shore, and find out what is what. In the morning,
+if you like--"
+
+"In the morning," said Bell coldly, "I'm going to settle with The
+Master."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They found a small and filthy hotel, in a still filthier street where
+the houses were alternately black and silent and empty, and filled
+with the squalid hilarity most seaport towns can somehow manage to
+support. The street lamps were white and cold. The dirt and squalor
+showed the more plainly by their light. There were sailors from the
+few ships in harbor, and women so haggard and bedraggled that shrill
+laughter and lavish endearments remained their only allure. And Bell
+and Jamison plodded to the reeking place in which a half-drunk
+sheepman pointed, and there Bell sat grimly in the vermin infested
+room while Jamison, swearing wryly, went out.
+
+He came back later, much later. His breath was strong of bad whiskey
+and he looked like a man who feels that a bath would be very
+desirable. He looked like a man who feels unclean.
+
+"Give me a cigarette," he said shortly. "I found out most of what we
+want to know."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell gave him a cigarette and waited.
+
+"Good thing you stayed behind," said Jamison. "I want to vomit. Why
+people go in hell holes for fun.... But I was very drunk and very
+amorous. Picked up a woman and fed her liquor. Young, too. Damnation!
+She got crying drunk and told me everything she knew. I gave her money
+and left. Punta Arenas is The Master's, body and soul."
+
+"One could have guessed it," said Bell grimly.
+
+"Nothing like it is," said Jamison. "Every living creature, man,
+woman, and child, has been fed that devilish poison of his. The
+keepers of the dives go fawning to the local officials for the
+antidote. The _jefe politico_ is driven in his carriage to be cured
+when red spots form before his eyes. The damned place is full of
+suicides, and women, and--oh, my God! It's horrible!"
+
+A humming, buzzing noise set up off in the night somewhere. It kept up
+for a long time, throttled down. Suddenly it seemed to grow louder,
+changed in pitch, and dwindled as if into the far, far distance.
+
+"That's one of The Master's planes now, no doubt," said Jamison
+savagely, "going off on some errand for him. He uses this place
+practically as an experiment station. The human beings here are his
+guinea pigs. The deputies get a standardized form of the stuff, but
+he's got it worked out in different doses so he can make a man go mad
+in hours, if he chooses, instead of after a delay. I don't know how.
+And The Master--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He checked himself sharply. There were shuffling footsteps in the hall
+outside. A timid tap on the door. Jamison opened it, while Bell
+dropped one hand inconspicuously to a weapon inside his shapeless
+clothing.
+
+The toothless and filthy old man who kept the hotel beamed in at them.
+
+"_Senores_," he cackled. "_Vdes son de Porvenir, no es verdad?_"
+
+Jamison hiccoughed, as one who has been out and been drunken ought to
+do.
+
+"_No, viejo_," he rumbled tipsily, "_somos de la estancia del Senor
+Rubio. Vaya._"
+
+The old man seemed to mourn that they did not come from the sheep
+ranches about Porvenir Bay. But he produced a bottle with a shaking
+hand, still beaming.
+
+"_Tengo muchos amigos en Porvenir_," he chirped amiably. "_Y questa
+botella--_"
+
+"_Demela_," rumbled Jamison. He reached out his hand.
+
+"_No mas que poquito!_" said the old man, beaming but anxious as
+Jamison tilted it to his lips. "_Es visky de gentes...._"
+
+He beamed upon Bell, and Bell swallowed a spoonful and seemed to
+swallow vastly more. He lay back lazily while Jamison in the part of a
+tipsy sheepherder bullied the old man amiably and eventually chased
+him out.
+
+"You're amused?" asked Jamison sardonically, when there were no more
+sounds outside. "Because I said you didn't want to meet the young
+senorita who loved you when she saw you downstairs? Well, Bell, if you
+used your brain you didn't swallow any of that stuff."
+
+Bell started up. Jamison caught him by the shoulder.
+
+"I'm not sure," he said sharply. "Of course not. But it's damned funny
+for a Spanish hotel keeper to give something for nothing, even when he
+seemed just to want to gossip about his friends. Here. Drink this
+water. It looks vile enough to take the place of mustard...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning the hotel keeper beamed upon them both as they went out
+of the place. A slatternly, dark haired girl who leaned on his
+shoulder smiled invitingly at Bell. And Bell, in his character of a
+loutish sheepman from one of the ranches that dot the shores of the
+Strait, grinned awkwardly back. But he went on with Jamison.
+
+"We separate," said Jamison under his breath. "We want to find where
+The Master lives, mostly, and then we want to find the laboratory
+where his stuff is mixed. We don't want to do any killing until that's
+settled. After all, the Trade has something to say!"
+
+Bell codded indifferently and began to wander idly about the streets,
+turning here and there as if moved by nothing more than the vaguest
+curiosity. But gradually he was working through the sections in which
+the larger buildings stood. Concrete structures, astonishingly modern,
+dotted the business section. But none of them had the air that would
+surround a place where a man with power of life or death would be. In
+a town the size of Punta Arenas there would be unmistakable evidences
+about The Master's residence, even if it were only that those who
+passed it did so hurriedly and with a twinge of fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were prosperous men in plenty on the streets, mingled with
+deserting sailors, stockmen and farmers from the villages along the
+Strait, and even a few grimy men who looked like miners. But there is
+a lignite mine not far from the city, and a narrow gauge railroad
+running to it. Of the prosperous-seeming men, however, Bell picked out
+one here and there toward whom all passersby adopted a manner of
+cringing respect. Bell lounged against a pole and studied them
+thoughtfully. Men with an air of amused and careless scorn which only
+men with unlimited power may adopt. He saw one grossly fat man with
+hard and cruel eyes. The uniformed policemen drove all traffic
+abjectly out of the way of his carriage, and stood with lifted hat
+until he had passed. The fat man gave no faintest sign of
+acknowledgment.
+
+"I wonder," said Bell slowly, and very grimly, "if that's The Master?"
+
+And then a passerby dodged quickly past his shoulder, brushing against
+him, and waited humbly in the street. Bell turned. A party of men were
+taking up nearly all the sidewalk. There were half a dozen of them in
+all. And nearly in the middle was the bulky, immaculate, pigmented
+Ribiera.
+
+Bell stiffened. But to move, beyond clearing the way, would be to
+attract attention. He backed clumsily off the curbing as if making
+way....
+
+And Ribiera looked at his face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell's hand drifted near his hidden weapon. But Ribiera looked neither
+surprised nor alarmed. He halted and chuckled.
+
+"Ah, the Senhor Bell!"
+
+Bell said nothing, looking as stupid as possible, merely because there
+was nothing else to do.
+
+"Ah, do not deny my acquaintance!" said Ribiera. He laughed. "I advise
+you to go and look at the view, over the harbor. Good day, Senhor
+Bell."
+
+Laughing, he went off along the street. And Bell felt a cold horror
+creeping over him as he realized what Ribiera might mean. Ribiera had
+entirely too much against him to greet him only, in a town where even
+the dogs dared not bark without The Master's express command. He had
+guards with him, men who would have shot Bell down at a nod from
+Ribiera.
+
+Bell burst into a mad run for the waterfront. When the bay spread out
+before his eyes he saw what Ribiera meant, and something seemed to
+snap in his brain.
+
+The plane in which he and Jamison and Paula had escaped in was
+floating out in the harbor. It was unmistakable. A larger, bulkier
+seaplane floated beside it. The buzzing in the air the night
+before.... The arrival of the plane had been telephoned from Cape
+Virgins. Through a glass, perhaps, even its alighting had been
+watched. And a big seaplane had gone out to bring it back. Footprints
+in the sand would lead toward the lighthouse. There would be plenty of
+men to storm that, if necessary, to take the three fugitives. But they
+would have found only Paula. It was quite possible that the plane had
+only been sent for after Bell and Jamison had been seen to land in
+Punta Arenas. And Paula in The Master's hands would explain Ribiera's
+amusement perfectly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell found Jamison looking unhurriedly for him. And Jamison glanced at
+his utterly white face and said softly:
+
+"We want to get where we can't be seen, to talk. There's the devil to
+pay."
+
+"No use hiding," said Bell. His lips seemed stiff. "Paula--"
+
+"Hide anyway," snapped Jamison. He fairly thrust Bell into an alleyway
+between two houses and thrust two rounded objects beneath his loose
+fitting coat. "Two grenades. I have two more. The boat we came in is
+taken--"
+
+"So is the plane," said Bell emotionlessly.
+
+"And there is a sign, in English, posted where we tied it up. The sign
+says, '_The Senores Bell and Jamison may recover their boat on
+application to The Master, and may also receive news of a late
+traveling companion from him._"
+
+"We're known," Bell told him--and amazingly found it possible to smile
+faintly--"Ribiera met me on the street and spoke to me and laughed and
+went on."
+
+Jamison stared. Bell's manner was almost entirely normal again. Then
+Jamison shrugged.
+
+"The sense of what you're saying," he observed wryly, "is that we're
+licked. Let us, then, go to see The Master. I confess I feel some
+curiosity to know just what he's like."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell was smiling. Being in an entirely abnormal state, he had a
+curious certitude of the proper course to adopt. He went up to a
+policeman and said politely, in Spanish:
+
+"I am desired to report to The Master, himself. Will you direct me?"
+
+The policeman abased himself instantly and trotted with them as a
+guide. And Bell walked naturally, now, with his head up and his
+shoulders back, and smoked leisurely as he went, and the policeman's
+abasement became abject. All who walked with that air of amused
+superiority in Punta Arenas were high in the service of The Master.
+Obviously, the two men in these dejected clothes must also be high in
+the service of The Master, and had adopted their disguise for purposes
+into which a mere policeman and a slave of The Master should not dare
+enquire.
+
+Jamison was rather grim and still. Jamison thought he was walking to
+his death. But Bell smiled peculiarly and talked almost gaily and--as
+Jamison thought--almost irrationally.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They came to a house set in a fairly spacious lawn behind a rather
+high wall. There were greenhouses behind it, and there were flowers
+growing as well as any flowers can be expected to grow in such high
+altitudes. It was an extraordinarily cheerful dwelling to be found in
+Punta Arenas, but the shuddering fear with which the little policeman
+removed his hat as he entered the gateway was instructive.
+
+They were confronted by four other policemen, on guard inside the
+gate.
+
+"_Estos Senores_--" began the abject one.
+
+"Take us to The Master," commanded Bell in a species of amused and
+superior scorn.
+
+"It is required, Senor," said the leader of the four on guard, very
+respectfully, "it is required that none enter without being searched
+for weapons."
+
+Bell laughed.
+
+"Does The Master manage things so?" he asked scornfully. "Now, where I
+am deputy no man would dare to think of a weapon to be used against
+me! If it is The Master's rule, though...."
+
+The policeman cringed. Bell scornfully thrust an automatic out.
+
+"Take it," he snapped. "And go and tell The Master that the Senores
+Bell and Jamison await his pleasure, and that they have given up
+their weapons."
+
+The policeman scuttled toward the house. Bell smiled at his cigarette.
+
+"Do you know, Bell," said Jamison dryly, in English, "I'd hate to play
+poker with you."
+
+"I'm not bluffing," said Bell. "Not altogether. I've a four card
+flush, with the draw to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost instantly the policeman returned, more abject still. He had
+stammered out Bell's message, just as it was given him. And the slaves
+of The Master did not usually disobey orders, especially orders
+designed to prevent any danger of a doomed man or woman trying to
+assassinate The Master before madness was complete. Bell and Jamison
+were received by liveried servants in utter silence and conducted
+through a long passageway, too long to have been contained entirely in
+the house as seen from the front. Indeed, they came out into a great
+open greenhouse, in which the smell of flowers was heavy. There were
+flowers everywhere, and a benign, small old man with a snowy beard and
+hair, sat at a desk as if chatting of amiable trivialities with the
+frock-coated men who stood about him. The white haired old man lifted
+a blossom delicately to his nostrils and inhaled its perfume with a
+sensitive delight. He looked up and smiled benignly upon the two.
+
+It was then that Jamison got a shock surpassing all the rest. Bell's
+hands were writhing at the ends of his wrists, writhing as if they
+were utterly beyond his control and as if they were longing to rend
+and tear....
+
+And Bell suddenly looked down at them, and his expression was that of
+a man who sees cobras at the ends of his arms.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+There was a long pause. Bell was very calm. He seemed to tear his eyes
+from the writhing hands that were peculiarly sensate, as if under the
+control of in intelligence alien to his own.
+
+"I believe," said Bell steadily, "that The Master wishes to speak to
+me."
+
+With an apparent tremendous effort of will, he thrust his hands into
+his pockets. Jamison cursed softly. Bell had taken the direction of
+things entirely out of his hands. It only remained to play up.
+
+"To be sure," said a mild, benevolent voice. The man with the snowy
+beard regarded Bell exactly in the fashion of an elderly
+philanthropist. "I am The Master, Senor Bell. You have interested me
+greatly. I have grown to have a great admiration for you. Will you be
+seated? Your companion also pleases me. I would like"--and the mild
+brown eyes beamed at him--"I would like to have your friendship, Senor
+Bell."
+
+"Pull out a chair for me, Jamison," said Bell in a strained voice.
+"And--I'd like to have a cigarette."
+
+Jamison, cursing under his breath, put a chair behind Bell and stuck a
+cigarette between his lips. He held a match, though his hands shook.
+
+"You might sit down, too," said Bell steadily. "From the manner of The
+Master, I imagine that the conversation will take some time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He inhaled deeply of his cigarette, and faced the little man again.
+And The Master looked so benevolent that he seemed absolutely
+cherubic, and there was absolutely no sign of anything but the utmost
+saintliness about him. His eyes were clear and mild. His complexion
+was fresh and translucent. The wrinkles that showed upon his face were
+those of an amiable and a serene soul filled with benevolence and
+charity. He looked like one of those irritatingly optimistic old
+gentlemen who habitually carry small coins and stray bits of candy in
+their pockets for such small children as they may converse with under
+the smiling eyes of nurses.
+
+"Ah, Senor Bell," he said gently. "You do cause me to admire you. May
+I see your hands again?"
+
+Bell held them out. He seemed to have conquered their writhing to some
+extent. But he could not hold them quite still. Sweat stood out on his
+forehead. He thrust them abruptly out of sight again.
+
+"Sad," said The Master gently. "Very sad." He sighed faintly and laid
+down the rose he had been toying with. His fingers caressed the soft
+petals delicately. "Fortunately," he said benevolently, "it is not yet
+too late for me to relieve the strain under which you labor, Senor.
+May I send for a certain medicine which will dispose of those symptoms
+in a very short time?"
+
+"We'll talk first," said Bell harshly. "I want to hear what you have
+to say."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Master nodded, his fingers touching the rose petals as if in a
+sensitive pleasure in their texture.
+
+"Always courageous," he said benignly. "I admire it while I combat it.
+But the Senor Jamison...."
+
+Jamison had been looking fascinatedly at his own hands, opening and
+closing the fingers with a savage abruptness. They obeyed him, though
+they trembled.
+
+"I didn't drink the damned stuff that hotel keeper brought us last
+night," he growled. "Bell did. And I--"
+
+"Wait a minute, Jamison," said Bell evenly. "Let's talk to The Master
+for a while. I swore, sir," he said grimly, "that I'd kill you. I've
+seen what your devilish poison does, in the hands of the men you've
+chosen to distribute it. I've seen"--he swallowed and said
+harshly--"I've seen enough to make me desire nothing so much as to see
+you roast in hell! But you wanted to talk to me. Go ahead!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Master beamed at him, and then glanced about at the frock-coated
+men who had been attending him. Bell glanced at them. Ribiera was
+there, chuckling.
+
+"I told you, _tio mio_," he said familiarly, "that he would not be
+polite. You can do nothing with him. Better have him shot."
+
+Francia, of Paraguay, nodded amusedly to Bell as their eyes met. But
+The Master shook his really rather beautiful head. An old man can be
+good to look at, and with a saintly aureole of snow-white hair and the
+patriarchal white beard, The Master was the picture of benign and
+beautiful old age.
+
+"Ah, you do not understand," he protested mildly. "The more the Senor
+Bell shows his courage, _hijo mio_, the more we must persuade him." He
+turned to Bell. "I realise," he said gently, "that there are hardships
+connected with the administration of my power, Senor. It is
+inevitable. But the Latin races of the continent which is now nearly
+mine require strong handling. They require a strong man to lead them.
+They are comfortable only under despotism. The task I have chosen for
+you is different, entirely. _Los Americanos del Norte_ will not
+respond to the treatment which is necessary for those _del Sud_. Their
+governments, their traditions, are entirely unlike. If you become my
+deputy and viceroy for all your nation, you shall rule as you will. A
+benevolent, yet strong, rule is needed for your people. It may even
+be--I will permit it--that the democratic institutions of your nation
+may continue if you so desire. I am offering you, Senor, the position
+of the absolute ruler of your nation. You may interfere with the
+present government not at all, if you choose, provided only that my
+own commands are obeyed when relayed through you. I choose you because
+you have courage, and resource, and because you have the _Yanqui_
+cleverness which will understand your nation and cope with it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell inhaled deeply.
+
+"In other words," he said bitterly, "you're saying indirectly that you
+offer me a chance to be the sort of ruler Americans will submit to
+without too much fuss, because you think one of Ribiera's stamp would
+drive them to rebellion."
+
+The fine dark eyes twinkled.
+
+"You have much virtue, Senor. My nephew--though he is to be my
+successor--has a weakness for a pretty face. Would you prefer that I
+give him the task of subduing your nation?"
+
+"You might try it," said Bell. His eyes gleamed. "He'd be dead within
+a week."
+
+The Master laughed softly.
+
+"I like you, Senor. I do like you indeed. I have not been so defied
+since another _Americano del Norte_ defied me in this same room. But
+he had not your resource. He had been enslaved with much less
+difficulty than yourself. I do not remember what happened to him...."
+
+"He was taken, Master," said a fat man with hard eyes, obsequiously,
+"he was taken in Bolivia." It was the man whom Bell had seen earlier
+that morning in a carriage. "You gave him to me. He had insulted me
+when I ordered him sent to you. I had him killed, but he was very
+obstinate."
+
+"Ah, yes," said The Master meditatively. "You told me the details." He
+seemed to recall small facts in benevolent retrospection. "But you,
+Senor Bell, I have need of you. In fact, I shall insist upon your
+friendship. And therefore--"
+
+He beamed upon Bell.
+
+"I give you back the Senorita Canalejas."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He shook his head reproachfully at the utterly grim look in Bell's
+eyes.
+
+"I shall give you one single portion of the antidote to the medicine
+which makes your hands behave so badly. You may take it when you
+please. The Senor Jamison I shall keep and enslave. I do not think he
+will be as obstinate as you are, but he has excellent qualities. If
+you prove obdurate, I may yet persuade him to undertake certain tasks
+for me. But you and the Senorita Canalejas are free. Your boat has
+been reprovisioned and provided with fuel. You may go from here where
+you will."
+
+Ribiera snarled.
+
+"_Tio mio_," he protested angrily, "you promised me--"
+
+"Your will in many things," said The Master gently, "but not in all.
+Remember that you have much to learn, _hijo mio_. I have taught you to
+prepare my little medicine, it is true. That is so you can take my
+place if age infirmity shall carry me away." The Master folded his
+hands with an air of pious resignation. "But you must learn policy.
+The Senorita Canalejas belongs to the Senor Bell."
+
+Jamison was staring, now, but Bell's eyes had narrowed to mere slits.
+
+"You see," said The Master gently, to him, "I desire your friendship.
+You may go where you will. You may take the Senorita Canalejas with
+you. You will have enough of the antidote to my little medicine to
+keep you sane for perhaps a week. In one week you may go far, with
+her. You may do many things. But you cannot find a place of safety for
+her. I still have a little power, Senor. If you take her with you,
+your hands will writhe again. Your body will become uncontrollable.
+Your eyes, staring and horror-struck, will observe your own hands
+rending her. While your brain is yet sane you will see this body of
+yours which now desires her so ardently, tearing at and crushing that
+delicate figure, gouging out her eyes, battering her tender flesh,
+destroying her.... Have you ever seen what a man who has taken my
+little medicine does to a human being at his mercy?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The figures about The Master were peculiarly tense. The fat man with
+the hard eyes laughed suddenly. It was a horrible laugh. Francia of
+Paraguay took out his handkerchief and delicately wiped his lips. He
+was smiling. Ribiera looked at Bell's face and chuckled. His whole
+gross figure shook with his amusement.
+
+"And of course," said The Master benignly, "if you prefer to commit
+suicide, if you prefer to leave her here--well, my nephew knows little
+expedients to reduce her will to compliance. You recall _Yague_, among
+others."
+
+Bell's face was a white mask of horror and fury. He tried to speak,
+and failed. He raised his hand to his throat--and it tore at the
+flesh, insanely.
+
+"Let--let me see her," croaked Bell, as if strangling.
+
+Jamison stiffened. Bell seemed to be trying to get his hands into his
+pockets. They were apparently uncontrollable. He thrust them under his
+coat as there was a stirring at the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Paula was brought in, as if she had been waiting. She was entirely
+colorless, but she smiled at Bell. She came quickly to his side.
+
+"I heard," she said in a clear and even little voice. "We will go
+together, Charles. If there is a week in which we can be together, it
+will be so much of happiness. And when you are--The Master's victim,
+we will let the little boat sink, and sink with it. I do not wish to
+live without you, Charles, and you do not wish to live as his slave."
+
+Bell gave utterance to a sudden laugh that was like a bark. His hands
+came out from under his coat. Dangling from each one was a small,
+pear-shaped globule of metal. A staff projected upward from each one,
+and he held those staffs in his writhing hands. About each wrist was a
+tiny loop of cord that went down to a pin at the base of the staffs.
+
+"Close to me, Paula," he said coldly. She clung to his arm. He moved
+forward, with half-a-dozen revolver muzzles pointed at his breast.
+
+"If one of you damned fools fires," he said harshly, "I'll let go.
+When I let go--these are Mills grenades, and they go off in three
+seconds after they leave the hand. Stand still!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a terrible, frozen silence. Then a movement from behind
+Bell. Jamison was rising with a grunt.
+
+"Some day, Bell," he observed coolly, "I'll be on to all of your
+curves. This is the best one yet. But you're likely to let go at any
+second, aren't you?"
+
+"Like hell!" raged Bell. "I drank some of your poison," he snarled at
+The Master. "Yes! I was fool enough to do it! But I took what measures
+any man will take who finds he's swallowed poison. I got it out of my
+stomach at once. And if you or one of these deputies tries to
+move...."
+
+Ribiera had blanched to a pasty gray. The Master was frozen. But Bell
+saw Ribiera's eyes move in swift calculation. There was a solid wall
+behind The Master. It seemed as if the greenhouse were a sort of
+passageway between two larger structures. And there was a door almost
+immediately behind Ribiera. Ribiera glanced right--left--
+
+He flung himself through that door. He knew the secret of The Master's
+power. He was The Master's appointed successor. If The Master and all
+his deputies died, Ribiera....
+
+But Bell snapped into action like a bent spring released. His arm shot
+forward. A grenade went hurtling through the door through which
+Ribiera had fled. There was an instantaneous, terrific explosion. The
+solid wall shook and shivered and, with a vast deliberation,
+collapsed. The greenhouse was full of crushed plaster dust. Panes of
+glass shivered....
+
+But Bell was upon The Master. He had struck the little man down and
+stood over him, his remaining automatic replacing the grenade he had
+thrown.
+
+"Ribiera's dead," he snapped, "and if I'm shot The Master dies too and
+you all go mad! Stand back!"
+
+The deputies stood frozen.
+
+"I think," said Jamison composedly, "I take a hand now. I'll pick him
+up, Bell.... Right. I've got him. With a grenade hanging down his
+back. If he jerks away from me, or I from him, it will blow his spine
+to bits."
+
+"Hold him so," said Bell coldly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He went coolly to where he could look over the heap of the collapsed
+wall. He saw a bundle of torn clothing that had been a man. It was
+flung against a cracked and tottering chimney.
+
+"Right," he said evenly. "Ribiera's dead, all right."
+
+He turned to the deputies, whose revolvers were still in their hands.
+
+"The Master's carriage, please," he said politely. "To the door. You
+may accompany us if you please, but in other carriages. I am working
+for the release of all the Master's slaves, and you among them if you
+choose. But you can see very easily that there is no hope of the
+release of The Master without the meeting of my terms."
+
+The Master spoke, softly and mildly and without fear.
+
+"It is my order that the Senor Bell is to be obeyed. I shall return.
+You need have no fear of my death. My carriage."
+
+A man went stiffly, half-paralyzed with terror, to where chattering
+scared servants were grouped in the awful fear that came upon the
+slaves of The Master at any threat to his rule.
+
+But Bell and Paula and Jamison went slowly and cautiously--though they
+held the whip hand--to the entrance door of the house, and out to the
+entrance gate. A carriage was already before the door when they
+reached it, and others were drawing up in a line behind it.
+
+"Get in," said Bell briefly. "Down to the waterfront."
+
+He turned to the group of frock-coated, stricken men who had followed.
+
+"Some of you men," he said coldly, "had better go on ahead and warn
+the police and the public generally about the certainty of The
+Master's death if any attempt is made to rescue him."
+
+Francia, of Paraguay, summoned a swagger and raised his hand to the
+second carriage. It drew in to the curb.
+
+"I will attend to it, Senor Bell," he said politely. "Ah, when I think
+that I once raised my revolver to shoot you and refrained!"
+
+He drove off swiftly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell's eyes were glowing. He got into the carriage, and such a
+procession drove through the streets of Punta Arenas as has rarely
+moved through the streets of any city in the world. The long line of
+carriages moved at a funereal pace amid a surging, terrified mob. The
+Master beamed placidly as he looked out over white, starkly agonized
+faces. Some of the people groaned audibly. A few cursed The Master in
+their despair. More cursed Bell, not daring to strike or fire on him.
+But he would have been torn to bits if he had stepped from the
+carriage for an instant.
+
+"Bell," said Jamison dryly, "considering that I'm prepared to be blown
+apart on three seconds notice, it is peculiar that this mob frightens
+me."
+
+The Master's eyes twinkled benignly. He seemed totally insensible to
+fear.
+
+"You need not be afraid," he said gently. "They will not touch you
+unless I order them."
+
+Jamison stared down at the little man whose collar he held firmly,
+with a Mills grenade dangling down at the base of his neck.
+
+"I wouldn't order them to attack, if I were you," he said coldly. "I
+haven't Bell's brains, but I have just as much dislike for you as he
+has."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They came to the harbor. Bell spoke again.
+
+"The carriage is to drive out to the end of one of the docks, and no
+one else is to go out on that dock."
+
+The Master relayed the order in his mild voice, but as the coachman
+obeyed him he clucked his tongue commiseratingly.
+
+"Senor Bell," he protested gently. "You do not expect to escape! Not
+after killing me! Why that is absurd!"
+
+Bell said nothing. He alighted from the carriage, his face set grimly,
+and stared ashore at the long, long row of terrified faces staring out
+at him. The whole waterfront seemed to be lined with staring faces.
+Wails came from that mass of enslaved human beings.
+
+"Hold him here, Jamison," he said drearily. "I'm going out to look at
+that big plane. There's a rowboat tied to the dock, here."
+
+He swung down the side into the dock and rowed off into the harbor,
+while the horses attached to The Master's carriage pawed impatiently
+at the wooden flooring of the dock. Bell reached the two planes
+anchored on the still harbor water. The smaller one had brought them
+down from Buenos Aires. The larger one had gone after the beached
+amphibian and brought it and Paula on to the city. Bell, from the
+shore, was seen to be investigating the larger one. He came rowing
+back.
+
+His head appeared above the dock edge.
+
+"All right," he said tiredly. "The Master has a rule requiring all his
+ships ready for instant flight. Very useful. The big plane is fueled
+and full of oil. We'll go out to it and take off."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jamison lifted The Master to his feet and with a surge of muscles
+swept him down to the flooring of the dock.
+
+"Paula first," said Bell, "and then The Master, and then you,
+Jamison."
+
+"One moment," said The Master reproachfully. "It would be cruel not to
+let me reassure my subjects. I will give an order."
+
+Bell and Jamison listened suspiciously. But he spoke gently to the
+coachman.
+
+"You will tell the deputies," said The Master in Spanish, "that a
+month's supply of medicine for all my subjects will be found in my
+laboratory. And you may tell them that I shall return before the end
+of that time."
+
+The coachman's eyes filled with a passionate relief.
+
+"Now," said The Master placidly, "I am ready for our little jaunt."
+
+Paula descended the ladder and seated herself in the bow of the boat.
+Bell covered The Master grimly with his automatic as he descended,
+with surprising agility. Jamison came down last, and resumed his
+former grip on The Master's collar. Bell rowed out to the big plane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jamison kept close watch while Bell started the four huge motors and
+throttled them down to warming up speed, and while he hauled up the
+anchor with which the huge seaplane was anchored.
+
+The dock was covered with a swarm of panic stricken folk. Everywhere,
+all the inhabitants of the city who were slaves to The Master had come
+in awful terror to watch. And all the inhabitants of the city were
+slaves to The Master. Some of them fell to their knees and held out
+imploring arms to Bell, begging him for mercy and the return of The
+Master. Some cursed wildly.
+
+But, with his jaws set grimly, Bell gave the motors the gun.
+
+The big plane moved heavily, then more swiftly through the water. It
+lifted slowly, and rose, and rose, and dwindled to a speck high in the
+air.
+
+And all through the streets and ways of Punta Arenas, fear stalked
+almost as a tangible thing. Panic hovered over the housetops, always
+ready to descend. Terror was in the air that every man breathed, and
+every human being looked at every other human being with staring,
+haunted eyes. Punta Arenas was waiting for its murder madness to
+begin.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+There were four motors to pull the big plane through the air, and
+their roaring was a vast thundering noise which the earth re-echoed.
+But inside the cabin that tumult was reduced to a not intolerable
+humming sound.
+
+"What'll I do with this devil, Bell?" asked Jamison. "Now that we're
+aloft, I confess this grenade makes me nervous. I'm holding it so
+tightly my fingers are getting cramped."
+
+"Tie him up," said Bell, without looking. "He'll talk presently."
+
+Movements. The plane flew on, swaying slightly in the way of big
+sea-planes everywhere. A williwaw began in the hills ahead and swept
+out and set the ship to reeling crazily in its erratic currents. The
+Strait vanished and there were tumbled hills below them. Minutes
+passed.
+
+"Got him fixed up," said Jamison coolly, "I'll guarantee he won't
+break loose. Got any plans, Bell?"
+
+"No time," said Bell. "I haven't had time to make any. The first thing
+is to get where his folk will never find us. Then we'll see what we
+can do with him."
+
+Paula looked at the now bound figure of The Master. And the little old
+man beamed at her.
+
+"He--he's smiling!" said Paula, in a voice that was full of a peculiar
+horrified shock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell shrugged. Punta Arenas was all of twenty-five miles behind, and
+the earth over which they flew began to take on the shape of an
+island. Water appeared beyond it, and innumerable small islands. Bell
+began to rack his brain for the infinitesimal scraps of knowledge he
+had about this section of the world. It was pitifully scanty. Punta
+Arenas was the southernmost point of the continental mass. All about
+it was an archipelago and a maze of waterways, thinly inhabited
+everywhere and largely without any inhabitants at all. The only solid
+ground between Cape Horn and the Antarctic ice pack was Diego Ramirez
+and the South Shetlands....
+
+Nothing to go on. But any sufficiently isolated and desolate spot
+would do. Almost anywhere along the southern edge of the continental
+islands should serve.
+
+The plane roared on monotonously, while Bell began to wrestle with
+another and more serious problem. In three days--two, now--an American
+naval vessel would turn up, with scientists and chemists on board. It
+was to be doubted whether anything like an overt act would be risked
+by that vessel. If all the governments of South America were under The
+Master's thumb, then cabled orders from his deputies would race three
+navies to the spot. And the government of the United States does not
+like to start war, anywhere. Certainly it would not willingly enter
+into a conflict with the whole southern continent for the solution of
+a problem that so far affected that continent alone. The Master's
+kidnapping had solved nothing, so far.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jamison tapped his shoulder.
+
+"No pursuit, so far," he observed coolly. "I've looked." Bell nodded.
+
+"They don't dare. Not yet, anyhow. They're depending on The Master.
+How is he?"
+
+"Smiling peacefully to himself, damn him!" snarled Jamison. "Do you
+know what we're up against?"
+
+"Ourselves," said Bell coldly. "But I'm nearly licked. He's got to
+talk!"
+
+Jamison moved away again. The earth below looked as if it had been
+torn to shreds in some titanic convulsion of ages past. The sea was
+everywhere, and so was land! There were little threads of silver
+interlacing and crossing and wavering erratically in every conceivable
+direction. And there were specks of islands--rocks only yards in
+extent--and islands of every imaginable size and shape, with their
+surfaces in every possible state of upheaval and distortion. A broader
+mass of land appeared ahead and to the left.
+
+"Tierra del Fuego again," muttered Bell. "If we cross it...."
+
+For fifteen minutes the plane thundered across desolate, rocky hills.
+Then the maze of islets again. Bell scanned them keenly, and saw a
+tiny steamer traveling smokily, for no conceivable reason, among the
+scattered bits of stone. The sea appeared, stretching out toward
+infinity.
+
+Bell rose, to survey a wider space. He swung to the left, so that he
+was heading nearly southeast, and went on down toward that desolation
+of desolations, the stormy cape which faces the eternal ice of the
+antarctic. He was five thousand feet up, then, and scanning sea and
+earth and sky....
+
+And suddenly he swung sharply to the right and headed out toward the
+open sea. He felt a small figure pressing against his shoulder.
+Presently fingers closed tightly upon his sleeve. He glanced down at
+Paula and managed to smile.
+
+"There are some rocks out there," he told her quietly. "Islands, I
+think, and Diego Ramirez, at a guess."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were specks, no more, but they were vastly more distinct from the
+plane than from Mount Beaufoy. That is on Henderson Island in New Year
+Sound, and its seventeen-hundred-foot peak was almost below Bell when
+he sighted the islands. But the islands have been seen full fifty
+miles from there.
+
+It took the plane nearly forty minutes to cover the space, but long
+before that the islands had become distinct. Two tiny groups of
+scattered rocks, the whole group hardly five miles in length and by
+far the greater number no more than boulders surrounded by sheets of
+foam from breakers. Two of them merited the name of islands. The
+nearer was high and bare and precipitous. No trace of vegetation
+showed upon it. The farther was smaller, and at its northern corner a
+little cove showed, nearly land-locked.
+
+Bell descended steeply. The big plane plunged wildly in the air eddies
+about the taller island at five hundred feet, but steadied and went
+winging on down lower, and lower.... The waves between the two
+islands were not high, but the seaplane alighted with a mighty, a
+tremendous splashing, and Bell navigated it grimly though clumsily
+into the mouth of the cove. There a small beach showed. He went very
+slowly toward it. Presently he swung abruptly about. A wing tip float
+grounded close to the shore.
+
+The motors cut off and left a thunderous silence. Bell climbed atop
+the cabin and let go the anchor.
+
+"We're here," he said shortly. "Bring The Master and we'll go ashore."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The catwalk painted on the lower wing guided them. Bell jumped to the
+rocks first, and stumbled, and then rose to lift Paula down and take
+The Master's small, frail body from Jamison's arms.
+
+"You looked for a gun?" asked Bell
+
+"He'd nothing to fight with," said Jamison heavily. He had been facing
+the same problem Bell had worked on desperately, and had found no
+answer. But he shuddered a little as he looked about the island.
+
+There was nothing in sight but rock. No moss. No lichens. Not even
+stringy grass or the tufty scrub bushes that seemed able to grow
+anywhere.
+
+Bell untied The Master, carefully but without solicitude. The little
+man sat up, and brushed himself off carefully, and arranged himself in
+a comfortable position.
+
+"I am an old man," said The Master in mild reproach. "You might at
+least have given me a cushion to sit upon."
+
+Bell sat down and lighted a cigarette with fingers that did not
+tremble in the least.
+
+"Suppose," he said hardly, "you talk. First, of what your poison is
+made. Second, of what the antidote is made. Third, how we may be sure
+you tell the truth."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Master looked at him with bright, shrewd, and apparently kindly
+old eyes.
+
+"_Hijo mio_," he said mildly, "I am an old man. But I am obstinate. I
+will tell you nothing."
+
+Bell's eyes glowed coldly.
+
+"Does it occur to you," he asked grimly, "that it's too important a
+matter for us to have any scruples about? That we can--and will--make
+you talk?"
+
+"You may kill me," said The Master benignly, "but that is all."
+
+"And," said Bell, still more grimly, "we have only to get back in the
+plane yonder, and go away...."
+
+The Master beamed at him. Presently he began to laugh softly.
+
+"_Hijo mio_," he said gently, "let us stop this little byplay. You
+will take me back in my airplane, and you will land me at Punta
+Arenas. And then you will fly away. I concede you freedom, but that is
+all. You cannot leave me here."
+
+"Paula," said Bell coldly, "get in the plane again. Jamison--"
+
+Paula rose doubtfully. Jamison stood up. The Master continued to
+chuckle amiably.
+
+"You see," he said cherubically, "you happen to be a gentleman, Senor
+Bell. Every man has some weakness. That is yours. And you will not
+leave me here to die, because you have killed my nephew, who was the
+only other man who knew how to prepare my little medicine. And you
+know, Senor, that all my subjects will wish to die. Those who do, in
+fact," he added mildly, "will be fortunate. The effect of my little
+medicine does not make for happiness without its antidote."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bell's hands clenched.
+
+"You know," said The Master comfortably, "that there are many
+thousands of people whose hands will writhe, very soon. The city of
+Punta Arenas will be turned into a snarling place of maniacs within a
+very little while--if I do not return. Would you like, Senor, to think
+in after days of that pleasant city filled with men and women tearing
+each other like beasts? Of little children, even, crouching, and
+crushing and rending the tender flesh of other little children? Of
+lisping little ones gone--"
+
+"Stop!" snarled Bell, in a frenzy. "Damn your soul! You're right! I
+can't! You win--so far!"
+
+"Always," said The Master benevolently. "I win always. And you forget,
+Senor. You have seen the worst side of my rule. The revolutions, the
+rebellions that have made men free, were they pretty things to watch?
+Always, _amigo_, the worst comes. But when my rule is secure, then you
+shall see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He waved a soft, beautifully formed hand. From every possible aspect
+the situation was a contradiction of all reason. The bare, black, salt
+encrusted rocks with no trace of vegetation showing. The gray water
+rumbling and surging among the uneven rocks at the base of the shore,
+while gulls screamed hoarsely overhead. The white haired little man
+with his benevolent face, smiling confidently at the two grim men.
+
+"The time will come," said The Master gently, and in the tone of utter
+confidence with which one states an inescapable fact, "the time will
+come when all the earth will know my rule. The taking of my little
+medicine will be as commonplace a thing as the smoking of tobacco,
+which I abhor, Senores. You are mistaken about there being an antidote
+and a poison. It is one medicine only. One little compound. A
+vegetable substance, Senor Bell, combined with a product of modern
+chemistry. It is a synthetic drug. Modern chemistry is a magnificent
+science, and my little medicine is its triumph. Even my deputies have
+not heard me speak so, Senores."
+
+Bell snarled wordlessly, but if one had noticed his eyes they would
+have been seen to be curiously cool and alert and waiting. The Master
+leaned forward, and for once spoke seriously, almost reverently.
+
+"There shall be a forward step, Senores, in the race of men. Do you
+know the difference between the brain of a man and that of an
+anthropoid ape? It consists only of a filmy layer of cortex, a film of
+gray nerve cells which the ape has not. And that little layer creates
+the difference between ape and man. And I have discovered more. My
+little medicine acts upon that film. Administered in the tiny
+quantities I have given to my slaves, it has no perceptible effect. It
+is merely a compound of a vegetable substance and a synthetic organic
+base. It is not excreted from the body. Like lead, it remains always
+in solution in the blood. But in or out of the blood it changes,
+always, to the substance which causes murder madness. Fresh or
+changed, my little medicine acts upon the brain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He smiled brightly upon them.
+
+"But though in tiny quantities it has but little effect, in larger
+quantities--when fresh it makes the functioning of the gray cells of
+the human brain as far superior to the unmedicated gray cells, as
+those human gray cells are to the white cells of the ape! That is what
+I have to offer to the human race! Intelligence for every man, which
+shall be as the genius of the past!"
+
+He laughed softly.
+
+"Think, Senores! Compare the estate of men with the estate of apes!
+Compare the civilization which will arise upon the earth when men's
+brains are as far above their present level as the present level is
+above the anthropoid! The upward steps of the human race under my rule
+will parallel, will surpass the advance from the brutish caveman to
+intellectual genius. But I have seen, Senores, the one danger in my
+offering."
+
+There was silence. Jamison shook his head despairingly. The Master
+could not see him. He formed the word with his lips.
+
+"Crazy!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Bell said coldly:
+
+"Go on."
+
+"I must rule," said The Master soberly. "It is essential. If my little
+secret were known, intelligences would be magnified, but under many
+flags and with many aims. Scientists, with genius beside which
+Newton's pales, would seek out deadly weapons for war. The world would
+destroy itself of its own genius. But under my rule--"
+
+"Men go mad," said Bell coldly.
+
+The Master smiled reproachfully.
+
+"Ah, you are trying to make me angry, so that I will betray something!
+You are clever, Senor Bell. With my little medicine, in such
+quantities as I would administer it to you...."
+
+"You describe it," said Bell harshly and dogmatically, "as a brain
+stimulant. But it drives men mad."
+
+"To be sure," said The Master mildly. "It does. It is not excreted
+from the body save very, very slowly. But it changes in the blood
+stream. As--let us say--sugar changes into alcohol in digestion. The
+end-product of my little medicine is a poison which attacks the brain.
+But the slightest bit of unchanged medicine is an antidote. It is"--he
+smiled amiably--"it is as if sugar in the body changed to alcohol, and
+alcohol was a poison, but sugar--unchanged--was an antidote. That is
+it exactly. You see that I have taken my little medicine for years,
+and it has not harmed me."
+
+"Which," said Bell--and somehow his manner made utter silence fall so
+that each word fell separately into a vast stillness--"which, thank
+God, is the one thing that wins finally, for me!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood up and laughed. Quite a genuine laugh.
+
+"Paula," he said comfortably, "get on the plane. In the cabin. Jamison
+and I are going to strip The Master."
+
+Paula stared. The Master looked at him blankly. Jamison frowned
+bewilderedly, but stood up grimly to obey.
+
+"But Senor," said The Master in gentle dignity, "merely to humiliate
+me--"
+
+"Not for that," said Bell. He laughed again. "But all the time I've
+been hearing about the stuff, I've noticed that nobody thought of it
+as a drug. It was a poison. People were poisoned. They did not become
+addicts. But you--you are the only addict to your drug."
+
+He turned to Jamison, his eyes gleaming.
+
+"Jamison," he said softly, "did you ever know of a drug addict who
+could bear to think of ever being without a supply of his drug--_right
+on his person_?"
+
+Jamison literally jumped.
+
+"By God! No!"
+
+The Master was quick. He was swarming up the plane-wing tip before
+Jamison reached him, and he kicked frenziedly when Jamison plucked him
+off. But then it was wholly, entirely, utterly horrible that the
+little white haired man, whose face and manner had seemed so cherubic
+and so bland, should shriek in so complete a blind panic as they
+forced his fingers open and took a fountain pen away from him.
+
+"This is it," said Bell in a deep satisfaction. "This is his point of
+weakness."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Master was ghastly to look at, now. Jamison held him gently
+enough, considering everything, but The Master looked at that fountain
+pen as one might look at Paradise.
+
+"I--I swear," he gasped. "I--swear I will give you the formula!"
+
+"You might lie," said Jamison grimly.
+
+"I swear it!" panted The Master in agony. "It--If the formula is known
+it--can be duplicated! It--the excretion can be hastened! It can all
+be forced from the body! Simply! So simply! If only you know! I will
+tell you how it is done! The medicine is the cacodylate of--"
+
+Bell was leaning forward, now, like a runner breasting the tape at the
+end of a long and exhausting race.
+
+"I'll trade," he said softly. "Half the contents of the pen for the
+formula. The other half we'll need for analysis. Half the stuff in the
+pen for the formula for freeing your slaves!"
+
+The Master sobbed.
+
+"A--a pencil!" he gasped. "I swear--"
+
+Jamison gave him a pencil and a notebook. He wrote, his hands shaking.
+Jamison read inscrutably.
+
+"It doesn't mean anything to me," he said soberly, "but you can read
+it. It's legible."
+
+Bell smiled faintly. With steady finger he took his own fountain pen
+from his pocket. He emptied it of ink, and put a scrupulous half of a
+milky liquid from The Master's pen into it. He passed it over.
+
+"Your medicine," said Bell quietly, "may taste somewhat of ink, but it
+will not be poisonous. Now, what do we do with you? I give you your
+choice. If we take you with us, you will be held very secretly as a
+prisoner until the truth of the information you have given us can be
+proven. And if your slaves have all been freed, then I suppose you
+will be tried...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Master was drawn and haggard. He looked very, very old and beaten.
+
+"I--I would prefer," he said dully, "that you did not tell where I am,
+and that you go away and leave me here. I--I may have some subjects
+who will search for me, and--they may discover me here.... But I am
+beaten, Senor. You know that you have won."
+
+Bell swung up on the wing of the plane. He explored about in the
+cabin. He came back.
+
+"There are emergency supplies," he said coldly. "We will leave them
+with you, with such things as may be useful to allow you to hope as
+long as possible. I do not think you will ever be found here."
+
+"I--prefer it, Senor," said The Master dully. "I--I will catch
+fish...."
+
+Jamison helped put the packages ashore. The Master shivered. Bell
+stripped off his coat and put it on top of the heap of packages. The
+Master did not stir. Bell laid a revolver on top of his coat. He went
+out to the plane and started the motors. The Master watched
+apathetically as the big seaplane pulled clumsily out of the little
+cove. The rumble of the engines became a mighty roar. It started
+forward with a rush, skimmed the water for two hundred yards or so,
+and suddenly lifted clear to go floating away through the air toward
+the north.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paula was the only one who looked back.
+
+"He's crying," she said uncomfortably.
+
+"It isn't fear," said Bell quietly. "It's grief at the loss of his
+ambition. It may not seem so to you two, but I believe he meant all
+that stuff he told me. He was probably really aiming, in his own way,
+for an improved world for men to live in."
+
+The plane roared on. Presently Bell said shortly:
+
+"That stuff he has won't last indefinitely. I'm glad I left him that
+revolver."
+
+Jamison stirred suddenly. He dug down in his pocket and fished out a
+cigar.
+
+"Since I feel that I may live long enough to finish smoking this," he
+observed dryly, "I think I'll light it. I haven't felt that I had
+twenty minutes of life ahead of me for a long time, now. A sense of
+economy made me smoke cigarettes. It wouldn't be so much waste if you
+left half a cigarette behind you when you were killed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tight little cabin began to reek of the tobacco. Paula pressed
+close to Bell.
+
+"But--Charles," she asked hopefully, "is--is it really all right,
+now?"
+
+"I think so," said Bell, frowning. "Our job's over, anyhow. We go up
+the Chilean coast and find that navy boat. We turn our stuff over to
+them. They'll take over the task of seeing that every doctor,
+everywhere in South America, knows how to get The Master's poison out
+of the system of anybody who's affected. Some of them won't be
+reached, but most of them will. I looked at his formula. Standard
+drugs, all of them. There won't be any trouble getting the news
+spread. The Master's slaves will nearly go crazy with joy. And," he
+added grimly, "I'm going to see to it that the Rio police take back
+what they said about us. I think we'll have enough pull to demand that
+much!"
+
+He was silent for a moment or so, thinking.
+
+"I do think, Jamison," he said presently, "we did a pretty good job."
+
+Jamison grunted.
+
+"If--if it's really over," said Paula hopefully, "Charles--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You--will be able to think about me sometimes," asked Paula
+wistfully, "instead of about The Master always?"
+
+Bell stared down at her.
+
+"Good Lord!" he groaned. "I have been a brute, Paula! But I've been
+loving you--" He stopped, and then said with the elaborate politeness
+and something of the customary idiotic air of a man making such an
+announcement. "I say, Jamison, did you know Paula and I were to be
+married?"
+
+Jamison snorted. Then he said placidly:
+
+"No. Of course not. I never dreamed of such a thing. When did this
+remarkably original idea occur to you?"
+
+He puffed a huge cloud of smoke from his cigar. It was an unusually
+vile cigar. Bell scowled at him helplessly for a moment and then said
+wrathfully:
+
+"Oh, go to hell!"
+
+And he bent over and kissed Paula.
+
+(_The End._)
+
+[Advertisement: IN THE NEXT ISSUE
+
+JETTA OF THE LOWLANDS
+_Beginning an Exciting Three-Part Novel of the Nares Deep_
+By Ray Cummings
+
+AN ATTACK FROM SPACE
+_A Sequel to "Beyond the Heaviside Layer"_
+By Captain S. P. Meek
+
+MAROONED UNDER THE SEA
+_A Thrilling Novelet of the Ocean Floor_
+By Paul Ernst
+
+EARTH, THE MARAUDER
+_The Conclusion of the Tremendous Novel_
+By Arthur J. Burks
+
+----_AND OTHERS!_]
+
+
+
+
+The Flying City
+
+_By H. Thompson Rich_
+
+[Illustration: The ray shot down--and squadrons of planes frizzled
+like moths in the air.]
+
+[Sidenote: From Space came Cor's disc-city of Vada--its mighty,
+age-old engines weakening--its horde of dwarfs hungry for the Earth!]
+
+
+In the burning solitude of the great Arizona desert, some two miles
+south of Ajo, a young scientist was about to perform an experiment
+that might have far-reaching results for humanity.
+
+The scientist was Gordon Kendrick--a tall, tanned, robust chap who
+looked more like a prospector in search of gold than a professor of
+physics from the State University of Tucson.
+
+Indeed, he was in a way, a prospector, since it was gold he
+sought--some practical method of tapping the vast radio-energetic
+treasure of the sun--and it was an apparatus designed to accomplish
+just this that he was about to test.
+
+The primary unit of the mechanism comprised a spheroidal vacuum-tube
+measuring a little over a foot across its long axis, mounted in a
+steel bracket that held it horizontal with the ground. Down through
+its short axis ran a shaft on which was centered a light cross of
+aluminum wire, carrying four vanes of mica, one face of each coated
+with lampblack. A flexible cable led from the bottom of this shaft to
+the base of the bracket, where it was geared to a small electric motor
+driven by two dry cells. A rheostat-switch for delivering and
+controlling the current was mounted nearby.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At the wide arc of the egg-shaped tube was a concave platinum cathode,
+at the narrow arc a nib of some sort, ending in a socket. From this
+socket, two heavy insulated wires extended sixty feet or so across the
+sand to the secondary unit of the mechanism, which was roughly a
+series of resistance coils, resembling those in an ordinary electric
+heater.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Kendrick prepared to test this delicate apparatus that represented
+so much of his time and thought, held so much of his hope locked up in
+it, a turmoil was in his heart, though his brown face was calm.
+
+If his theories were right, that revolving cross would tap and draw
+into its vanes radio-energetic waves of force, much as the whirling
+armature of a dynamo draws into its coils electro-magnetic waves of
+force. For the blackened sides of the vanes, absorbing more radiation
+than the bright sides, would cause the molecules to rebound from the
+warmer surfaces with greater velocity, setting up an alternate
+pressure and bringing the rays to a focus on the cathode, where they
+would be reflected to the nib as waves of _heatricity_, to use the
+word he had coined.
+
+Those were Kendrick's theories, and now he moved to put them to the
+supreme test. Switching on the current, he set the motor going. In
+response, the cross began to revolve, slowly at first--then faster,
+faster, as he opened the rheostat wider.
+
+Eyes fixed on his resistance coils, he gave a sudden cry of triumph.
+Yes, there was no doubt about it! They were growing red, glowing
+brightly, whitely, above the intense desert sunlight.
+
+Here was a means of convening solar radiation into heat, then, that
+offered tremendous commercial possibilities!
+
+But even as he exulted, there came a blinding flash--and the overtaxed
+coils burst into flame.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shielding his eyes from the glare, he reached for the rheostat, shut
+off the current, rushed to his secondary unit--where he beheld an
+amazing sight. Not only had this part of the apparatus completely
+disintegrated, but the sand of the desert floor under it as well. On
+the spot quivered a miniature lake of molten glass!
+
+As Kendrick stood ruefully beside that fiery pool, meditating on the
+spectacular but not altogether gratifying results of his experiment, a
+peculiar low humming sound reached his ears. Rushing back to his
+primary unit, with the thought that perhaps by some chance he had not
+fully closed the rheostat, he looked at the cross. But no, the vanes
+were still.
+
+The humming increased, however--grew into a vibration that made his
+eardrums ache.
+
+Puzzled, he looked around. What on earth could it be? Had his unruly
+experiment called into play some tremendous, unsuspected force of the
+universe. Was he to bring the world to ruin, as a result of his blind
+groping after this new giant of power?
+
+Such predictions had often been made by the ignorant, to be dismissed
+by scientists as the veriest nonsense. But was there some truth in the
+universal fear, after all? Was he to be the Prometheus who stole fire
+from Olympus, the Samson who toppled down the temple?
+
+Chilled, dizzied with the pain of the ever-increasing vibration, he
+gritted his teeth, awaiting he knew not what.
+
+Then it came--a spectacle so staggering that he went rigid with awe as
+he regarded it, all power of motion utterly numbed for the moment. The
+vibration ceased. The thing appeared.
+
+It was a city--a city in the air--a flying city!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Kendrick stood staring at this phenomenon, he could scarcely credit
+his senses.
+
+Had the magic carpet of Bagdad suddenly materialized before him, he
+would not have been more astounded. And indeed, it was in a way a
+magic carpet--a great disclike affair, several miles in diameter, its
+myriad towers and spires glinting like gold under the noonday sun,
+while its vast shadow fell athwart the desert like the pall of an
+eclipse.
+
+The lower portion, he noted, was in the main flat, though a number of
+wartish protuberances jutted down from it, ejecting a pale violet
+emanation. Whatever this was it seemed to have the effect of holding
+the thing motionless in the air, for it hovered there quite easily, a
+hundred yards or so above the ground.
+
+But what was it? Where was it from? What had brought it?
+
+Those were the questions he wanted answered; and they were to be,
+sooner than he knew.
+
+As he stood there speculating, a device like a trap-door opened in the
+base of the disc, and creatures resembling human beings began
+descending. Began floating down, rather.
+
+Whereupon Kendrick did what any sensible man would have done, under
+similar circumstances. He reacted into motion. In short, he ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Glancing back over his shoulder after a minute or two, however, he
+drew up sheepishly. Of that strange apparition and those who had
+descended from it there was not a trace, not a shadow!
+
+But the peculiar humming had recommenced, he realized in the next
+breath--and at the same instant he felt himself seized by invisible
+hands.
+
+There was a struggle, but it was brief and futile. When it was over
+his captors became visible once more. They were singular little beings
+about four feet tall, with strange, wise, leathery faces, their heads
+grotesquely bald.
+
+The humming had ceased again. The disc, too, was once more visible.
+
+What happened next was something even more astounding, if there could
+be any further degrees of wonder possible for the utterly baffled
+young scientist. He felt himself lifted up, leaving the desert floor,
+whirling away toward that incredible phenomenon hovering there.
+
+Another moment or two and he had been borne up through its trap-door
+opening, was standing in a dark space bounded by solid metal walls.
+Then he was thrust into a cylinder with several of his tiny guards,
+shot swiftly upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A door opened as they came to rest, and he was led out into a vast
+court of gleaming amber crystal. Something like a taxi slid up, with
+irridescent planes, and he was bundled into it, whirled away again.
+
+Down broad, gleaming avenues they passed, where similar traffic flowed
+densely, but under marvelous control. Towering skyscrapers loomed to
+right and left. Tier on tier of upper and lower boulevards revealed
+themselves, all crowded with automotive and pedestrian activity.
+
+At length a stupendous concourse was reached. Thousands of these taxis
+and similar vehicles were parked along its broad flanks, while literal
+swarms of diminutive individuals circulated to and fro.
+
+Assisted from the vehicle that had brought him to this obvious center
+of the disc's activities. Kendrick was led into a monumental structure
+of jade-green stone that towered a full hundred, stories above the
+street level. There he was escorted into another of those
+projectilelike elevators, shot up, up--till at length it came to rest.
+The door opened and he was led out into a small lobby of the same
+amber crystal he had observed before.
+
+By now his guards had diminished to two, but he no longer made any
+effort to escape. Wherever this amazing adventure might lead, he was
+resolved to follow it through.
+
+One of the guards had advanced to a jewelled door and was pressing a
+button. In response, the door opened. A golden-robed, regal creature
+stood there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though dwarfed to four feet, like his fellow, he was obviously their
+mental superior to a prodigious degree. Not only was his symmetrical
+bald head of large brain content, but the finely-cut features of his
+parchment face bore the unmistakable stamp of a powerful intellect.
+
+"_Ao-chaa!_" commanded this evident monarch of the disc, addressing
+the guards.
+
+They bowed and departed, abruptly.
+
+"My dear Kendrick!" the regal personage now said, in thin, precise
+English. "It is indeed a pleasure to welcome you to my humble
+quarters. Pray enter and make yourself comfortable."
+
+Whereupon he ushered him into a dazzling apartment that was one vast
+mosaic of precious gems, indicated a richly carved chair, into which
+the young scientist dropped wonderingly.
+
+"Now then, Professor," continued the mighty little dwarf, when he was
+seated in a chair even more sumptuous, "suppose we have a friendly
+little discussion. I have been much interested in your experiments on
+heat radiation. What you demonstrated this morning, in particular, was
+most absorbing. You have hit upon a rather profound scientific
+principle, yes?"
+
+"Possibly," Kendrick admitted, quite conscious that he was being
+patronized.
+
+"Oh, don't be modest, my dear fellow!" smiled the dwarf. "I am the
+last one to belittle your achievement. Indeed, it is because of it
+that I have invited you here to-day. Permit me to introduce myself,
+and to make clear one or two possibly perplexing matters. Then I am
+sure we shall have a most agreeable chat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His name was Cor, he said, and he was in truth the monarch of this
+strange realm. His people had come from the one-time planet of Vada,
+far distant in the universe. A thousand years ago, this planet had
+been doomed by the approach of an alien star. Their great scientist,
+Ravv, had met the emergency by inventing the disc, into whose
+construction they had poured all their resources. The pick of their
+populace had been salvaged on this giant life-raft. The rest had
+perished when that destroying star had crashed down on the doomed
+Vada.
+
+Since then these survivors and their descendants had been voyaging
+through space on their marvelous disc. For hundreds of years they had
+given no thought to the future, content to drift on and on in the
+interstellar void, breathing an atmosphere produced artificially. But
+at length the inevitable had happened. This superb piece of mechanism
+devised by their super-genius, Ravv, was beginning to show signs of
+wear. Some of its mighty engines were nearing the exhaustion point.
+Either they must soon find a planet comparable with the one they had
+once known, where they could pause and rehabilitate their machinery,
+or they must disintegrate and pass into oblivion.
+
+Faced with that crisis, Cor had long been seeking such a planet. He
+had found it, at last, in the earth--and had resolved that this was
+where they were going to alight and transplant the civilization of
+ancient Vada, pending such time as they could take to space again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some months now they had been hovering over various portions of
+the earth, studying its geography and its peoples, with the result
+that they had concluded the United States offered the most logical
+point for launching the attack. Once this country was subdued, they
+were in possession of the richest and most advanced section of the
+planet. The conquest of the rest of it could await their leisure.
+
+With such an invasion in view, their scientists had mastered the
+language of the country. This had been accomplished very easily, since
+in addition to their power of mingling with the populace in an
+invisible form, they had the principles of radio developed to a high
+degree and were able to tune in on any station they wanted.
+
+Kendrick sat there, stunned, as Cor followed his astounding revelation
+of their origin with this calm plan for the conquest of America, of
+the world. Why, of all people on earth, had he alone been singled out
+for this disclosure?
+
+He asked the question now.
+
+"My dear Professor, can't you really guess?" replied Cor, with that
+leathery smile. "Hasn't it dawned that you were a little too near our
+own field with that machine of yours? A trifle more research, a
+slightly different application--and you would have become a dangerous
+enemy."
+
+"You--you mean--?"
+
+"I mean there isn't a great deal of difference between the experiments
+you have been making and those our great Ravv once made. For instance,
+had you broadcast your heatricity, as you call it, instead of trying
+to transmit it on wires--well, picture a receiving apparatus in each
+home of the land, like your commercial radio sets. You would have
+become a billionaire, don't you see?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick saw indeed. It was simple, so simple! Fool--why hadn't he
+thought of it?
+
+"But your invention will never make you wealthy now, my dear fellow,"
+Cor went on, tauntingly. "You will be our guest, here, until we have
+taken over your interesting country. After that, if there is any need
+for the broadcasting of heat, we will furnish it ourselves. We have
+those facilities, among others, fully developed. Would you care to see
+our plant?"
+
+Kendrick naturally admitted that he would, so the dwarf led him
+through a rear door and up a winding flight of stairs. They emerged
+presently into a great laboratory housed in the glass-roofed pinnacle
+of the tower.
+
+There he beheld a sight that left him breathless. Never before had he
+seen such an assemblage of scientific apparatus. Its vastness and
+strangeness were fairly overpowering, even to a man as well versed in
+physio-chemical paraphernalia as he was.
+
+Before his eyes could take in a tenth part of the spectacle, Cor had
+led him to the left wall.
+
+"There," he said, "you will observe a development of your heat
+generator."
+
+Kendrick looked--to see a long bank of large vacuum-tubes, each about
+three feet high and a foot wide, connected by a central shaft that
+caused series of little vanes in each of them to revolve at lightning
+speed.
+
+Around the apparatus moved numerous small attendants, oiling, wiping,
+adjusting its many delicate parts.
+
+"Well, what do you think now?" asked Cor.
+
+Kendrick made no reply, though he was thinking plenty.
+
+"You see, it is your invention, my dear Professor," the dwarf went on
+in his taunting voice, "only anteceded by a thousand years--and rather
+more perfected, you must admit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He walked now to the center of the laboratory, where stood a huge dial
+of white crystal, ranked with many levers and switches, all capped
+with the same material.
+
+"Behold!" he said, throwing over one.
+
+Instantly there came again that peculiar low humming that had so
+puzzled him a few minutes before--and the entire room, its engines,
+its attendants, Cor himself, leapt into invisibility. Only Kendrick
+remained, facing the faintly visible crystal dial.
+
+Then he saw a switch move, as though automatically. But no, for the
+dwarf's hand was on it now. Visibility had returned. The vibration
+ceased.
+
+"That is the central control," said Cor. "Our city and all its
+inhabitants become invisible when that switch is thrown. Only the dial
+remains, for the guidance of the operator, and even that cannot be
+seen at a distance of more than fifty feet. But now behold!"
+
+He raised his hand, touched a watch-like device strapped to his
+wrist--and was instantly invisible. But the laboratory and every
+machine and person in it remained in plain view. Nor was there any
+vibration now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next moment, having touched that curious little device again, Cor
+reappeared.
+
+"That is the local control," he said. "Every one of our inhabitants,
+except those under discipline, has one of these little mechanisms. It
+enables us to make ourselves invisible at will. A convenience at
+times, you must admit."
+
+"Decidedly," Kendrick agreed. "And the principle?"
+
+"Quite simple. One of those, in fact, that lies behind your
+researches. Doubtless you would have hit upon it yourself in time.
+Your own scientist, Faraday, you may recall, held the opinion that the
+various forms under which the forces of matter manifest themselves
+have a common origin. We of the disc, thanks to our great Ravv, have
+found that common origin."
+
+It was the origin of matter itself, Cor said, which lay in the ether
+of interstellar space--energy, raw, cosmic--vibrations, rays.
+
+By harnessing and controlling these various rays, his people had been
+able to accomplish their seeming miracles--miracles that the people of
+earth, too, were beginning to achieve--as in electricity, for
+instance, and its further application, radio.
+
+But the people of Vada had long since mastered such simple rays, and
+now, in possession of vastly more powerful ones, had the elemental
+forces of the universe at their disposal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The disc was propelled through space by short rays of tremendously
+high frequency, up above the ultra-violet. The same rays, directed
+downward instead of outward, enabled them to overcome the pull of
+gravity when in a planet's influence, as at present. And the escalator
+rays, by which they could proceed to and from the disc, were also of
+high frequency, as were their invisibility rays.
+
+"But you, Professor, are more interested in low frequency rays, the
+long ones down below infra-red," continued Cor. "You have seen our
+development of the heat-dynamo principle. It utilizes, I might add,
+not only solar radiation but that of the stars as well. There being a
+billion and a half of these in the universe, many of them a thousand
+times or more as large as your own sun, we naturally have quite an
+efficient little heating plant here. It provides us with our weapon of
+warfare, as well as keeping us warm. Permit me to demonstrate."
+
+He led the way to a gleaming circle of glass like an inverted
+telescope, about a yard in diameter, mounted in the floor.
+
+"Look!" said the dwarf.
+
+Kendrick did so--and there, spread below him, lay the floor of the
+desert. His camp, his apparatus, were just as he had left them.
+
+Cor now moved toward the dial.
+
+"Behold!" he said, pulling a lever.
+
+Instantly the scene below was an inferno. Stricken by a blast of
+stupendous heat, the whole area went molten, lay quivering like a lake
+of lava in the crater of an active volcano.
+
+"Suppose, my dear Professor," smiled the dwarf, strolling back from
+the dial, "just suppose, for instance, that instead of the lonely
+camp of an obscure scientist, your proud city of New York had been
+below there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick shuddered.
+
+Well he knew now the terrible power, the appalling menace of this
+strange invader.
+
+"I would prefer not to make such a supposition," he said, quietly,
+with a last thoughtful glance at that witches' caldron below.
+
+"Then let us think of pleasanter things. You are my guest of honor,
+sir--America's foremost scientist, though she may never realize it,"
+with a piping chuckle. "To-night there will be a great banquet in your
+honor. Meanwhile, suppose I show you to your quarters."
+
+Nettled, fuming, though outwardly calm, Kendrick permitted himself to
+be escorted from the laboratory to an ornate apartment on one of the
+lower floors.
+
+There Cor left him, with the polite hint that he would find plenty of
+attendants handy should he require anything.
+
+Alone now, in the midst of this vast, nightmarish metropolis, he paced
+back and forth, back and forth--knowing the hideous fate that
+threatened the world but powerless to issue one word of warning, much
+less avert it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick was still thinking and brooding along these lines when he saw
+the door of the apartment swiftly open and close again.
+
+Someone had entered, invisible!
+
+Backing away, he waited, tense. Then, suddenly, his visitor
+materialized. With a gasp, he saw standing before him a beautiful
+girl.
+
+She was a young woman, rather, in her early twenties. Not one of these
+pigmies of the disc either, but a tall, slender creature of his own
+world.
+
+Her hair was dark, modishly bobbed. Her eyes were a deep, clear brown,
+her skin a warm olive. And she was dressed as though she had just
+stepped off Fifth Avenue--which indeed she had, not so long ago, as
+he was soon to learn.
+
+"I hope I haven't startled you too much, Mr. Kendrick," she said, in a
+rich, husky murmur, "but--well, there wasn't any other way."
+
+"Oh, I guess I'll get over it," he replied with a smile. "But you have
+the advantage of me, since you know my name."
+
+Hers was Marjorie Blake, she told him then.
+
+"Not the daughter of Henderson Blake?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes," with a tremor, "his only daughter."
+
+Whereupon Kendrick knew the solution of a mystery that had baffled the
+police for weeks. The newspapers had been full of it at the time. This
+beautiful girl, whose father was one of America's richest men and
+president of its largest bank, had disappeared as though the earth had
+swallowed her. She had left their summer estate at Great Neck, Long
+Island, on a bright June morning, bound for New York on a shopping
+tour--and had simply vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suicide had been hinted by some of the papers, but had not been taken
+seriously, since she had no apparent motive for ending her life.
+Abduction seemed to be the more logical explanation, and huge rewards
+had been offered by her frantic parents--all to no avail.
+
+What had happened was, she now explained, that after visiting several
+shops and making a number of purchases, she had stepped into Central
+Park at the Plaza for a breath of fresh air before lunching at the
+Sherry-Netherlands, where she planned to meet some friends.
+
+But before advancing a hundred yards along the secluded path, she had
+been seized by invisible hands--had felt something strapped to her
+wrist, before anyone came in sight--and then, invisible too, had been
+lifted up, whirled away into a vast, humming vibration that sounded
+through the air.
+
+Once on the disc, it had swept off into space at incredible speed,
+pausing only when some hundreds of miles above the earth and invisible
+from below without mechanical aid. When its vibration finally ceased
+that amazing city had leapt before her eyes.
+
+Then, her own visibility restored, she had been led into the presence
+of that mighty little monarch, Cor, who explained that she had been
+seized as a hostage and would be held as an ace in the hole, pending
+conquest of her country. Since when she had been a prisoner aboard the
+disc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Learning of Kendrick's capture, from gossip among the women, she had
+taken the first opportunity of coming to him, in the hope that between
+them they might devise some means of escape.
+
+Indeed, that was his own fondest hope--their imperative need, if the
+people of America and of the earth were to be saved from this
+appalling menace. But what basis was there for such a fantastic hope?
+Just one, that he could see.
+
+"That thing on your wrist," he said, voicing it. "I'm surprised they
+let you wear one of those."
+
+"They don't," she smiled. "I stole it!--from one of the maids in my
+apartment. It was the only way I could get here without being seen. I
+felt I must see you at once. We've got to do something, soon, or it'll
+be too late. I felt that, as a scientist, you might have some idea how
+we could get off."
+
+"How do the people themselves get off?" he asked. "That escalator
+ray--do you know how they use it?"
+
+"No, I've never been able to find out. They don't let me go near that
+part of the city."
+
+Kendrick reflected a moment.
+
+"Let's have a look at that invisibility affair," he said.
+
+She removed it from her wrist, handed it to him. Somewhat in awe, he
+examined it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mechanism portion, which was linked in a strap of elastic metal,
+resembled only superficially a watch, he now saw. Rather it had the
+appearance of some delicate electric switch. Rectangular in shape, it
+was divided into two halves by a band of white crystal. In each of
+these halves were two little buttons of the same material, those on
+one side round, on the other square.
+
+"Which buttons control the invisibility?" he asked.
+
+"The square ones," she replied. "One's pushed in now, you see. If you
+should push the other, the first would come out--and you'd pass out of
+the picture, so to speak."
+
+Kendrick was half tempted to try the thing then and there, but
+deferred the impulse.
+
+"What are the round buttons for?" he inquired instead.
+
+Marjorie didn't know, but thought they were probably an emergency
+pair, in case something went wrong with the square ones. In any event,
+nothing happened when you pushed them.
+
+Kendrick pushed one, just to see. It was true. Nothing happened--but
+he seemed to sense a faint, peculiar vibration and a wave of giddiness
+swept over him. On pushing the other, which released the first, it
+stopped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He handed the device back to Marjorie.
+
+"There's your bracelet. Now, if I can just get one like it, I think
+we'll get down to earth all right."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kendrick!" Her eyes lit up eagerly. "Then you've thought of a
+way?"
+
+"Not exactly. I think I've discovered their own way. I can't be
+certain, but I'm willing to gamble on it, if you are."
+
+"Then you--you think those round buttons are connected with the
+escalator rays?"
+
+"Exactly! I think they control individual descent and ascent, just as
+the square ones control individual visibility and invisibility. At
+any rate, it's the hunch I'm going to act on right now, if you're with
+me."
+
+"Oh, I'm with, you!" she breathed. "Anything, death almost, would be
+preferable to this."
+
+"Then stand by, invisible. I'm going to get one of my jailors in here
+and relieve him of his wrist-watch."
+
+Marjorie touched that little square button on her own. She instantly
+became invisible.
+
+Kendrick touched a button too, a button he had noticed beside the
+door. As he had supposed, it brought one of the Vadans.
+
+Shutting the door quietly, he seized the fellow before he could move
+his hand to his wrist. Thwarted in his attempt to vanish from sight,
+the diminutive guard attempted an outcry. But Kendrick promptly
+throttled him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Marjorie had reappeared by now and together they bound him to a chair
+with a gilded cord torn from the drapery.
+
+Removing the precious mechanism from his wrist, Kendrick slipped it on
+his own.
+
+"Now let's go!" he said, pressing the protruding square button of the
+device. "We haven't a minute to--my golly, what a peculiar sensation!"
+
+"It is rather odd, isn't it?" she laughed, pressing her own and
+joining him in that invisible realm.
+
+"Feels like a combination electric massage and cold shower! Where are
+you, anyway? I can't see you."
+
+"Of course you can't!" came an unseen tinkle. "Here!"
+
+He felt her brush him.
+
+"Better hold hands," he suggested, then gave an invisible flush he was
+glad she couldn't see.
+
+"All right. A good idea."
+
+Her delicate hand came into his, soft, warm. Heart vibrating even
+faster than his body, his whole being a-quiver with a strange
+exaltation, Kendrick opened the door, and they left the apartment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next half-hour was the tensest either of then had ever
+experienced. Every foot of the way was fraught with peril.
+
+Not only did they have to carefully avoid the visible swarms of little
+people who hurried everywhere, but had to be on their guard as well
+against any who might be moving about like themselves under cover of
+invisibility.
+
+Nor could they use any elevator or public conveyances, but were
+obliged to make their way down to the concourse by heaven knew how
+many flights of stairs, and cross heaven knew how many teeming streets
+on foot, before they reached the amber court, below which the
+trap-door and their hope of freedom.
+
+They got there at last, however, descended, and peered down from that
+yawning brink upon the desert floor--to draw back with gasps of
+dismay. For the area still gleamed semi-molten from the stupendous
+blast that had wiped out Kendrick's camp.
+
+"W-what is it?" she gasped.
+
+Swiftly he told her.
+
+"But isn't there any way around it? Look, over there to the left. One
+edge of the crater seems to end almost underneath us."
+
+It was true that the center of the caldron was far to the right of
+where they stood, and that its left rim was only a little within their
+direct line of descent. But to land even one foot inside that inferno
+would be as fatal as to alight in its very midst.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick was thinking fast.
+
+"There's just a chance," he said. "It all depends upon how wide the
+zone of these escalator rays is, and whether we can tune in on them.
+At least, I can probably answer the latter question."
+
+Pushing the protrudent round button on his mysterious bracelet as he
+spoke, he leaned over the edge of the trap-door and awaited results.
+
+They were not long in coming. The vibration he was already under from
+the invisibility rays seemed to double. Alternate waves of giddiness
+and depression, of push and pull, swept over him.
+
+A minute of it was enough. He pressed the round button that now
+protruded, ending this influence, and faced Marjorie, stating:
+
+"I'm positive now that these things control descent and ascent. As
+nearly as I can figure, the rays work on the principle of an endless
+belt. If you're up here, you get carried down, and vice versa. As to
+how wide the belt is, and whether you can move sideways on it, remains
+to be seen. Anyway, I'm going to take a chance. I'll go first. If my
+guess is wrong, you--well, needn't follow."
+
+"No, I'm going with you!" she declared resolutely. "We've come this
+far together. I shan't be left alone now. Let's go!"
+
+And again her soft, warm hand was in his.
+
+Lord, what a girl! How many would be brave enough to take a gamble
+like that, on a fellow's mere supposition?
+
+"All right--go it is!" he said. "Push your round button, like this."
+He showed her the way he thought was right, pushed his own. "Ready?"
+
+"Ready!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their voices were grave. It was a grim prospect, stepping off into
+space like that, with only a guess between them and death.
+
+"Then jump!"
+
+They jumped, gripping each other's hands tightly--and instead of
+dropping like plummets were caught in a powerful field of force and
+whirled gently downward.
+
+"Oh, you were right!" gasped Marjorie, awed. "See, we--"
+
+Then she paused, horror-stricken, for it was obvious that they were to
+descend within that lake of molten glass, unless they could change
+their course at once.
+
+"Quick!" he called. "Hold fast! Now--run!"
+
+Breathless, they raced to the left, across that invisible descending
+belt.
+
+Too far, Kendrick knew, and they would plunge outside its zone, fall
+crushed and mangled. Not far enough, and they would meet cremation. It
+was a fearful hazard, either way, but it had to be taken.
+
+They were almost down, now, and still not quite far enough to the
+left. The heat of that yawning crater rose toward them.
+
+"Faster--_faster_!" he cried, fairly dragging her along with him.
+
+A last dash--a breathless instant--and they stood there on the ground,
+not three feet from the edge of doom.
+
+Swooning with the heat, Marjorie swayed against him, murmured an
+incoherent prayer.
+
+"Take heart!" he whispered, lifting her bodily and bearing her some
+yards away. "We're down--safe!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their safety was but relative, however, Kendrick well knew. Until they
+could put miles between them and this monstrous disc, they were not
+really safe. No telling how soon their escape might be discovered. No
+telling what terrible means Cor might take of curbing their flight.
+
+So as soon as Marjorie had recovered sufficiently to proceed, they
+headed off across the desert at a fast walk toward Ajo, where he hoped
+to catch the afternoon train for Gila Bend. From there, they could
+board the limited for Tucson and points east, when it came through
+from Yuma that night.
+
+They had tuned out on the escalator rays, but continued on still
+invisible--for the disc hung above them in plain view and it would
+have been suicide to let themselves be seen.
+
+Even so, Kendrick soon began to have an uneasy feeling of being
+followed. He looked around from time to time, but could see nothing.
+Were some of those invisible little creatures on their trail?
+
+He said nothing to Marjorie of his anxiety, but presently she too
+began glancing backward uneasily, every few steps.
+
+"They are near us!" she said at length, in a whisper. "I can sense
+them."
+
+It was more than sense, they soon discovered. Little paddings became
+quite audible, and once or twice they saw the sand scuffed up, not
+twenty feet away, as though by a foot passing over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile they were climbing a rise of ground, broken by many small
+hummocks and dotted with thorny shrubs. On the other side, at the foot
+of a long down-slope, lay Ajo.
+
+Once they reached the summit, Kendrick felt sure they could
+outdistance their pursuers on the descent. Already, if his watch was
+right, the train was preparing to pull out. It would be a breathless
+dash, but he was confident they could make it.
+
+So he reassured Marjorie as best he could, and helped her on up the
+slope.
+
+They were practically on the summit and already in view of the little
+railroad station and huddle of shacks below--when suddenly he felt
+himself tripped and flung violently to the ground. At the same
+instant, his companion emitted a scream, as she felt herself seized by
+invisible hands.
+
+Leaping to his feet, Kendrick flailed out with solid fists at their
+attackers. Groans answered the impacts and he knew his blows were
+taking effect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Free for a moment he dashed to Marjorie, felt for the midgets who
+swarmed around her. Seizing one of the invisible forms, he lifted it
+and flung it crashing to the ground. Another, likewise, and another.
+
+Then he threshed his legs, where two of the creatures clung, trying to
+drag him down again. They flew through the air, with cries of fright.
+
+"Well, so far, so good!" he exclaimed. "We won't wait to see if there
+are any more. Come on--let's go!"
+
+"Right!"
+
+Reaching for each other's hands, they raced down the slope.
+
+Halfway there they saw a warning blast of steam rise from the engine,
+followed by a whistle.
+
+"They'll be pulling out in a minute now!" he gasped, increasing speed.
+"We've got to make it!--our only chance!"
+
+"We _will_ make it!" she sobbed through clenched teeth, meeting his
+pace.
+
+Glancing over his shoulder, after another fifteen seconds, Kendrick
+saw that the disc was no longer visible. Since there was no vibration
+he realized with relief that it was now hidden behind the slope they
+were descending.
+
+"Quick--push your button!" he said, pushing his own.
+
+They came out of the influence of the invisibility rays, raced
+breathless on down the slope--gained the station platform just as the
+train was getting under way.
+
+Helping the exhausted girl aboard, he mounted the steps himself, led
+her through the vestibule into its single passenger coach.
+
+Dropping into a seat, they sat there panting as the train gathered
+speed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the time the decrepit but life-saving little local drew into Gila
+Bend they had somewhat recovered from their harrowing experience.
+
+Marjorie was still pale, however, as Kendrick helped her from the
+train.
+
+"I may recover," she said with a wan smile, "but I'll never look the
+same! An old saying, but I know what it means now."
+
+He thought better of a sudden impulse to tell her she looked quite all
+right to him. Instead, he said grimly:
+
+"I know now what a lot of things mean!"
+
+The Tucson limited would not be through for over an hour, they
+learned. That would give them time to hunt up the authorities and
+sound a warning of the ominous invader that was in the vicinity.
+Perhaps, by prompt military action, it might be destroyed, or at least
+crippled.
+
+But first they went to the telegraph office, where Marjorie got off a
+message that would bring joy to her grieved family.
+
+While standing there outside the barred window, odors of food wafting
+to them from a nearby lunch-room.
+
+"Um-m!" she sniffed. "That smells good to me! I haven't tasted any
+earthly cooking for ages. Everything on that horrible disc was
+synthetic."
+
+"Then I suggest we have ham and eggs, at once," he said. "Or would you
+prefer a steak?"
+
+"I think I'll have both!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they walked into the lunch-room, Kendrick told her of the banquet
+in his honor Cor had promised for that night.
+
+"I guess I didn't miss much," he ended.
+
+"You certainly didn't!" she assured him, with a smile. "It would have
+opened with a puree of split-molecule soup, continued with an entree
+of breaded electrons, and closed with an ionic cafe."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I'm just as well satisfied. I was unable to attend! Humble as it is,
+I think this will prove to be much more wholesome food."
+
+Night had fallen by the time they left the lunch-room. Glancing at his
+watch, Kendrick saw that they still had better than a half-hour before
+the limited was due, so they betook themselves to the police station.
+
+It was only a block away and in consequence they weren't long reaching
+it.
+
+The chief had gone home, the officer at the desk informed them, but if
+there was anything they cared to report, he would be glad to make note
+of it.
+
+A big raw-boned westerner, he shifted his quid as he spoke and spat
+resoundingly in a cuspidor at his feet.
+
+"All right, then--get your pencil ready!" said Kendrick with a smile.
+"This is Miss Marjorie Blake, daughter of Henderson Blake, of New
+York. Perhaps you read of her disappearance, a few weeks ago. And
+I...."
+
+As he introduced himself and told briefly of their astounding
+experience, the officer's eyes bulged with amazement.
+
+"Say, what yuh-all tryin' to hand me?" he snorted finally. "D'yuh
+think I was born simple?"
+
+"Press your button!" whispered Marjorie. "Show him how the
+invisibility ray works. It'll save a lot of argument."
+
+"Right!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He held up his wrist.
+
+"See this? Now watch!"
+
+Whereupon he pressed the button. But to their dismay, nothing
+happened.
+
+"Wa-al. I'm still watchin'!" drawled the officer. "Who's loony now?"
+
+Kendrick examined the mechanism in impatience, pressed that little
+button repeatedly: but still nothing happened.
+
+"Try yours!" he told Marjorie finally.
+
+She did so, with similar results--or lack of them, rather.
+
+"Something's wrong," he said at length. "The ray isn't working."
+
+"Wrong is right!" declared the officer with a contemptuous flood of
+tobacco juice. "Yuh folks better go catch yuhr train 'fore yuh ferget
+where it is."
+
+Chagrined, embarrassed, they took their leave, headed back toward the
+railroad station.
+
+"Of all the utterly silly things!" declared Marjorie, as they walked
+along. "Why do you suppose it didn't work?"
+
+Kendrick didn't reply at once. When he did, his voice was grave.
+
+"Because the disc has gone!" he said. "We are outside its zone of
+influence. That's my hunch, at least, and I think we'd better act on
+it."
+
+"You mean...?"
+
+"I mean our escape has probably caused them to hurry their plans.
+They're probably over New York right now. I think we'd better get
+there the quickest possible way."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The result was that when the train came, they remained on it only to
+Tucson. There they chartered a fast plane and started east at once.
+
+At sunset the following day the plane swooped out of the sky and slid
+to rest on the broad grounds of the Blake estate at Great Neck.
+
+As Kendrick stepped from the cabin and helped Marjorie down, a tall,
+distinguished-looking man with graying hair and close-cropped mustache
+came hurrying toward them.
+
+"Daddy!" she cried, rushing into his arms. "Oh, Daddy--Daddy!"
+
+Even without this demonstration. Kendrick would have recognized
+Henderson Blake from pictures he had seen recently in the papers.
+
+Now he was introduced, and Blake was gripping his hand warmly.
+
+"I don't quite know what this is all about, Professor," he heard the
+great financier say. "Marjorie's telegram last night was as cryptic as
+it was over-joying. But I do know that I owe you a deep debt of
+gratitude."
+
+"Yes, and you owe our pilot about a thousand dollars, too!" put in the
+daughter of the house, clinging to her father's arm. "Please give him
+a check--then we'll go inside and I'll explain all about it."
+
+"A matter very much easier dispatched than my debt to Professor
+Kendrick," said Blake, complying.
+
+The check was for two thousand, not one, the pilot saw when he
+received it.
+
+"Thank you very much, sir!" he said, saluting.
+
+"Don't mention it. Good night--and good luck to you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The pilot returned to his plane, it lifted from the lawn, droned off
+into the twilight.
+
+Then they approached the cool white villa that stood invitingly a
+hundred yards or so away beyond sunken gardens.
+
+As they neared it, a handsome, well-preserved woman whose face
+reflected Marjorie's own beauty came toward them. Lines of suffering
+were still evident around her sensitive mouth, but her dark eyes were
+radiant.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"My poor darling!"
+
+They rushed into each other's arms, clung, sobbing and laughing.
+
+Kendrick was glad when these intimate greetings were over and he had
+met Mrs. Blake.
+
+They were in the drawing-room now, listening to a somewhat more lucid
+account of their daughter's experiences and those of her rescuer.
+Marjorie was doing most of the talking, but every now and again she
+would turn to Kendrick for verification.
+
+"Heavens!" gasped Mrs. Blake, finally. "Can such things be possible?"
+
+"Almost anything seems possible nowadays, my dear," her husband told
+her. "And you say, Professor, that you have brought back samples of
+this invisibility device?"
+
+"Yes, we have, but I can't promise they'll work. I'll try, however."
+
+Whereupon, sceptically, he pressed that little square button--and
+instantly faded out of sight.
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Blake, leaping to his feet. "That proves it! Why,
+this is positively--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His remarks were cut short by a scream of terror from his wife.
+
+"Marjorie--Marjorie!" she shrieked.
+
+Wheeling, he faced the chair where his daughter had sat. It was empty,
+so far as human eyes could see.
+
+"Don't worry Mother--Daddy!" came a calm voice from it. "I'm quite all
+right--coming back--steady."
+
+And back she came, as did Kendrick, from the empty chair beside her.
+
+His face was grave. The success of the demonstration, which had proved
+their story to practical-minded Henderson Blake, had proved to him
+something altogether more significant. The disc, as he had surmised,
+had rushed eastward immediately on learning of their escape, and was
+now probably hovering right over New York.
+
+"Marvelous--marvelous!" declared Blake. "But that heat ray, Professor.
+That sounds bad. You are convinced it is as powerful as they make
+out!"
+
+"Positively! That blast they let go in the desert would have utterly
+destroyed New York."
+
+"Hm! Yes, no doubt you're right. I fully realize how the fearful
+menace of this thing. Do you think the military authorities will be
+able to cope with it?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps, if they are prompt enough."
+
+"And is there no other way--no scientific way?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick grew thoughtful.
+
+"I wonder," he said at last. "There's just a possibility--something
+running through my mind--an experiment I'd like to make, if I had the
+facilities of some large electrical laboratory."
+
+"You shall have them to-morrow!" Blake promised. "I'm one of the
+directors of Consolidated Electric. Their experimental laboratory in
+Brooklyn is the finest of its kind in America. I'll see that you have
+the run of it."
+
+"That will be very kind," said Kendrick. "But don't expect anything to
+come from it, necessarily. It's just a theory I want to work out."
+
+A butler entered at this moment and announced dinner.
+
+"Well, theories are mighty these days!" beamed Blake, as they rose,
+clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "You go ahead with your
+theories--and I'll bring a few facts to bear. To-morrow noon I'll
+escore some military men and others of my friends over to the
+laboratory to hear and see something of this menace direct. Meanwhile,
+and during this crisis, it will honor me to have you as my guest."
+
+"Our guest!" amended Marjorie, with a warm smile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning Blake motored Kendrick out to the Brooklyn Laboratory of
+the Consolidated Electric Utilities Corporation and installed him
+there.
+
+Then he left--to return at noon with the promised delegation of
+generals, admirals, statesmen and financiers.
+
+They were all frankly sceptical, though realizing that Henderson Blake
+was not a man given to exaggeration. Nor did their scepticism
+altogether vanish when Kendrick had ended his bizarre story with a
+demonstration of the invisibility device.
+
+Murmurs of amazement ran around the laboratory, it is true, but the
+more hard-headed of his spectators charged him with having invented
+the apparatus himself. Though they didn't come right out and say so,
+they seemed to imply that he was seeking publicity.
+
+Annoyedly, Kendrick tried to refute their charges. But even as he was
+summoning words, refutation utter and complete came from the air.
+
+A low, humming vibration sounded, grew in volume till it filled the
+room--and as suddenly ceased: The light of midday faded to twilight.
+
+"_The disc!_" gasped Kendrick, rushing to the west windows.
+
+They followed, tense with awe. And there, between earth and sun, its
+myriad towers and spires refracting a weird radiance, hovered that
+vast flying city.
+
+"My God!" muttered a famous general, staring as though he had seen a
+ghost.
+
+A great statesman opened his lips, but no words came.
+
+"Appalling! Incredible!" burst from others of that stunned assemblage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their comments were cut short by a broadcast voice, thin and clear,
+tremendously amplified, a voice Kendrick recognized at once as that of
+Cor.
+
+"People of America!" it said. "We of the planet Vada have come to
+conquer your country. You will be given forty-eight hours to lay down
+your arms. If complete surrender has not been made by high noon, two
+days from now, New York will be destroyed."
+
+The voice ceased. The humming recommenced--waned in volume till it
+died away. Twilight turned once more to midday.
+
+Peering fixedly through the west windows of the laboratory, the little
+assemblage saw the disc swallowed up in the clear blue sky.
+
+Then they turned, faced one another gravely.
+
+Outside, on the streets, confusion reigned. In newspaper plants,
+presses were whirling. In telegraph and cable offices, keys were
+ticking. From radio towers, waves were speeding.
+
+Within an hour, the nation and the world knew of this planetary
+invader and its staggering ultimatum.
+
+Naturally, the government at Washington refused to meet these shameful
+terms. Military and naval forces were rushed to the threatened
+metropolis. The Atlantic Fleet steamed up from Hampton Roads under
+forced draught and assembled in the outer harbor. Thousands of planes
+gathered at Mitchell Field and other nearby aerodromes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But where was the enemy? He must be miles up in space, Kendrick knew,
+as he toiled feverishly in the laboratory over his experiment after a
+sleepless night. For had that flying city been nearer earth, it could
+not have maintained invisibility without that peculiar humming
+vibration.
+
+Scout planes urged on by impatient squadron commanders, climbed till
+they reached their ceilings, searching in vain. They could encounter
+nothing, see nothing of the invader.
+
+Thus passed a morning of growing tension.
+
+But by noon of that day, with a bare twenty-four hours left before
+the expiration of the ultimatum, the disc came down, showed itself
+boldly.
+
+There followed stunning disasters.
+
+One salvo, and the ray shot down--the Atlantic Fleet, the pride of
+America, burst and melted in flaming hell. Squadrons of planes,
+carrying tons of bombs, frizzled like moths in the air. Mighty
+projectiles hurled by land batteries were deflected off on wild
+trajectories.
+
+Appalled, the nation and the world followed in lurid extras these
+crushing defeats.
+
+By nightfall of that day, all seemed lost. All opposition had been
+obliterated. America must capitulate or perish. It had until the next
+noon to decide which.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in that great Brooklyn laboratory, Kendrick was working
+against time, besieged by frantic delegations of the nation's leaders.
+They knew now that their one hope lay in him. Was he succeeding? Was
+there even any hope?
+
+Face haggard, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, he waved them away,
+went on with his work.
+
+"I will tell you--as soon as I know."
+
+That was all he would say.
+
+Followed a night that was the blackest in all history, though the
+myriad stars of heaven shone tauntingly brilliant in the summer sky.
+
+At length, as dawn was breaking. Kendrick paused in his labors.
+
+"There!" he said, grimly, surveying an apparatus that seemed to
+involve the entire facilities of the laboratory. "It is done! Now
+then--will it work?"
+
+The delegation were called to witness the test.
+
+Henderson Blake was among them, as was Marjorie. She stepped forward,
+as he prepared to make the demonstration.
+
+"I _know_, somehow, you're going to be successful!" she murmured,
+pressing his hand, meeting his eyes with a smile of confidence.
+
+"I hope you're right--Marjorie!" he replied, letting slip the last
+word almost unconsciously.
+
+Her face colored warmly as the stepped back and rejoined her father.
+
+Kendrick's heart was beating fast as he turned to his instruments. How
+could he fail, with faith like that behind him?--love, even, perhaps!
+He mustn't fail--nor would he, if his theories were sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Addressing the assemblage, he explained briefly the complicated
+apparatus.
+
+"These towers," he said, pointing to four steel structures about ten
+feet high, arranged at the corners of a square roughly twenty feet
+across, "are miniature radio masts. The area enclosed by them, we will
+assume, is the city of New York. That metal disc suspended above the
+area represents the invader. It contains a miniature heat-generator
+such as I was experimenting with recently in the Arizona desert."
+
+He paused, threw a switch. Somewhere in the laboratory a dynamo began
+to whir.
+
+"I am now sending electro-magnetic waves from the four towers," he
+resumed. "But instead of broadcasting them in every direction. I am
+bending them in concave cathode of force over the city. You may
+picture this cathode as an invisible shield, if you choose, but it is
+more than that. It it a reflector. If my theories are right, the
+radio-energetic ray I am about to project upon it from my miniature
+disc will be flung back to its source as though it had been a ray of
+light falling on a mirror. The success of the experiment depends upon
+what the result will be."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kendrick ceased, moved toward a rheostat.
+
+As he made ready to touch it, a breathless tension settled upon the
+assemblage. Upon the outcome of what was now to happen rested the fate
+of America--and the world.
+
+Calmly, though every fiber of his being was at breaking stress, the
+young scientist opened the rheostat.
+
+For an instant, the ray seared down--then, as it boomeranged back, the
+disc burst into flame, dissolved, disintegrated. A thin dust, like
+carbon, slowly settled to the laboratory floor.
+
+Cutting off the current from the radio towers, Kendrick faced them, a
+light of triumph in his tired eyes.
+
+"You see--it works," he said.
+
+They saw. Beyond a doubt, it worked!
+
+And what Kendrick saw, as his eyes met Marjorie's, made him forget his
+fatigue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rest was a mad scramble of preparation. Only a few brief hours
+remained, and much was to be done.
+
+The application of the principle that had just been demonstrated
+involved a hook-up from the Consolidated Electric laboratory with
+every broadcasting station in the metropolitan area, power being
+supplied by commandeering every generating plant within a radius of
+fifty miles.
+
+The city, moreover, had to be evacuated of all but the few brave
+hundreds who volunteered to stand by their posts at radio stations and
+generating plants.
+
+As for Kendrick, it was the busiest, most hectic morning he had ever
+experienced. Only the realization of a girl's love and a nation's
+trust enabled him to overcome the exhaustion of two sleepless nights.
+
+At length, a little before eleven, all was in readiness. Just two
+questions troubled the young scientist's mind. Had the people of the
+disc learned of their preparations to counter the attack? And would
+the improvised broadcasting apparatus of the area stand the stupendous
+strain that would be placed upon it if the ray came down?
+
+The first of these questions was answered, staggeringly, at a quarter
+after eleven.
+
+"Kendrick--oh, my God!" cried Blake, bursting into the laboratory.
+"Marjorie--they've got her again! Look! Read this!"
+
+He thrust out a piece of paper. Kendrick took it, read:
+
+     Your daughter will be my queen, after this noon.
+
+"Where'd you get it?" he gasped.
+
+"One of the invisible devils thrust it into my hand right out in the
+street, not five minutes ago," Blake explained, trembling with
+anguish. "Do you realize what this means, Kendrick? She's on the disc
+now--and in a scant three-quarters of an hour...."
+
+"Yes, I realize!" his voice came grimly. "And I realize, too, that
+they don't know their fate. They'll stay. There's forty-five minutes
+yet. We can't abandon our defense against the ray, not even for
+Marjorie. But I'll go, I'll rescue her--or die with her!"
+
+And even as Blake mutely reached out his hand to grip that of the
+determined young man who stood before him. Kendrick touched his wrist
+mechanism and went invisible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once on the street, he pressed the escalator button as well--and by
+the strength of the vibrations that followed, he knew he must be very
+close within that mysterious lifting zone.
+
+Running west a block, he found it growing stronger.
+
+Fairly racing now, he continued on toward the river, progress
+unhampered in the deserted streets. Suddenly, with a thrill of
+exultation, he felt himself swept up, whirled away toward that great
+shimmering hulk against the sun.
+
+"What hope?" he was thinking. "What possible hope?" And the answer
+came: Cor!
+
+Reaching the disc, he switched out the escalator influence and
+hastened across the city to that monumental structure of jade-green
+stone.
+
+The mighty little dwarf would be up there in his glittering mosaic
+apartment, or in his pinnacle laboratory, perhaps, ready to pull the
+lever that would release that stupendous blast of heat.
+
+Gaining the jewelled door of the monarch's quarters at last, after
+escaping detection by a hair's breadth more than once, he pressed the
+button outside, just as the guard had done that first time.
+
+In response, the door opened--and there stood Cor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood there an instant, that is, while the expression on his
+leathery face went from inquiry to alarm. Then, as Kendrick burst into
+the room and shut the door, he went invisible.
+
+In that same instant, the young scientist's eyes beheld a sight that
+caused his heart to leap. There sat Marjorie, bound in a chair, an
+expression half of hope, half of dejection, on her face.
+
+"It's I--Gordon!" he called. "Take courage!"
+
+"Oh, I prayed so you'd come--and you came!" she murmured as her face
+lighted. Then, tensely, she added, "The door--look out!"
+
+Kendrick wheeled, and just in time. The door was opening.
+
+"Not so fast!" he called, lunging.
+
+His hands gripped the dwarf, yanked him back, throttled him before he
+could emit a cry, pushed the door shut.
+
+Cor struggled like a madman, but it was futile. Kendrick's hands cut
+into his throat like a vice. After a moment or two, he gasped,
+relaxed.
+
+Releasing his grip then, Kendrick felt for his wrist, stripped off his
+bracelet--whereupon the dwarf became visible. His face was
+putty-white. He was either dead or unconscious.
+
+Restoring his own visibility then, he advanced to Marjorie, swiftly
+freed her.
+
+"Take this!" he said, handing her Cor's bracelet.
+
+She slipped it on.
+
+"Now let's tie him and get out of here. He may be dead, but we can't
+take any chances."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dwarf wasn't dead, however, for he groaned and opened his eyes as
+they lifted him into the chair.
+
+"You win, Professor--but it avails you nothing!" He smiled
+maliciously. "My capture, my death even, will not prevent the ray. The
+orders have been given. It will be projected sharp at twelve. You but
+go to your doom!"
+
+"That," said Kendrick, "is a matter of opinion."
+
+Swiftly they bound him, gagged him.
+
+"And now," he added, "we wish you good day--and such fate as you
+deserve!"
+
+Then, turning to Marjorie:
+
+"Your hand again!"
+
+There was a new tenderness in its soft warmth that thrilled him.
+
+They touched their buttons, went invisible.
+
+Silently, then, they stole from the apartment. Swiftly they made their
+way down to the concourse, raced across the city to the amber court,
+descended to the trap-door.
+
+It must be nearly twelve, Kendrick knew. He couldn't look at his
+watch, for it as well as himself was invisible. Indeed, even as they
+stood there, poised for the plunge, a faint whistle rose from below.
+
+Marjorie trembled.
+
+"Steady!" he spoke. "Some of them always blow a minute or two before.
+Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Then press your button--jump!"
+
+Even as they leapt, the sickening thought came that perhaps the
+escalator ray was no longer running. But the fear was unwarranted.
+They were caught up, whirled gently downward.
+
+Moving along laterally, as they descended, they were able to land
+without difficulty in the middle of a deserted street near the
+Consolidated Electric laboratory.
+
+"Thank heaven!" she sighed, as their feet touched solid ground. They
+pressed off both buttons, becoming visible once more.
+
+"Echo!" he agreed. "So let's--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Kendrick never completed that sentence--for now whistles all over
+the metropolitan area, rising from the generating plants, announced
+the ominous hour.
+
+It was high noon. The ultimatum had expired.
+
+Lifting tense faces to the disc, they waited. Would that stupendous
+ray be hurled back upon itself? Or would it sear through their
+makeshift defense, plunging them and the whole great metropolis into
+oblivion?
+
+Suddenly, cataclysmically, the answer came.
+
+There burst a withering whirlwind from the disc. It struck that mighty
+concave cathode of interlaced waves above the city. There followed an
+instant's clash of titanic forces. Then the cathode triumphed, hurled
+it back.
+
+Rocked by a concussion as of two worlds in impact, blinded by a glare
+that made the sunlight seem feeble in comparison. Marjorie and
+Kendrick clung together, while the disc grew into a satellite of
+calcium fire in the sky.
+
+Presently, as the conflagration waned, they opened their eyes.
+Gravely, but with deep thanksgiving, they searched each other's faces.
+In them they read deep understanding, too, and a new hope.
+
+"I think we'd better go and find father," she said at length, quietly.
+
+"I think so too!" he agreed.
+
+As they headed toward the laboratory, a fine, powdery dust, like
+volcanic ash was falling.
+
+It continued to fall until the city streets were covered to a depth of
+an inch or more.
+
+Thus passed the menace of Vada.
+
+[Advertisement: NO ONE MUST FORGET
+
+_That he has a standing
+invitation to_
+
+"Come Over In
+'THE READERS' CORNER'"
+
+_And join in the general
+discussion of stories,
+authors, likes, dislikes--everything
+pertaining
+to_
+
+ASTOUNDING STORIES
+
+_And Science-Fiction_]
+
+
+
+
+The Readers' Corner
+
+_A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories
+
+[Illustration:]
+
+
+_To the Rescue_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I hope you can see fit to print this letter in the July
+     issue of Astounding Stories. This letter is written in
+     defence of Ray Cummings and in reply to the letter of C.
+     Harry Jaeger, 2900 Jordan Road, Oakland, California.
+
+     Following is an extract of Mr. Jaeger's letter: "Also I like
+     my authors to make an original contribution to whatever
+     theory of science they develop fictionally. This, Ray
+     Cummings does not do in his very interesting story,
+     "Phantoms of Reality." His beginning is palpably borrowed
+     from Francis Flagg's story, "The Blue Dimension," which
+     appeared in a Science Fiction magazine in 1927." Another
+     paragraph is devoted to explaining his claim. He claims that
+     Cummings' method of transporting his characters from one
+     dimension or planet to another is practically copied from
+     Flagg's story. The method, that is, not the narration. I
+     hope to prove that if any borrowing was done, it was done by
+     Flagg. Incidentally, Flagg's story "The Blue Dimension" was
+     printed in 1928, not 1927, as Mr. Jaeger says.
+
+     I have in my possession a story by Ray Cummings named "Into
+     the Fourth Dimension" and published in another magazine
+     during the last month of 1926 and first ones of 1927. And in
+     this story--printed two years before Flagg's story--Cummings
+     uses almost the same apparatus of passing from one dimension
+     to another as is used in "Phantoms of Reality." I will not
+     discuss whether this procedure is to be approved or not.
+
+     This letter is not to be construed as an attack on Mr.
+     Jaeger, or Mr. Flagg, or on either of the two stories under
+     discussion.
+
+     If Mr. Jaeger will let me know I will send him Ray Cumming's
+     story "Into the Fourth Dimension," as clipped from the
+     magazines.
+
+     I write this letter to the magazine, instead of Mr. Jaeger,
+     so that if any one was misled by Mr. Jaeger's well meant but
+     mistaken criticism they will be straightened out.--Donald
+     Coneyon, Petoskey, Michigan.
+
+
+_A Wish for Success_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have read both of your first issues. I am writing to say
+     that I wish you success with your new magazine, which I know
+     will succeed.
+
+     Also to say I wish you would get more of the "Carnes and Dr.
+     Bird Stories" by Captain S. P. Meek, for I think everybody,
+     including myself, likes them. I also enjoyed "Creatures of
+     the Light."--Thomas D. Taylor, 415 So. 7th St., Boise,
+     Idaho.
+
+
+_No Kick Any More_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have been a reader of Astounding Stories ever since you
+     started it, and I guess I'm getting too particular as I
+     don't get the kick out of it any more that I did out of the
+     first issues. That is, I don't get the kick out of ALL of
+     the stories as I did at first. However, "Murder Madness"
+     sure is a hot one. Why not print a story by Sax Rohmer, H.
+     G. Wells, or some of them?--H. Elsworth Jones, Box 340, R.
+     R. 6, Battle Creek, Mich.
+
+
+_Via Postcard_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     Astounding Stories is an astounding magazine. It has really
+     astounding stories. It couldn't be better. There's hardly
+     room for improvement. May Astounding Stories be more
+     astounding yet. I like it!--Monroe Hood Stinson, 1742, 12th
+     Ave., Oakland, California.
+
+
+_Only Fiction!_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have just finished a story in the February, 1930, issue of
+     Astounding Stories entitled "Into Space," by Sterner St.
+     Paul.
+
+     I would like to know if it is a true story, if the actions
+     described in it really happened, or is it merely a story of
+     fiction.--Dan S. Scherrer, Shawneetown, Ill.
+
+
+_Perhaps--Soon_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have just finished reading your new magazine, Astounding
+     Stories. It is the best magazine I have ever read. Keep up
+     the good work and you will find me a constant reader. I have
+     only one suggestion to make: Let Astounding Stories come out
+     every other Thursday.--Harold Kulko, 433 Palmer E., Detroit,
+     Michigan.
+
+
+_More Preferences_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have read with great interest the second issue of
+     Astounding Stories and note your invitation for readers to
+     express themselves.
+
+     I enjoyed the whole magazine, finding the literary quality
+     surprisingly high. Especially good were "Spawn of the
+     Stars," and "Creatures of the Light." Harl Vincent's tale
+     was the best of his I have read; and Captain Meek's are
+     always good. "The Corpse on the Grating," however, was
+     merely Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" done over, and not
+     half so well.
+
+     As for the sort of tales I like, here they are in order of
+     preference:
+
+     1. Tales of weird mystery--Merritt's "Moon Pool" and his
+     others; Taine's "White Lily."
+
+     2. Interplanetary Adventure--"A Columbus of Space," by
+     Serviss; "The Skylark of Space," by Smith.
+
+     3. "Different stories," that defy classification, based on
+     new ideas of science--most of Wells' short stories are
+     examples. 4. Detective, Fourth Dimension, and air
+     adventure--only well done.--Jack Williamson, Box 661 Canyon,
+     Texas.
+
+
+_A Brick or Two_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     For the last three years we have been reading any and all of
+     the various Science Fiction magazines which have appeared
+     upon the market. We therefore feel that we are as well
+     qualified as anyone to offer the criticism and advice that
+     follows.
+
+     First, the stories. We feel that it would be a good idea to
+     get your stories from the same authors whose work has been
+     and is being accepted by the other magazines in this field.
+     In one case you have already done this, and I consider his
+     stories to be the best in each issue. I believe that you
+     will be forced to do this eventually, anyhow, because the
+     people who read this magazine will naturally be readers of
+     the others also, and will therefore, be used to the
+     standards set by those publications. Then, you should have
+     someone who is well qualified to pass upon the science in
+     the stories.
+
+     Second, the cover design and the pictures at the beginning
+     of each story. Up to this time the cover and inside pictures
+     have contained many mistakes. The cover of the March issue
+     was especially atrocious. In the first place a voyager in
+     outer space would find it jet black and studded with stars,
+     instead of blue and apparently empty, except for a few
+     tremendously oversize planets, a moon with entirely too many
+     craters, and a total eclipse of the sun with a very much
+     distorted corona visible beside the earth. Illustrations by
+     your cover artist also appear in another publication, but
+     these are much superior to the ones in Astounding Stories.
+     Here also a scientific advisor would be welcome.
+
+     Third, I think it would be a good idea to have a department
+     in which readers could write their opinions of the stories
+     and suggest improvements in the conduct of the magazine.
+
+     Fourth, I think there should be a scientific editorial in
+     each issue by some eminent scientist. This is also a feature
+     in the other magazines.
+
+     We hope that you take these criticisms and suggestions, as
+     they were offered, in good faith. We also hope that the
+     circulation will increase as the magazine becomes
+     better.--George L. Williams and Harry Heillisan, 5714 Howe
+     St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
+
+
+"_Wonderful_"
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I received your magazine last week, Astounding Stories, and
+     I think it is wonderful. I am very glad that I subscribed
+     for it. I can hardly wait to get the latest one which I
+     hoped to receive to-day and was very much disappointed when
+     it did not arrive. I hope you will consider a quarterly or
+     at least an annual in the near future.
+
+     I wish you success with this magazine, and hope you will
+     forgive my writing you so often in reference to your
+     magazine--Louis Wentzler, 1935, Woodbine St., Brooklyn, New
+     York.
+
+
+--_But We Made Our Bow Only Last January!_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     Last month my boy brought one copy of this magazine home,
+     and I want to ask you if you would send me the copies from
+     last January, 1929, up to December, 1929. If you charge no
+     more than $3.00 would you send them C. O. D.? Do you have
+     the issues for 1928, too?
+
+     I never knew there was a magazine like that on the market. I
+     never bought one because most of them are no good, and when
+     one has children one has to be doubly careful.
+
+     But this magazine is just right. No silly love stories and
+     mushy stuff in them. It sure keeps your mind from unpleasant
+     things. We can get them from the newsstand but I would like
+     to subscribe for them.
+
+     Keep up the good work and please send me the last year's
+     copies and let me know if I could get 1928, too.--Mrs. M.
+     Ristan, 4684, No. Broadway, Denver, Colorado.
+
+
+"_Best One Yet_"
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     The April issue is the best one you have put out yet. Arthur
+     J. Burks is GOOD. I hope to see much of him in the future.
+     "Brigands of the Moon," by Ray Cummings, is getting better
+     with each instalment. The stories of Dr. Bird are always
+     interesting. I would like to see one in each issue, if you
+     could arrange for it.
+
+     As long as the other readers like the size of Astounding
+     stories, I will, too, but please cut all edges smooth like
+     the latest issue of Five Novels Monthly. I would like to see
+     a full-page illustration with each story, and if possible by
+     Wesso.
+
+     I am glad that you are starting another serial in the May
+     issue of Astounding Stories. I like serials and I hope that
+     you will always have two in each issue.
+
+     Your schedule for the May issue looks good, and I'm sure it
+     will be, with such authors as Murray Leinster, Victor
+     Rousseau, Ray Cummings, Harl Vincent and Sewell P. Wright.
+
+     I am still waiting for a different colored cover.--Jack
+     Darrow, 4225, N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago, Illinois.
+
+
+_An Enthusiastic Reader_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     As a reader of long standing of Science Fiction I feel I am
+     qualified to make some remarks and give my opinion of the
+     wonderful Astounding Stories magazine lately put out.
+     Although I read three other Science Fiction magazines none
+     of them have aroused in me such a wonderful enthusiasm as
+     Astounding Stories. Before I forget it I want to mention
+     that I read two quarterlies also.
+
+     The reason, or rather reasons, for my enthusiasm I will now
+     enumerate. (1) The stories are wonderful. (2) The binding is
+     very strong and efficient. (3) The print is just right, and
+     soothing to the eyes of one who reads much. The paper is
+     good, and the size and price of the magazine is just right.
+     The covers are excellent, and with the addition of "The
+     Readers' Corner" the magazine becomes absolutely perfect.
+     Truly a wonderful start. See that it is kept up. The only
+     thing that can still spoil the magazine is poor stories.
+     Science Fiction stories that contain no science.
+
+     In "Vampires of Venus" the plot was rather weak. Even if the
+     Venerians knew nothing of entomology, they should have
+     brains enough to get rid of the vampires the way Leslie
+     Larner did without having to call an Earthman to help them.
+     Another thing: the Venerians kept only insects that were not
+     harmful to the crops. On Earth there are such insects who
+     help the farmer by eating harmful insects. If the harmful
+     insects were exterminated--an almost impossible and gigantic
+     task--the harmless insects would change their diet and
+     become harmful too. And it seems funny, too, that such a
+     highly civilized planet as Venus should still depend on
+     domesticated animals for food, drink and clothing instead of
+     manufacturing what they need synthetically.
+
+     The April cover on your magazine was wonderful.
+
+     Before I close I wish to say a word about the Science
+     Correspondence Club of which I am a proud member. There is
+     little to say, however, after reading Conrad Ruppert's
+     letter in the April issue. The membership has increased to
+     over 300 now, numbering among them quite a number of famous
+     scientists and authors. All I can say is that I hope every
+     scientifically inclined person of whatever nationality,
+     creed, color or sex they may be, will join this wonderful
+     and rapidly progressing club. I will now close thanking the
+     publishers of Astounding Stories for issuing such a
+     wonderful magazine--Stan Osowski, E2, Railroad St., Central
+     Falls, R. I.
+
+
+_But--Conniston Was An Impostor!_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I read with interest Mr. Ray Cummings' story, "Brigands of
+     the Moon," in the March number of Astounding Stories. The
+     tale was a worthy one from the pen of so clever a writer. I
+     do think, however, that the author might have left out the
+     point about Sir Arthur Conniston, an English gentleman,
+     turning traitor. This sort of thing is hardly calculated to
+     bring about a friendly feeling between England and America,
+     the two greatest countries in the world. I have the greatest
+     admiration for the United States, and though we may have a
+     little fun at each other's expense, there is no ill feeling
+     meant, but I really hope you will not publish any other
+     story like that one.--An Englishman, Montreal, Canada.
+
+
+_Likes the Romance_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     I have just finished my second copy of Astounding Stories
+     and I wish to say I have enjoyed every story.
+
+     For some time I have been a reader of Science Fiction, but
+     none will compare to Astounding Stories. These stories seem
+     to have the proper amount of romance in them to make them
+     really interesting, and it adds the proper touch.
+
+     I have no criticism to make. May I wish you a great success
+     with this magazine--Frank I. Sontag, 825 Prescott Ave.,
+     Scranton, Pa.
+
+
+_High Praise_
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     Allow me to congratulate you upon the establishment of "The
+     Readers' Corner." I do not know which was the first issue of
+     your delightful magazine, but I have been buying it
+     regularly for quite a few months.
+
+     I may not be an experienced critic, but it can be easily
+     seen by anyone that this magazine is one of the best on
+     sale. I, for one, enjoy your stories more than any other
+     stories I have ever read.
+
+     I have just finished the second part of the four-part serial
+     entitled "Brigands of the Moon." I thing Ray Cummings is the
+     best author I have ever met up with in stories. The drawings
+     are fine, the print is excellent, but I think the paper
+     could be improved. But by no means change the size of your
+     little magazine. The size is just right.
+
+     In your April issue I read in "The Readers' Corner" about a
+     Science Correspondence Club. Believe me when I say I'm
+     sending immediately for an application blank. I think the
+     idea of this club is excellent.
+
+     Truly you have contributed a great gift to Science Fiction
+     readers in offering this magazine to the receptive
+     public.--Theodore L. Page, 2361 Los Angeles Ave.,
+     Pittsburgh, Pa.
+
+
+"_Don't Do It!_"
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     This afternoon I saw Astounding Stories for the first time
+     and immediately grabbed a copy, as I have read others of the
+     Clayton group, and moreover am a Science Fiction fan.
+
+     The newsstand has no back numbers, and I simply must have
+     the March 1930 issue, as I wish to read "Brigands of the
+     Moon," so here is 25c, in stamps to cover purchase price and
+     cost of mailing me a copy of that issue.
+
+     Have you a complete file since Vol. 1, No. 1? If so, what is
+     the cost including charges? I'm sorry that I missed this
+     magazine before, but you can rest assured that I'll miss no
+     more.
+
+     In the "Readers' Corner" I notice a call from Stephen Takacs
+     for a change in size. DON'T DO IT! The size and shape are O.
+     K., and to make it the awkward size of most magazines
+     (including two of the Science Fiction magazines that I am
+     now a confirmed reader of), would not improve it a bit.
+
+     You have two of my favorite authors in the April number; no,
+     I see it is three--Burks, Cummings and Meek. They are O. K.,
+     but don't forget a few others, such as Burroughs, Verrill,
+     Hamilton, Coblentz, Keller, Quinn, Williamson, Leinster,
+     Repp, Vincent, Flagg--oh, why continue; you certainly know
+     all the good authors of OUR kind of fiction; try them all.
+     Of course, the other Science Fiction magazines that I take
+     are full of stories by my favorites, but you can get stories
+     by them too.
+
+     From this one issue that I have read I can see only praise
+     for your publication. Here's to a long life and a happy one.
+
+     Don't forget to send me the March issue as fast as the mail
+     can get it here--Robert J. Hyatt, 1353 Kenyon St., N. W.,
+     Washington D. C.
+
+
+"_Worst Ever Read_"
+
+     Dear Editor:
+
+     Since you invite criticism as well as praise, I am impelled
+     to state that by far the worst story I ever read in any
+     Science Fiction magazine was "Vampires of Venus," by Anthony
+     Pelcher, which appeared in your April issue. It was so
+     idiotic, so flat and inane, that it might have passed for a
+     burlesque rather than a straight story, were it not
+     painfully evident that the author was serious. The yarn was
+     unworthy of Astounding Stories and did not belong in this
+     magazine.
+
+     The other stories, except for an amateurish attempt called
+     "The Man Who Was Dead," were deeply engrossing and of
+     unusual merit.--Sears Langell, 1214 Boston Road, New York.
+
+
+"_The Readers' Corner_"
+
+All Readers are extended a sincere and cordial invitation to "come
+over in 'The Readers' Corner'" and join in our monthly discussion of
+stories, authors, scientific principles and possibilities--everything
+that's of common interest in connection with our Astounding Stories.
+
+Although from time to time the Editor may make a comment or so, this
+is a department primarily for _Readers_, and we want you to make full
+use of it. Likes, dislikes, criticisms, explanations, roses,
+brickbats, suggestions--everything's welcome here; so "come over in
+'The Readers' Corner'" and discuss it with all of us!
+
+--_The Editor._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science,
+August 1930, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES ***
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