THAT WORLDS MAY LIVE

Return from Luna

A voice roared, "All clear! Lower away!" The great ship rocked and quivered as its jet rockets flared, forming a solid, cushioning pillar on which the Spica lowered itself to the land cradle on Long Island Spaceport.

"Tub!" muttered Flick Muldoon, and made a hasty grab for a case of equipment slithering across the deck.

Gary Lane snapped, "Careful, Flick!" ... which was not like Lane. It was not his nature to be brusque. But now his voice, like his manner, was strained and unnatural. His eyes were tense as he glanced at his wrist chronometer. He sighed relievedly as the wallowing motion of the space-cruiser ended in a final, weary, convulsive heave.

Blue uniformed attendants, luggage-laden, brushed by the pair of young scientists. Commands clacked with metallic authority from the brazen throats of deck audiophones. Locks wheezed asthmatically, and the warm, sweet fragrance of Earth air flooded through a nearby port.

Flick drew a deep, contented breath.

"Home again! Oh, boy! Linen suits instead of those damn bulgers ... sandals instead of lead boots ... breathable air instead of oxygen...."

"... and," reminded Gary grimly, "a job of work to be done. Let's get going."

His precious portfolio securely gripped in a bronzed fist, he strode to the gangway, stood there blinking momentarily in the pleasant sunlight of Earth. Then a warm hand was on his shoulder, and a friendly voice greeted him. The voice of his superior, Dr. Wade Bryant.

"Welcome home, Gary! Have a good trip? Got lots of good shots, I hope—?"

"I got," said Gary, "plenty! Dr. Bryant, we must go to the Observatory at once. If I'm not greatly mistaken, our expedition discovered something which will tear to bits every previous cosmological theory known to science. Wait till—" He stopped abruptly, silenced by the unexpected presence of a white-haired, cherubic little stranger beside his senior. "I—er—I don't believe I've had the pleasure—?"

"No," chuckled Bryant. "But we'll soon remedy that. Professor Anjers, permit me to introduce my brilliant and indispensable young aide, Dr. Gary Lane. Gary, you've heard of Dr. Anjers, of course?"

"Of course," replied Gary respectfully. "How do you do, sir?" But his mood had changed. His eagerness was gone; he seemed almost to wish to avoid further discussion. Bryant sensed this. He looked puzzled.

"Well, Gary? Go on. You were saying—?"

"Later," said Gary briefly. He stared absently over the older man's shoulder. "Your car here?"

Flick Muldoon snorted, "Car? We need a truck! Hey, Doc—look at me! The human derrick. Gary's so doggone busy guarding that briefcase he won't give me a hand with"—His eyes rolled in mock horror of the pyramid of equipment heaped about him.

Dr. Bryant laughed. "You'll survive, Flick, I fear. Yes, the car's right over here. If you're ready now—" He led the way. They had moved but a few paces from the cradles when someone stepped beside Gary, murmured a polite, "Shall I take your portfolio, Dr. Lane?", and started to relieve young Lane of it.

Gary started violently, jerked his hand loose. "Let go, damn you!" he blazed ... then his eyes widened, and a flush surged upward to copper his already tanned cheeks. "Oh, I ... I beg your pardon, miss! I had no idea.... I mean ... I...."

For he was staring squarely into the most hurt, most baffled, yet withal most beautiful mist-blue eyes he had ever seen. And the eyes were but one facet of this girl's gemlike perfection. She was incredible, as all dreams sprung to life are incredible. For surely such smooth-gleaming copper hair, such lips and teeth and—well, everything about her!—could exist nowhere other than in a dream.

But if she were a vision she was not his alone. For Dr. Bryant spoke apologetically. "Gary, this is Miss Powell, a new addition to our staff. She's to be your personal aide. Nora ... Dr. Lane...."

"I'm sure," said the girl icily, "it will be a great pleasure to work with Dr. Lane." She turned to Muldoon. "If I can help you with your instruments—?"

Flick stared at her, goggle-eyed. "H-h-help, sugar! You just stand there and look at me; that's help enough! For you I could lift mountains!"

He proceeded to prove it, stumbling forward under a pack-mule load.

In Dr. Bryant's office at the Observatory, the gray-haired chief technician turned once more to his young assistant.

"And now, Gary, I think you have kept us in suspense long enough. I am bursting with curiosity, and I am sure Dr. Anjers must be, too. He stratoed all the way from Eurasia to hear your report on our first Luna Transit Expedition. Tell us the great surprise you hinted at."

Gary hesitated, eyeing the foreigner uncertainly.

"I—I'm not quite sure, sir—"

"Perhaps," suggested Dr. Anjers, "there is something the young man would prefer to tell you in private?"

Dr. Bryant shook his head impatiently.

"Of course not, Dr. Anjers. Come, Gary ... we aren't diplomats, that we should keep secrets from one another. We are all brother scientists. The Foundation has asked Doctor Anjers to help tabulate the results of your findings. He is an outstanding authority on cosmic radiation—"

"I know," said Gary. "Sorry, Doctor. Afraid I'm a bit jittery. No offense meant."

The cherubic Eurasian nodded. He spoke with a hint of an accent. "And none taken, my boy. And now—?"

Gary glanced around the room swiftly. To be frank, he himself could not explain his secretive impulse. He knew he bore a vital message, one so important that it must never lightly be revealed, but in this snug group all were friends and allies. And he could not face the dread facts alone.

He drew a deep breath, groped in his portfolio, and drew forth a packet of photographic prints.

"As you all know," he said, "our expedition went to Luna to take pictures of the recent Venusian transit.[1] It is unnecessary to point out to you the desirability of the moon as an observational site. Its lack of atmosphere, cloudless skies, absence of dust particles, offer ideal conditions for astronomical photography.

"We had hoped, on this expedition, to finally solve the mystery of the Sun's corona. Sir Arnold Gregg came near a solution when, in 2016, he determined identity between the solar corona and Earth's Heaviside layer. But his deduction needed verification—"

"And—" Dr. Anjers leaned forward intently—"were you successful? You learned he was right?"

Gary's voice deepened, assuming a tonal quality akin to awe. "I don't know. I have never studied the photographs to see. For my first glimpse of the developed films revealed something else. Something so great, so completely illogical yet so tremendously important that—"

He paused. "But, wait! I'm going too fast. Before I continue I should tell you that we attached to our telelens a cinematic spectroscope, the better to ascertain what change of elements was taking place within the corona.

"By this spectroscope may be determined the elements of sighted objects, also—"

"—their speed," agreed Dr. Bryant, "in relation to Earth. But I don't see—"

"You will!" promised the young man tensely. "At the moment of transit, when our cameras were focussed directly on Sol, chance treated us to a phenomenon which might not happen again for untold ages. A comet from the far depths of extra-galactic space moved within the vision of our lenses. We got a complete photographic and spectroscopic record of it!"

Blank stares met his eager pronouncement. Dr. Boris Anjers looked curious. Bryant stroked his jaw, waiting. Nora Powell laughed, her laughter a musical shard of scorn.

"How terribly interesting, Dr. Lane! I'm afraid you didn't film a very amusing stereop, though. A film without a plot or a hero—"

Gary glared at her irately.

"Uninteresting, eh?" he growled. "A plotless story? Very well—see for yourself! Here!"

And he tossed on the desk before his confrères a set of prints. Bryant, Anjers and the girl moved forward to look at them. Gary and Flick glanced at one another, wondering if their associates would read into the pictures that which they had seen and, seeing, scarcely dared believe.

For a long moment there was silence. Then the small visiting scientist raised his head. He said, "This is a very interesting series of exposures, my young friend. But what a shame your camera moved!"

Gary laughed triumphantly.

"That's just it, Doctor! The camera did not move an inch! The 'motion' in that comet is the very thing I've been talking about!"

He bent over the pictures, jabbing an excited finger at a faint white speck in the upper corner.

"Here is the story caught by Muldoon's camera. When this first picture was taken, the comet was far out in extra-galactic space. It had not yet hurled itself into the galaxy of which our solar system is a part. Its position on the two subsequent photographs enable us to determine, accurately and perfectly, the comet's spatial trajectory.

"But look at the fourth photograph! What do you see there?"

Dr. Bryant said bewilderedly, "Why, that's odd! The comet seems to have departed from its original trajectory; it is bent at almost a 45° angle from its former line of flight. That must be where the camera moved."

"I tell you again," swore Gary, "that camera did not move! The action you see depicted on those prints is but one of two things: either the motion of the comet, itself, or—" He breathed deeply, then plunged—"or the effect worked upon the comet's light-rays by its presence in our galaxy!"

Dr. Anjers glanced at him with swift concern. "What is that? Our galaxy! I am afraid you have been overworking, my young friend—"

"Just a moment, Doctor! I have further proof." The younger man's hands dug into his portfolio. "Dr. Bryant, let me ask you a question. If you were asked to declare the most baffling of all astronomical puzzles, what would you select?"

"Why—why, I suppose the 'red shift', Gary."

"Exactly! From the early Nineteenth Century to this day, one riddle which has amazed and confounded scientists is the apparent movement of our universe. According to all evidence, our universe is composed of a multitude of galaxies—each of which is running away from all others at unbelievable speed.

"This we know because of the 'red shift'—which one might call the 'Doppler effect' applied to light, rather than to sound. When one star, comet or galaxy approaches another, pressing its light waves upon its neighbor, the cosmic body's light waves are shortened. They shift toward the violet side of the spectrum.

"Similarly, a receding luminary pulls its waves—and the pitch of its light is indicated by a 'red shift.'

"Observation has taught us the tragic falsehood that everything in the universe is running away from all else. We have learned to believe in an 'expanding universe'.

"But—" Once again Gary placed his finger upon the photographs—"study these margins! These fine lines are the spectrographs of the comet you have just seen. Do they agree with our established theories?"

Dr. Bryant stared.

"But this is incredible, Gary! If the comet in your pictures were nearing our galaxy—as it undoubtedly was—it should at all times exhibit a violet shift. But, instead, it shows here a red shift up to the moment of its departure from its normal course—and thereafter a violet shift!"

And he looked at Lane, wide-eyed and wondering. Dr. Anjers also studied the younger scientist with respect.

Asked the Eurasian, "And the conclusion you draw, my young friend?"

"There is," said Gary seriously, "but one conclusion possible. Science has erred for almost three centuries. Our universe is not expanding. All other galaxies are not racing headlong from our own. The Greater Universe is steadfast and secure. It is only our little solar galaxy which moves. And we—are contracting!"

The Deadly Radiation

Nora Powell was frankly out of her depth. It showed in her eyes, and in the petulant protrusion of her lower lip. She asked, cool gaze studying her new superior, "Would you be kind enough to explain that more fully, Dr. Lane?"

Gary needed no urging. It was this theory which was responsible for his unusual curtness, for his irate explosion at the rocketdrome, for the preoccupation that had marked his return flight from Luna to Earth.

He wanted most desperately to convince his superior, Dr. Bryant, and all his other associates, that this startling discovery was not lightly to be dismissed.

Furthermore—and it surprised Gary Lane to find the desire within him—he wanted to prove to Nora Powell that he was not, in truth, the ogre she now believed him. That there had been an excuse for his rudeness.

So he spoke, setting forth the arguments thought out during the flight from Earth's satellite.

"You are all familiar," he said, "with the theory of the 'expanding' or 'bubble' universe.

"We approach an understanding of this by thinking of our existence—our universe of three spatial dimensions with one temporal extension—as a sphere which is all surface.

"Not merely a hollow sphere, you understand. Everything—including empty space, solid matter and energy, is on the surface of this hypersphere. Thus our galaxy constitutes one point imbedded in the surface of the sphere ... the nearest star is another ... the farthest still another ... and so on with each of a billion galaxies.

"It has been suggested that an undefined 'something' is 'blowing up' this bubble, and that as expansion increases, the degree of separation between galaxies widens so that they appear to be running away from each other. The big objection to this theory has been the insurmountable question—if this hypersphere is expanding, into what, since it contains all of Space and Time in itself, does it expand?"

Dr. Anjers interrupted somewhat caustically.

"You reject this theory, I gather?"

"Completely," declared Gary boldly, "and definitely! It has not, nor will it ever, solve the paradoxes we observe. My belief is that though the Greater Universe may be a closed and finite hypersphere, it is not expanding, but static. And it lends itself to real and constant measurement."

Nora Powell said, "But, Dr. Lane—the principles of relativity! The value of h, and the Lorenz contraction—"

"Are all taken care of," insisted Gary, "if you will accept my new major premise." He pondered, briefly, how best to state his idea. Then: "Let us suppose," he said, "you are standing in the center of a floor in a large room. The walls of this room, activated by some machine, are moving away from you. If you could measure this motion spectroscopically, you would observe the phenomenon of the 'red shift'—right?"

Dr. Bryant nodded. "Yes, Gary. That is, in effect, the relationship of our galaxy to the Greater Universe as now conceived."

"Quite. But—" said Gary—"suppose that you stood motionless in that same room, and some strange force acted on you to shrink you! Then what would you see?"

The girl's eyes widened. She cried, "A—a universe running away from you!"

"And your spectroscopic analysis—?"

"Would show the red shift!" Nora whirled to the two older men. "Dr. Bryant ... Dr. Anjers ... he's right! Now I see what the pictures meant! The comet, entering our contracting galaxy, changed its course sharply—"

The foreign scientist's eyes clouded with impatience behind their heavy lids. He smiled commiseratingly. "A very interesting conjecture, my young friend. But it is fool-hardy to reason on such flimsy evidence. Your camera, despite your belief, may have shaken ... your spectroscope may have been out of adjustment ... any one of a thousand things." A chubby hand dipped swiftly into Gary's briefcase, drew forth a flat, circular tin of film. "Is this the roll on which—?"

"Don't do that!" Gary literally screamed the words, leaping forward barely in time to prevent the older scientist from opening the container. Rudely he swept the tin from Dr. Anjers' grasp, swiftly inspected the thin line of metal seal. Only after he had satisfied himself that it was intact did he think to apologize. Then: "You must forgive me, sir, please. But these are supplementary exposures; they have not yet been developed."

The small man nodded understandingly. "The fault is mine, Dr. Lane. Forgive me."

Dr. Bryant, too engrossed in his own thoughts to see the byplay, now raised his head thoughtfully.

"Nevertheless, Gary, Miss Powell raised an important point. What about our known and proven celestial mechanics?"

"My theory," said Gary firmly, "makes them even more valid. Their truth is not reversed—only their meaning. In other words, the principles of the Lorenz equation still hold true, but we must learn to interpret it from a new angle. It is not the yardstick which moves; it is the observers! We of this dwindling galaxy which, alone in all the vastness of the Greater Universe, is becoming ever smaller!"

"But—but why, Gary? Why?"

"That," confessed Lane, "I do not know. But it is a problem we must solve. And quickly. Or—"

"Or—?" prompted Nora Powell as he hesitated.

"Or—" concluded Gary grimly—"oblivion! Unless I erred seriously in my first computations, there is a limit to the amount of shrinkage matter can withstand. And that limit is rapidly drawing near. Matter cannot contract forever. If we cannot find a way to free ourselves from the strange force being brought to bear upon us from out there—" Gary's hand swept the gathering dusk of Earth's twilight—"our Earth and sun, our sister planets, our galaxy—all these are doomed!"

For the second time within minutes, silence followed one of Gary Lane's pronouncements. But this was no moment of dubiety. Something of his deadly earnestness had communicated itself to his listeners; their voices were muted as if with awe at the magnitude of his warning. Muldoon already knew, of course, and already believed. Credence shone in the eyes of Nora Powell. Dr. Anjers' broad, fair brow was drawn; the cherubic mask of his features was marred with white lines of concentration. Dr. Bryant coughed, twisting long, capable fingers into steeples of thought.

It was the foreign scientist who broke the silence. Quietly. Carefully. In a voice which might have been gently chiding, had its accent not been thickened by a note of near-alarm.

"Aren't you," he ventured softly, "aren't you being just a little bit melodramatic, Dr. Lane? After all, this is only a hypothesis. A very new and—if you will forgive me—most implausible conjecture—"

"New," agreed Gary almost harshly, "but not implausible, Doctor. We know, don't we, Flick?" The camera expert nodded. "We know, and we have further proof. Those rolls of film offer half of it; simple mathematics supplies the rest. Flick, suppose you get to work on those exposures right away. We'll show them—"

"O.Q., Gary," said Muldoon. "I'll get at it immediately. 'Scuse me, folks!"

Dr. Anjers said, "Please, no! Don't do this just to convince me, gentlemen. I did not mean to imply doubt. I am skeptical, yes; what man of science would not be? But there is no hurry—"

Gary grinned at him mirthlessly.

"That's where you're wrong, Doctor. There is a need for haste. Every day is precious; perhaps every hour, every minute. We're not doing this merely to dispel your doubts. We're doing it because it has to be done, and as swiftly as humanly possible. The sooner mankind realizes its peril, the sooner we can take measures to do something. How long will it take you, Flick?"

"At least three hours. Maybe four."

"All right. Get going. Meanwhile, if you'll permit me, Dr. Bryant, I'd like to duck into my office. There must be a lot of accumulated correspondence to run through. Miss Powell, if you'll be kind enough to come with me—?"

"Yes, Dr. Lane."

Anjers said, "Office, yes. I have not been near my own desk all morning. Perhaps I, too, should spend a little time with my papers. So, gentlemen—"

But Dr. Bryant caught his arm. "Oh, no you don't, my friend! Lane and Muldoon need a few hours privacy, but I am much too excited to let everyone get away from me. Let's go to my rooms. I must discuss this matter with someone."

"That's it, then," nodded Gary. "We'll meet in the projection room at—let's see—five p.m. That's O.Q. with everyone? So long, then. Flick, careful with those shots!"

Muldoon glared at him aggrievedly.

"You're telling me?" he retorted. "Listen, pal—to me they're fresh laid eggs, and I'm the mama hen."

Thus the meeting disbanded.

At four-thirty, Gary Lane spoke a last, "yours truly" into his stenoreel, snapped the switch which sent the machine into operation as a transcriber, rose and yawned vigorously.

"That," he said, "is that! Thank goodness. I don't know how I would have ever finished up without your help, Miss Powell."

Nora Powell said, "I'm glad I was of some assistance, Dr. Lane."

"Some assistance?" grinned Gary. "You were the whole works. I wouldn't have known how to answer half those letters if you hadn't been here to advise me. Say, by the way—" He glanced at her quizzically—"Am I forgiven yet? I mean about that business down at the rocketdrome?"

Nora Powell met his gaze briefly, flushed and turned away. "I—I had forgotten all about it, Doctor," she said.

"Now, that," approved Gary, "is something to really be thankful for. Well, it's almost time for our appointment. Let's go down and see how Flick's making out."

Thus it was that Gary Lane and the girl were a full half hour earlier in reaching the projection room than had been agreed. On such small hinges is the gateway of Fortune hung. For had they been ten minutes, perhaps a single moment later, the great adventure which was to befall them might have ended ere it began. Laughing Flick Muldoon might never have laughed again, and the precious evidence which he and Gary had brought back from Luna might never have been viewed by understanding eyes.

For when young Dr. Lane pushed open the projection room door, it was to peer into a chamber not brilliantly alight, as he had expected, but one Stygian-draped in darkness. Even so, he was not at first alarmed. Flick's prints must surely be ready by now, but it was quite possible the cameraman was testing his equipment. Gary called cheerfully, "Hey, Flick! Why the blackout? O.Q. to come in—Say! What's wrong?"

Because his only answer was a deep, choking groan. And even as the girl behind him mouthed an incoherent cry of warning, Gary got the illumination he had asked for—but in an unwanted way. The darkness was suddenly, fiercely stabbed with a livid flare, an undulating streamer of light from the opposite end of the room. A crackling, hissing ochre finger of light which seemed to burn with an inward malevolence of its own.

And where this dirty glare struck matter, walls and drapes, woodwork and plastic, metal instruments and decorative vines, all—with a dreadful sort of impotent homogeneity—burst into sudden and spontaneous flame! By the light of the burning furniture, Gary glimpsed a dim, uncertain figure huddled in the doorway opposite—and from the hands of this unknown arsonist leaped the living flame!

Gary Lane could claim no heroism for what he did; his actions were too impulsive, too instinctive, to be considered real bravery. It never occurred to him that his enemy was armed where he was not, nor that the light-streamer devouring all else in the room could just as easily strip his flesh from his bones like tinfoil over a candleflame. All he knew was that somewhere in this room, Flick Muldoon lay hurt—perhaps dead!—and that documents on which depended the future of all mankind were being imperiled by a mysterious assailant.

Soundlessly, but with the speed of a striking panther, he hurled himself across the room. In the unreal tawny-black his body could have been, at best, but a dimly glimpsed bulk. The lethal flame did not turn in his direction, scorching him instantly out of existence. And then—

And then his shoulders met sturdy flesh with a solid impact; the stranger grunted meatily and staggered backward. Gary's hands groped, clawing, for the flame weapon ... felt his fingers burn on superheated metal....

For the barest fraction of a second! Then the enemy regained his feet. Gary sensed, rather than saw, the arm uplifting as many voices raised in sudden clamor, and the sound of running footsteps echoed from the corridor he had quitted. He was aware of Nora Powell's cry, "Dr. Lane—look out! Oh, Gary—!"

Then the spinning world descended with brutal force upon his temple, the gloom split asunder into myriad whirling galaxies of fire, and he sank senseless to the floor!

"—Better now," said a voice from far, far away. "I think he can hear me. Gary, my boy! Are you all right?"

Gary lifted his head and groaned; opened his eyes to find himself looking up into the kindly face of Dr. Bryant. Beside the old astronomer, her mist-blue eyes wide with fear and something else Gary Lane was too dazed to decipher, stood Nora Powell, while beside her, cherubic cheeks gray with inarticulate outrage, was the small foreign physicist.

Recollection flooded back on Gary; swiveling his head he discovered that the flames which threatened the room had been extinguished. But how about—?

"Flick?" he muttered, struggling to rise. "Flick! Is he—?"

"O.Q., chum," growled Flick Muldoon, coming from behind him. "The firebug busted me, laid me out colder than a Laplander's kiss, but you got a worse smack than I did. I'm O.Q."

"And the—the films?" asked Gary fearfully.

"Safe," chuckled Muldoon, "as a pork pie at a Mohammedans' picnic. I went down, yeah—but I went down with 'em clutched to my manly buzzum! Our murderous friend, whoever he was, would have needed a can opener to get 'em out of my hands. Me, I've got instincts, I have!"

Gary was on his feet, now, and staring about him. A little unsteadily, true, but gathering strength with every moment. He said, "Then you didn't get a look at him?"

"Who, me? I haven't got eyes in the back of my head, pal!"

"How about you, No—Miss Powell?" Gary caught himself just in time, reddening as he did so. Though his mind was intent on the problem now confronting them, some hidden portion found time to be astonished that his tongue should so trick him.

"I saw him no better than you did. Perhaps not even as well. When you charged him, I ran into the corridor and screamed for help."

"And a good thing, too," appended Dr. Bryant. "The whole Observatory might have gone up in flames had help not come immediately. Gary, that weapon—whatever it was—is the most destructive force ever unleashed by man! It burns right through anything. Wood, metal, plastic—"

"I can see that," scowled Gary. He bit his lip, an unwelcome suspicion forcing itself into his mind as he stared at the other member of their little party. "What puzzles me is—where did he come from? The arsonist, I mean. How many people are in this Observatory beside ourselves?"

"Why, scores, Gary. The laboratory men and the observers, upstairs, the students below—it was they who helped us fight the fire, you know."

"Yes. But—" Gary turned suddenly to Dr. Anjers. "Doctor—where were you when this fire was started?"

Anjers blinked at Gary mildly. "Me, my friend? Why, with Dr. Bryant in his study, of course. But, why? Surely you don't think I—?"

"I don't know what to think," groaned Gary. "While I didn't see the intruder very well, as nearly as I could judge he was just about your height and build. Dr. Bryant, you're positive Dr. Anjers was with you?"

"Of course, Gary."

"Every minute? Neither of you left the study?"

"Not for a second. We were together every moment until we heard Miss Powell's cry; then we hurried here together. Really, Gary—"

"Yes, I know," conceded Gary ruefully. "I'm sorry. But the man did look a little like Dr. Anjers, and—"

The small scientist nodded sympathetically.

"Say no more about it, Doctor. You have had ample reason to be apprehensive—and to question. Judging from what I see here, you narrowly escaped a horrible death. Our foe's weapon is, indeed, a terrible one. As a physicist, I cannot understand how anything can create spontaneous combustion in such nonflammable substances as metal and plaster—"

"No?" grunted Gary. "Well, I can! Look here!"

He stepped to the wall upon which the ray had played most fiercely, bent and rose, sifting through his fingers a palm-full of tiny granules.

"Here's your answer. And it ties in exactly with what we were talking about earlier this afternoon. Condensation of matter!

"See those granules? They are all that remain of a space five feet wide by six feet high! Their matter has been condensed by that hellish ray. The liberation of their excess bulk in the form of pure energy was what caused them to burst into flame. There's your answer, and—Good Lord!"

He stopped, stricken by the thought which had leaped into his brain. A thought at once so terrible and incredible that he could scarce believe it. But it must be true! It was the only way this phantasmagoria made any kind of sense.

"Blind! I've been blind! Now I see it all!"

"What, Gary?" demanded Flick. "What do you see?"

"This plaster wall—contracted into a handful of pebbles," said Gary bleakly. "Our galaxy—contracting to a grim and certain death! They are both part of one and the same plot. A plot by someone—or something!—to destroy Mankind! It is not simply a blind, unreasoning force which is speeding the destruction of our solar system. It is a deliberate doom to which we are being driven. The weapon used here this afternoon is a miniature replica of that which—Flick, what did the arsonist's weapon look like? Did you see it?"

Flick shook his head.

"Sorry, Gary. I drew a blank. I don't remember a thing."

But Nora Powell, who had stirred to an instrument panel near the crumbled wall, gasped suddenly. "I didn't see the weapon either, Gary," she cried. "But here is evidence of what it did. Look at this Geiger counter. It has gone completely mad. It has registered more than a thousand direct hits within the past half hour!"

"What?" exclaimed Dr. Bryant. "A thousand direct hits! That's impossible! Geiger counters register only the impact of cosmic rays. And the periodicity of these rays is as steadfast and invariable as—"

But Gary Lane silenced him with a great cry.

"Now I know I'm right! The Geiger counter proves it! The weapon used by our enemies shoots—cosmic radiation!"

"That Worlds May Live"

Silence, like the brooding hush of impending doom, fell over the chamber as the significance of his words drove home. For a breathless moment all speech seemed to falter in abeyance, then every voice raised as one.

"Cosmic rays!" gasped Dr. Bryant.

"A weapon which shoots gamma radiation?" echoed the cherubic Eurasian, Dr. Anjers. "Fantastic!"

Muldoon and the girl said as a single person, "Gary, you can't really believe—"

"I must believe," corrected Gary, "what my eyes tell me. There is only one conceivable explanation. As our chief here pointed out, the periodicity of gamma ray bombardment is one of the few invariables known to Man. Its constancy matches the monotonous regularity with which uranium transmutes to lead.

"Scientists have traveled all over the world ... east, west, north, south ... but in every latitude and clime their Geiger counters measure the same tempo of cosmic ray bombardment. They have delved into the deepest mine-pits miles below ground, descended in bathyspheres to the ocean's floor, and detected no change. They have climbed the highest mountains, traversed space to our neighboring planets ... yet everywhere the rate of bombardment remains the same.

"But here, here in this tiny room where, for an instant, a Geiger counter was bathed in the backwash of a strange, new, all-devouring flame, that instrument has registered the impact of a thousand direct hits! The conclusion is obvious. That radiation was—must have been—a concentrated discharge of cosmic rays."

Dr. Bryant passed a hand through his white hair.

"What you say is true, Gary. And it is certainly logical. Still—"

"It is not so much the logic of our young friend's deductions I question," interrupted the other older scientist, "as the fantastic corollaries which necessarily follow his premise. To admit his rightness is to concede that somewhere, someone, for some unfathomable reason, designs the deliberate destruction—"

"Of Earth!" said Nora Powell. "Not only of Earth, but of all the planets which circle our Sun. For as Gary has said, all these are bombarded, too, by cosmic rays.

"Gary, there must be some mistake. There must be some freak coincidence—"

Lane's eyes narrowed. "That's just what it cannot be. The coincidence is too striking. Consider. For thousands of years men lived in blissful ignorance of the fact that they and their world were daily being bombarded by rays which science now has reason to believe are lethal.[2] During the past few hundred years men have been aware of this radiation, but unable to do anything about it. They can neither analyze it, duplicate it in their laboratories, nor—indeed—determine its exact nature.

"But—" And his voice tightened—"but two days ago, for the first time, a clue was found as to the possible nature of these rays; pictures were taken which may pave the way toward an understanding of this ancient mystery. And then what happened? Was it sheer coincidence that almost immediately Flick Muldoon, who hasn't an enemy in the world, should be murderously assaulted here in the heart of his own bailiwick? And that an attempt should be made to destroy this incriminating evidence?

"No! That coincidence is too great for me to swallow. It only strengthens my belief that it is not simply blind nature which is responsible for the doom to which our galaxy is being driven."

Muldoon was an easy-going man. In the tightest spots his carefree nature was wont to assert itself in gibe and cheerful banter. But now his laughter-crinkled eyes were wide with awe and wonderment. He made a vague, sweeping gesture.

"You mean, Gary, that out ... there ... something or someone—?"

Gary nodded. "Yes. That is what I am forced to believe. That They—whoever They are, and wherever They may exist—are making a deliberate effort to destroy us."

"But," interpolated the ever-cautious Dr. Anjers, "you cannot be sure of these things, my young friend. You cannot prove them."

"Not now, no. But by the gods, I'm going to try!"

"Going to—!" Dr. Bryant looked at his young assistant, startled. "Going to try, Gary? What do you mean?"

Lane spoke slowly, putting into words for the first time the idea which had been growing within him ever since he and Muldoon had, upon Luna, chanced upon their amazing discovery.

"I mean I'm going out there, as Flick put it, in search of Them and of that weapon which is slowly but surely bringing death to our civilization. I am going to leave Earth and this galaxy and hunt in the dark depths of the Beyond for the reason conspiring against us."

"Oh, but now wait a minute, Gary," said his friend and constant companion, "I'm your buddy. I'll string along with you on almost anything. But this is going a little too far. Talking of leaving the galaxy. Good Lord, man, you must be out of your mind! Oh have you forgotten how to count? The fastest spaceship ever built travels at a rate of only about 7,000 miles per minute. And the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about four light-years away. At that rate, all that would be left of you by the time you got there would be a little heap of dried-up dust."

Lane smiled thinly. "Don't worry about that. We'll be alive when we get there."

"What! We! Where do you get the community spirit?"

"We," said Gary, "because you're going, too, Flick. I'll need you. And any of the others who want to come along. I think I can promise you the greatest adventure ever undertaken by human beings."

Dr. Bryant said, "Gary, what are you talking about? Muldoon is absolutely right. It would take centuries to reach the nearest star. How, then, do you expect—?"

"Centuries," acknowledged Gary, "if the ship in which we traveled had only the speed Flick mentioned. But you know as well as I that on another planet of this system dwells a race which knows the secret of achieving speed beyond that of the limiting velocity of light."

"You mean," asked Nora Powell, "the Jovians?"

"That's right."

"But they won't tell. It's their most cherished military secret. And with the entire solar system in the state of nervous unrest it has been in for years—"

"They must tell. It is to their benefit as well as ours. We will go to them and explain the enormity of the disaster which threatens our solar system. They are not creatures quite like ourselves, true; but they are intelligent beings. And they desire extinction no more than we. When they have learned the awful truth, I think they will lend us their secret."

Professor Anjers laughed mirthlessly. "You have much to learn about the races that people the planets, my young friend, if you think the Jovians will contribute their great secret to save the races with whom even now war threatens—"

"They will not be the only contributors. Each of the major planets will contribute its share to this adventure. Must contribute, for the ultimate good of all.

"From Earth—" Gary ticked the requisites off on his fingers as he spoke—"from Earth's government we must borrow the knowledge of the hypatomic drive which makes spaceflight possible. Venus must supply us with neurotrope, their super-efficient fuel, the only type sufficiently condensed to enable us to leave our galaxy. The Martian people must lend us their formula for building impenetrable force-fields about space vehicles, lest a stray comet or a hail of meteoric debris met in the outer darkness bring our flight to sudden ending. And from Jupiter must come the secret of transcendent speed, through which—and only through which—can we hope to reach our goal."

Muldoon whistled softly. "That's a big order, Gary. Four big orders, in fact."

And Dr. Bryant said, "I'm afraid I can only repeat Dr. Anjers' words, Gary. You expect too much of our neighbors in asking them to give you—"

Of all his companions, only the girl, Nora Powell, offered any word of encouragement. Her eyes were shining with a great purpose, and with a great determination, too. With an almost indiscernible movement she seemed to leave the fellowship of his doubters and arraign herself at Gary's side. Her words were like the warmth of a friendly handclasp as she said:

"But they will give! Because they must! Dr. Lane—Gary—it's a great dream. One which we must see to fulfillment."

Gary glanced at her, pleased and gratified.

"We?" he repeated.

The girl nodded determinedly. "Yes, we. Because if you'll have me, Gary, I want to join your expedition."

"Well, now," drawled Flick Muldoon, "as far as that goes, I've been beefing a little, yeah. But on purely technical grounds. I didn't say I was going to pull a sneak on the shindig. Hell I'll try anything once. You can count me in, Gary, lock, stock, and barrel."

Gary said gravely, "Thanks both of you. And you Dr. Bryant?"

The older man smiled thinly.

"I won't deceive you, Gary. I confess I still have my doubts as to the practicality of your ambitions. Nevertheless, I'd be a poor scientist if I were to refuse to lend my small efforts to such a magnificent undertaking. Of course, you may count on me. Boris—" He turned to his Eurasian colleague—"I'm sorry our conversations are to be thus abruptly terminated by what may seem to you a somewhat impulsive decision. But there may be something in Dr. Lane's warning."

To the surprise of everyone, the rather easily-annoyed Dr. Anjers this time showed no annoyance whatsoever. Instead, his bland, cherubic face was puckered with thought, and when he spoke it was with firm decision.

"No, you are completely right, my friend. Dr. Lane has not convinced me—yet. But if he is right, this is no matter for slow ponderings. We must act at once. And I, too, if you will permit, would like to become a member of your party."

Gary Lane smiled, ashamed now of his earlier treatment of this staunch little scientist, of the near-accusations he had twice cast upon the little man. He said simply, "I would be proud and glad to have you with us, Dr. Anjers. Of course, we five will not be all. We must have a pilot, an experienced astrogator, and crewmen to handle the ship itself—"

"Which brings up," interpolated Flick Muldoon with devastating casualness, "the first important question. Where you going to get this ship, Gary? And how are you going to talk the kingpins of our planet into giving you what you want?"

Gary smiled. "Obviously, we must go to Geneva and there present our argument to the members of the World Council. But—" And his eyes took on a shining akin to that in the eyes of his feminine and first-spoken comrade—"but we cannot fail. What we do is not for ourselves alone; it is a completely unselfish thing without personal benefit or profit. A quest we must successfully fulfill—that worlds may live."

And the girl's voice echoed softly, "That worlds may live...."

Fugitives from Earth

"What time is it?" asked Nora Powell.

Dr. Bryant looked up from the black-and-white-squared table over which he and his companion were bent, engrossed in one of mankind's most ancient pastimes.

"Er—I beg your pardon, my dear? What did you say?"

"I asked," repeated Nora, "what time it is?"

"Oh—time? Almost four o'clock."

"Time," growled Flick Muldoon, from the other end of the balcony, "he was getting back."

"Gary, you mean?" Dr. Boris Anjers, having placed his opponent destructively en prise, leaned back in his chair. "Have patience, my boy. These things take time, you know, and it is a difficult mission upon which our young friend has gone."

"It's all right for you and Doc Bryant. You've got a chess game to occupy your minds. Me, I got little pink and green meemies running up and down my corpuscles. I'm going to take a walk. Want to come along, Nora?"

Nora Powell said, "No, thanks, Flick. I'll wait here for him." Then, as the restless young cameraman stalked from the piazza and the two graybeards returned to their game, she wandered disconsolately to the far end of the balcony, for perhaps the dozenth time in the hour gazed out over the most heartbreaking beauty of the scene before and below her.

This eyrie from which she looked was a modest but charming pension in Geneva, a rustic famed for its beautiful surroundings and delightful old-world charm. To the south lay the valley of the Arve; beyond this the gray and barren rock of the Petit Salève rose like a wall, it, in turn, overtopped by the distant, imperial slopes of Mont Blanc. The sky was the bright and unbelievable blue of mountain country. From the vale below echoed the mellow lilt of a shepherd's yodeling.

Here, after hasty preparation, had the five comrades-in-adventure established residence until Gary Lane could convince the World Council, which gathered in this traditionally neutral nation, of the urgency of their demands ... and receive from this all-supreme body that terrestrial secret which was vital to the furtherment of their aims.[3]

Here had they cooled their heels for very nearly a fortnight while Gary wormed and forced and argued his way through hordes of underlings to finally reach the ear of those Councillors who alone could grant his request. Such an interview had finally been achieved, and today was the fateful appointment.

Alone, a few short hours ago, Lane had set forth to the Council Hall, laden with Muldoon's photographs, his own and Dr. Bryant's mathematical analyses, and all other documents necessary to prove his claims. Now his companions, placidly or nervously as their individual natures determined, awaited his return.

As to what sort of exhibition she herself was making, Nora Powell could not say. If she was not so openly impatient as Flick Muldoon, neither was she complacently attentive like the two older scientists. She was, she thought with sudden whimsy, much like one of those ancient volcanic peaks so gloriously sharp-limned on the horizon before her: surfacely cool, but inwardly and secretly aflame with constrained eruptive fires which might at any moment burst their bonds.

The afternoon was pleasantly cool, but standing there alone on the balcony her cheeks were suddenly warm to the touch as she caught herself wondering what would be Gary Lane's reaction were he to realize how startlingly accurate was this analogy. During these last weeks, their past differences forgotten, she and the young physicist had fallen into a pleasant and easy camaraderie. Formalities had been swept away in the urgency of the moment, and on everything they worked together like lifelong friends.

But that, thought Nora with a thin stirring of rebelliousness, was just the trouble. That which within her had developed toward Gary Lane could not so easily be dismissed with the loose and meaningless term "friendship." It was something else, something deeper, stronger, more tremulously chaotic ... like the subdued inner strivings of those pleasantly placid mountains.

Did he, she wondered with a strained and baffled curiosity, feel that, too? Or was he always too much the scientist to be just a plain man looking upon her ... seeing her ... not as a friend, but as a woman?

The sound of crisp, firm footsteps spelled an end to her thinking. She whirled to the doorway.

"Gary! You're back!"

Then her heart chilled within her at the look on his face. Never had she seen Gary Lane like this. His features were hard as if they had been cast in a mold, then frozen. His lips were whitely set, his eyes twin glittering flints of anger.

"Yes," he said harshly, "I'm back. It's all over. We're done. Finished. Washed up."

Dr. Bryant rose from his chair swiftly. "What do you mean, Gary? The Council didn't—?"

"Oh, didn't they?" Lane's bark was a mirthless shard of laughter. "They turned me down cold. Said our conclusions were erroneous, my theory a fantastic figment of the imagination. The fools! The everlasting damned fools! Don't they realize they're condemning a universe to oblivion?"

Dr. Anjers patted the younger man's shoulder soothingly, his bright cherubic face soberly consoling.

"I'm sorry, my boy. But I warned you it would be difficult. Men see no farther than the ends of their noses."

"Maybe not," grated Gary, "but they hear ... oh, God, how they hear! That's what killed our chances. Somehow or other they got a rumor of what was in the wind. They had been warned in advance of who I was and what I wanted; when I started explaining, showing my photographs, they just sat back and smirked at me with that 'Yes, yes, we know all about it; isn't it a pity that one so young should be deranged?' look on their smug, complacent faces."

"Heard of it?" cried Nora. "But how could they have heard of it?"

Lane shook his head doggedly. "That's what I've been asking myself ever since I left the Council Hall. To the best of my knowledge, not a living soul knows our secret except us five."

"And," reminded Dr. Anjers, "one other."

"One other?"

"The marauder in the observatory."

Lane was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. "That's right. I'd almost forgotten. Their ambassador. It's his diabolic hand again. It must be. Lord, if we had only caught him that day. If we only had some idea who he was—"

The door opened again, and Flick Muldoon burst in jubilantly. "Great howling snakes, folks, look who I found wandering around down on the streets like a roaming comet! That old star-shooting son-of-a-gun himself—Oh, golly, Gary! You're back! What'd they say, pal? Do we get the ship? Is everything set?"

"Not set," corrected Gary. "Settled!" And told him what he had told the others.

Muldoon's ruddy face fell. "Well, I'll be damned!" he whispered. "And to think Earth's government set them dumb lunks up in power to rule mankind's affairs! What are we going to do now? We can't give up just because—"

"I think," suggested Nora, "the first thing you'd better do, Flick, is introduce your friend. This must all seem rather mysterious and awkward to him."

"Oh, my golly!" gulped Flick. "I almost forgot. I'm sorry, Hugh. Doc, you remember Hugh Warren, don't you?"

"Warren?" Dr. Bryant's gaze turned querulously toward the tall, fair, smiling young man in the doorway. The newcomer was dressed in the respected gold-trimmed blue of the Solar Space Patrol. His even features were tanned to a cinnamon hue by long exposure to the raw, unshielded radiations of the void. The old scientist's eyes lighted with belated recognition. "Not young Hugh Warren who used to study Celestial Astrogation at the Observatory?"

The spaceman grinned, stepping forward to wring the older man's hand with phalange-crushing enthusiasm.

"The same, Dr. Bryant," he chuckled. "I've never forgotten those courses in Silly Ass. Most fun I've ever had ... and I've had plenty since that. Lord—" He made the rounds, ending beside Gary Lane, about whose shoulders he threw an arm in warm, masculine affection—"Lord, it's good to see you earth-lubbers again! You haven't changed a bit, Gary. You look a little more sober and settled down. But, then, they tell me marriage does that to a guy...."

"Marriage?" echoed Lane blankly.

"Why—why, yes. Isn't this young lady—?"

"No. This is Miss Powell, my assistant. And the gentleman beside Dr. Bryant is Dr. Boris Anjers. Dr. Anjers, Lieutenant Warren."

Dr. Anjers said politely, "It is always a pleasure to meet friends of my friends. But hasn't Dr. Lane made a small mistake? If my poor eyesight does not deceive me, your markings are not those of a space lieutenant—"

Warren grinned. "That's right. S'prise, folks! The Council up and made me a Captain, on account of me and my boys were lucky enough to salvage a smashed liner out of the Bog.[4] That's why I'm here in Geneva. Waiting to take command of my new ship, the sweetest, smoothest, little whipper-dipper of a cruiser you ever laid eyes on. Boy, is it ever a honey! All the latest equipment—"

"Cruiser!" said Lane bitterly. "They've got lots of cruisers for routine work, but they won't even spare one old broken down jalopy for—"

Hugh Warren looked puzzled. "For what? What's the gripe, chum? You look like you'd just found a bug in a raspberry."

"It's worse than that," said Gary. And he told Warren the whole story briefly, beginning with the lunar expedition and ending with the recital of his recent interview.

As Lane spoke, the young spaceman's smile faded slowly, the laughter-born crinkles in the corners of his eyes disappeared. And Nora Powell, watching this transition, realized that beneath the surface vivacity of this newcomer there lay a core of steel, flame-hardened in the crucible of action.

When Gary finished Warren did not speak. Instead, he jammed hamlike hands deep into his trousers pockets, stalked to the far end of the balcony, and there with head lowered, shoulders hunched, his back to the others of the group, stared for long minutes unseeingly out over the distant panorama. At length he turned, his eyes gravely querulous.

"Gary ... you're sure of what you've been telling me?"

"I only wish," said Gary bitterly, "there were some possibility of error."

"What do you say, Dr. Bryant?"

"There is only one thing to say. Gary is right; completely right. We have seen the pictures, checked and rechecked our calculations a hundred times. There is no doubt but that the time approaches, and it all too soon, when Earth's sun and its entire swarm of tributary planets will exceed the critical dwindling point and flame into sudden oblivion."

"And—and knowing these things, the Council wouldn't give you a ship, Gary?"

"They just laughed at me. Said the whole theory was ridiculous."

"Lord!" said Captain Hugh Warren, "What fools we mortals be! Of course, Gary, I can see their point ... to a certain extent. It does sound mad, your idea of visiting three only half-friendly planets and asking each of them to open-handedly donate its most cherished military secret. But it's the only way...."

His hands came from his pockets in a swift, decisive motion.

"Yes, it's the only way. How soon can you be ready to leave?"

"How—soon?"

"There's no time for fiddle-faddle. If we're going to do anything, we've got to do it now before anything leaks, or anyone can get suspicious."

"We?" echoed Dr. Bryant bleakly.

"Of course!" Hugh Warren brushed the older man's dubiety aside with brusque and characteristic impatience. "You don't think I'm going to stand on the sidelines and let this adventure romp along without me, do you? And besides, I'm just what the doctor ordered: the answer to your problem. You need a ship and a crew, don't you? And a pilot? Well, I've got the first and the second. And I'm the last myself."

Nora Powell burst forth impetuously, "But—but, Captain Warren, we can't let you do that. You're a military man. You'd be court-martialed on charges of desertion—"

"If," grunted Warren, "they caught us. Yes. But I'm not figuring on anybody catching the Liberty. She's the sweetest little ether-pusher that ever came off a cradle. And as for court-martial—" He shrugged—"we'll worry about that if and when we get back. According to Gary, if something isn't done—and done quick—there won't be any court-martials to try traitors.

"And—" He grinned—"I'd rather be a dead felon than a live loyalist."

Thus, in a manner far different from that which the comrades had planned, was the matter arranged. Swiftly, but as inconspicuously as possible, the conspirators made their preparations, gathered their belongings together, and transported them to the Geneva rocketdrome, which, fortunately, lay directly adjacent to the private cradle-field of the Solar Space Patrol headquarters.

Amidst the hurly-burly and confusion of this place it was a simple matter for Captain Hugh Warren to delegate two members of his crew to slip to the larger drome and there, unnoticed in the bedlam of blasting explosions, milling throngs, and tearful goodbyes, move the pile of luggage from one drome to the other.

By nightfall the exchange had been completed; the plan was in readiness. There came to the pension a small, gnarled figure bearing a mountainous bundle. This, when unwrapped, proved to be sufficient of the familiar sky blue SSP uniform clothing to disguise every member of the party. The bearer, a man who identified himself as, "'Awkins, sir—'Erby 'Awkins, stooard o' the blinkin' Liberty, that's me, sir!" gravely transmitted Captain Warren's instructions as to entering the SSP rocketdrome.

"Just walk on past the sentry without sayin' nothin', folks," he advised. "I'll give the password for the crew of us. Actin' like you had maybe a drop too many might be a bit of an 'elp, but it don't matter much. The sentries will be expectin' us, and won't think a thing of it."

"Expecting us?" repeated Nora. "Five strangers, including a woman?"

'Erby 'Awkins grinned impishly. "Beggin' your poddon, miss, but when you get them volly-oominus blues wrapped about your own pretty self—meanin' no impertinence—it'd take a sharp-eyed sentry to tell whether you was male or female, old or young. And there's no call for them to be suspicious. Cap'n, he give five men all night leave, he did, and told them not to bother comin' back. But he reported to the Captain of the Guards that he was expectin' five of his crew to report back to headquarters at eleven o'clock. That's the hour when we'll enter the gates."

Gary said soberly, "We understand, Hawkins. I see Captain Warren has already told you what we are planning to do."

And Hawkins replied with quiet dignity, "He didn't tell me nawthin', sir; not a blinkin' word. And if I does 'ave my suspicions, well, wot matter? Cap'n Warren's our skipper, sir. What he decides is good enough for me and the rest of the crew."

So at eleven o'clock that night, as the long black spires of the circling mountains rose to merge with the thicker black of a clouded, moonless sky, five slightly tipsy figures lurched with shambling feet to the sacrosanct portal of the Solar Space Patrol rocketdrome.

As Hawkins had promised, they passed the gate unchallenged, the little purser volunteering the password for all of them. And as they left the gate behind, young Dr. Lane breathed a deep sigh of relief. The one hazardous point of their effort now lay behind them. Five hundred yards away lay the ship upon whose flaming jets they soon would thrust voidward on a quest of magnificent daring.

The gate crashed to behind them, and the sentry's amused drawl advised, "All right, lads, hop along back to your ship and sleep it off before your skipper finds out—Wait a minute! What's the matter there?"

His voice lifted in sharp query, and beside Gary, Nora Powell gasped in swift alarm; her right hand sought and gripped his arm in a clutch of panic fright. For, awkwardly, in the darkness, one of their party had slipped and fallen. And as he sprawled on the rough, uneven ground, he cried in a loud and decidedly unsailorlike voice, "Oh, goodness gracious! How perfectly stupid of me!"

It was the rotund little scientist, Dr. Anjers!

En Route to Venus

A coldness gripped Lane's heart; his breath caught in his throat. In a moment the sentry's flashlight would dart its questing beam upon their group. Their shoddy disguise could brook no such probing revelation.

He guessed right. A sudden shaft of silver split the darkness dazzlingly, revealing the round, stunned face of Dr. Anjers lifted in woebegone chagrin.

And the sentry cried again, "Say, hold on! What does this mean?"

It was no time for considered action. Lane did what must be done ... and did it swiftly. In a single, swooping motion he whirled, raced, dove for the sentry's legs. Both men went down in a flurry of tangling limbs. Arms strained to escape Gary's viselike grip that a marksman's hand might find its weapon.

But if strength and armed superiority was the sentry's, the element of surprise favored Gary. Before the patrolman could reach his weapon, before even his startled wits advised him to lift his voice in a cry of warning, Lane's arm lifted once ... twice. The spaceman sighed—and slumbered.

Gary leaped to his feet, lashing a cry of command out over the now swiftly wakening rocketdrome.

"Take his other arm, there, Hawkins! We'll carry him. There, that's it! Now, to the ship, folks—quickly! There's not a second to lose!"

And with the aid of the little steward he swept Anjers to his feet, half-lifted, half-bore him to the entrance port of the Liberty, now shining like a white rectangular beacon in the darkness before them. An instant later, all five were within the craft. The airlock closed behind them, and Captain Hugh Warren was rasping swift commands over the audiophone system:

"Lift gravs! Throw all thrusts at five gees immediately! No time to warm hypos. Give her the gun! Hurry! For God's sake—!"

The shrill, high whine of straining hypatomic motors coursed through the ship, losing itself in the thunderous rumble of spluttering jets as the fuel chambers stirred to power.

A voice clacked over the audio system, "Course and trajectory, Captain?"

"Later!" roared Warren. "Later. Lift gravs—quickly!"

Then a brutal, invisible hand smashed down on Gary Lane's head and shoulders with crushing force. His knees buckled beneath him and the blood drained from his head as he pitched forward helplessly on his face, caught in the grip of a bruising acceleration. The roar of exploding jets smashed furiously at his eardrums. The ship beneath him seemed to pick itself up, shake itself like a huge, metallic beast, and leap into the shrouded darkness.

Earth, an already dwindling ball of glowing green, lay a multitude of miles beneath and behind them. Their journey was begun.

When eons of agony later it seemed his laboring lungs could no longer supply his wracked body with precious oxygen, when it seemed but a matter of seconds before his very veins must burst beneath the crushing of that horrid acceleration, there descended upon Gary Lane a brief moment of vertigo. Darkness spun dizzily before his eyes. And when the instant passed, the pressure was gone. He was free to rise again from the hard metal deck to which gravitation had skewered him.

It was a measure of his fortitude that of all his companions save only the space-hardened Captain Hugh Warren, Gary should have been the first to regain his feet. Muldoon followed his example seconds later, to be followed slowly by the girl and the cockney steward, then the two older men. It was 'Erby 'Awkins who broke the labored silence.

"Well," he said with shaken satisfaction. "Well, it were touch-and-go for a moment, weren't it? But we seems to be orl right now. Wot blinkin' cheer, eh, shipmates?"

Nora said with a palpable effort toward regaining a vestige of her usual composure, "Touch-and-go is right! I've lifted gravs before, but never so swiftly nor so suddenly. If you ask me, that's no way for a girl to keep her figure."

"I'm sorry," said little Dr. Anjers contritely. "I am deeply sorry, my friends. It was all my fault. Had I not stumbled and fallen, inadvertently roused an alarm—"

"Forget it," said Flick Muldoon. "Everybody pulls a pancake once in a while. It's just tough luck that you happened to pull yours at a bad moment. The main thing is, what are we going to do now?"

He looked at Warren questioningly, but Warren's eyes were upon Gary.

"That's your cue, Gary. I'm just flying this ship; you're plotting the course."

Lane said soberly, "Well, Venus is our first logical stop, but I don't know—now. The whole Patrol will be out after us like a pack of hounds."

Hugh Warren chuckled grimly, "Let them. They'll never catch the Liberty. This is the fastest little ship afloat in space. We can run circles around anything that ever punched holes in the ether."

"Yeah?" said Muldoon interestedly. "What's your speed?"

"On test flights," answered Warren proudly, "about a thousand. But that was straight cruising speed. In an emergency we might be able to make as much as twelve-fifty."

"What! A cruising speed of a thousand miles per second? But—but that's over ten million miles per day!"

"And with Venus in inferior conjunction," said Nora excitedly, "we can be there in two and a half days!"

"Well, not quite. You have to allow a time lag for acceleration and deceleration. But—" Captain Warren grinned happily—"three days should do the trick. Not bad, eh, Gary?"

Gary Lane said dazedly, "Not bad! Mister, when they start giving medals for understatement, you ought to get one as big as the United Nations Victory Tower. Why, the universal record for an Earth-Venus flight is almost a day longer than that."

"Three days," supplied Warren, "eighteen hours, twenty-three and a half minutes. Which same so-called 'record' we're going to bust six ways to hell-and-gone on this little shuttle. Only—" he admitted ruefully—"our new record won't count, seeing as how it's unofficial as hell. Well, Venus it is? I'll be leaving you, then, to chart the course and trajectory. Hawkins, show our guests to their quarters. We'll meet later in the lounge."

And he vanished bridgeward.

So set the Liberty forth upon the first leg of its argosy. The next three days sped swiftly. So fraught with activity, indeed, were his waking hours, that Gary Lane found scant time in which to acquaint himself with the Liberty and its personnel. One thing he learned from his space commander friend: that there were, in addition to himself and his companions, fifteen souls aboard the craft. Of these, three were Patrol officers: Hugh Warren himself, his mate, Lieutenant Angus MacDonald, and the Chief Engineer, a lean, taciturn man named Sebold. Two more were subalterns: Bud Howard, the assistant engineer, and Tommy Edwards, the ship's Sparks. The enlisted men included Herby Hawkins, the steward; Tony, potentate of the galley; four able-bodied spacemen; and four blasters of the jet-chamber crew.

"We're short," Hugh Warren pointed out, "five men. The five as whom you masqueraded when you came aboard. Two of these were spacemen. We can spare them. Another two were blasters. We can get by without them, too, though it means longer shifts and harder work for the remaining four. But the other one—" He shook his head—"we're really going to need him. He was Fred Harkness, my first mate. A good spaceman with a keen mind for figures and a swift, intuitive ability at handling a ship in an emergency. If we run into any snags we're going to wish he was along."

"Then why did you let him go?" asked Gary.

Warren grinned a tight, lopsided grin. "For the same reason I gave the other four leave. Because I knew I'd never be able to convince him I was doing the right thing. He was strong on discipline. He would have wanted no part of this escapade."

That was something which had been troubling Dr. Gary Lane. He said thoughtfully, "And you, Hugh? You're not sorry?"

"That I cast my lot in with yours? Made your cause mine? No." Warren shook his head decidedly. "Decidedly not. I'm sorry I had to, on the surface at least, play traitor to the uniform I wear. But under the circumstances I believe I did the proper thing. This little emblem—" he touched the small gold rocket pinned above his heart—"is inscribed with the motto of the Solar Space Patrol: 'Order out of Chaos.' That is the duty to which we are charged above all others. And though for a time it means flying in the face of orders and conventions, I feel the importance of our task justifies my desertion.

"If—" his jaw set tightly—"if we succeed in doing that which you say we must, exoneration will follow swiftly and surely."

"And," said Gary softly, "if we do not?"

Warren shrugged. "The question carries its own answer. If we do not, then according to your own calculations, there will be no Hugh Warren to stand trial, nor court to sit in judgment upon his sins."

Thus sped the Liberty through space at a rate of speed attained by no other spaceship before her. Each passing hour found Earth dwindling smaller and dimmer behind them; each hour saw Earth's sister planet looming ever larger and brighter before.

As they flashed sunward, the Sun grew greater, too. Its radiance, down-pouring upon them with devastating beneficence, was like the molten spuming of gaseous gold. Though the polarized quartzite of the ship's viewpane blacked out its brazen light, nothing could stay the increase of its heat. It grew warmer and ever more sultry in the Liberty despite the labors of the ship's air-conditioning system.

Flick Muldoon, shirt plastered wetly to his back, mopped his brow and groaned, "It takes a trip away from home to make you realize what a sweet little old gal Mama Earth is. Boy, I wouldn't live on Venus for all the bubbles in a beauty bath! If it's like this out here in space, what must it be like on the planet itself?"

From his seat at the control studs, Lieutenant Angus MacDonald grinned companionably.

"Not so bad as you'd think. You see, even though Venus is 25,000,000 miles nearer the sun than Earth, she's protected from the sun's glare by a cloud-layer almost three times as thick as the atmosphere layer of Terra. As a result, the planet has neither a burning hot summer season nor a frigid winter period, but a fairly pleasant and constant temperature all the year 'round."

Dr. Anjers said, "I have been fearing recently that we may find something else, too, not quite so pleasant."

"What's that?"

"The Space Patrol," said Anjers gravely, "waiting for us. We are traveling at the greatest rate of speed ever attained by a spacecraft, true, but the speed of light makes mockery of our efforts. And that is the rate at which a warning message must have winged its way before us. Is it not possible we are running directly into a trap? A Patrol fleet grimly awaiting our arrival?"

Skipper Warren shook his head. "A couple of years ago, yes, undoubtedly. But not now."

"No? Why not?"

"Because," explained Warren gravely, "the Solar Space Patrol is not an interplanetary patrol any longer. Few earthmen realize that, but it's true. The purpose for which it was formed, that of policing and providing judicial protection to all the civilized planets, has been overthrown. The militaristic ambitions of each world have heightened so greatly in the last couple of years that now every other planet in the system looks with disfavor upon the SSP, which was an invention of the Earth government.

"One by one, its garrisons have been withdrawn from Venus, Mars, Jupiter, the asteroids, until now the organization which used to proudly boast the maintenance of order throughout the whole system has become nothing more than an armed protective corps for Earth itself."

"Is that true?" gasped Nora Powell. "But why should the other planets refuse to cooperate?"

"It's our own fault," confessed Warren glumly. "The Patrol was a good idea, but it wasn't organized properly. Its membership should have been drawn from the likeliest youths of each world. Instead, through selfishness or cunning or greed—I don't know why—Earth undertook the policing of the entire solar system with only the young men of her own world.

"Then again, throughout many decades we have steadfastly refused to aid the other worlds in developing spacecraft. Earth, and Earth alone, knows the secret of the construction of hypatomic motors which make spaceflight possible. It is a secret we guard jealously. That is why there exists no Venusian fleet, no Martian fleet, Jovian fleet. Only an Earth fleet which—and perhaps with reason—the denizens of all the other planets fear as an aggressive force.

"Earth, too, has the only merchant fleet. And while it is no doubt true that other planets profit somewhat by the interchange of commerce our merchantmen make possible, it is into Earth's coffers pours the wealth of the universe."

"Why—why, that's true," said Dr. Bryant. "I had never realized it before, but that is undoubtedly responsible for the known disaffection between Earth and the outlying planets. But, Captain Warren, the common people of Earth don't realize this! They, like myself, are too busy with the small details of their private lives to wonder more than casually about such things. It never occurred to me to wonder at the lack of other interplanetary merchantmen. I suppose I always took it for granted that we of Earth were doing our solar neighbors a great favor by regulating interplanetary commerce. Now I can see—"

He paused, his eyebrows knit in thought. Then—"But something must certainly be done about this situation. What can we do?"

"Right now," replied Warren gravely, "nothing. We have a more important task confronting us. But if and when this other affair is successfully cleared up, something should be finally done to create a new world order truly based on the principle of equal rights ... with liberty and justice for all."

Muldoon said cautiously, "But, wait a minute. There's a bug in that reasoning somewhere. You say the other planets haven't learned the secret of the hypatomic motor? Well, ships crash, don't they? And ships can be captured. It seems to me that if any nation really wanted to learn that secret—"

"They could not do so," replied Warren, "any more than we in this ship could learn the actual mechanism of the motor driving us."

"What? We can't—but why?"

"Because the hypatomic motors which drive us are encased in a steel jacket equipped with a device so regulated that were any attempt made to open it and study its mechanism it would instantly explode, blowing itself and us into oblivion."

And Warren added softly, "I think you begin to understand now, my friends, why every other world fears and distrusts Earth. And why our task of pleading for their cooperation is harder than Gary expected."

"Introducing Larkspur O'Day...."

In exactly three days, one hour and forty-five minutes Solar Constant time, the Liberty dropped to a perfect landing in a cradle on the rocketdrome of Sun City, seat of the Venusian planetary government.

As Warren had foretold, their arrival was unchallenged by any ship of the SSP fleet. Sole occupants of the rocketdrome's cradles were lumbering freighters and sleek merchantmen emblazoned with the emblem of Earth's merchant marine.

But if their arrival was unchallenged it was not unexpected. A host of ebony-skinned Venusians gathered about their ship instantly. As soon as their party emerged from the lock, a delegation moved forward to greet them. With but a few words of preamble they were whisked away to the Venusian Council Hall. There, serving as spokesman for the group, Gary Lane launched earnestly upon an explanation of the mission which had brought them hither.

It was a strikingly different group of beings whom Gary now spoke to than those to whom he had addressed his plea on Earth three short days ago. The Venusians were human. Upon his conquest of space, man had discovered—somewhat to his surprise and more than a little to the chagrin of the ethnologists who had predicted otherwise—that nowhere (in the solar galaxy at least) had risen to planetary supremacy any race of creatures other than that represented by Homo sapiens.

But where on Earth of the Twenty-third century white, or Caucasian, man was the acknowledged cultural leader of his planet, here on Venus the situation was reversed. The planetary overlords were dark-skinned men of magnificent figure and intellect. The planet embraced only a minority of the white and yellow-skinned races. And these, when found, were for the most part centuries deeper in barbarism and savagery than were the negroid rulers of the planet.

To the bafflement of science, laboratory research had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that these Venusians bore a fundamental kinship with the dark-skinned races of Earth. Blood plasma, hair structure, and other physiological phenomena proved Earth's dark children were more nearly related to the Venusians than to their own terrestrial brethren.

All this Gary Lane had known in advance. So it was with no surprise he addressed himself to the Venusian court. He did, however, despite the intensity of his purpose, in some dim recess of his mind find time to marvel that the racial characteristics of the colored men, sometimes mildly amusing at home, were here lifted and dignified by universal usage to a station of high importance.

The great vaulted Council chamber, with its curving spires and gaudily tinted walls; the bright colored raiment, the elaborate equipage and formality with which the Venusians embellished their pomp, on Earth might have exacted derision. Here they seemed the normal, the true and graceful and cultured thing.

And if there was a certain childlike love of color and circumstances in the Venusian heart, it was no juvenile attention the Venusian overlords turned upon Lane's words. They listened carefully and thoughtfully to what he had to say, then conferred briefly amongst themselves. Finally their Chief Councillor turned to him.

"Your story is fantastic, but there is a certain ominous ring of truth in its telling. Still we do not quite understand. Why have you come to Venus? What would you have of us?"

"One of the four things," answered Gary, "requisite to our escaping our own solar galaxy that we may seek the cause which threatens to bring about our doom. We need from you—fuel. Sufficient stores of precious neurotrope, which only your planet produces. It is the only fuel with great enough power in small enough quantity to serve our purposes."

"And how much," asked the Venusian spokesman, "of this fuel would you need?"

"A minimum of five thousand tons."

"Five thousand tons!"

The noblemen murmured amongst themselves restlessly. Their leader bent a shrewd, hard glance upon Gary.

"That is much fuel, Earthman."

"We have far to go," replied Gary. "From here to Mars ... from Mars to Jupiter ... then outward, beyond this universe itself. Five thousand tons of neurotrope is barely enough for our needs."

"It is also enough," reminded the other, "to fuel the whole of your Earth fleet for a trip to Venus."

"Yes," acknowledged Gary, "I suppose that's true. But this is a relatively short trip, whereas—" Then he stopped suddenly, the implication of the other's words striking him. "But surely you can't think—!"

"Our relationship with your planet," said the Chief Councillor slowly, "has not always been ... pleasant. We have small reason to place great faith in your words and promises; none whatsoever to turn over to you a supply of the only important military weapon we possess. Unless, of course—"

Gary grasped the straw eagerly. "Yes?"

"Unless you would be willing to show your good faith by disclosing to us, in return, an Earthly secret vital to our defense."

"But," faltered Gary, "I know no such secret."

"I think you do. You came here in a spacecraft. It contains the secret we want. The knowledge of the hypatomic motor which drives it."

Gary's heart sank. He turned to Hugh Warren.

"Tell them, Hugh, what you told us on the trip here."

Warren did so. The councillors were courteous but unmoved. Their chief merely shrugged as he made reply.

"The situation is even worse than I thought. Earth's government is so jealous of its military secrets that it does not entrust them even to the Patrolmen who fight in its cause. No, gentlemen, I am afraid—"

It was the girl, Nora Powell, who interrupted him.

"But, Excellency," she cried, springing forward, "you can't do this! You can't risk the very existence of a dozen worlds for the sake of a selfish principle. You can't turn us away like this. Don't you realize what these men have dared already? Disgrace and death at the hands of their compatriots, unless our mission succeeds. We are exiles, fugitives from Earth, fighting alone and single-handed to protect Earth and all Sol's other children from—"

The councillor said, "Yes, we have heard the news by ultrawave radio of your—er—melodramatic escape from Earth. Surely, my dear young lady, you do not think we are taken in by such a ruse? It is an exquisitely imaginative tale. But we find it scarcely credible that five learnéd scientists and a crew of Solar Patrolmen should 'steal' a ship against the will of Earth's government.

"It is more likely—much more likely—that your world, in order to gain a sufficient supply of our vital fuel, has planned this little drama."

"Why," burst out Flick Muldoon indignantly, "that's nonsense! Begging your pardon, Excellency, but that idea's as crazy as hell! We did this on our own hook in order to—"

But Gary stopped him before the irate cameraman's outspoken indignation should only worsen their plight. He asked quietly, "That is your final and considered decision?"

The councillor nodded for himself and his associates.

"It is. When you return to Earth you may tell your government we of Venus are not fools. And now, farewell."

He nodded to a retinue of guards. Short minutes later the dejected little group was being led back toward the spaceport.

For the most part they were silent, each lost in the overwhelming sadness of his own thoughts. Only one spoke, and he in a mutter. That one was Flick Muldoon.

"Not fools, eh? I wonder if he'd like to make book on that...."

"So," said Hugh Warren, "that seems to be that. What do we do now, Gary? Give up?"

Gary said, "I don't know what to do, Hugh."

"I am afraid," sighed Dr. Anjers, "our mission is a failure. Perhaps it were best we go back to Earth and throw ourselves on the clemency of the World Council."

"You maybe," said the skipper of the Liberty ruefully, "but not me. I'm in it too deep. Well, Gary, better make up your mind."

"We go on," decided Lane suddenly. "That's all we can do. Swallow this failure and go on to Mars. Perhaps there our plea will meet with more success."

"But," demurred Dr. Bryant, "if we lack sufficient fuel—"

"We must find some substitute," said Gary. But even as he said it, he knew he was guilty of wishful thinking. There was no substitute for neurotrope. There were many fuels capable of adaptation to the explosion chamber of hypatomic motors, but none compact enough and powerful enough to make possible the long, sustained flight which lay before them.

Warren said, "You're the doctor," and turned to the control studs, setting the stops for the next leg of their journey, that which must carry them 200,000,000 miles through space to the crimson, arid comet of Mars.

As he depressed the proper button, lights flashed and relays clicked. Small bells jangled in the bowels of the ship, setting unseen engineers and crewmen to the fulfillment of their tasks.

Skipper Warren smiled drearily, "Well, at any rate," he said, "we have the satisfaction of knowing that fuel or no fuel, we have under us the smoothest little ship in space. Mile for mile it will give us more speed per pound of fuel than any other ship—"

He stopped suddenly, lurching and grasping for support, startled into silence as the deck beneath him bucked and quivered violently. Someone shouted. Nora screamed a little scream of dismay. Only by grasping an upright of the control turret did Gary Lane keep himself from tumbling bruisingly across the room. Flick Muldoon, victim of an unexpectedly violent threepoint landing, glared up irately from the floor.

"Smoothest little ship in space, eh? It's sure acting like it now."

But Captain Hugh Warren's face had suddenly drained of color. Now his hands smashed open the ship's intercommunicating system, and he bawled, "We're caught in an enemy tractor beam! All hands at battle stations! Stand by to repel boarders!"

But overlapping his command came that of a second voice, one crisp and cool and pleasantly amused,

"I shouldn't if I were you, Captain. You see, we're already alongside, with our guns trained on you. It would be wiser to bow to the inevitable."

"But what ... who...?" gasped Dr. Bryant.

Hugh Warren turned from his controls with a shrug of resignation, and in a voice of gathering despair, "Troubles," he said, "never come singly. Now it's pirates."

Minutes later he was proven correct. There came the grating clamor of spacecraft in embrace, the hiss of opening airlocks, and into the Liberty strode a band of Earthmen, bulger-clad and armed to the teeth.

With the swift efficiency of long practice, these men dispersed throughout the ship to accomplish their marauding aims. Only their leader and a lieutenant refrained from piratical activity. These came to the bridge of the Liberty, and there with an ease and calmness Gary Lane found amazing under the circumstances, addressed themselves to the skipper of the invaded vessel.

"Greetings, Captain. No hard feelings, I hope? If you'll just toss your sidearms over into the corner—There, that's better. No reason we shouldn't enjoy a pleasant little chat until my men have completed their mission."

"Mission?" grated Warren savagely. "What mission? Damn your rascally hide, we're no merchantman. This is a cruiser of the Solar Space Patrol."

The corsair chieftain chuckled pleasantly.

"Why, yes, Captain. So we noticed. That's our mission. I thought it would be a good joke to stop you—just to see if we could, you know. And as a matter of proof, in case anyone should ever contest our claim, I've asked my men to remove the insignia from the uniforms of each of your crew. Sorry to seem impolite, Captain, but if you wouldn't mind tossing me your epaulettes ... just as a little souvenir, you know—"

Hugh Warren's face, which had been apoplectic with rage, now froze in slack-jawed wonder.

"J-joke!" he stammered. "Just to see if you could? Souvenir! There's only one pirate in space crazy enough to do a thing like this. You must be—"

The marauder smiled amiably. "Well, now," he drawled, "that's right flattering of you, Captain. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is O'Day. Larkspur O'Day."

Moon of Madness

And he pushed back the quartzite helmet of his bulger, exposing the whitest smile, the handsomest face, the laughingest pair of eyes, all topped by the most unruly mop of cinnamon hair, Gary Lane had ever seen. A buccaneer the man might be, but he could equally well have been an artist's model for a gay and laughing cavalier of the Seventeenth Century.

"Lark O'Day!" gasped Nora Powell.

She knew the name, as did all Earthmen and women with a spark of romantic imagination in their systems. Lark O'Day was a privateer whose exploits were so remarkable as to be almost legendary. Though a tremendous price was offered for his apprehension by the harassed merchantmen of Earth's fleet, there were few but had a sneaking admiration for this gallant and quixotic young champion of derring-do, who, alone in this late day of ultra-civilization, carried on the traditions of an earlier Robin Hood or Dick Turpin.

Though no rare cargo of precious gems or valuable ores was safe from the attentions of Lark O'Day, it was not only such things which tempted his forays. When the traitorous rebel government of the tiny planetoid Ceres had fled its orb with a ransom of priceless gems ravaged from the imperial coffers, he it was who had apprehended the traitors, delivered upon them a swift and merciless punishment, then sent to Ceres' beauteous Princess Alicia a gorgeous crown encrusted with the finest of the stolen gems ... retaining only (as his fee for services rendered) those jewels which found no place in the coronet.

He it also was who, when Earth's government dared not openly accuse that brilliantly ruthless business tycoon, Jeremiah Draven, of establishing slave colonies on Earth's lunar outpost, whisked the trillionaire scoundrel from his private space yacht, held him incommunicado until a court, declaring him legally dead, broke up his financial empire ... then returned him to Earth horribly and ineradicably branded across the brow with a cicatrix which theologians identified as the biblical Mark of Cain.

And it was Lark O'Day who, for a whim, had stopped on its maiden voyage the Orestes, greatest luxury liner ever built by man, for the sole purpose of stealing one kiss from the ripe, bewildered lips of the newly crowned "Miss Universe."

This, then, was the nature of their attacker. And though Gary Lane knew the man to be a thief, daredevil, and desperado, he could not help but like him at first sight. Nor was even Captain Hugh Warren, who should have been furious, more than mildly amused at this latest prank of the void's piratical playboy.

He chuckled and stripped off the gold braid emblems for which O'Day asked, tossed them toward the privateer.

"Here you are," he laughed, "and welcome. I'm afraid I have no right to wear them any more, anyway. At least, that's what my commander would say."

O'Day glanced at him curiously.

"What? Say, wait a minute! This isn't the Liberty? You're not the ones I heard about on the radio? The ones who stole a brand new cruiser and—"

He paused, then rocked with infectious laughter. Whatever strain had existed on the Liberty's bridge disappeared as all joined him in his mirth. When finally the redhead had regained his composure, he picked up the fallen epaulettes, returned them to Warren with a courtly bow.

"My apologies, Captain. I am afraid I cannot take these. It appears we're both in the same boat, figuratively as well as literally speaking. And, after all, there is 'honor amongst thieves', you know. But—tell me? All I have heard is the World Council's side of the story. I'm sure the whole truth must be interesting. Tell me about it."

So they told him the entire tale. Of Lane's discovery, the attack in the Observatory, the World Council's refusal to grant a ship, and the subsequent theft of the Liberty. Of their recent adventure on Venus.

As Gary spoke, the laughter faded from the corsair's lips and eyes. A new seriousness gathered about the corners of his mouth and anger tightened his lean, lithe figure.

He interrupted, frowning. "Just a moment. These calculations of yours—you're sure they're right?"

"If mathematics is a pure science, yes."

"And the Venusian government—you say it refused to give you the fuel you need?"

"That's right," said Gary glumly, "and without it, I'm afraid—"

He shrugged. But Lark O'Day turned sharply to his lieutenant. In his voice was a note which the others had not heard before. It proved beyond need of demonstration why laughing Lark O'Day could command a hard-bitten crew as his.

"Call the men, Mark. Get them aboard the Black Star and place every hand at battle stations. Open the gun ports. Not short range—the troposphere rotors. Prepare for immediate action. If those damned fools—"

He spun to Warren angrily. "Captain, may I request the use of your radioman and signal turret for a short time?"

"Why—why, yes," faltered Warren.

"Good! Then we'll teach those idiots to sacrifice an entire system to their own selfish greed!"

"What are you going to do?" demanded Gary.

O'Day laughed, a single explosive bark in which was little mirth. "Do? Why, I'm going to get you that fuel you need, of course! The Venusian Council knows me of old ... and they know what the Black Star's guns can do. I'm going to call them now and tell them that unless they load your fuel bins to the last millimeter I'll blast Sun City off the face of their stinking planet. Come along if you want!" And he headed for the radio turret.

What happened after that was anti-climax. The effect of Lark O'Day's little speech to the Venusian Council was a measure of his greatness. He talked and they listened. They demurred and he raised his voice a note. They complained and that note became a warning note. They entered a half-hearted refusal and he stopped asking and started telling them what they must do ... or else. They capitulated, servilely. A short time later the Liberty was once again nestling in a Sun City cradle; this time gorging its belly with the five thousand tons of neurotrope for which Gary had unsuccessfully pleaded. The only difference between this arrangement and the one Lane had suggested was that the Venusians were not paid cash on the line for the vital fuel. That was Lark O'Day's idea.

"Not a damn cent," he said. "Serves them right for being so stingy with it before. This will teach them a lesson. And—" He grinned—"if your conscience bothers you, you can pay them when we come back, if our trip is successful."

"We?" said Nora Powell. "Our trip?"

Lark O'Day grinned at her happily. "Why, sure," he drawled. "You don't think I'd let an expedition like this get away without me being aboard, do you? That's my fee for helping out in a pinch. You don't mind, do you, if I join the party?"

Lane said, "Mind! We're tickled to death to have you." And he really meant it.

So set the Liberty forth upon the second leg of its quest. Nor was it now a halting leg upon which they limped. For their bins were filled to the brim, "With enough fuel—" as Flick Muldoon put it—"to drive us from here to Hades and back, with lay-overs at Erewhon and Shangri-la!"

This phase of the journey was not so frenzied as had been the brief shuttle from Earth to Venus. For Mars lay not in conjunction with Earth, but in opposition to the green planet. Their course bore them sunward from Venus, inside the orbit of Mercury, then outward again two hundred million miles to where slow Mars, pursuing its inexorable course, should meet them in celestial rendezvous.

Thus the first week of their twenty day voyage was a far from pleasant experience. Nearing Venus they had experienced a sample of Sol's heat-dealing abilities. Now, as they flashed yet farther sunward, Gary Lane and his companions realized that this had been indeed but a tiny taste of what was to come.

Hour by hour the temperature within the Liberty rose as flaming radiation lashed at the cruiser's hull with scourges of flame. It scarcely mattered that the refrigerating unit strained and labored like a floundering Titan. The metal walls were unbearable to touch, and cool drinks were but a sop to bodies which oozed perspiration from every pore like desert-parched sponges.

Nor did it matter that the air-conditioning system functioned perfectly. Its vents and fans had no cool air with which to bathe their bodies. From its spouts gushed blasts of withering heat, scarcely less endurable than the thickly stagnant air of unventilated corridors. One by one the travelers shed layers of useless clothing. At their point of nearest proximity to Sol, the men on duty labored in sweat-soaked shorts, while those off duty—and Nora Powell—for modesty's sake sought the sanctuary of stripped relaxation in their private quarters.

To Gary Lane's unspacetrained eye it appeared that save for this raw discomfort the period passed without incident. Once, to be true, there was a time when it seemed they would never swing out, past, and away from the sky-filling crimson globe which is Earth's sun. And once there came a breathless moment when it seemed the Liberty choked and throbbed in mid-flight, shuddered violently ... then ploughed along her course.

But he was not spaceman enough to read meaning into these episodes. It was not until much later, when they had recrossed the Mercurial orbit and already the scorching heat was a fading memory, that Captain Hugh Warren told him how near they had come to disaster.

"Nip and tuck there for a while," he confessed, "just as we reached perigee. Even at our rate of speed I didn't think we were going to make it for a minute. And we might not have, either, if it hadn't been for O'Day."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Lane.

Warren grinned. "Heard of sun-baths, haven't you? Well, all of us nearly took one. Only not in the sun's rays, but in old Sol itself. Remember that time day before yesterday when the ship stalled for a minute, then trembled and went on?"

"Yes. I thought something had gone wrong with the motors."

"It did," grunted Warren. "Solar rays locked 'em. Hysteresis, you know. If O'Day hadn't jumped to those controls and done something—God knows what—Sol's gravitation might have pulled us in and then ... blooie!

"I'm telling you, I'm glad he's along on this trip. Frankly, I don't know whether I could have pulled us out of it myself."

Gary said, "And I'm glad I didn't know about it until it was all over! It is all over? We're in good shape now?"

"Yes. Though I'm afraid the jets may be a bit warped from the beating they took. Not enough to cause us any trouble, I guess, but we'll have to have them fixed up when we get to Mars."

"And that should be—?"

"Oh, at least another ten days. Might as well relax and enjoy yourself. Speaking of which—" Warren's tone altered suddenly—"there's something I'd like to mention. I hardly know how to say it, but—"

Gary stared at him puzzledly. "Well, go ahead."

"It's about Nora ... Miss Powell. I mean—I never quite understood the setup between you two. I don't want to poach on a friend's preserves, but in this instance—"

Gary said slowly, "Why—I have no strings on Nora, if that's what you mean, Hugh. We're friends, but—"

"But there's no understanding between you?"

"No."

Warren laughed relievedly. "Well, in that case, you wouldn't have any objection if I—well, sort of showed her around a little? Maybe pointing out, meanwhile, that a certain Hugh Warren isn't a bad sort of guy?"

"No," said Gary even more slowly. "No, of course not, Hugh. You have every right in the world to do so."

It was all very open and above board. Nora was a fine girl and Gary admired her greatly. Hugh was a great guy and an old friend. In view of these facts, it is strange that when Warren, that night after dinner, took Nora's arm in his and wandered off with her to the observation deck of the Liberty, young Dr. Lane should have found himself suddenly seized with a restlessness and impatience quite outside the usual emotional experience of an earnest scientist with a burning mission before him....

So the long hours rolled by, becoming days, and the slow days passed until at length the sun lay far behind them, a dwindling ochre glow in the black of space. And before them, increasingly larger with each hour of flight, lay a huge crimson sphere, scored with a multitude of crisscross scars, about which endlessly circled a pair of hurtling satellites. The planet Mars.

Toward that they flashed at constant driving speed, filled with a gathering impatience now that the second stage of their quest was so near completion. Only three men seemed in any way perturbed by the approaching nearness of the red planet. They, significantly enough, were the three trained spacemen upon whom evolved the duty of guiding the Liberty from orb to orb.

Flick Muldoon who, mechanically inclined, had shown intense interest in the technique of spaceflight throughout the journey, was surprised, on that day when finally their destination loomed directly before them, to note a growing apprehension in the eyes and actions of the three astrogators.

O'Day was in the pilot's seat, his fingers poised and ready above the innumerable banked studs. Of him Flick asked, "What's up, Lark? You're as fidgety as a yogi on a cactus mattress."

O'Day dismissed the query with a swift, impatient shake of the head. "Not now, Flick, if you don't mind. I'm busy."

Muldoon transferred his questioning to Warren.

"Busy? What's all the fuss about? All we've got to do is slide into Mars and make a landing, isn't it?"

But Warren, too, showed no inclination to talk. He said to the man at the controls, "Co-ordinates look good, O'Day. Both moons are on this side. Of course, that may or may not mean anything. You never can tell."

"What is this?" demanded the now completely baffled Muldoon of the only remaining space officer. "You guys act like you're expecting trouble. What's the matter? Do you think the Martians are hostile?"

Lieutenant MacDonald smiled thinly. "It's not the Martians we're worried about, Flick. It's those damned moons."

"What about them?"

"Well, we want to make sure we clear them, that's all. You see, Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. They're tricky little gadgets to calculate when you're plotting a landing on the mother planet. Both of them travel like bats out of hell. The inner one, Phobos, takes only seven hours and thirty-nine minutes to make a complete revolution. Deimos scoots along even faster. Though it's three times as far from its primary as Phobos, it gallops through its orbit in thirty hours and twenty minutes."

"So," Muldoon said, "What? You're not afraid of one of them hitting us, are you? We're traveling faster than they are. And if you know where they're going to be at any given moment—"

"No, we don't expect one of them to hit us. The thing we have to guard against is our hitting one of them. You see, those satellites have peculiarities. One of them is that every once in a while, for no known reason, they suddenly cease being tiny balls of inert matter hurtling about their primary, and for a brief period become tremendously potent magnets.

"Technicians have been studying the problem for a long time, but so far haven't discovered the solution. All we know is that the oddity exists. And so long as it does, Deimos and Phobos remain a constant hazard to spacecraft approaching Mars."

"Magnets?" said Muldoon. "You mean they exert force on us? Drag us down to them like—"

"Like," interrupted Captain Warren with a sudden bellow of dismay, "this! Lark, throw clear!"

For in the split of a second a change had marred the smooth, even flight of the Liberty. There came upon Muldoon a swift and sickening sensation of increased weight. Despite himself he lurched and tumbled forward to his knees aware that the ship's nose had spun dizzily off course, and that the cruiser itself was streaking at increased speed in a direction unplotted by the pilot.

Then everything happened at once. Great beads of perspiration springing from his brow, Lark O'Day began pounding his controls like a master organist playing the keyboard of a delicate instrument. Captain Warren leaped to the audiophone, barked sharp commands to the men in the engine room below. And over the intercommunicating system MacDonald was crying hurried instructions to crew and passengers alike.

"Go to emergency quarters immediately! Hammock yourselves for crash landing!"

"Crash landing!" gasped Muldoon.

"Here!" Warren grasped his arm, threw him into one of the well-padded percussion chairs of the control turret. "Lock your safety belt and relax. Everything's going to be all right ... I hope."

He turned questioning eyes to Lark O'Day. The one-time privateer took time from his labors for an encouraging grunt.

"I think so. We're hooked, but I think I can bounce her down on a slant. Hold tight, everybody."

Then in the vision lens which mapped that segment of space immediately before them, Flick Muldoon glimpsed the rapidly swelling globe which was Deimos, lesser moon of Mars. Like a great, gaunt blood-red rock it looked; quartering, then halving, then completely blotting out the vision plate.

Muldoon was momentarily aware of razor-sharp cliffs, high rocky plateaus, and jagged tors unsoftened by a blade of vegetation. Then the motors whined in shrill and screaming protest. The Liberty's nose came up, and the ship struck with a resounding crash. Struck ... bounced ... shook itself angrily ... and ground to a grating stop....

Power from Mars

"Well!" said Flick Muldoon. "Everything happens to us!"

Lark O'Day pushed a final stud which silenced the Liberty's motors. The ship lay still upon the satellite's rocky surface.

"That," said the pilot moodily, "is that! You all right, fellows? How about you, Muldoon?"

Flick eased himself from his chair, flexed arms and legs gingerly. "They seem to be all right," he admitted cautiously. "I'll study them for defects when the goose pimples go down."

Mac was already at the intercommunicating system, rasping queries to the far chambers of the ship. "Everybody O.Q.? No casualties?"

The responses were encouraging if somewhat blasphemous. Typical was the reply from Slops, the ship's chef. He snarled irately, "I'm all right, Lootenant, but did you say we was to have soup for dinner?"

"Eh? Why, yes. But—"

"'Cause if you did, everybody better come on up to the galley right now with spoons. Dinner's slip-sloppin' all over the floor."

There came the sound of footsteps on the ramp. The door burst open, admitting that quartet which Lark O'Day had humorously dubbed "the brains of this here outfit." All were excited. Gary Lane demanded intently, "Hugh.... Lark.... What is it? Where are we? We're not on Mars?"

Warren shook his head. "No. We are about twelve thousand miles short of our goal. This is what you might call 'time out by command performance.' We're grav-locked. Have you tried to make her respond, Lark?"

O'Day had again been jiggling the activating studs. Now he said, "Yeah, but it's no go. Just our luck. We've blundered into one of Deimos' unpredictable magnetic periods. We're frozen tighter than a pollywog in a Plutonian puddle."

"How long," demanded Muldoon, "does this here magnetic grab operate?"

Dr. Bryant answered for the navigators.

"That, Muldoon, is as unpredictable as the phenomenon itself. Sometimes these periods last but a few hours; at other times they are sustained for months. I'm afraid we must just resign ourselves to remaining here as long as need be."

"Which being the case," drawled Lark O'Day, rising and stretching nonchalantly, "I might as well take a stroll outside and make sure we didn't split any seams when we pancaked. Come along, Hugh?"

He lifted down a brace of fabricoid bulgers from their racks on the control room wall. But before he and the skipper had time to don the airtight suits, there came an interruption not so alarming as unexpected. From the starboard airlock athwart the ship came the rasp of an entrance buzzer, then the wheeze of escaping air as someone or something outside employed the opening apparatus.

For a moment the companions stared at each other in bewilderment, then, as one, they turned and dashed toward the portal.

They arrived just as the inner door of the lock opened, admitting two bulger-clad figures. The taller of these stepped forward with hands outstretched in gesture of peaceful intent, and a quiet, pleasant voice said, "Greeting, friends. We bid you welcome to our tiny refuge."

Then the bulger helm was thrown back, and they were gazing upon the slant-eyed, ivory-skinned countenance of a native Martian.

Now again the ex-pirate, Lark O'Day, proved himself a valuable adjunct to the party. He moved to confront the newcomers, conducting the amenities of greeting as only one with a knowledge of Martian custom and tradition could.

"Welcome, O brother of the ancient world," he said politely. "Your presence is like water to a sun-parched tongue. We are honored by your visit."

Never a word of surprise or astonishment. Never a query as to whence came the two interlopers. And though the old Martian's impassive face moved not a muscle, it was apparent he was pleased to find amongst this group one who respected the formalities of his people.

He bowed in turn, and with a politeness surpassing that of O'Day breathed, "You are most kind. The mongrel barks unbidden at the courteous man's gate."

"The bright sun also rises without warning," answered O'Day gallantly, "kindling fresh life in flagging souls. Will your lordship deign to brighten our humble vessel with his presence?"

The Martian bowed, and without further word he and his companion followed the others to the recreation room.

There, when all were settled comfortably, the visitor reopened the conversation. To the relief of all the Earthmen he did so in a manner at once pleasant and abrupt.

"I am charmed, Captain—" It was to O'Day he spoke, for the pirate chieftain, like Warren, affected the insignia of a space captain—"by your acceptance and usage of our Martian rites of greeting. But proud as I am of our ancient customs I must confess that when urgency presses, our formalities consume too much time. Let us, therefore, speak in the manner of your people, and—as you Earthmen so aptly put it—'get down to business.'

"You know, of course, you have landed on the planetoid Chou-shen, that which Earthmen call Deimos. I trust your craft was not damaged in the landing?"

O'Day said, "I think not, sir. We were about to investigate when you arrived. But I think I brought the Liberty down without any trouble."

"That is good. And now, if you please, just what is your purpose in approaching Mars?"

Lark said dubiously, "Well, sir, that's quite a long story. I'd like my friend here to explain it. He knows the facts better than I. Meanwhile, perhaps your companion—" He nodded to the second and somewhat slighter Martian who so far had not removed his helmet—"might make himself more comfortable—?"

The old Martian permitted himself a faint smile. He murmured, "Though your ship is on Martian soil, it is a part of Earth. And it is written, 'The wise traveler eats of native bread.' So I suppose it will do no harm—"

He turned and spoke swift, rippling sentences to his associate. After a moment's hesitation, the other vested himself of his headpiece....

Himself?

It was no male Martian who stood shyly smiling at the assembled Earthmen, but a girl. Her long, almond-shaped eyes were sloe-black and lustrous, modestly concealed beneath lowered lids which rested like velvet fringes upon soft cheeks of palest amber sheen. Her hair was black and glossy, gathered up from a shapely neck and piled high upon her head in an elaborate but striking coiffure.

Looking at her, Gary Lane was stricken with admiration for the gentle charm and beauty of Martian women. She was, he thought swiftly, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen—well, the second most beautiful, anyway. His betraying eyes sought reassurance with a glance at Nora Powell, and when his gaze met hers he colored faintly.

Flick Muldoon, a dependable barometer of feminine pulchritude, gulped audibly and might have whistled his admiration had not Hugh Warren, jabbing him severely in the ribs, jolted the pucker from his lips. But it was upon Lark O'Day whom the sight of the girl had its most devastating effect. The handsome corsair's eyes widened in frank admiration; a spark lighted within their moss-brown depths, and his lips parted.

Young Dr. Lane began his tale.

"Well, you see, sir—"

The Martian said, "My name is Kang Tsao. And this is my daughter, Pen-N'hi."

The Earthmen introduced themselves swiftly. Then again Gary embarked on the telling of his oft-told tale.

Here in this quiet room, on one of the solar system's tiniest satellites, he found his most attentive audience. The old Martian listened gravely, attentively. When he had finished, Kang Tsao said, "I find this a strange, but not incredible narrative, Dr. Lane. You mentioned proof; mathematical computations. Might I see those proofs?"

And when some time later, he lifted his eyes from the perusal of the other world scientist's calculations....

"There is no doubt," he said, "but that everything you have said is completely and horribly true. One question, however, you have left unanswered. Why did you come to Mars?"

"Because," answered Gary frankly, "there is something we need from your planet. We know, or believe, that the authors of this disaster threatening Earth dwell not in our solar system but beyond it. There is no spacecraft known to men capable of carrying us outside our own little solar galaxy. But if all human intelligence, the wit and wisdom of every planet, could be brought to contribute its portion, such a spacecraft could be built. It was our hope to gain the four requisite elements from the four major planets. The secret of the hypatomic drive from Earth; fuel from Venus; from Jupiter the secret of faster-than-light travel—"

"And from Mars?"

"From Mars," said Gary slowly, "a vital gift. Your most cherished defensive military secret ... the power shield. Yes, we know you have it, sir. We know it because—I am ashamed to say—you have been forced on several occasions to employ it against Earth's space-vessels.

"Your science has discovered some form of force field which is impregnable against the onslaught of every known weapon. Our heaviest HE shells, our heat beams, needle rays, and rotor-blasts alike are harmlessly diverted by the magnificent barrier your people have invented.

"With such a shield must the Liberty be equipped if she is to dare a long and arduous trip through space to a hostile bourne. Not only is the entire journey made in peril of collision with rogue asteroids, bits of cosmic debris, and the like ... but when we reach our destination we will need protection against any conceivable weapon our enemy may bring against us.

"Therefore, that for which we ask is a vital prerequisite to the safety and success of our journey."

Dr. Kang pondered briefly. Then, at length, "It is true," he admitted, "we possess a force-shield such as you have mentioned. But you have made one error. It is not altogether the defensive weapon you imagine it. It is, indeed, the reason your craft lies now on Deimos."

"What?" interjected Hugh Warren. "You mean the intensified magnetization—"

"Exactly, Captain. That is my reason for dwelling here on this outpost, twelve thousand miles from my beloved homeland. We of Mars have installed here a tremendous power plant capable of projecting its magnetic beam upon any vessel which approaches our planet. There is another similar station on Phobos. Master scientists control each of these laboratories. When spacecraft which we have reason to believe may have hostile intent approach Mars, switches are thrown converting these satellites into gigantic magnets of tremendous power.

"That is why—" He smiled a bit ruefully—"That is why, on several occasions, Earth ships have crashed on Deimos and Phobos. Because it was clear they planned to disturb the quietude of our community."

"But," cried Flick Muldoon, "how about us? We didn't come here with a chip on our shoulders. Our purpose was peaceful enough."

Dr. Kang said softly, "This I know, my friend, now. But you must admit that appearances were against you. You came foreheralded by bulletins of treachery and theft on Earth, of strong-armed compulsion and allegiance with a privateer on Venus. We did not know what you wanted, but—" The old Martian shrugged—"we thought it best to deter your arrival until you could be questioned."

O'Day, whom it was hard to believe had heard a single word of the conversation, so raptly had his attention been riveted upon the ivory-skinned scientist's daughter, said abruptly, "And now that you know, Dr. Kang, what is your decision?"

Kang's long dark eyes seemed to withdraw within the curiously involute epithelial folds of their lids. For a long moment he considered the question. Silent he sat, and as impassive as a carven Buddha of the Earth race whose members he so strongly resembled. Then he said, "There can be but one answer, my friend. And on a matter such as this I am free to speak not only for myself but for all my people. You shall have that for which you came."

"We may, Doctor?" cried Gary Lane.

"No kidding?" yelled Muldoon.

"Say—!" breathed Captain Warren.

The old man halted their expressions of gratitude with a turn of the hand.

"Yes, you shall have what you need. We of Mars are a peaceloving race. That which you have chosen to call a 'military weapon' we employ simply and solely as a defensive measure against aggression. But now it seems the time has come to turn this weapon against an interloper of unguessed strength. Therefore, you shall have what you need. But there is one small stipulation—"

Lane thought grimly, "This is it. The fly in the ointment. You never get something for nothing." But aloud he asked politely, "And that is, Dr. Kang—?"

"Simply," replied the aged Martian, "that my daughter and I be permitted to install the equipment on the Liberty ourselves—"

"Why, of course!" said Gary.

"And," continued Dr. Kang, "that we further be permitted to join your party." And for the first time a flicker of expression crossed his features. A smile touched the corners of his lips. "You see, my friend, though we of Mars are called an impassive people, we are not entirely without curiosity. This quest upon which you are embarked has about it a breathtaking challenge which stirs me greatly. I am an old man, but I am not unlearned. It is possible that my knowledge may prove of some value—"

Dr. Bryant said, "Please, Dr. Kang! Not another word! We should be not only happy but proud to welcome you to our party."

Lark O'Day stirred restlessly. "But your daughter, Dr. Kang? It is a perilous trip. Scarcely the sort of adventure for a girl of gentle breeding."

"Where I go, there goes my daughter also. And I note that there is already one woman of refinement and gentle breeding among you. I think—" said Dr. Kang—"I think it is not utterly unreasonable to expect my daughter will find herself surrounded by champions more than willing to assure her comfort and happiness."

And this time it was a full smile he turned upon the suddenly embarrassed Lark O'Day. Gary Lane chuckled too. It appeared that the supposedly "impassive" Martian did not lack, among other things, a delightful sense of humor....

Speed Limit—186,000 MPS!

Thus it was arranged. Dr. Kang Tsao and his daughter, beautiful Kang Pen-N'hi, moved kit and equipment aboard the Liberty that very day. The events of the following week were days not so filled with adventure as with plain hard and dogged work.

At Dr. Kang's own suggestion the Liberty did not linger on Deimos until the installation of the new power shield should be complete.

"This discovery," said the Martian scientist, "is remarkably simple. With what little equipment my daughter and I have brought aboard, and with such standard stores as may be found aboard your ship, we can make the craft impregnable. So let us waste no time, but get under way. We shall make the installation as we fly to Jupiter."

And this they did, in plain sight of all the Liberty's staff and crew. Despite which, few were able afterward to say what had been done, or why such minor alterations should make such a tremendous difference.

Old Douglas Sebold, Chief Engineer of the Liberty, openly acknowledged his inability to grasp the force field's method of operation.

"Come down here to the engine room, they did; the Martian man and his daughter. Fidgeted and fiddled around for a couple of hours without speaking nary a word to any of us except maybe a polite, 'Howjyedo? G'bye!' And when they left, what had they did? Hooked up a little hunk of wire here and a condenser there and a thingamajigger somewhere else, none of which looks like it ought to do nothing!"

Lieutenant MacDonald made much the same plaint.

"They opened the control banks and threw a few shunts across the relays. Then they ran one cable to the hypos. But so far as I can see, what they did shouldn't make any great difference in the operation of the ship." He stared at Gary dubiously, "You don't think the old man's giving us the runaround, do you? Pretending to put out, when really all he's doing is stealing the secret of Earth's hypatomic?"

Lark O'Day, from the neighboring plot desk, looked up, glowering darkly. "Mac," he advised, "if I thought you really meant that, I'd come over there and push your face so far down your throat you'd have a tapeworm's view of your own stomach. Anybody who cracks about Dr. Kang—"

"Also cracks," grinned Gary, "about Kang's charming daughter, Pen-N'hi. Which Lark doesn't allow. But, no, Mac; I'm sure you're mistaken. As soon as we reach the asteroid belt Dr. Kang has promised us proof that the force-shield has been installed and is in operation."

With this assurance everyone had to be content, until ten days out from Mars the Liberty hove within range of that tremendous swarm of shuttling bodies which comprises the Bog, spaceman's term for the belt of myriad asteroids ranging in size from tiny granules of rock to life-sustaining mountains of matter larger than many satellites.

It was when they reached this point that Dr. Kang offered his promised proof. As the leaders of the party gathered within the Liberty's control turret he said, "And now, for those of you who have not had the opportunity of seeing the Martian force-shield operate, a little demonstration may be heartening. Who's at the controls? O'Day? Good! Larkspur, my friend ... you see that asteroid moving within our vision range to loft and starboard?"

O'Day, fingers flickering incessantly over the keyboard as the ship wove its way through the treacherous belt, nodded tightly.

"I see it," he grunted, "and I'm getting out of its way now. If that thing ever plowed into us, the Liberty would be one small blob of crumpled metal floating through space."

"On the contrary," said Dr. Kang smoothly, "you will make no attempt to avoid the planetoid. You will set a course directly for it."

"Directly—!" gulped Lark.

"Yes. If you will be so kind."

Then Dr. Kang stepped to the board and depressed the single black stud he had installed on the instrument panel. "Steer directly for that rock at the greatest speed you can achieve."

O'Day essayed a grin that didn't quite jell. But with the eyes of Pen-N'hi upon him, he had no intention of showing the white feather. He merely shrugged.

"You're calling signals," he muttered ... and did as the old Martian directed.

With the die irrevocably cast, young Dr. Lane could sympathize completely with the Liberty's pilot. He, too, felt qualms of misgiving as the cruiser bore down at flashing speed upon a chunk of rock large enough to shatter the ship into billions of tortured rivets.

Nor was it pleasant to stare into the viewpane, watching that lethal asteroid loom ever larger and more deadly, now like a gray, grim, gaunt and fearsome stony beast, its gaping canyons yawned like fangs bared to destroy them. Nearer and nearer flashed the Liberty. Lane's heart missed a beat ... then another ... then started pounding with an excitement which moistened the palms of his hands and dried his lips. He cast a nervous glance at Dr. Kang. But the aged Martian's features were expressionless.

Flick Muldoon was frankly apprehensive, and Nora Powell, standing next to Warren across the room, moved closer to the sturdy space captain as though to eke from his presence some breath of reassurance.

Nearer and yet nearer. And now they were almost upon the cosmic juggernaut. At the rate at which they were traveling, if something were not done now—immediately!—it would be but a matter of instants before—

Gary was not surprised to hear a cry rip from the group of awed watchers. Only a certain pride had prevented him from being the one to cry aloud. But it was little Dr. Anjers, cherubic face gray, who broke forth.

"O'Day, turn away! It's a failure! We're going to crash! Look out—!"

But in that moment came a sudden, shuddering twist. Not hard, not damaging, not shocking, but a sensation as though the Liberty had plowed headlong into a mass of sponge rubber. The nose of the ship flew up, the dreadful vision in the viewpane swung suddenly out of sight—and a moment later the rock which had threatened certain death to all aboard lay far behind!

Dr. Kang smiled. "You see, my friends?"

O'Day said wonderingly, "It—it shunted us! Bounced us up and around it, away from it, as if we were a rubber ball!"

"Exactly," said the Martian. "Our ship is encased in a sphere of electrical force through which no matter can penetrate. A yielding barrier which absorbs the shock of collision. The Bog holds no more perils for us, my friends. You may if you wish, lock your controls and pursue a set course to our destination."

"Well," said Flick Muldoon. "Well, I'll be damned!"

The Bog lay a trifle more than 120,000,000 miles from Mars. Great Jupiter swung in its gigantic orbit a full 225,000,000 farther beyond. Thus a journey of more than three Earth weeks' duration lay before the space questers. Merchantmen were wont to speak of this as a dreary, tedious journey, but those aboard the Liberty did not find it so. They had much with which to occupy their every waking hour.

For one thing, as the final stage of their adventure beckoned closer, it seemed to definitely decide a problem up to now left dangling. That of determining into exactly which quadrant of space should they direct their flight when—and if—they were successful in gaining from the Jovian council the fourth of their needful loans.

"Proxima Centauri," said Dr. Boris Anjers. "That is, of course, the goal toward which we must set our course."

Gary said dubiously, "I'm not so sure. The studies of Millikin, and the later research of Marquart and Thompson Blaine would seem to indicate that cosmic rays emanate not from that sector of space, but rather from the neighborhood of Sirius."[5]

"But," persisted the small Eurasian, "our main desire is to escape this galaxy. And certainly Proxima Centauri is our closest neighbor."

"Closest, yes. But by going toward it we travel in the opposite direction to that which I think we should go. No, Sirius is the star we must seek. There, if anywhere, lies the answer to our problem."

Flick Muldoon stared from one to the other of the two wrangling scientists, his honest face wreathed in bewilderment.

"Am I nuts?" he demanded, "or have you two gone completely off base? You're talking about Proxima Centauri and Sirius like they were weekend excursions. If I haven't forgotten everything my astronomy prof told me, Proxima Centauri is about four light-years away. Sirius is twice that far. At the rate we're traveling it'll take us about 6,500 years to reach Proxy, and damn near 14,000 to get to the Dog! What do we do to live that long ... eat vitamins?"

Lane smiled. "You'd better stick to photography, Flick. Don't you realize by now that our whole purpose in going to Jupiter is to learn the secret of faster-than-light travel? If they'll tell us this secret, we can reach our destination in—well, I don't know exactly how long. That will depend greatly upon how far we can exceed the so-called 'limiting velocity'."

Here Dr. Kang interpolated, "That my boy is the term I suggest you use with the greatest respect. It is not merely the 'so-called' limiting velocity. The speed of light is actually the greatest velocity at which matter can travel and still retain its integral form. Beyond that speed, mass becomes infinite. What happens then, no man knows. I am afraid we must reconcile ourselves to a long and wearisome voyage of nine Earth years."

Gary said tightly, "We can't afford nine years. I'm not thinking of our own discomfort, I'm remembering our computations. According to those figures, Sol's dwindling point will be reached not in years, but in months ... maybe weeks! Before we can reach our goal, the universe from which we are fleeing will exist no more!"

"All the more reason," insisted Dr. Boris Anjers, "for heading toward Proxima Centauri, my young friend. I am older than you, and have studied cosmic radiation for a great many years. I assure you, there is no reason to believe one extra-galactic destination is more likely than another."

Gary glanced at the man oddly. It was unlike Anjers to flaunt his age and wisdom; equally unlike the small scientist to rouse to such heights of nervous excitement. Gary said slowly, "Well, Dr. Anjers, this is a communal enterprise. I don't wish to dictate our course. I'm willing to place the decision to a vote of all our party."

Dr. Bryant said quietly, "That will not be necessary, Gary. You have led us most successfully up till now. I think we are all willing to accept your judgment."

"You're darn tootin'!" said Muldoon.

And Dr. Kang said blandly, "I, too, have perfect confidence in your decisions, Dr. Lane."

Anjers' round face puffed with petulance. His bushy eyebrows drew together. "Oh, very well!" he snapped in a tone almost a snarl. "But I warn you, you're making a great mistake!" And angrily he stomped from the room.

But to the man's credit, his pique did not last long. Before the day ended he had returned, as urbane as ever, with a contrite smile and an apology on his lips. So equanimity was restored aboard the Liberty, and that was good, for on a voyage such as this it was better to avoid all clash of personalities.

"We are fortunate," said Dr. Kang one night after Lark O'Day had reported an argument in the crew's quarters which had almost resulted in a free-for-all between the blasters and the mariners, "we number no Venusians or Jovians among our corps. It has been my observation that the members of these two races mingle poorly with the children of your world and mine. Of the four races, our two are the more easy-going, theirs the more emotional. Perhaps the early history of your Earth might have been less bloody had not your continent embraced such a diversity of planetary colonists."

Hugh Warren stared.

"Colonists? Are you trying to tell us, Dr. Kang, that the races of Earth's mankind aren't indigenous to Earth?"

The ivory-tinted one's eyebrows lifted slightly. "But of course they are not, Captain. Surely you didn't believe—or did you? But how unreasonable to think that one small planet would breed more than a single species! You of the white-skinned race are the only true race of Earth."

"We are?"

"Why, surely! Just as all the true children of Venus are dark-skinned, and we of Mars amber-fleshed. Oh, there is a certain fundamental root-stock common to us all, I suppose. But any medical man can assure you our differences lie not only in the color of our skins. Our races show many physiological variations. Blood plasma, hair structure, distribution of sinews, skeletal articulation—"

Nora Powell asked, "Then the yellow races of Earth—the Chinese, Eskimos, Amerindians—were originally natives of your planet?"

Dr. Kang nodded.

"Just as the ebony hued natives of your Africa came originally from Venus; yes. On my planet are small colonies of white and black skinned humans, and on Venus are aboriginal tribes of yellow and white skinned men. It seems an inexorable law of nature that on every globe the native tribe should rise to supremacy, while the secondary groups should achieve to a lesser culture."

Gary said, "That is only partly true, Dr. Kang. Your Martian colonists on our Earth—or at least those who colonized the country known as China—have ever been a great and cultured people. Our forefathers called them 'backward,' but that was because they placed social culture above mechanistic advancement."

"But, Dr. Kang," broke in Muldoon, "you're implying that spaceflight existed God-knows-how-long-ago! Centuries ... eons ... before the launching of the Wentworth-Kroll experimental rocket in 1973!"[6]

Dr. Kang nodded. "And that is true. Spaceflight did exist countless centuries ago. It was achieved and perfected by a race now vanished. A race which persists today only in vestigial form. You will meet some of its members a few weeks hence."

"The Jovians?" demanded Gary. "You mean the Jovians once had a great civilization and visited all the worlds? From way out there in their far orbit?"

"Not exactly. But from their former planet."

"Former—?"

"Yes. The one through whose shattered remnants we have but recently passed."

O'Day said dazedly, "The asteroid belt! That's right! Science does believe it once comprised a planet. It was destroyed mysteriously, some say by a gigantic tug of war waged between Jupiter and the sun; others say by internal explosion, millennia before civilization came to Earth. But—" His brows drew together thoughtfully—"but the Jovians are a blue-skinned race, Dr. Kang."

"Quite so," agreed Kang. "And as such they are bespoken in the legends of my people. And—if I am not mistaken—also in your ancient records.[7] We should pity them, my friends. They were once a great and valiant empire; now they are decadent. Those of them who escaped the holocaust which destroyed their former worlds have taken refuge on Jupiter, and there live quietly, concerning themselves no longer with matters of solar government.

"It is piteous," mourned the old man, "to see a once noble people brought so low. But that is, and ever has been, the history of man's strivings."

"Centuries," mused Gary Lane. "Thousands of years ago. I wonder—"

"Wonder what, my friend?"

"I wonder if their downfall has anything to do with the problem we're tackling now. But—" Gary shook himself, ridding his mind of the sudden, uneasy thought—"but of course that's nonsense! It couldn't possibly be...."

Death Sentence

So time sped by. And outward, ever toward the fringes of Sol's empire, flashed the Liberty on her all-important mission. The sun which but a few short weeks ago had been a blazing furnace threatening fiery annihilation to the space venturers had now dwindled to the apparent size of a tiny, glowing pea, half lost in the black depths behind them. A small, feebly glistening body whose heat at this great distance was scarce sufficient to make its presence felt.

And as this great luminary shrunk, its offspring grew ever larger in the Liberty's vision plate. Now the fifth planet was a heaven-filling orb scant hours away. Already the cruiser had whisked through the orbit of Jupiter's nine satellites and now, on a course carefully set by Lark O'Day, Skipper Warren was preparing to drop the Liberty to Jupiter's surface.

Muldoon, standing beside the space patrolman as he fingered the studs, said wonderingly, "Boy, that's one big planet, ain't it? Only—" His brow furrowed—"there's one thing I don't understand. How far away from it are we?"

"'Bout twenty thousand," answered Warren.

"Well, then, how come it hasn't gripped us yet? I should think a thing as big as that would have a grav-drag strong enough to clamp hold of us about three or four times this far away."

Warren chuckled. "Appearances are deceiving, Flick. Don't let the apparent size of Jupiter fool you."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Simply," explained the pilot, "that the true planet Jupiter is not much larger than Earth."

"What? But I can see for myself—"

"What you see is Jupiter's tremendous atmosphere belt. For some reason never satisfactorily explained, Jupiter's gaseous protective envelope is more than a thousand times deeper than that of any other planet. That's why Earth's astronomical instruments always show Jupiter's mass to be so tenuous; with a specific gravity, in fact, less than that of water. Jupiter is a gigantic cosmic fake; a huge bubble of semi-viscous atmosphere in the heart of which is embedded only a tiny, normal-sized core of the more cohesive elements which go to make up a planet."

"Why, the big quack!" said Muldoon indignantly. Then another thought struck him. "But say, if that's the case it must be colder than Tophet on that planet? Those miles upon miles of cloudbank should completely blot out the sun."

O'Day nodded. "And so they do. But on the other hand, they completely blanket the cold of interstellar space. You'll find Jupiter a dark, murky planet, but one with a very pleasant and equitable climate. Well—" He nodded to Warren as the vision plate before them was suddenly befilmed with writhing tendrils of moisture-laden atmosphere—"we're diving into the cotton. From now on it's blind flight. Co-ordinates O.Q.?"

"O.Q.," said Warren briefly, and concentrated on the task of dropping the Liberty through unfathomable miles of enswaddling cloud to the tiny core within.

A short time later his efforts gained their recompense. The gray veil thinned, then parted, and once again the Liberty was scudding through clear atmosphere, sunless and damply gray, but not unpleasant. Above the virgin surface of a planet not unlike jungle-strewn Venus, great rivers sprawled through chains of rolling hills. The brown soil was resplendent with wild, brilliantly multicolored foliage.

The rest was simple. Pangré, capital city, lay at the north polar extremity of Jupiter. They had but to follow their compass to reach it. So in a space of time measurable by minutes the Liberty had attained and hovered over the fourth of the great world capitals that they had visited on their flight.

A bustle of activity on the spaceport below greeted their arrival. They asked and were given clearance. Smoothly Hugh Warren dropped the whippet craft into the designated cradle. And as the hypatomics spluttered into silence, the spacefarers prepared to leave their ship.

A great throng was gathered at the rocketdrome. That was understandable, for of all the civilized planets, Jupiter was least visited by Earth's commercemen, and it was a rare occasion indeed which saw a sleek cruiser of the Space Patrol dropping jets on the faraway world.

That many of the assemblage were bearing arms was also evident to those aboard the Liberty, but Gary Lane found no cause for alarm in this fact. It was only natural that since suspicion and a degree of animosity existed amongst the governments of all the planets the Jovians should come to meet their visitors prepared for any eventuality. On every planet so far his mission had been greeted with distrust. He did not expect it to be otherwise here. He only hoped that candor and a complete explanation of the crisis would here win him the last of those four needed secrets.

"Nevertheless," said Dr. Kang, "it is written: 'The wise man treads the unknown path with drawn sword'. It would be well for us to approach the Jovians as cautiously as they await our coming. Therefore, while you go out I shall remain within the ship, watching carefully. At the first sign of hostile movement I shall depress the force-shield button, surrounding you and the Liberty, with an impenetrable field. Good luck, my friends."

"And since," added Dr. Anjers, "it would not look well for the crew to remain aboard, if we are to give an appearance of frankness and amity, I shall go to the engine room and there keep the hypos running for immediate departure ... if such should be necessary."

Thus it was arranged. And so, a few minutes later, young Dr. Lane headed a company numbering a score which clambered from the Liberty's airlock to the surface of the planet Jupiter.

The space sailors and blasters, grateful for an opportunity to stretch their legs, came happily from the ship. But none, not even the skipper Hugh Warren himself, wore sidearms, so desirous was Gary of proving to the Jovians his good will. With calm assurance the venturers moved toward the azure-fleshed assembly awaiting them, taking care, however, not to step beyond that imaginary line which Dr. Kang had said was the limit of the force-shield protection.

Gary raised both arms aloft in the universal token of greeting.

"Peace, men of Jupiter!" he cried. "We come from Earth in friendship and goodwill on a mission of vital importance, and we beg an audience with your leaders."

He could not have dreamed what was to happen next. It happened too swiftly and too suddenly for any comprehension. The leader of the Jovians, a member (if one could judge by the elaborateness of his trappings) of the Supreme Council, flung high his arm in a sign which was anything but friendly. His voice rasped forth in strident command.

"It is they! The Earthling traitors who would steal the fruits of our knowledge and destroy our noble culture. Seize them and hold them fast!"

In that instant the waiting throng coalesced into an angry mob, and as one man surged violently forward to seize their earthly visitors!

There was but one thing for Gary Lane to do. He spun toward the ship, shouted, "The force-shield, Dr. Kang! Turn it on!"

Then, with a sigh of assurance that they were safe from their attackers, to his comrades he said mournfully, "Well, we might as well go back to the ship. They don't seem to believe us. Guess we'll have to talk to them by radio until we can make them understand—"

Then the shrill cry of Nora Powell brought his words to an abrupt end.

"The barrier, Gary! It's not working! Look! They're breaking through!"

And Gary whirled again to see. In truth, there was no invisible shield to stay the advance of the onrushing Jovians. Already the vanguard of the blue-skinned warriors was rushing down upon his band, and already the startled Earthmen were preparing to combat this unexpected threat.

They were, or had been, men of the Space Patrol. They had no intention of surrendering meekly to a force of an alien planet, no matter how out-numbered or outarmed.

The voice of Herby Hawkins cried in shrill dismay, "Why, the blue blighters! Wot scum! Let 'em 'ave it, boys!"

And though guns had been forbidden the landing party, other but still formidable weapons appeared miraculously in space-bronzed fists. Sheath knives and leaded knucks, a Martian kuugla, an Erosian traal.[8]

In vain, Lane cried swift warning, "No, lads! Don't fight! Let them take us if they must! Go peaceably!"

His words came too late. Already a Jovian had fallen beneath the thrust of a slashing blade. Another was gasping out his life in choking coils of the Martian kuugla, while bubbling screams of horror bespoke the whirling path of the cross-shaped Erosian weapon.

Then sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed the feeble defense. The Jovians smashed through the battling few, and their stronger weapons took harsh toll of those who had dared oppose them.

Gary saw two Earth mariners go down, Robinson and Mulasky, parched to cinders by the lethal flame of the universally employed needle-gun. He saw Bill Smikes, who had wielded the traal, literally torn to pieces by the vengeful hands of blue-skinned foemen. And another fell also; one innocent of any attack. Chief Engineer Sebold, whose only crime had been attempting to hurry his men to safety. A ray gun caught him, burning his legs out from under him as if they had been tinder. He toppled and fell forward, his grizzled old space-beaten face a mass of shock and incredulity.

With a cry Gary leaped to his side. But there was nothing to be done. The engineer was as good as dead ... and knew it. He twisted his writhing form to look up. His lips muttered thickly, "The foreign doctor! The filthy, murdering beast! He sold us out!"

Then a whiteness drained his lips ... and he was gone.

But with his passing ended—for the time being, at least—the slaughter. For now the Jovians had accomplished their end; had completely surrounded the Earth party, and held every member captive save those in the ship. Nor did they hold their freedom for long. At the Jovian leader's command a corps of warriors rushed the airlock. When they emerged a few minutes later they escorted with no gentleness Kang and Boris Anjers. Anjers' usually cherubic face was mottled with rage and scorn. As he was thrust into company with his comrades he pointed a quivering finger at Kang and screamed, "The yellow devil! He never pressed the button! The shield was never activated!"

O'Day, who during the brief affray had made no attempt to fight, but had leaped to the protection of the two girls, now glanced up from the pale golden creature whose slim form his arm still encircled to meet the eyes of Dr. Kang questioningly.

"Never pressed—But, Dr. Kang, why not?"

No muscle moved on the aged Martian's features, but his eyes were dark pools of bewilderment. "There is something terribly wrong. I did depress the button. The force-shield should have worked. I—I do not understand!"

Then there was time for no more, for the Jovian commander was prodding them into motion, and his voice was unequivocably harsh.

"To the Hall with them, that they may be judged and sentenced for this vile treachery!"

Thus, not as free men freely seeking a gift of equals, but as already half-adjudged and half-condemned captives, were the space venturers transported to the Council Hall of Pangré.

Here sat in judgment upon them white robed and diademed beings of a race not now to be found on any of the inner planets. The azure-tinted people who, if Dr. Kang's explanation were true, had in eons past spread culture throughout the whole of the solar system.

The judging of the Liberty's equipage was a swift formality, speedily concluded. The Jovian council's handling of the case was a travesty of justice. It listened to the tale told by its fellow members, crisply abbreviated Gary Lane's attempt at explanation, and the half score Councillors conferred briefly amongst themselves.

Then one, their leader, turned to address the Earthmen. "It is enough! We have decided. By the powers invested in us, the Supreme Council of Ahura-Pangré, we do hereby determine and judge—"

"But," cried Gary Lane, "you haven't listened to our story ... haven't heard our reasons for coming here...."

"That since in violation of every rule and precept of interplanetary law you, a group of criminal felons from a neighbor planet, have made landing without permission upon our world—"

"We couldn't do otherwise. We had to come here, learn your secret...."

"And did hereupon murderously set upon and slay certain of our citizens—"

"Us?" cried Flick Muldoon. "Us set upon and slayed? Listen, you blue-skinned baboon, we came here as friendly as fleas on a pup's tail. Your boys are the ones who started the fighting!"

"We do therefore," continued the Jovian Councillor sternly, "hereby condemn and sentence you—"

Gary drew a deep, regretful breath. Well, here it came. Imprisonment. A long wrangle of extraditionary rites ... transportation back to Earth, there to stand trial before a jury of Earthmen ... a dreary, tedious, legalistic process, wasting precious—oh, so precious—time! He twisted restlessly under the knowledge that while worlds dillydallied, disaster crept ever nearer. If he could only make these people understand—

Then his petulance died, appalled. For the Councillor was speaking again, and from his lips were falling words that in his wildest imaginings Gary had not dreamed to hear. Words which not only wasted precious time but spelled forever an end to their vital mission. Dreadful words of doom.

"Do hereby condemn and sentence you," intoned the Chief Councillor stridently, "to ... immediate execution!"

Flight Through the Fourth

As in a dream, Gary Lane heard those solemn words fall from the lips of his Jovian judges. Execution! Immediate execution! This, then, was to be the end of their adventure; this their recompense for having fought single-handed to stay the doom which threatened the entire system of worlds circling the tiny star called Sol!

With what happened next, the dream became a nightmare. Blue-skinned stalwarts of the Jovian guard closed about him and his companions, prodded them toward a grim, arched opening which Gary intuitively knew must be the portal of their execution chamber.

He was conscious of Nora Powell weeping softly at his side, of Dr. Bryant muttering in mute and babbled protest, of the subtle strengthening of Lark O'Day's broad shoulders as the ex-pirate tensed himself, despite the overwhelming odds against them, to hurl one last and gallant defiance at their murderers. And because there was now no other path, he sought O'Day's eye ... in that glance grimly arraigning himself on the corsair's side for whatever desperate attempt O'Day should choose to lead.

Then, as the entire corps of Earthmen readied themselves to go out fighting rather than as sheep herded to the slaughter, there came a sudden interruption from an unexpected source.

Through an entrance at the rear of the Council Hall rushed a wildly excited figure, a Jovian bearing in his hand a scrap of paper. This he waved wildly above his head, crying as he hurried forward, "My Lords! My Lords and Councillors—wait! Stay the execution! A message from the planet Earth!"

The Chief Councillor frowned. "It is useless. We will entertain no bids for extradition. It is the law of our homeland these Earthmen have transgressed. They must pay the penalty."

"But," panted the messenger, "it is no plea for clemency, but something else ... something more important...."

All eyes were riveted on the curious tableau. O'Day's whisper grated softly in Gary's ear.

"O.Q., Gary, now's the time. Their attention is divided. We'll never have a better chance."

But Lane grasped his companion's wrist tightly, hopefully.

"No, Lark, no! Not now. There's more here than meets the eye. Look—the Chief Councillor's face—"

And indeed, a sudden and striking change had overswept the countenance of the Jovian judge as he scanned the message thrust into his hand by the excited messenger. His brows drew together. He turned to his associates and growled, "But what is this? Have the men of Earth gone mad?

"This message says," he read aloud, "'If Liberty and crew, including group of Earth scientists, arrive on your planet, in the name of all humanity offer them every possible assistance. Investigation proves their theories are absolutely correct. Sun is dwindling rapidly to dwarf-star stage. Planet Mercury tottering in its course; may plunge into Sun hourly. Entire solar system hovering on brink of dreadful disaster.'"

"Thank God!"

The grateful cry ripped itself unbidden from Gary Lane's throat. His tightened nerves relaxed in a warmth of justification, and his eyes were bright with happiness.

"Thank God, they've seen the truth at last! Now, if it is only not too late!"

The Jovian councillor turned to him, puzzled.

"Too late, Earthman? Too late for what? What does this mean?"

And so, at last, Lane was given an opportunity to explain that which he had not been permitted to tell before. He told the true and only reason for their journeying hither, and pointed out the vital importance of the Liberty's mission.

The Council heard him through. Before the earnestness of his eyes, the burning ardor of his voice, their doubts seemed to melt away. Save for one member of the court who grumbled dourly, "This is all very well, and a pretty tale, but to me it has the smell of a prefabricated plot. So you want our cherished secret, eh, Earthman? The secret of achieving speed greater than that of light?"

"I not only want it," said Gary earnestly, "but must have it. Time is growing perilously short."

"And how do we know that this message is not a trick of your Earth government to save your spying hides? We have no reason to trust Earth."

Lane bit his lip. There it was again, the old, oft-told story of Earth's greed and selfishness now working against the better interests of all the planets.

"No, maybe not," he acknowledged, "but—"

"But—" interrupted Flick Muldoon, always to be depended upon in an emergency for clear and logical reasoning—"All our talk ain't worth a tinker's dam. The proof lies in the sky above us. Tell your astronomers to turn their 'scopes on Mercury. What's happening there should prove or disprove that radiogram's honesty."

The Chief Councillor nodded judicially.

"The Earthman is right. The truth or falsity of this message is beyond Earth's power to dissemble. We shall see and judge for ourselves. You leaders of the Earth party, come with us. Your crew shall remain here." He addressed his own warriors. "Show them every comfort—but guard them well. For if this message turns out to be a hoax—"

He let his words dwindle into silence, but the silence was pregnant with meaning.

Thus it was that the members of the Jovian Supreme Council and the arbiters of the Liberty's course convened presently within Pangré's magnificent observatory. Here, awed, they saw proof of the great and learned culture which was Jupiter's. For not even upon Earth nor sage Mars had ever been erected an edifice so complete and so impressive as this.

The size of the reflecting telescope to which a hurriedly summoned Chief Astronomer led them was one to stagger the imagination. It was greater by half again than the monstrous tube constructed by Kang's people on the desert planet. So huge was it that a 200 inch 'scope, equal in size to the proud but primitive instrument used by Earthmen at Mount Palomar in the Twentieth Century, was here employed simply as a spotter for the larger telescope.

But that, Gary Lane knew, was as it must be, since Jupiter was so far removed from its primary. And that this instrument sighted by infra-red radiation he also knew. In no other way could its vision pierce the murky pall of cloud banks enswaddling the planet.

All these were but vagrant thoughts flickering through his brain as the gigantic tube was brought to bear upon the desired image. And then, as all took seats before a huge reflecting screen upon which the enmirrored vision was projected, he gaped in wonderment to see the heart of their solar system brought so near that it seemed scarce more than a day's journey.

Gigantic was the sun, its space-filtered radiance a blinding sheen which covered almost half the screen before them. Large, too, and visible plainly to the naked eyes was the gleaming, innermost planet Mercury.

When first Gary looked, Mercury seemed and acted in all ways natural. But then....

A cry escaped his lips. Because, contrary to all sound common sense and experience, the glittering orb of Mercury could be actually seen to move! And that movement was not the steady, normal hurtling of a planet in steadfast course about its primary. Mercury was bobbing, weaving, twisting, shaking itself like a gigantic silver terrier tugging to break free of an invisible leash!

For breathless minutes the assemblage watched the staggering spectacle being enacted before them. Then the Jovian Supreme Councillor spoke, his voice sincere in apology.

"Gentlemen of Earth, forgive us. We have wronged you. We did not, could not, comprehend the magnitude—"

But his words were interrupted by a hoarse cry bursting simultaneously from the throats of Jovians and Earthmen alike.

"Look!"

And turning once more to the screen, all witnessed the dreadful climax ... the end of the planet Mercury.

For how long a time it had been tugging at its cosmic bonds none knew, but suddenly a critical point of balance was reached. With a great, impulsive leap the tiny planet burst free of its solar gyves. Like a gleaming stone hurled from some gigantic catapult it flashed outward from its orbit, writhing, shimmering, shaking. Then its flight altered. For the space of a long-drawn, tremulous breath it seemed to hang motionless in the void, ungoverned by any gravitational force or power of natural law ... then the immutable order of nature asserted itself.

The laws of Mass-and-Distance asserted their claim. Like a fluttering moth drawn irresistibly to a flame, the fleeing world fell backward into its luminary. Faster and faster it raced, now dropping plummetlike toward the blazing prominences of Sol. As it fell it was squeezed and hammered out of shape by the tremendous forces playing upon it. For a moment it looked like a lengthening sphere ... then a teardrop ... then the pear-shape split into an infinitude of crushed and shapeless fragments which streaked like falling pebbles into the beckoning heart of Sol.

For the briefest instant a faintly brighter flame seemed to flicker upon Sol's surface as the parent sun hungrily swallowed its infant. Then ... that was all.

Muldoon turned away, shuddering. He said in a dull, dazed voice, "There—there were men on that planet. Posts, mines, laboratories...."

"Johnny Cosgrave," said Hugh Warren. "He would have finished his three years of foreign service next month. He was going back to Earth to get married."

Gary said tightly, "What happened to Mercury will happen to all the planets if we are not successful. That or something equally horrible. As the sun dwindles, its weight per volume will increase; all the inner planets will be devoured as was Mercury.

"You—" He turned to the Jovian Councillor—"Your planet may not suffer that fate. You are too far away. But the sun's heat will fail, and when that happens cold will sweep down upon you ... such devastating cold as cannot be imagined. If your orbit widens, you may whirl away from the sun and be lost in the never-ending depths of space."

The Councillor said gravely, "You need say no more, Earthman. I understand perfectly. We of Jupiter are sometimes hasty, but never fools. Say now, what do you need of us? How can we cooperate with you to stay this impending doom?"

"Speed," said Lane. "The knowledge of that which your race alone knows: the secret of achieving speed faster than that of light."

The Jovian nodded gravely. "You shall have it. The requisite apparatus shall be installed in your spaceship immediately. But you must help us. Tell us your destination, that we may calculate the co-ordinates, and bring you to your objective."

"We must go," said Gary, "to the galaxy of the star known as Sirius."

"Sirius! Outside our solar system?" The Councillor frowned. "That is difficult and perilous. There are dangers even to our method."

"We must risk them. As it is, we have no way of telling if we are going to the proper place. Nor, indeed, whether when we get there we will find ways to do that which we must.

"Tell me, what is the limiting velocity of this new method you have devised? How fast will we be able to travel?"

The Jovian smiled faintly. "Upon that score, Earthman, you need have no apprehension. You will reach your destination in plenty of time—if you reach there at all. Because, you see, there is no limiting velocity to our method."

"No limiting—?"

"None at all. Your translation from one spot to another will be practically instantaneous."

"Instantaneous!" cried Dr. Anjers. "But that is impossible. Only by warping space itself could an object be transferred instantaneously from one spot to another!"

"And that," acknowledged the Jovian, "is identically the principle upon which our secret is based. Our instruments do not enable an object to move at a speed greater than that of the limiting velocity of light. Such a thing is, by definition and natural law, quite impossible. No, the principle we employ is utterly different. The object itself does not move at all. It merely stands still ... for a brief time cast into a state of infinite entropy...."

"And then—?" asked Dr. Bryant.

"Space warps itself about the object, unfolding to place it in an entirely new sector. Thus, you see, our speed-heightening device does not depend upon velocity at all, but on the unchangeable mechanics of Space and Time. It is, in brief, a method of flight through the Fourth Dimension!"

Betrayed

The worst enemies make the staunchest allies. That old truism never proved itself more surely than to Gary Lane and his comrades in the ensuing days. Those same Jovians who, considering them enemies, had been swift to condemn them to death with but a travesty of trial now, allied to their cause, proved themselves most eager of aides.

While technicians hastened to equip the Liberty with that secret device which would enable the ship to project itself through quadridimensional space to the ulterior universe, other craftsmen labored diligently to refurbish the ship, check its armaments, and render it in all ways completely shipshape for the journey to follow.

Nor made the Jovians any effort to conceal that which was being done aboard the Liberty. They worked openly, their engineers offering painstaking explanations of the device's operation to those who cared to learn. And, of course this number was great. Almost all the Liberty's personnel was eager to learn the secret of that novel flight method which was to henceforth govern their ship. As the sublime simplicity of the plan revealed itself physicists and spacemen alike were awed.

"Not so much," said Captain Hugh Warren wonderingly, "at the method itself as at the fact that nobody ever thought of it before. Why, when you hear it explained it's like child's play!"

Dr. Bryant smiled thinly. "And is that not always true of great inventions? The wheel, the steam engine, the gasoline motor, the rocket drive—all these things seemed simple commonplaces to the civilizations which used them. But each was, to a former civilization which knew it not, a mystery at once profound and obscure. So it is with the Jovian fourth-dimensional drive.

"I venture to predict that in the future days—if, that is, we successfully accomplish our mission—it will become the standard method of space travel. Its advantages are obvious. Instantaneous transfer of objects from one spot to another ... why, just think! Tomorrow's earthman may eat for breakfast fresh budberries plucked that morning from the marshes of Venus, covered with milk shipped short hours ago from a Martian dairy ranch!"

"All of which," said the little steward, Herby Hawkins apologetically, "sounds mighty good, guv'nor. And maybe this here now device is, like you say, child's play. But—beggin' your pardon, sir—I still don't get it. 'Ow can a ship get so fast from one plyce to another? Almost like it was in two plyces at the same time?"

"Why," explained Dr. Bryant professorially, "simply by contracting into contigual adjacency two loci of the continuum—"

"Excuse me a minute, Doctor," grinned Gary. "Maybe I can explain it in a way Hawkins will understand more easily. You see, Hawkins, it's like this. I draw two circles on this piece of paper—" He sketched rapidly—"Now, let us suppose you are a two-dimensional creature living in this universe, which we will call 'Flatland.' You are on this world and you wish to travel to that one. How would you go about it?"

"Naturally," said Hawkins, "this way." And he drew his finger laterally between the two "worlds." "A stryte line bein' the shortest distance between two points—"

"Of course," said Gary. "And being a Flatlander you would have neither knowledge nor comprehension of any swifter way of making a journey than to traverse the broad width of the sheet. However, three-dimensional creatures like ourselves can immediately see a still shorter and easier way of traveling from one sphere to the other. We would simply—" He picked up the sheet of paper and folded it so the two worlds lay adjacent—"We would simply create a two-dimensional space warp through the third dimension."

"Well, blimey!" said Hawkins.

"To complete the analogy," Gary went on, "that is what the Jovians have done ... only working in four dimensions rather than three.

"Everyone knows magnetic matter warps space. Einstein proved that way back in the early days of the Twentieth Century. So the scientists of Jupiter have invented a machine which, setting up a highly magnetized flux field, warps three-dimensional space in the direction of the flight they wish to make. Their 'ends of the paper' fold together ... and when the warping machine is again disengaged you are where you want to be. It's as easy as that."

"It's as easy as that—" Hawkins gulped and ran a finger under his uniform collar. "Yes, sir. Now that you point it out, it's all very clear, sir. Ridic'lously simple, if I might say so. So, completely comprehendin' the sitchyation, I'll be gettin' back to my work now, sir ... if you don't mind." And he disappeared.

But if Gary Lane found it easy to explain the operation of the Jovian space warp, he found it not quite so easy to explain other facets of the blue-skinned race's psychology.

It was baffling, for instance, to find himself confronted with smiles when, fearful of mishap, he warned the Jovian technicians against tampering with Earth's jealously guarded hypatomic unit.

"You must be very careful. The hypos are protected with devices which will cause them to explode if tampered with."

The chief technician smiled pleasantly.

"Yes," he said, "they were, weren't they?"

"I'm sorry," apologized Gary, "but there's nothing I can do about it. What! Were? I don't understand. Do you mean—?"

"We've drawn the dragon's teeth. Yes, of course. We had to in order to install our own equipment."

"But how—?"

"Another useful trick," smiled the Jovian, "of fourth dimensional science. It was a simple matter to reach our instruments into sealed chambers and cut the wires connecting the explosive fuses."

That, young Dr. Lane could see clearly, was quite true. It would be no harder for mechanics working with quadridimensional tools to perform this observation than for a tri-dimensional bank robber to remove the contents of a Flatland safe.

But there was a corollary to this revelation. Gary said slowly, "Then ... then that means you now understand the operation of the hypatomic motor."

The other nodded casually. "Why, yes. And most ingenious, too."

"What do you plan to do with your knowledge?"

"Why," said the Jovian frankly, "I think it would be a very good idea to expose it openly to the races of every solar planet. Earth has held its monopoly on spaceflight long enough. I think, don't you, it's almost time all the worlds were given the right to free and competitive commerce?"

Gary grinned, a warm admiration for this people suffusing him. And:

"I think," he agreed, "you are absolutely right."

All these were interludes. There were others, too: amusing, entertaining, beguiling. Because now, on the eve of what must assuredly be their last and most perilous journey, almost to a last man the argonauts of the Liberty were having a last fling at such pleasures as presented themselves.

And in truth, there was much to be done, many beauties to be seen on Jupiter.

For the entertainment of the Earthmen was planned an expedition to the Flaming Sea, that weird chemical phenomenon of cold light whose shimmering, ruddy reflection, viewed by Earth's telescopes centuries ago through the filtering layers of Jupiter's foggy shroud, had caused Earth scientists to ponder on the nature of the "Red Spot."

On this trip almost all the Liberty's personnel embarked, gay and carefree as youngsters gone a-picnicking. Lark O'Day, arm linked through that of his now-constant companion, the shy and quiet Pen-N'hi, came bridgeward to urge Gary on the trip.

"Oh, come along, Lane!" he coaxed. "Come along and have some fun. A man can't work all the time."

Gary said with sincere regret, "I'm sorry, Lark, but I can't. I have to help the engineers complete their installation. And there are some final computations to be made yet—"

Nora Powell, who had been standing in the background pleaded almost wistfully, "But it would be so much fun, Gary. They say the Flaming Sea is one of the most beautiful sights in the galaxy. One of the seven wonders of the universe."

"I know it. But I'm up to my ears—"

The girl said almost hopefully, it seemed, "Then, maybe I'd better stay with you? Perhaps I can be of some assistance?"

But Gary shook his head. "No, you run along. Hugh, you look out for Nora. See that she has a good time."

Warren, grinning broadly, moved forward to link his arm in that of the girl. "Sure will, pal. The pleasure's all mine."

So, in the end, all the adventurers save two took the sightseeing trip. Those two were Gary Lane and the elderly Eurasian scientist, Dr. Anjers, who had courteously excused himself.

"When one reaches my age, my friends, one loses interest in romantic surroundings. No, I shall remain here to be of what assistance I can to Dr. Lane."

And of assistance he was. For it was he whose adroit questioning of the Jovian engineers finally brought clarity to a question whose answer had been often hinted but never answered. As the workmen put the finishing touches on the warping unit's installation he asked, "And just what, gentlemen, are the limitations of this device ... the usage to which it may not safely be put? Your Councillor, Kushra, gave us to understand that there was a certain amount of peril inherent to its use."

The chief technician frowned. "That is right. However, we have taken all safety factors into consideration. In reaching your destination, if the dials and verniers are not changed from the settings which we have established, you will not experience the slightest difficulty—"

"But just what," asked Gary, "is the nature of this danger?"

"Simply that through an improper setting of the dials you might end your journey in some place quite unlike that which was your destination. In other words, if this central vernier were twisted to the right by so much as one degree the Liberty's flight might end not, as intended, within the solar galaxy of the star Sirius ... but within the burning heart of the star itself."

Gary frowned uneasily. "The only consolation to that thought is that if such a thing happened none of us would ever know anything about it."

"Quite true. The Liberty and all aboard would be instantaneously seared to a clinker by the inconceivable heat of a star thousands of times greater than our little sun."

"Why, then," asked Dr. Anjers, "employ control verniers at all? Why not simply set and lock the controls upon the desired objective?"

The Jovian smiled. "Have you forgotten, sir, that when your mission is ended you will wish to return home? Then the new course and trajectory must be calculated and the verniers reset. That is why it is necessary we install a complete unit and train you in its use."

The scientist said petulantly, "Despite all these precautions it is a fool-hardy trip. It would be safer, to my way of thinking, to visit a nearer star ... say Proxima Centauri ... thereby diminishing the risk of over or undershooting our mark.

"Sometimes," he bridled, "I think this whole scheme is madness. It is ridiculous to think of us, tiny mites that we are, daring to attack the people of a universe so infinitely greater than ours that we will be as dust motes beneath their crushing heels!"

Gary stared at the little man curiously. "People greater than us, Dr. Anjers? Now, that's a peculiar thought. Whatever makes you say—"

Anjers wriggled in sudden defiant embarrassment. "It was not my idea, Dr. Lane, but your own. It was you who advanced the theory that our universe is dwindling. It follows as a natural corollary that any race existing outside our universe—"

Gary nodded. "Why, yes, I suppose you're right. But I'd never stopped to think of it in quite that way. A race of giants—"

But the little man's words had had an even more striking effect upon the Jovian engineer. He said excitedly, "A great race? A race of giants? That's strange. There is a legend among our people that once, countless centuries ago, our forefathers were mighty men who clashed in brutal conflict with a race of giants."

"Naturally," said Anjers curtly, "there would be such a fable. That legend occurs not only in the mythology of your race but in that of every civilized planet. Earth's theosophy speaks of Gog and Magog, the giants who lived before men.[9] The Venusian folk-tales sing of an ancient battle of Titans. The Martians tell of a day when giants warred.

"Such myths are easily explained. They are simply barbaric nature-myths; explanations of the recurring solstice, the battle between the giants of summer heat and winter cold."

But the Jovian said somewhat haughtily. "Ours is no folk tale of a barbaric people, Doctor. Our race was old when yours still roamed the jungles of its native world. Our written history is based on fact, not fancy. And it is strange that you should speak now of a race of giants...."

Gary Lane held his peace. Yet, he, too, was oddly troubled by this new and disturbing thought.

But all things end at last, even hours of impatient waiting. And it was shortly thereafter that the installation of the Jovian machine was completed. So, at last, their adventure appropriately feasted, their success prayerfully toasted, the Liberty's complement prepared to set forth on the final leg of their journey.

All hands were aboard, all stations manned, and in the control turret stood those upon whose efforts depended not only the success of this mission but the very existence of the universe.

It was a great moment, one calculated to not only lift with pride the heart of the humblest person, but to instill humility into the heart of the most prideful. A strange silence fell over the little group, a silence finally broken by Hugh Warren.

"Well ... all ready, Gary?"

Gary nodded. "Yes. You understand the operation of the Jovian machinery?"

"Yes, I press this first button ... the green one ... allow fifteen minutes for the motors to warm and the space warp to develop, then press the red button. Right?"

"Right," said Gary. He looked around at his friends, then bent his head in a swift, decisive nod. "Here we go, folks. High, low, jack and game!"

Warren's finger touched the green button.

Nothing happened.

That is, nothing seemed to happen. The Liberty's hypos were cut. There sounded through the ship not even that dim, familiar, whining undertone which was its usual accompaniment of generating speed. There was no sensation of flight, no hurtling shock of acceleration, no grip of suddenly intensified gravity. No intraspatial weightlessness. Nothing.

For a moment the wayfarers stared at each other with speculative eyes. Could it be the Jovian invention was, after all, a failure. Did they still lie in their cradle on Pangré spaceport.

As if to solve this question, Lark O'Day pressed the stud which opened the vision plate to the outer hull. And what appeared thereon finally dissolved all doubts. It was not what they saw but what they did not see which offered clinching evidence of the fourth dimensional drive's effectiveness.

Because it was no spaceport over which they looked, nor jet space spangled with the colorful burning of a myriad stars. Instead, there reflected on the vision plate before them a blank, gray, writhing nothingness. Just that. The soul of an emptiness beyond space and time, beyond color and form and life.

It was a vista terrible to look upon, awful to consider. Gary Lane drew a short uneven breath. "Well, take a good look, folks," he said. "There it is. The world between the worlds. The universe between the universes. The unfathomable fourth dimension."

Then, amazingly, came a burst of giggling laughter from one of their party. From the mirth-contorted lips of their Eurasian scientist companion, Dr. Boris Anjers.

"Yes," babbled Anjers triumphantly, "look long and well, little fools, while yet you may. For when that mist passes your puny efforts will end in flaming oblivion. That all too brief gray pall is—your shroud of death!"

The War Between the Worlds

Gary Lane's immediate reaction to these incredible words was a swift and regretful commiseration. The little man plainly did not know what he was saying. The rigors of the long and arduous trip had undermined his nerve. Now this final, most perilous adventure had completely disrupted his morale.

Lane said soothingly, "Easy, Doctor. It's not so bad as all that. It'll be all over in a few minutes. Here, sit down and rest—"

And he moved a few paces toward the rotund little savant. But Anjers, moving even more swiftly, evaded him. He darted back, a hand dipping into one capacious pocket of his jacket, and when that hand emerged it gripped the hilt of an ugly Haemholtz ray pistol. With this Anjers covered his stunned companions.

"Stand back, Lane! Another step and I'll—Aaah, that's better." There was no cherubic placidity on his features now. Nothing but pure, unadulterated malevolence. "No, my friends, I am not, as you think, unnerved or mad. I am in complete possession of my senses ... and have been all along. Too much so to permit that you outcasts of Gog shall ever achieve your purpose—"

"Boris!" cried Dr. Bryant. "Whatever is the matter? Calm down man, for God's sake!"

"Gog?" spluttered Flick Muldoon. "What's he mean, Gog?"

And Gary Lane, remembering it was wise to humor the deranged, said in as calm a voice as he could muster, "Now, Dr. Anjers please! Be calm. Rest a while."

"Rest?" Anjers' voice broke almost hysterically. "Yes ... rest. That is good. When the red button is pressed, we will all rest, eternally."

"What do you mean?" demanded Lark O'Day harshly.

"I mean it was an evil day for you, pirate, when you cast your lot with these too-ambitious thwarters of destiny. For this journey is, and has been since its beginning, doomed to failure. I, the Kraedar Borisu, Prae-consul of Magog, have seen to that!"

"Now it's Magog!" cried Muldoon. "A minute ago it was Gog. What's all this double talk—Gog and Magog?"

Gog and Magog! The two names struck a familiar spark in Gary Lane's brain. The ancient legend of Earth, about which they had been talking only the other day. A folk tale of an elder age when giants walked the earth and strove mightily amongst themselves.

The dim beginnings of a horrible conception stirred within him, and he repeated the words. "Gog and Magog. Not two mythical persons, but two worlds. Two ancient worlds embattled."

Anjers' half-mad laughter rang shrill in the tense control turret. "You surpass yourself, Dr. Lane. Sometimes your swift intuition amazes me. Yes, you have guessed the truth. A truth forgotten by man for countless centuries. There are two worlds—two worlds which one time warred. The name of one is Magog. That is the planet whereon I was born, from which I came to Earth. The name of the other was Gog. It was the solar globe which one time circled your sun between Mars and Jupiter. Long ages ago our two great empires strove in bitter conflict. Long ages ago your time, that is. In the Greater Universe—the true universe—of which Magog is still a dominant part, time has passed more slowly. To our people it has been but a score of years since our great weapons crumbled Gog to destruction and hurled your entire solar system into the doom which now approaches its climax."

Nora Powell cried, "Then Gary's theory was right! The cosmic rays are a deliberate force being played upon our solar system to destroy it. And you—you—"

"I am one of a race pledged to the utter obliteration of your people," snarled Anjers. "Yes. Had you not been blind and trusting fools you should have realized this long since. I did my utmost to prevent this expedition. And even though through fortunate follies on your part my efforts came to naught, now at the end triumph shall be mine!"

Gary said dazedly, "Then—then the marauder in the laboratory, that was you! And the informer whose distorted revelations caused the World Council to reject our pleas—"

"And it was you," challenged Muldoon, "who stumbled and fell at the Space Patrol port, almost ruining our escape? You, too, who suggested we turn back when Venus refused us neurotrope—"

"And it was also you," said Dr. Kang gravely, "who from the engine room tampered with the controls of the force-shield on Jupiter, imperiling all our lives? You who insisted we should set our course toward Proxima Centauri rather than Sirius—"

Boris Anjers, or "Borisu", as he now designated himself, bowed mockingly. But his grip was still firm upon the butt of the Haemholtz pistol, and his eyes carefully guarded against sudden movement by his erstwhile comrades.

"Yes, my friends," he taunted. "It was I who did these things. Your belated recognition of my exploits is amusing ... but not significant. For it was also I who, a short while ago, reset the verniers of the Jovian quadridimensional drive. In a few short moments I shall press the red key which unfolds the space warp. When that happens, success will finally crown my efforts. For in this room are gathered the half dozen Earthmen capable of staying your solar system's destruction. With your passing dies the last hope of saving your universe."

O'Day's eyes were narrowed slits. He rasped dryly, "Haven't you forgotten something else, Dr. Anjers. You are one of our party. When that red stud is depressed you will share our fate."

The Magogean traitor asked proudly, "Do you think, scavenger of the spaceways, that consideration would in any way alter my act? When I was assigned to espionage service in your universe, I knew and accepted the perils of my post. The death of one Magogean is a small price to pay for the complete and final destruction of your hated empire. And now—"

A smile of fanatic triumph touched his lips as he moved toward the banked studs. But Gary, staring beyond him, had been watching with a glimmer of hope the frantic gesturings of Captain Hugh Warren. While the Magogean spy boasted, Warren had been inching toward the Liberty's intercommunicating audio system. He was now but a few feet from the diaphragm over which his voice could be borne to every nook and cranny of the ship. His eyes pled desperately with Gary to stall the small Magogean a while longer.

Gary answered with no sign but with action. He cried, "But Dr. Anjers—"

"The name, my foolish young Quixote, is not 'Anjers' but 'Borisu'. The second name I adopted to comply with your silly Earth tradition of two names for a single entity. It is an amusing joke. In our tongue the word 'anjers' means 'the fox'."

"Fox," growled Lark O'Day, "spelled r-a-t."

"But tell me, Borisu," persisted Gary, "if we are to die, there can be no harm in our knowing now ... why do your people bear such fierce hatred for those of our universe?"

Borisu glowered darkly. "That is a story too long to tell in its entirety. But a portion I will tell you that you may die realizing the implacable enmity of all Magogeans.

"It is a story which goes back many years—as we measure time in the true universe. Many millenia of your brief solar time.

"In true space once existed side by side two universes. That of our mother sun, which you call Sirius, and that of your parent star—Sol. Life spawned on the planets of these two systems; human life evolved. Men similar to you and me grew in stature and wisdom, developed civilizations, cultures.

"All this was long ago. For ages untold each planet lived in ignorance of its neighbors. But some two hundred years ago—I measure chronology now in Universal Constant time, which is the only true measurement—that race of azure-tinted humans who peopled Sol's fifth planet—"

"The predecessors of the Jovians?"

"Yes, they. The Gogeans they called themselves, for the name of their world was Gog. Their science discovered, as has recently your Earthly science re-discovered, space travel. Their employment of this knowledge was a parallel to your own. They ventured, explored, expanded. They colonized, transporting their people to the other worlds of your sun. They set up outposts, carrying their superior culture to every habitable world. So potent was their rule, so all-embracing their lordship, that all the other planets' creatures they made slaves, shuttling them back and forth between the worlds as they had need of them."

Dr. Kang interrupted, "Then my theory was right, at least in part? Space travel is responsible for the commingling of planetary types."

"Yes," nodded Borisu. "And had the Gogeans gone no farther than this, their worlds might still exist. Their people might still be a great people instead of the decadent sprinkling we met on Jupiter.

"But they were not content with draining the wealth of one solar system. No, they must venture afar. So Gogean space-vessels, a mighty armada of them, came to our neighboring system, there by weight of superior science wreaked havoc on our cities, slew our brave warriors and set themselves up as rulers not only of their system but of our own.

"But their tyranny was short-lived. Though our race had not solved the secret of spaceflight, still our scientists possessed a vast knowledge. They turned to the construction of a weapon which should overthrow the interlopers. You know the result, because you have experienced it. Our scientists discovered an all-penetrating ray with the power of contracting the molecules of anything upon which it was turned. In brief, a 'dwindling' ray which projects what you Earthmen call gamma or cosmic rays.

"The hour for revolt was struck. Long was the warfare, and bloody. But ultimately our people were triumphant. And in judicial council, when victory had been won, it was decided that never again would Gog be granted an opportunity to threaten cosmic peace with its lust for power. And since the only way to cure a disease is by ruthlessly crushing out its roots, a gigantic cosmic ray gun was built. This was turned upon Gog—"

"And Gog," Dr. Bryant took up the tale, from the depths of his scientific wisdom supplying the details as accurately as if he had been eye witness, "dwindling, crumbled into ruins beneath the cannon's radiation. But your vengeance did not stop there. You continued to play the gun upon the whole of Sol's system. Now, not only one world but an entire universe had been contracted well-nigh to the breaking point. Shortly our parent star itself will become too densely packed to supply light, and then—"

"Then," proclaimed Borisu stridently, "our planet, called 'Magog' because it is 'the enemy of Gog', will reign triumphant throughout not only ours but through every universe."

Gary risked a swift glance at Warren. The skipper had not been idle. Moving a hair's breadth at a time he had finally gained the wall. Now a single motion of his hand would snap open the switch.

"But, Borisu," demanded Gary. "Are not your people satisfied? You have destroyed your real enemy. Must you take vengeance on the children of the other planets which never harmed you? On the descendants thousands of years removed of those with whom you once struggled?"

"That," said Borisu, "does not matter. Our vengeance will not be complete until the last despised Solarian is destroyed. Only then—Stop! I warned you—"

His ray pistol, whirling to bear upon Warren, spat viciously. Its flame cracked across the turret to blast at the spot where Hugh but a moment before had stood. But its lethal tongue barely licked Warren's uniform. With a blinding movement the captain had smashed open the audio key, bawled, Engine room! Hypos on, quickly!

Then no more, for a second flare of the pistol dropped him, choking, to the floor. Its searing blast kindled the serge of his uniform. Nora Powell screamed and impetuously lunged forward to beat at the burning cloth with bare hands. A familiar thin, high, whining shuddered through the ship, and from the engine room below came the voice of Bud Howard demanding, "Why, Skipper? I thought you told us not to—"

Then the Magogean Kraedar wheeled, his face livid. "Enough," he rasped. "It will do you no good, Miss Powell, to extinguish that little burning. In a moment it and you and all of us will merge in a mightier flame ... Magog's blazing star!"

He laughed madly as his fist smashed down upon the crimson stud!

Escape

As Borisu's hand depressed the fateful button, a sort of sick paralysis seemed to fall upon almost everyone in the control turret. It was as though all realized that a moment hence in one brief, blinding flame would vanish all for which a lifetime of struggle had been spent. Joy and sorrow, happiness and care ... hope, love, ambition ... all these were to merge as one in the final erasing of life's futile slate.

Even Borisu, high-minded a patriot as he proclaimed himself to be, stood stricken by the irrevocable enormity of what he had done. Mad laughter froze on his lips, panic glazed his eyes, and the hand which held the threatening Haemholtz faltered and dropped to his side.

And in that moment Warren roared, "Now, Gary! Get him!"

Gary dove across the room, his shoulders crashing the little man to the floor as his hands wrenched and tore the ray pistol from Borisu's grasp.

And the sudden death they had been led to expect?

Nothing happened.

No blinding flame engulfed them. No cascade of heat crushed the Liberty to a blob of molten metal. The gallant ship rode mightily, smoothly, evenly, the hum of its hypatomics a reassuring sound in their ears.

And now the tables were turned, for Muldoon and O'Day had leaped to Lane's assistance. Already Flick had snatched the skittering pistol from the floor, while Lark's strong arms encircled the raging Magogean, locking him in a vise. Meanwhile Warren, lurching to his feet, had charged to the controls, glanced swiftly at the vision plate, made a few swift corrections in their course. Now he turned, grinning.

"Made it," he cried relievedly. "I figured we might. Just in time, though. There's Sirius off the port bow. Too close for comfort."

"B-but," faltered Nora. "What did you do, Hugh? I thought we were headed for certain death? Even the Jovians warned us that if the controls were tampered with—"

"That's right," admitted Warren cheerfully. "But the Jovians were thinking only of their own drive. They didn't take all the factors into consideration. This slimy rascal—" He jerked his head toward the impotently fuming Quisling locked in O'Day's arms—"reset the quadridimensional stops to plunge us into the heart of Sirius. And it would have worked, too, had that been our only means of propulsion.

"But it occurred to me that if we could get the hypos working, adding the Liberty's normal acceleration to the space-twisting speed of the Jovian drive, we might put enough distance between ourselves and Sirius to save our necks.

"And—" He shrugged—"it worked. That's all."

"Hugh," said Gary, "you're terrific."

"Me? No, just plain lucky. I was only playing a hunch. But I figured we had everything to gain and nothing to lose."

"He's a violet," snorted O'Day. "A modest, shrinking violet. Stop playing coy, skipper. That was one of the neatest bits of mental astrogation I've ever seen."

Warren said uncomfortably, "Comets to you, sailor. You could have done the same thing yourself."

"Sure. If I'd thought of it."

"Anyone who can handle a spaceship like you can—"

"In," acknowledged Lark O'Day, "my own back yard; our own little solar system. But when it comes to figuring intergalactic calculus with a quadridimensional drive as a factor—" He shook his head admiringly—"you're the boy for my money."

Muldoon's fingers were itching on the butt of the Haemholtz. He glanced at the silent Borisu, then longingly at his weapon.

"When the Mutual Admiration Society adjourns," he said, "what are we going to do with our lethal little pal? You want I should take him out somewhere and play punchboard on him with this?"

Gary Lane said grimly, "Murder in cold blood isn't ordinarily my dish, but it seems to me that in this case it isn't so much a case of murder as it is fitting retribution. I'm in favor of—"

But Dr. Bryant said, "No, Gary. We can't do that."

"Why not? He's got it coming to him."

"I agree with you perfectly. But now that we have reached Sirius we may have need of him."

"Need of him?" exploded Muldoon.

"Yes. For one thing we already know the Magogean language is unlike any used in our universe. We will have need of an interpreter. Another thing you must remember is that so long as we hold him unharmed aboard the Liberty we hold as hostage one whom we know to be a person of importance among his own people."

Lark O'Day said bluntly, "I'm agin it. I was raised in a hard school, I know. But one thing I learned long ago was that the best way to get rid of an enemy is—get rid of him!"

And Dr. Kang, too, added quietly, "It is not wise to spare an enemy like this; one who has already attempted not once but many times to destroy us. It is written, 'Who dallies with the wasp will feel its sting.'"

Neither Muldoon nor Gary appeared to think highly of Dr. Bryant's clemency. But surprisingly it was the skipper who came to Dr. Bryant's support.

Warren said soberly, "What you say about Anjers'—Borisu's—treachery is quite true. Nevertheless, we have no right to pass judgment upon him. The thing to do is hold him in protective custody, take him back to Earth with us when we go, and there let him stand judgment before a properly constituted court. Law and order must be upheld."

O'Day laughed curtly. "There speaks the Space Patrolman. Once a cop, always a cop, eh, Warren?"

Warren flushed. "Maybe so. But that's the way I feel about it."

And the one-time pirate shrugged. "Okay, skipper. It's your ship. Save him it is. But—" He glared distastefully at the Magogean—"it's a good thing for you, buster, that we're aboard the Liberty and not the Black Star...."

So Borisu was taken away and placed under lock and key in the Liberty's brig. And later the leaders of the expedition gathered once more in the control turret of the Liberty as Hugh Warren, with his instruments, struggled to set a true and proper course for the ship.

"It's baffling," he confessed ruefully after futile consultation with his azimuth chart and astrogation table. "I can't seem to orient myself at all. There are no constant bodies to set a course by. Or, rather, there are plenty of known bodies—but they don't look right. Nothing looks right!"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, just that. Everything's cockeyed. Out of proportion. Here, see for yourself—"

Warren touched the stud which activated the vision plate. On the fore-lens screen was enmirrored that segment of space which lay before the Liberty.

As one, the company's eyes opened wide at the curious picture which lay exposed to their views. Star-strewn heavens sprawled before them, yes; but no such spangled jet as might be seen from Earth or any of Earth's sister planets. There, stars were dim, small specks, faintly aglitter in unfathomable distance. Stars had diversity of size ... this one was great, that other small. Stars clustered in recognizable patterns. Here a portion of the sky was filled with their tinsel sprinkling; elsewhere might be a patch of sparse-strewn midnight black. Thus the heavens as seen from Earth.

But not so was space as seen from this vantage point. For, viewing their surroundings through the vision plate, it seemed as if they swam through a sea of radiant light where every star was a beacon, each planet a steadfast buoy of glowing color. And in this gleaming pattern was a regularity, an orthodoxy as painstaking as if some master craftsman had allocated each glowing sphere with precise care.

Regularly discernible against the omnipresent back-drop of space were the solar galaxies, each a complete entity, aloof, removed from its fellows and confined to its own definite segment of space. Some galaxies were younger than others. One formed a whirlpool nebula. Another, giving birth to worlds, was a gleaming, egg-shaped blob of gold. Still elder universes had achieved secure and permanent balance.

But in certain things they were all alike. Each dominated its own sector of space without encroachment on a neighbor. And each parent star was very nearly equal in size to every other.

It was, in short, the mathematician's dream: the perfect achievement of theoretical stellar mechanics. A universe balanced in absolute stasis, with each galaxy arranged in contrapuntal adjacence to each other.

"But this—" said Flick Muldoon wildly—"this can't be the Sirian system! This isn't any part of the universe we knew!"

Young Dr. Lane nodded soberly. "Yes, Flick, it is. This, at last, is the true universe. The real and constant universe we theorized might exist when first we took those photographs on Luna. We are looking, as no man has looked for countless years, upon the true 'bubble universe' of which our solar system was once a part."

"But—" asked Nora—"our solar system now?"

Warren had been twisting the vision lens. Now he halted its periscopic movement at a space sector behind the Liberty. "I think," he said dubiously, "that may be the universe from which we came. Gary—?"

Gary looked and nodded. Sharp against the dazzling brilliance of the true universe was a strange blot, a circular well, a cone-shaped funnel of blackness carven through the bright surroundings. And deep and far, where the end of this funnel faded into unfathomable distances, was a single, tiny, pin-prick of light glimmering faintly.

"Yes," he said, "that is—must be—it. That tiny star is Sol. The one diminishing unit in all the constant universe. And that funnel is the path of the cosmic rays, the cone through which Magog's ultrawave cannon is beaming its lethal radiation upon our little system."

"Gad!" gritted Lark O'Day. "What a vengeance! What a punishment to mete on an innocent people! We must stop those scoundrels, Gary! If we only knew where to find them—"

"We do," Gary pointed out. "As Earth is the far end of the funnel, the planet from which the rays emanate must be Magog."

"Right as rain," declared Hugh Warren. "And, Gary, I've got it spotted now. It's that second planet over there, the blue one. Hello, below there! Bud!" he shouted into the audio. "Accelerate the hypos to max. And tell the men to stand by for any emergency. We're approaching our destination."

"A.X. to max it is, sir!" came back the reply.

And the whining sound of the hypatomic motors heightened as the Liberty, its goal in sight, leaped through unworldly space like a bow-sped silver arrow.

It was as they neared Magog that Gary Lane experienced a final qualm of misgiving. Dim memory stirred him. He recalled a remark the man they had known as Dr. Anjers had made on Jupiter.

"It is ridiculous to think of us, tiny mites that we are, daring to attack the people of a universe so infinitely greater than ours that we will be as dust motes beneath their crushing heels," Borisu had said.

At that time he had still been pretending allegiance with his companions. Which did not alter the fact that there might be truth to his claim. The Earthmen, born of a contracted planet, might be a hundred, a thousand times smaller than the enemy whose homeland they were approaching. Appraising the size of Magog from this distance, Gary could not tell. Size is relative, and in this Great Outer Universe there was no commensurable object by which the spacefarers might judge their own stature.

But Dr. Kang disabused him of this thought the moment Gary ventured it.

"No, no my friend. You need entertain no fears on that account. Just as the Magogean, Borisu was similar in size to us on Earth, so on Magog will our height correspond to that of the natives."

"But if we come from a planet which has been dwindling for untold years—"

"That does not matter, my boy. You forget, we are now in the real or 'static' universe. Moreover we came here through a space warp, traveling with a speed which exceeds that of light. Elementary astrophysics will tell you that any object exceeding the speed of light attains infinite mass. Therefore we may safely assume that during our period of translation from the inner to the outer universe the Liberty and all of us aboard the ship expanded to a size comparable to this universe which now surrounds us."

"Expanded?" grunted Lark O'Day. "But I don't feel any different."

"Naturally not. For you are as perfectly attuned to this greater universe as you were formerly to our own contracted solar system."

"But," demurred Gary, "Anjers—I mean Borisu—himself said—"

Dr. Kang smiled quietly. "Borisu made several paradoxical remarks. He also showed an appalling lack of comprehension of the hypatomic drive. Moreover, on several occasions he failed rather pitifully to accomplish a mission he had every opportunity of achieving.

"All of which leads me to believe, my friend, that—his boasting to the contrary—he's not so brilliant a genius as he believes himself. Nor is his race so scientifically advanced as he considers it. In at least several respects we have already discovered their knowledge to be inferior to ours. Let us hope we can maintain our superiority, and bring about the end we desire."

"By golly, that's right!" muttered Muldoon. "Borisu never struck me as being any master mind. And he admitted his race didn't know the secret of spaceflight."

"Excuse me," interrupted Dr. Kang. "At one time they did not. But they must know that secret now."

"Why?"

"How else could Dr. Boris Anjers have reached Earth to serve as an espionage agent for his people? We are forced to assume this Magogean surveillance of the solar system is a regular thing, with new appointees assuming their duties periodically. Borisu intimated he was but one of many. Obviously, therefore, the Magogeans have mastered not only spaceflight but faster-than-light travel. As well as the ability to diminish their own bodily size at will. At any rate, we shall know in a little while."

Warren's voice interrupted him. The skipper was seated at the controls. "You've got part of your answer now, Doc."

"What do you mean, Captain?"

"About spaceflight. The Magogeans have got ships. Because here comes a flock of them right now."

O'Day's eyes lighted. Restless for action, he had been chafing impatiently ever since they sighted Magog. Now his moment had come. He sprang to his feet.

"Man the guns! We'll teach those scoundrels—"

"Wait," advised Dr. Kang. "Not so swiftly. Let us try every peaceful means to win them over first. Dr. Bryant—where is Dr. Bryant?"

"Below," said Muldoon. "He went below a little while ago. I don't think the old man feels so good. He looked sort of funny. Kind of a sick expression around his mouth. And his eyes were glazed, like he was sort of dopey, or something."

"Well, let us send for him. We will need his advice. And bring Borisu from his cell, too. We must attempt to communicate with the Magogeans by radio. We will need Borisu to interpret for us."

Lieutenant MacDonald said, "Yes sir. Right away, sir," and hurried from the room.

Warren, closely scanning the vision plate, muttered, "Six ... eight ... a dozen of them. If they're friendly, all right. But if they're hostile—"

"You have turned on the force-shield?" asked Dr. Kang.

"No, but I'll do it now." The skipper pushed the black button. "That should take care of any tricks they try to pull. Say—" His voice broke in a sudden exclamation of astonishment. "Say, that's funny! Where did that come from?"

"That? What?" demanded Gary.

"Why—why, it looked like a life skiff. Matter of fact it looked like one of the Liberty's auxiliary craft. It just scooted across the vision plate for a minute and then—I'll try to pick it up again."

Warren twisted the scanning device deftly, succeeded in centering it upon the foremost of the approaching Magogean spacecraft. He leaned forward, studying intently the scene revealed.

"By God, it is a life skiff! But what's it doing this far out in space? And where did it come from?"

He got his answer, but from an unexpected source. For suddenly the audio crackled into activity. The voice of Lieutenant MacDonald came to them from midships.

"Captain! Captain Warren!"

"Yes? Yes, what is it?"

"It—it's Professor Bryant, sir."

"Bryant? What about him?"

"He's lying in the brig ... unconscious!"

"You mean—you mean Borisu attacked him? Seize the traitor! Bring him here immediately."

MacDonald's voice was anguished. "I can't, sir. That's what I'm trying to tell you. The cell door is open ... one of our auxiliary craft has been stolen from its cradle ... and Borisu—has escaped!"

Life Everlasting

"The life skiff!" thundered Hugh Warren. "That was Borisu. He's escaped to his own fleet!"

"And ruined," groaned Muldoon, "everything. Now they know who we are, where we came from, and what we want!"

MacDonald spoke again from below. "Dr. Bryant, sir—he's coming around. Shall I—?"

"Bring him up here," ordered Lane. "And for God's sake, hurry!"

The audio clicked off. Gary turned to his companions. "Whatever we're going to do, we've got to do fast. Now they've got wind of our scheme, we may never accomplish it. And if we don't—"

He let the sentence dangle. But all knew as well as he what must follow if their mission failed.

Minutes later, a dazed Dr. Bryant appeared in the turret, supported on the shoulder of the young space lieutenant. He shook his head in sorrowful reply to Gary's unspoken query.

"I—I don't know. I can't remember a thing. I was here in the turret with the rest of you. The next thing I knew MacDonald was breaking an ammonia tube under my nostrils. All that happened between is—blank."

"I told you he looked sick," said Muldoon. "He looked sort of dopey. Like he was drugged or—"

"Or," burst forth Gary Lane with a sudden comprehension, "hypnotized! Doctor, could that have been it?"

Bryant stared at the younger man confusedly.

"Why—why, I don't know, Gary. It is possible. I remember now that months ago, when Anjers first came to the observatory, one evening we discussed hypnotism at great length. He claimed some small faculty along that line. I laughed and told him it was impossible for a mesmerist to gain control over a strong minded person. Why—he experimented, with me as the subject. His efforts were a complete failure. Later he acknowledged as much, and we never broached the subject again."

"You didn't have to," grunted Lark O'Day. "That experiment wasn't the failure you thought it, Doctor. On the contrary, it must have been a complete success. At that time, with your cooperation, Borisu established a control over your brain. One which he has never relinquished."

"With my cooperation? But I concentrated upon rejecting his mental suggestions—"

"That," interrupted Dr. Kang gently, "is the explanation, my good friend. You erred in saying strong wills cannot be hypnotized. Research indicates that quite the opposite is true. It is only the strong-willed who make good hypnotic subjects. Never the dolts, morons, the weak of brain. For in order to accept hypnotic influence, one must be able to concentrate solely upon a single thought to the exclusion of all others. And only the highly intellectual have this power. I fear it is true you have been an unwitting partner to Borisu."

"I know you have," cried Gary. "There has been one thing which bothered me all along. It was not satisfactorily explained after Borisu admitted he was the one who attacked Muldoon in the observatory. You alibied him at that time, Doctor. You said you and he were together in your office. Had it not been for this we should have discovered long ago who was the traitor in our midst."

"He," moaned the aged scientist, "must have compelled me to say that. And this time he forced me to come below, open his prison cell, and permit his escape. But what are we going to do?"

"It's not what we're going to do," fumed Flick, "but what we should have done. I told you we ought to have conked that—"

"Stow it, Flick," suggested Gary. "There's no use crying over spilt milk. Borisu's skipped. So we'll have to abandon that plan of approach. We must figure the next best thing."

"Skipper? Captain Warren?" Again the intercommunicating system was alive.

"It's Sparks," said Warren, "calling from the radio turret. Yes, Sparks? What is it?"

"A telaudio message coming in. Someone calling us by name."

"Borisu," snarled O'Day.

"Pipe it down here, Sparks," ordered the commander of the vessel. "Throw it over the IC so we can all hear it."

"Very good, sir!" There was a moment's hush, then an instant of metallic confusion. Then the incoming message was retransmitted from the radio room to the control turret. A voice was calling, "Spaceship Liberty! Signalling the Liberty! Can you hear us?"

Warren glanced at his friends significantly. "It is Borisu," he whispered. "I'd know that soapy, accented voice in a million." He pressed the activating control of the turret transmitter and answered, "Spaceship Liberty answering. Hugh Warren, commanding officer, speaking. Who are you? What do you want?"

Transmission cleared as the beam between the converging spacecraft strengthened. It was definitely Borisu's voice addressing them. All recognized and tensed with anger to hear the vindictive mockery in his tone.

"What, Captain? But certainly you're clever enough to know without being told. We not only want but demand the immediate surrender of your ship!"

O'Day's face turned brick red. His lean jowls mottled with rage. In stifled tones he choked, "Surrender! That slimy rat! All right, Skipper. We know where we stand now. Let's unhinge the guns and give them—"

"They are a dozen," reminded MacDonald nervously, "to our one."

"All right! So what?" blazed O'Day. "Our weapons will more than match theirs. And we're protected by Dr. Kang's force-shield. Come on!"

He took three quick strides toward the nearest gun embrazure, and was in the act of whipping the tarpaulin from the rotor port when Borisu's voice sheered through again.

"That was the reformed corsair's voice I heard, was it not? Well, Captain O'Day—" He stressed the title with gentle irony—"I suggest you think twice before opening hostilities. Having shared your comradeship I am well aware as to the power of your weapon and the strength of the learned Dr. Kang's force-shield. However, the weapons mounted on our craft are not the destructive type averted by electrical barriers. Our guns are ultrawave cannon."

"Ultrawave!" repeated Dr. Kang, and stayed Lark O'Day's hand swiftly. "Stop, Lark! If he's telling the truth, our shield is useless."

"What? But I thought it would stop anything."

"Anything of material or radiant nature—except cosmic rays. They will penetrate all matter; even our force-shield. One blast of their guns can loose upon us the dwindling destruction which they have been using to destroy our universe."

"Well spoken, Dr. Kang," came the taunting voice from afar. "You grasp essential truths with admirable swiftness. And now—your surrender, Captain? You will drop your force-shield, permitting a boarding party to enter your ship."

All the while the Magogean had been speaking, Hugh Warren's fingers had been twisting dials on the control panel. Now, his face aflame with anger, he roared defiantly, "Like hell we will, Borisu. The Space Patrol dies but never surrenders! If you want to board us ... come find us!"

And his finger pressed suddenly down upon the green key installed by the Jovian engineers. A violent shudder trembled the Liberty from stem to stern, warped plates screamed in metal agony, and for an instant it seemed the straining ship would shake herself to shards, so great was the shock of that abrupt movement.

But even as lurching passengers tumbled headlong upon the metal deck, as contact broke abruptly between their ship and the Magogean fleet, Warren pressed a second stud: this time the red one.

Then horror loomed upon horror. For in the vision plate which fore-shadowed the Liberty's trajectory, appeared a gigantic darkness blotting out all space.

Gary Lane cried hoarsely, "My God, what—"

"Hugh!" screamed Nora Powell. "What have you done?"

But Warren's voice smashed through their cries of dismay, roaring crisp orders to the control room below. "Search-beams, Howard!"

And the young engineer's voice came back shakily, "Aye, sir! Search beams it is, sir!"

The darkness before them was rent with silver radiance. And what had seemed a black, impenetrable nothingness was now revealed as a black landscape over which the Liberty was hurtling like a bird in the night. Dark hills loomed starkly through whipping fingers of fog. The search-beams limned sharp outlines of crags and gulleys, forests thick with uncombed vegetation....

Dr. Bryant cried, "A planet! But which, Warren? One of our own universe, or—?"

Warren grinned mirthlessly. "Not on your life. The only place to lick an enemy is in his own back yard. Thank heavens, those Jovian engineers taught me how to use their tricky drive! I warped us clean around that space fleet into the night side of their home planet. The world you see beneath us is Magog itself!

"And now for our landing—" His fingers flickered over the studs. The Liberty dropped slowly, smoothly, speed dwindling as Warren searched for a likely landing place—and found it. A low plateau, cradled like a saucer between encircling hills.

No lights gleamed there; no glare of hostile cities. There was only Stygian darkness and the interminable greenery of jungle. The Liberty, enveloped in its matter-repulsing shield, struck once lightly and bounced; dropped lower. Warren released the shield that the ship might settle. Through the metal hull they could hear the crackling of timber as the great ship plowed its way through virgin forest land ... then the grating grind of metal against rock as the ship wallowed to a landing ... and lay still.

Hugh Warren cut controls. He turned to his friends, panting, his forehead damp with perspiration. But he forced a shaky laugh, and....

"All right, folks. Turn in your tickets. This is the place we started for."

"So," said Flick Muldoon, "we're here. Actually here on Magog! We've been working and plotting and contriving it seems like forever. And all of a sudden when it seems like we're licked—bingo!—here we are!" Flick's face had a curiously woebegone expression. "I'm confused. No kidding, I'm up a tree. All this time, even though I knew where we were heading, I kept thinking subconsciously that we'd never make it. And now we're here, and I'm puzzled even worse. What are we going to do here?"

Dr. Bryant said, "Well, I should say the first thing we must do is test the gravity and atmosphere of Magog to make sure it's safe for us to venture outside."

"We won't have to worry about that," said Warren. "I told you the Liberty had all the latest gadgets. The testing apparatus went into action automatically upon our landing. We'll have a complete report in a few minutes."

"Then," said O'Day, "the first thing we must do is find a good hiding place for the Liberty. Or if there isn't one, camouflage the ship immediately. It's night now, but with morning I've got an idea the Magogean fleet will be circling this planet looking for us. Borisu and his buddies aren't dummies. They'll know we used the quad drive to scoot, and they'll leave no stone unturned—"

Dr. Kang interrupted quietly, "I think that is another point on which you need have no apprehension. By the time morning comes we shall have either accomplished or failed in our mission."

"What?" Gary Lane whistled. "Aren't you a little optimistic, Doctor? We're going to work as swiftly as possible, yes. But getting our job done in a couple of hours is a bit too much to expect."

Kang's ivory features framed a wisp of a smile. "Have you forgotten Borisu's remarks concerning the time differential between our planets?"

Gary said testily, "Not by a long sight. And it's been worrying me plenty. Borisu said Magog had been playing the cosmic ray cannon on our universe for only twenty years. Yet it is a scientifically recognized fact that the planet which existed between Mars and Jupiter in our system was destroyed no less than 40,000 Earth years ago. Isn't that so, Dr. Bryant?"

"Quite true, Gary," agreed the older scientist worriedly.

"Therefore," pointed out Lane, "every Magogean year is the equivalent of two thousand Earth years; every day on this planet the equivalent of three Earth years. And—" His breath caught in his throat—"since our calculations prove that the critical dwindling point of Sol can be at most no more than two months away, we must fulfill our task here in a matter of Magogean hours—or our universe will die!"

At his words the younger men in the turret sprang to their feet as one. Flick spoke for all when he cried, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get going! My God, we've got to move and move fast—"

"Gently, gently," chided Dr. Kang. Again one of his rare smiles touched his lips. "Youth is impetuous. It is written, 'The young man tests the balance of the sword; the elder sage admires its chaste engraving.' Dr. Lane's discovery would be frightening ... if it were based on fact. But there is another way of viewing the matter. One you have not pondered. Have you failed to take into consideration the length of the Magogean year?"

Dr. Bryant stopped him in mid-sentence, his eyes lighting with swift admiration. "But, of course! That is extremely important. If the orbital revolution of Magog takes longer than that of Earth—"

"I believe," said Dr. Kang placidly, "you will find it does. Approximately 2000 times longer! We have not, just now, the time to study the truth of my conjecture. But from certain factors I have noticed, I believe we shall find this to be true. The size of Magog argues a slow orbital movement.

"In brief, my friends, I conclude that Magog revolves about its primary but a single time while Earth is whirling around the Sun two thousand times. There is, therefore, a one-to-one correspondence between the time units of our systems. We may completely disregard their relative size. A 'day' on Magog may equal 2000 Earth days—but twenty-four Earthly hours spent on Magog are of no longer duration than the same period spent on Earth. We may govern our actions accordingly."

Gary said soberly, "I certainly hope you are right, Doctor. Otherwise, howsoever short a time we spend in this system may be too long to save our universe. But—but you realize what this means, don't you? I am thinking now of the life span of the Magogeans."

Dr. Kang nodded. "I realize very well. It means that if they live an average of sixty to a hundred Magogean years, each of them exists for a period of many thousands of Earth years. But—" He shrugged—"is it too unreasonable to concede this? Has not our Earthly science already suggested that the shortness of our life span may be due to the bombardment of cosmic rays? Here on Magog where they do not live beneath this lethal radiation—"

Dr. Bryant's fine features cleared, his eyes lighted raptly. He said, "Then it is not only the immediate existence of our universe for which we are fighting, but another and greater goal. One of which mankind has dreamed for centuries. If we succeed in putting to an end this cosmic radiation, we may win for our people not only life, but—"

"Yes," nodded Dr. Kang. "Almost ... eternal life!"

Cosmic Allies

"Cripes!" said Flick Muldoon, awed. "Eternal life! Golly, that's almost enough time for a guy to catch up on his back sleep."

"Or," chuckled O'Day, "really learn how to play a good game of tri-chess.[10] But this is no time to be talking about things like that. The first problem is: how are we going to contact the Magogeans again?"

"I think—" Hugh Warren had risen abruptly to his feet as a light flashed on the signal panel before them—"I think we won't have to worry about that problem. The Magogeans seem to have already contacted us! See that warning? It means there is someone at the airlocks."

"Then quickly," snapped Gary, "turn on the force-shield, Hugh!"

Dr. Kang shook his head. "It is too late, now. If invaders have lighted the warning signal they are already inside the protective envelope." He turned worried eyes to the space patrolman. "What shall we do, Captain?"

"There's only one thing to do," grunted Warren. "Find out who it is, then blast them to hell-and-gone out. Hawkins!" He bawled the name out over the audio. A moment later the little cockney steward bustled into the turret.

"Comin' hup, Captain. You called me?"

"Yes. Break open the ordnance lockers. Supply every man aboard with arms. I'm afraid we have visitors."

Hawkins grinned impishly. He didn't scare easily. "Right, Cap'n. Side arms all around it is, sir." And he scampered away as Warren turned to his companions.

"All right. Let's go have a little look-see at our unexpected guests."

Moments later they were standing in the companionway beside the fore sta'b'rd lock. As the turret's warning system had advised, someone was outside the ship. A duplicate signal, activated by electric eye, was flashing on the airlock's inner port. Not only that, but through the aerated protection chamber could be heard faint noises of someone rapping or fumbling with the exterior controls.

O'Day nodded at Lane significantly. "Magogeans, all right. But our pal Borisu's not with them. He'd know how to operate the lock from outside. They don't."

Gary said tightly, "Well, since the mountain can't come to Mohammed—" and drew down the lever which opened the inner port. The noises were clearer now. In addition to the scrabbling sound there were faint murmurs, a low babble of indistinguishable voices.

Warren glanced swiftly at instruments on the airlock wall, nodded to his companions. "Gravity and atmosphere O.Q. We're adjusted to the first by our changed size, I guess, and the second approaches Earth's normal. Everybody set? I'll throw open the outer door. The minute you see them, let 'em have it."

And his hand reached for the second control lever, that which would open the passageway between the Liberty's interior and the outer darkness. But even before the activating machinery could throw the massive door open, a single voice raised above those others which muttered outside. And the words it spoke startled all the Liberty's equipage into stunned immobility. For in clear, unmistakable terms, the voice repeated a single phrase in three languages ... Jovian, Solar Universal, and Amer-English.

"Phaedu m'akki; toratu'sl!... Amiji sumo; ammité!... We are friends; let us in!"

Gary gasped, "Good Lord! English!"

"A trick!" Lark warned. "Don't take any chances!"

But then the great door swung open. And even he allowed his ready weapon to fall to his side as there stood outlined in the bright oblong of the portal a group of azure-tinted men similar in trappings and appearance to their Jovian benefactors.

Dr. Bryant choked, "Men of Jupiter! But how come you here?"

The leader of the newcomers, both arms widely outstretched in token of pacific intent, smiled with happiness at learning which tongue he should employ.

In precise and only faintly accented English he said hesitantly, "No, not uff Jupiter, Misser. We are chilttren of the planet Gog."

"Gog!" exclaimed Gary. "But that planet has not existed for—"

A cloud darkened the stranger's eyes. He nodded sorrowful agreement. "For many centuries your time ... for long years, ours. Nor did any uff us here ever see our parent planet. We are the children and the children's children uff our forefathers who once ruled Magog."

Warren, suddenly remembering his obligation as space captain and host, said, "Gad, this is incredible! But we can't talk here. Come into the ship where we can be comfortable while we get acquainted."

The Gogean leader turned to the doorway, raised his voice to an assemblage of attendants. Muttered replies and the stirring of many bodies in the darkness betold acceptance of his command. Then, designating one or two to be his companions, he followed Warren to the Liberty's lounge.

And there in an ultramodern Earthly space-cruiser was held the strangest conference ever attended by humans. A conference between adventurers of two solar worlds and representatives of an alien galaxy whose ancient culture had long since vanished from mankind's ken.

It was a give-and-take exchange exciting to both sides.

"We haff been looking for you," said the Gogean leader, Tsalnor, "and hoping against hope we might somehow get in touch with you. When we saw your ship and recognized it to be no space vessel of the Magogean fleet, our hearts leaped with joy. Joy which increased when you landed scarce four talus from our encampment."

"Saw our ship?" exclaimed Nora. "In this impenetrable darkness?"

The Gogean shrugged. "Darkness ... light ... what difference do these things make? We whose lives are spent in everlasting night make no distinction. Long years ago we were forced to either lose the power uff vision entirely or adapt our eyesight to seeing in the dark. Our people haff done the latter.

"When, years ago, the Magogeans with the help of their diabolic ultrawave cannon succeeded in overthrowing our empire, those uff us who were not slain sought refuge here on the eternally dark side of Magog."

"Eternally dark side!" broke in Dr. Kang. "But of course! I had guessed the period of axial revolution might be slow, but did not realize it coincided exactly with that of your planet's orbital revolution about its primary. Like our solar planet Mercury, Magog presents always the same face to its sun!"

"True," said Tsalnor bitterly. "And for two decades haff our people languished here, never seeing the glorious light uff day, save when a few members uff daring expeditions venture into the Twilight Zone for essential supplies we cannot here obtain."

"But—but don't the Magogeans know you are here? There must be many of you."

Tsalnor said bitterly, "We number in the hundreds uff thousands. And they know we are here, yes. But they dare attack us no more than we have dared attack their fortified cities. There exists between us an implacable hatred, but an armed truce. For neither force dares meet its enemy on that enemy's home terrain.

"Yes," he continued, "we who were millions now number in the hundreds uff thousands. But those who claim Gog is dead would eat their words to see the cities we haff hewn from these harsh rocks. We haff culture here, libraries and science.

"And—" he gritted—"an ever watchful army uff men who will someday arise to reclaim that which is rightfully theirs!"

Dr. Kang roused suddenly from an attitude of thought. "There is one thing which puzzles me, Tsalnor. Your knowledge of the language of our universe. You addressed us not only in modern Jovian tongue but in Universal and English as well. How knew you these languages?"

Tsalnor answered proudly, "By long study and careful translation, uff course. For many of your centuries we haff been listening to the speech transmitted via etherwaves by what you call your radio. Our people have long studied your three most-used languages against the ever-hoped-for day when our empire should be resurrected."

"But," demanded Gary shrewdly, "since you know our tongue, how is it you never attempted to communicate with us? If you have receivers to pick up our radio conversation, certainly you should be able to build transmitters as well?"

"Certainly, we could do so, Earthman. But we would not dare. We are not fools, but neither are our adversaries. Were we to build transmitting units here on Magog's Darkside, by directional finders they could locate our cities and send a space armada to wipe us out uff existence.

"No, we haff had to wait and build and hope and plan for just such a day as this.

"But now—" And his eyes lighted raptly—"Now at last you haff come! Working together, we shall overthrow the Magogeans, stay the disaster you haff told me threatens our ancient universe, and again be free to look upon the sun."

Captain Hugh Warren spread his hands in a gesture of despair. "You know you have our friendship. We would do anything within our power to help you, but—what can we do? If you, with a great army, have never been able to breach the Magogean defenses, what can our pitiful group do—?"

"You," said Tsalnor promptly, "can do what no Gogean can do ... effect entry to Magog's capital, and there work from within to destroy the barrier wall which protects it. When that wall falls our warriors will flood into the city of Khundru in hordes—"

"We? But why we—?"

Tsalnor smiled mirthlessly. "It is a matter uff hue."

Warren jumped. "Who, me?"

"No," said Dr. Bryant. "Not you, Hugh—hue! I see what he means. It is a matter of fleshly color. The Magogeans are our color, or nearly so. Dr. 'Boris Anjers' was of a complexion sufficiently similar to that of an Earthman to pass himself off for many years as a Eurasian. Similarly we might, I suppose, masquerade as Magogeans—"

He turned a questioning gaze to Tsalnor. The Gogean nodded. "Exactly. Let one uff our blue-fleshed brethren but present an appearance before any Magogean and he would be rayed down mercilessly without ever being granted an opportunity to speak.

"You alone haff the coloration which would permit entry into the city uff Khundru—"

"Where is this city?"

"A very short distance from here. Scarce more than a hundred talus, on the edge of the Twilight Zone."

"And you say it's the Magogean capital? Isn't that location a rather dangerous one for their most important city?"

"On the contrary, Khundru is located at an axis uff vital strategic importance. It spans the estuary uff the river Driya where it meets the Pinoor Sea, and is protected from assault from either side by lofty mountain ranges. Its rear is protected by Darkside."

"But you spoke of a barrier shield."

"Yes. It is that which prevents our armed forces from storming Khundru. About and around their capital the Magogeans have forged some sort uff an invisible barrier impenetrable by any material substance. What this is, we do not know. Unable to study it at first hand, our scientists haff never been able to study its secret."

"Invisible barrier! A force-shield!" Gary Lane spun swiftly to their Martian comrade. "Dr. Kang, it must be something like the force-shield you installed on the Liberty!"

Kang nodded slowly. "Very likely. I know now why Borisu never questioned me so eagerly about the activation of my device as he did the Jovian engineers about their quad warp. It was because he already understood it."

"You mean," demanded the Gogean, "you comprehend this mechanism?"

Kang nodded.

"But then no one need enter Khundru!"

"Unfortunately, someone must. There is no way to rupture an entropic force barrier from without. If your divisions are to storm Khundru, the wall must be broken from the control room inside that city."

Gary drew a deep breath. "O.Q. We're elected. Lark ... Hugh ... Flick...."

"A moment, Gary," interrupted Lark. "Just how are we to effect entry into Khundru? Will there be questions to ask or answer?"

Tsalnor puzzled briefly. "It would be best," he decided, "to pass yourselves off as common serfs. We shall teach you the Magogean language and acquaint you with its customs. But it would take too long a training to enable you to pass yourselves as members uff the ruling class. There are but two divisions uff Magogeans. The common people, serfs who are little more than feudal slaves; and the kraedars, or overlords—"

"That's what Borisu called himself," remembered Gary. "Kraedar."

"The kraedars are the military and ruling class. You would never be able to pass yourself off successfully as one uff these. Therefore it were wiser to allow yourselves to be taken into the city as workers. This may entail some hardships, but you will be inside where you want to be. And once there, your own ingenuity can devise ways and means uff doing that which is needful."

"I thought," nodded Kang, "the situation would be something like that. In that case, Gary, you must change your plans. Nothing would arouse Magogean suspicion quicker than to have five strong, strapping, young strangers seek entry to their capital city ... particularly on the heels of the report Borisu may even now be submitting to his peers."

"But who, then—?" questioned Gary.

"Why not," suggested Kang quietly, "just my daughter and myself? We understand the operation of the force-shield. Of the two of us, surely one can find some way to break the Magogean barrier for a short time."

Gary said stubbornly, "The idea is a good one, Dr. Kang. But two is not enough. Let it be the three of us."

"The four of us," broke in Lark O'Day. "If Penny's going, I want to be in on this shindig, too."

"Why not," suggested Nora Powell, "count me in? With two women out of five, certainly we would seem an innocuous little band. A family circle, so to speak, with Dr. Kang as the parent, Penny and I his married daughters—"

Kang said dubiously, "I don't know. There is too much difference in the pigmentation of our skins for us to be taken as a family unit. True, my daughter's flesh is little more golden than yours, Miss Powell—"

Tsalnor dismissed the objection with a short laugh.

"You do not know Magog, Dr. Kang. Such dissimilarities in coloration are not the exception but the rule amongst their people. The Magogean hordes haff interbred to such an extent that the closest blood brothers oft look like men of different races. Miss Powell's plan is quite feasible."

"O.Q.," said Gary. "Then that's the ticket. How long to put us through this teaching-training period you were talking about?"

"Not long. Those things will be done during studying periods and even while you sleep ... electrically."

"Then," said Gary, rising, "let's move the Liberty to your headquarters and get on with the job. Because there's lots to be done, and very little time left to do it in."

Inside Khundru

"Gary," said Nora, "I'm frightened. Suppose—"

"Hush, my dear," warned Dr. Kang swiftly. "From now on speak only in the Magogean tongue. Suspicious ears may lurk at any crossroads."

A full week's time, as measured by earthly watches, had passed since the Liberty's fortunate landing near the Gogean camp. In that time all the space venturers, and particularly those who were to attempt the first reaching of Khundru's gates, had been given an intensive training course in the other world's formalities. Through means of instruments so ingeniously clever that the Earthmen could only marvel at them, there had been electrically superimposed upon their brain structures a knowledge-pattern giving them complete acquaintance with the Magogean tongue, habits, customs, traditions, something of the history of the race, and even a general knowledge of current events.

"I'm sorry," whispered Nora, shifting to the Magogean tongue, "but—but I'm frightened, Gary. Suppose we should meet Borisu?"

Lark O'Day grunted. "He'd have one hell of a time recognizing us dressed—or undressed—like this."

He scowled disdainfully at the crude peon garb with which his sturdy frame was draped; clothing which consisted of little more than worn sandals, a twisted, filthy rag about his loins, and a loose, sacklike halter draped from his shoulders.

Gary admitted ruefully, "We aren't exactly candidates for a sartorial award. But this is the best disguise we could possibly effect. The Magogean kraedars spurn their slaves like dust beneath their feet. Even if we were to meet Borisu, he would look past or through us and never notice our faces. And that's what we want."

"It's damn hard on the girls, though," grunted O'Day. "The least the blue boys could have done was given us a lighter cart. One we three could handle by ourselves, without them having to act as dray horses, too. Ease up there, Penny. Don't ruin those pretty hands."

Kang's daughter glanced at him sidewise and smiled. She said in a soft, liquid voice, "Do not worry about us, Lark. It were better Nora and I ruined our soft hands on this cart than that your fighting hands should not be ready when the moment comes. Is it not so, Nora?"

Nora, tugging beside her at the draw-tongue of the cumbersome vehicle which comprised part of the typical impedimenta of lower class Magogean nomads, smiled agreement.

"Much better. Though I confess I don't envy those whose rôles we are playing. I wouldn't like to do this all the time."

"I don't believe," said Kang in a low voice, "you are going to have to do it much longer. For see? Before us? A city on the river's edge, and armed soldiers watching our approach. You know our story?"

"Yes."

"Good! Remember it well. We must make no mistake."

This was their last exchange of free, unguarded speech. For as he had said, the soldiers had spotted them, and a company was moving forward to challenge their approach.

They did so, Gary Lane could not help thinking, in a manner typically Magogean. Not with any warmth or friendliness, but in dictatorial tones of sharp suspicion.

"Hold, there, slaves! Who are you? Whence came you? Whither are you going?"

Gary, haltered shoulder to shoulder beside his friend and comrade, felt Lark O'Day's body stiffen with suppressed rage at this form of address. But like himself, O'Day remained hunched, with head hanging stupidly low, as if both were the witless serfs they pretended to be.

The elderly Kang spoke, as had been agreed, for their group.

"Greetings, O warriors of strength and valor. I am the freedman, Kengu. These are my daughters and their mates. We come from the Twilight Zone to seek employment in the city of Khundru."

"Twilight Zone?" demanded the warrior captain suspiciously. "What were you doing there?"

"For three years," answered Kang, "we labored there in the service of the kraedar Alisur. Now the noble kraedar is dead. We have no master."

He could say this confidently. From a Magogean newscast had been learned of Alisur's recent and opportune demise. That Alisur had been an explorer operating in the Twilight Zone was a feature upon which they had been swift to capitalize.

The warrior captain nodded and strode to the cart, pulled back the sacking with which it was covered.

"And what have you here? Valuable goods, no doubt, you stole from your dead master?"

"Nay, Noble One. Naught but our common household belongings. Bedding and articles of furniture. Clothing ... utensils for cooking."

The captain, peering into the laden cart, grunted disdainfully and threw back its cover. "The old man speaks truth. The foul cart reeks of rubbish. Very well, old fool, on your way. Report yourself to the guardsman at the Twilight Gate, and show him this pass." He scribbled briefly on something resembling paper, tossed it at Kang. "This will permit you to enter the city. Wait!" A look of cunning stole into the chieftain's eyes. "Of course there is the matter of an entry fee. You have some money?"

Kang answered humbly, "Very little, my lord. Scarce enough to sustain us until we have succeeded in finding employment. Barely five units—"

"Hand it over!" demanded the other harshly. "There are five of you. The entry fee is a unit each. Well, swiftly, slave! Or must I use the lash?"

He fingered almost hopefully the braided whip which dangled at his belt. But docilely Kang withdrew a sweat-stained leather pouch from his garments and handed it to the captain. And without further challenge they stumbled down the road to the entry gate.

Here they were stopped by a sentry, and Kang proffered the captain's note. The sentry read it, Gary thought, almost angrily, and grumbled, "Curse Draliu! I suppose he got what money you had?"

Kang answered meekly, "We had but five units, sir. And that was the entry fee, the captain told us."

"Curse him," repeated the sentry. "He bleeds them all white before they get this far! Very well, in with you. But look sharp you move in a hurry when this light turns white. If you're only half way over the line when the shield closes again, God help you!"

He laughed unpleasantly, pressed a button, and spoke into a diaphragm beside him. An instant later a light at the sentry box glowed white, and hurriedly the five slaves, straining, tugged their heavy cart into motion. They had barely succeeded in crossing the designated line when, with a sudden, crackling sound, a dust film rose from the ground behind them and the white light went out.

Gary, glancing back at Dr. Kang, saw the old man's forehead was beaded with perspiration. When he looked askance, Kang whispered, "They don't take many chances. They didn't leave the barrier open long. If we had been a minute slower in bringing the cart through—"

"What?" asked Nora Powell.

"The closing barrier would have smashed us into atoms. But we have learned one important thing, at any rate."

"Yes?" asked Gary.

"Again," said Dr. Kang, "as several times before, we have tangible evidence that the Magogean culture is not so high as they would believe. My people—" he said almost proudly—"have ways to open one portion of the force-shield at a time, admitting friends to its protection through a small opening. Theirs is a more elementary form. To open it in any spot is to open it everywhere. That may be a handy thing to know."

Thus entered Gary Lane and his companions into the city of Khundru. It was a strange city. Even Lark O'Day, who of them all was best capable to judge, having flung his madcap way afar amongst the planets of Sol's universe, admitted that.

"I've seen Greater New York," he said, "and Imperial Ceres. They're about tops in ultramodern culture. I've seen the barbaric splendors of the Venusian capital, and the filthy mud hovels the Mercurians call—or used to call—their temples. But never anywhere have I seen anything which looked like this."

And he shook his head bewilderedly at the heterogeneous architectural display sprawling about them. Khundru was a city of contradictions: the dwelling place of a people who believed themselves capable of attainments greater than they possessed.

Here both sides of a thoroughfare so exquisitely inlaid and tessellated that it might have graced the entrance to a potentate's seraglio, would be lined with dingy, malodorous dwellings earthborn dogs might have scorned to sleep in. Turn a corner and the eyes widened to behold great gilded temples towering skyward in a setback architecture dwarfing the most hopeful achievements of any solar race. The sky above the city was athrong with space and air vessels ... huge, thundering rockets and gossamer-winged glidercraft of scintillant beauty ... but the streets below rumbled with the wooden wheels of such cumbersome vehicles as that which they themselves hauled painfully along.

The sights, the smells, the street sounds of the city were comparable to those of an oriental bazaar in, thought Lane, Earth's woefully anachronistic Twentieth Century; that period when only a portion of humanity's masses had known the delights of civilized existence.

Even without the benefit of the training to which they had been exposed they could have picked their way almost unerringly to the city's center. Khundru was built like a huge wheel about the central hub which was its Palace Royal. The streets through which they threaded their way was a spoke of this wheel.

In the Palace Royal, they knew, could be found not only the governing but also the dwelling chambers of the highly elect Kraedaru, the ruling gentry of Magog. There also was to be found the vital control center of this sprawling octopus whose tentacles they must paralyze so the Gogean army could burst into the city.

But if they had hoped to attain so far without challenge, they were bitterly disappointed. For they had penetrated scarcely a third of the way when a sudden clamor aroused them from their furtive study of the city. Voices cried out, whether in surprise, alarm or joy was hard to tell, and the milling throng which but a moment ago had rubbed shoulders with them too closely for comfort began to clear from the thoroughfare and huddle fearfully against the walls of the street.

Gary glanced at Dr. Kang, his eyebrows asking the question his lips barely muttered.

"What now?"

Kang answered softly, "I do not know. But there is a saying of your people, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Quickly, move the cart to the curbing, and let us take our places with the others."

But before the awkward tumbrel could be dragged from the right of way, with a flurry of brazen hoofs and a raucous clamor of trumpets there galloped around the corner and squarely down upon them a small troop of mounted lancers.

There was room and to spare for these haughty warriors to pass them by ... but such was not the way of the Magogean kraedaru. As the cavalry captain, drawing near, saw upon the street one cart which had not yet moved completely to the curb, one tiny knot of struggling serfs who had not as yet taken abject posts against the wall, a flush darkened his cheeks and his eyes darted anger. With a guttural cry he changed his troop's straightforward charge, bore directly down upon Dr. Kang and his "family." Then, at the last possible moment, when it seemed certain his armed warriors and their mounts must trample ruthlessly over the bodies of the trapped quintet, shattering their cart to splinters, he drew up his men, and, his voice heavy with rage, leaned from his saddle and cried to Dr. Kang:

"You there, slave—what means this? How dare you deliberately block our passage?"

"Why, you—" began Lark O'Day.

But Lane, standing with his head abjectly bowed beside his friend, gripped the other man's wrist to silence him. And from the cart, Dr. Kang answered in a thin, meek voice;

"Forgiveness, Excellence. Your servants did not know—"

"The lash!" cried the warrior captain. "Twenty to each of them, then let us be gone. Or—Wait!" His eyes narrowed as the implication of Kang's words struck him. "Did not know? You did not recognize our signal as we approached? Where are you from? You are not of Khundru."

"Nay, master," whined Kang. "We are poor exiles of a far northern city, Tabori by name, but recently come out of the Twilight Zone to seek service in the noble capital of our race—"

"Recently come?" The chieftain's eyes narrowed still farther. Then: "Where is your master, serf?"

"Our master is dead, sire." Kang explained as he had explained to the captain of the barrier guard. But it was evident that in Khundru the higher a man's post the greater became his authority and greed. For scarce had he revealed that their erstwhile master was no more than the cavalry leader interrupted him.

"No master, eh? That situation shall soon be remedied. By the rank and authority which is mine as a kraedar of Khundru I hereby claim you as mine own. Not—" He laughed—"that I shall put you to use. A Captain of the Royal Guard has no need of house servants. But your two sons should make sturdy slaves for the tilling of someone's land. And your two daughters—"

He paused and stroked his jaw reflectively. It was clear that the Captain of the Royal Guards was reconsidering his need of servants. To forestall his thinking, Kang spoke hurriedly, invoking a law which he had learned existed amongst the Magogeans.

"A thousand pardons, sire—but we are not slaves. We are freedmen. When our master died he gave us household goods and chattels wherewith to establish our own little home—"

"So?" The kraedar laughed mockingly. "Yet if you had not these things, old man, you would be slaves again, is it not so? Well, then—"

He turned and barked a command to his soldiers. Instantly bright weapons leaped from their belts to their hands. And it was with the barest warning the quintet of Solarites managed to scramble from the proximity of the cart as the blazing rays of a dozen ultrawave handguns spat flame upon the cart. In a moment of searing fire the vehicle was gone, blasted to oblivion by those frightful rays.

"So," continued the captain, "having no chattels of your own, you are again slaves. Tramir Chingru—herd me these cattle to the mart, and there get for me the best price you can. And mind," he added dangerously, "you bring me back all the profits. Make no mistake as to the amount."

A single warrior fell out of formation, gestured the quintet into a little knot before him, and pointed the way down a side avenue. The warrior captain, smirking with satisfaction, spurred his company on its journey.

An hour later all five were parcels of merchandise in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru.

The Control Tower

Standing there in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru, Gary Lane realized—as millions of his human brethren had discovered in past ages—that it is one thing to experience an emotional uprising when reading about a situation, but quite another to be involved in that situation yourself.

In his university history classes Gary had read of the day when unenlightened Earthmen enslaved their human brothers, offering their flesh and services to hire on the auction block. From a purely rational standpoint he had disapproved of this barbaric custom, in this age happily abandoned. But now, here on a planet inconceivably far from the little world called Earth, he himself was not only witnessing such a deal in human wares but was, indeed, one of the chattels to be auctioned!

As his mind busied himself with abortive plot and speculation, his eyes roved covertly about his surroundings. He saw the raised central dais upon which a lean and hawknosed auctioneer singsonged the merit of a thick-thewed and filthy serf. He saw the encircling throng of bidders, Magogeans ranging through all walks of life from the lowest freedmen land-owners, through the merchantmen exporters, to the elaborately caparisoned lords and nobles who lolled in their scented boxes, raising listless fingers in token of bid when an offering took their fancy.

What turn this contretemps would take he could not guess. But he was not left long in wonderment. For the warrior into whose hands they had been placed was impatient to rejoin his troop; with a stern command that his charges await his return, he shouldered his way through the mob to the auction block.

As soon as he had gone, Lark turned to Gary, a question in his eyes.

"Make a break for it?"

Dr. Kang spoke before Gary could answer. "It would be useless, Lark. They would only catch us again. As serfs we cannot expect freedom. We might as well wait and let them sell us to whomsoever they will. If we cause no trouble we can more easily learn that which we need to know."

Gary said, "The cart's gone. That's a bad break. With it were our cached arms. We're helpless now, trapped in the middle of Khundru—"

"Hush!" warned Nora. "Here comes our guard again, with the auctioneer."

It was so. Apparently the soldier had argued to the tradesman the necessity of selling this quintet immediately. For though the auctioneer grumbled and complained, he led the five to the dais. His shrill singsong resumed its wheedling chant.

"And now, O nobles and freedmen," he whined, "a special consignment from the chattels of the kraedar Pridu, Captain of the Royal Guards. A family of Taborians, newly come to our city from years of talented service in the Twilight Zone under the deceased kraedar Alisur. Said family consisting of one elderly male in good physical condition, two young and sturdy males, and their mates, two fine, fertile females. How is your wish? Have I a bid on this family as a lot?"

"Fine and fert—" began Lark O'Day, outraged.

Kang silenced him with a gesture.

There came no bid from the assemblage, but a voice cried, "We want no job lot goods in muffled packages. Bring them out one at a time, and let us see them. The females first."

"As you wish, my lord," agreed the auctioneer. "So be it." And he reached down from his dais, seized the wrist of the lovely Martian, Pen-N'hi, and hauled her to his side. "Behold, O wise purchasers," he cried. "Here is one of the females. A fine, staunch creature in the bloom of her young womanhood. Lovely and graceful as the fleeting catooni[11] but yet—" And he winked lecherously at the mob—"not too young to be acquainted with the Lore of a Thousand Delights, in which she was well trained by her late master."

"Rat!" grated Lark between his teeth. "Another crack like that—"

"Silence!" whispered Kang. "His words mean nothing. It is written, 'Speech will neither spot the lily's face, nor hide the leper's sores.'"

A voice raised from the audience. "Two hundred dwari, Tisru!"

Tisru's sharp face looked grieved. "Two hundred, sire? For a beautiful mistress such as this? Two thousand, you mean. Behold this graceful throat, this slender waist ... these tiny hands which can thrill with a thousand caresses—"

"Three hundred," cried another voice.

"Four hundred."

"Five hundred."

"Six."

The auctioneer's oily insinuations did not lack the power to titillate his listeners. A flurry of interest sharpened the bidding.

"Eight hundred" ... "Nine!" ... "One thousand dwari!"

"Behold those eyes, those feet, those golden arms...."

"Twelve hundred, Tisru!"

"She can sing and dance and play sweet music...."

"Fourteen hundred!"

"Behold those lips, gentlemen ... those dainty, shell-like ears—"

A coarse laugh broke from one of his listeners.

"Stop pointing out things we all can see, Tisru. I told you before, we want no packaged goods. Off with the woman's rags that we may know on what we bid."

It was evident that Tisru had been cleverly biding his time for some such request. Now, with the air of a sculptor preparing to unveil a masterpiece, he pretended humble acquiescence to the demand.

"Very well, my lords and masters," he whined. "Then prepare yourselves for a vision of blinding radiance—"

His greasy talons reached out to clutch the single supporting halter of Penny's crude garment. The girl froze at his touch, and a color suffused her clear, golden skin, but true to the teachings of her race she said no word, but stood stock-still with lowered head.

But if Penny could endure personal degradation for the good of their cause, and if Kang could philosophically accept this as a necessary evil, not so the two young Earthmen. As if both stanchions of a bridge had broken simultaneously, Lark O'Day and Gary Lane hurled themselves forward side by side.

O'Day's voice was a blaze of fury. "Take your hands off her, you slimy weasel!"

With a slashing blow he loosened the man's grip, hauled Penny to the shelter of his arm.

Tisru gasped. Fierce anger narrowed his eyes, and with a hiss he groped for a knife sheathed in his belt. But he never touched it. For at that moment Gary struck. His right fist moved scarce fifteen inches, but it smashed the auctioneer's bearded chin with a furious accuracy. The man flew backward off the dais, flailing, awkward, scrambling, spitting blood from his broken lips.

Then everything was bedlam. The crowd came to its feet, roaring in outrage at the sight of serfs who dared rebel. Knives whipped from belts as figures surged forward. Not only knives but deadly ray guns, too. And Gary panted, "We're in for it now! Stand them off as long as you can, Lark. I'll see what I—"

But there came an interruption. A sharp incisive voice rose from somewhere at the back of the throng.

"No! Touch not the slaves! Let none move another step!"

All heads turned as one. A current of astonishment coursed through the throng, swelling to a murmur as the speaker was recognized. "Moranu, Seneschal of the Inner Council!" And there pressed through yielding ranks a Magogean clad even more grandiloquently than any the Solarites had yet seen. A tall, impressive figure who carried himself with an air of supreme and confident authority.

Haughtily he strode to the steps of the dais, there confronted the rebels.

"Now, by the gods," he marveled, "you two must be madmen. Had I not been passing by, for your rebellion at this moment your bones would be pickings for the curs of the streets."

"The curs of this city," ground O'Day savagely, "are not all four-legged—"

"But in me," continued the newcomer, "you find one who admires a fighting spirit in howsoever an unsuspected source it may be found. Aye, and an eye which needs no stark unveiling to detect beauty. Tisru!" He turned to the auctioneer who, glaring malevolently at his attackers, had cringed back onto the dais. "I will bid me this family of rebel serfs. What is your price?"

The auctioneer pleaded greasily, "I can set no price, my lord. This is an open auction with chattels sold to the highest bidder."

"So?" The Seneschal eyed each of the quintet in turn, appreciatively appraising the two girls, nodding his head slowly at the frames of the two young men. Dr. Kang he dismissed with a glance, then turned to Tisru.

"The old one I do not want. For the young ones, as a lot, ten thousand dwari. Is there a higher bid?"

Tisru knew there would not be. Not only was the price staggeringly high, but none in this audience dared bid against the Seneschal of the Inner Council.

He shook his head, gasping, "Nay, sire, there is no other bid. For that price take also the old one, with the compliments of Tisru's Mart."

The Moranu nodded to a servant, who negligently tossed a bag to the auctioneer. The lord nodded to his new purchases. "Follow me," he commanded, and led the way from the market place.

An excited hum rose from the crowd to follow their exit.

As they followed their new "owner" it was all the members of the Solarite quintet could do to mask the triumph which threatened to reveal itself on their features. For almost instantly it became clear that they were being led to that very spot they had hoped, but had not known how to plan, to attain. The hub of Khundru's circle which was the Palace Royal.

As they journeyed along, their superiors mounted on the curiously horse-like creatures which the Magogeans called batanidi, themselves, of course, humbly afoot, they could not help but overhear the conversation between Moranu and his companions.

"Ten thousand dwari! That was a lot to pay, my Lord Seneschal, for five carcasses," said one.

Moranu chuckled. "It was worth it to see the spittle of greed drool from that hawknosed old scoundrel's lips. Nor is it a bad buy. Of course, the old one ... I do not know where we can use him—You, aged serf!" he cried to Dr. Kang. "What talents have you, if any?"

Kang scraped servilely and said, "I have a smattering of mechanical lore, O master. Much my former owner taught me about the operation of instruments and machines."

"So? And much you have forgotten by this time, no doubt," grunted Moranu. "Still, I think I know a place where you can be of use. The control tower. You will need no strength there but that sufficient to push buttons."

The control tower! It was with an effort that Gary Lane restrained the cry that surged to his lips. But his eyes leaped to those of the aged doctor, and found there assurance that Kang would well know what to do when he found himself within the control tower.

"And the young men?" asked another of the riders.

"For the Games, of course," laughed Moranu. "Where else? Tell me, when have you seen before two slaves with such spirit and courage as these showed? It will be worth many an afternoon of boredom to watch these pit themselves against the fanged goraru[12] or the two-horned sneri[12] in the arena."

"Perhaps," gibed one of the young nobles slyly, "we might even match them against one of the—what were they called?—'Earthmen', when we capture the creatures."

And all laughed. Gary wondered what form that laughter would take were these carefree young noblemen to learn the truth about their captees.

"And the girls, I suppose, go to—" began still another speaker.

Moranu nodded. "Yes, of course."

"Too bad," murmured one of the younger noblemen regretfully. "The pale one I could use myself."

"The gold fleshed one for me," chuckled another.

"That's right," growled Lark between clenched teeth. "Talk it over. One day I'll make you eat each other's tongues."

"Who could not?" asked Moranu. "But we can afford to be magnanimous this once, and surrender them to our brother. After his long privations he deserves a little relaxation."

Thus they came to the gates of the Palace Royal, a city within a city, a citadel within an armed camp, the innermost fortress of fortified Khundru. And it was here their little group was broken up.

As they passed within the gates the nobles dismounted, surrendering their beasts to grooms, and Moranu designated the direction to which each slave should be taken.

"The old man to the control tower. Tell Vesalu to set him to work. The girls to the baths, then to the seraglio of adornment, then to await our brother's pleasure. The men—Well, for the present quarter them with the palace help. Away with you now."

Thus callously were the five members of a family separated. Gary and Lark were placed in the charge of a young lieutenant who led them through a maze of corridors beneath the citadel towards the servants' quarters. As they followed him Gary asked meekly, "Your pardon, sire, but you spoke of 'Erzmun', or creatures of some such name. What are these? Fierce beasts we must meet in the Arena?"

The subaltern chuckled. "Earthmen ... fierce beasts! That's good! No, slave. They are puny creatures from afar who recently dared attempt to storm our planet. They were driven off by our cruisers and crashed, we believe, on Darkside. But a search is being made for them. If they are found, I promise you rare enjoyment at the Games. For they are stupid, weakling creatures. It should be amusing to watch you carve them to bits during the Games."

"And," asked Gary in simulated eagerness, "our mates—when will we see them again?"

The garrulous young lieutenant grinned. "Oh, by and by, I suppose. When our brother to whom they are being loaned for a little while wearies of them. You see, he has been journeying afar quite a while, and is in need of relaxation. It was he who returned but a day ago to warn us of the invasion of these Earthmen—"

It was fortunate that as he spoke the young subaltern did not happen to look at the faces of his two charges. For at his words, both Lark and Gary stiffened, their eyes met in wild surmise. Then Gary spoke for both.

"And—and the name of this noble kraedar?" he asked.

The nobleman laughed curtly. "I do not see that it concerns you, serf. But there is no harm in telling you whose august presence your mate will be permitted to attend. It is our brother, lately returned from tiny Gog. The great and noble kraedar Borisu."

Deadlock

"Borisu!"

There is a limit to which human impassivity can be constrained. Gary Lane had now surpassed his ability to play the ignoramus. The name burst from his lips with explosive force. "Borisu!"

O'Day echoed the cry. "Borisu! But my God, Gary, that means—"

In his dismay Lark spoke in English. Their captor had been startled enough at Gary's cry, but upon hearing speech in a foreign tongue from the lips of a supposedly uncultured slave, his eyes opened wide in astonishment. He demanded, "What is this? Whence came you twain that you speak a language I do not know?"

And his hand reached for the ray gun at his belt. But it never got there. For Lark O'Day called signals in a language the Magogean could never possibly understand. He cried sharply:

"All right, Gary, punt formation.... One, two ... Hep!"

And simultaneously the two Earthmen converged on their guard, one high, one low. Gary, taking his cue from Lark's quarterbacking, made no effort to wrest the weapon from the Magogean's grasp, but kicked straight and true at the young lieutenant's wrist. The gun flew high, and by the time it clattered to the paving Lark had smashed the young kraedar to the ground and battered him into unconscious submission.

Gary tugged at his friend's shoulder. "O.Q., Lark, that'll do. You don't have to pound him into hamburger."

"Not hamburger," rasped O'Day, withdrawing reluctantly, "just a reasonable facsimile thereof. He's the louse who said he wouldn't mind making a play for Penny himself!"

Gary said, "Never mind that now. Somebody's going to make worse than a play for Penny if she and Nora are ever taken before Borisu. You know what that means, don't you?"

Lark nodded grimly. "Taps for the bunch of us. He's the one person in Khundru who could recognize any of us beneath our disguises. And by the time the gals get tidied up—Well, what'll we do?"

Gary said, "I've got an idea. You're about that guy's build—" He nodded toward the prostrate figure. "Scramble into his uniform, quick. Before somebody happens along this way. And while you're dressing, I'll roll him into your rags."

"O.Q."

The shift was made. Finally a "slave" lay prone in the middle of the corridor floor, and a handsome young kraedar of the Magogean guard towered above him.

"O.Q.," repeated Lark then. "What next, director?"

"You must have something on you," figured Gary, "with which to call help. Find it."

Lark pawed the unfamiliar paraphernalia with which his uniform was draped, finally discovered a small whistle. He looked at it distastefully. "You mean I have to put this in my mouth and blow it?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"I'll probably get hydrophobia," grunted Lark ... but obeyed.

The whistle brought immediate results. Footsteps clattered through the tunneled corridor, and shortly questions were being hurled at the false guard officer by an excited handful of Magogean soldiery.

"I was taking these two slaves to their quarters," explained Lark. "That one is a trouble maker. He turned against me. I was forced to strike him down. Cart him away. Throw him in the dungeon. You—" He picked out a likely looking prospect Gary's size—"come with me while I take this other where he must go."

So, as the band of soldiers lugged their unconscious kraedar into durance vile, Lark and a soldier escorted Gary to the first conveniently dark passageway. From this came shortly a thud, as of some blunt instrument striking a heavy object ... and a few moments later two warriors clad in the habiliment of the Magogean armed forces were speeding upward through the labyrinthine corridors of the Palace Royal toward those chambers to which the girls had been taken.

They had ascended three levels and reached the point in the Palace Royal where the corridors were beginning to look less like passageways of a fortress and more like the aisles and avenues of a residential area when there burst about their ears a cascade of sounds at once bewildering and startling. It was the clamor of a myriad of ringing bells, sharp warning tocsins sounding an alarum of some sort. Whence it came, at first they could not tell. Searching for an explanation, their eyes discovered a series of grilled openings periodically spaced about the wainscoting of the chambers through which they hurried.

Gary guessed, "A general communicating system of some sort, Lark. But what does it mean? Do you think Borisu has seen the girls, discovered—"

"He's hardly had time," demurred Lark. "But something's up—no doubt about that. Ah! Here comes someone. Perhaps now—" He lifted his voice in a shout as a soldier clad like Gary raced into the corridor. "Hello there, you!"

The Magogean warrior identified the rank of his accoster and halted, saluting. "Yes, kraedar? Foot soldier Norad, preparing to take post, sir, in accordance with emergency alarm instructions."

"Very good," approved Lark. "What is the nature of the emergency? Have you any idea?"

The private nodded. "Yes, sir. An official telecast was just issued over the diaphragm. It is a Gogean attack."

"A Gogean—?"

"Well, not exactly an attack, sir ... yet. Because the force barrier prevents their entering Khundru. But a mighty army of the cursed Darksiders has been spotted by our observation posts. They number in the tens of thousands. They have been seen at every gate. Apparently their army has completely encircled Khundru."

"Good!" said Lark. "I mean ... er ... very good, soldier. Report to your post as ordered. Oh, what is your post?"

"Main control tower, sir. The ultrawave cannon."

"Indeed?" Lark's eyes lighted sharply. "And where lies this tower?"

"Why, at the lowest level, of course, sir—" began the tramir ... then stopped abruptly, suspicion darkening his gaze. His voice changed tone and one hand crept furtively toward the sidearm holstered at his side. "But—but how is it that you a kraedar, do not know—"

"That," said Lark softly, "is a question you must ask your ancestors, tramir." And his hand, too, streaked to his belt. Before the startled warrior could draw, a shaft of orange lightning seared the life from his body. It was a charred carcass when it hit the floor.

Gary said regretfully, "Poor devil! He was only doing his duty as he saw it."

"War," reminded Lark, "is war. The only good enemy is a dead enemy. We know where we stand now. The Gogeans are on deck as they promised to be, and we know where the control tower is. Now if we can just lift that barrier shield—"

"We must get the girls first," reminded Gary. "I think we're almost there. Come on."

He was right. They sped through a few more chambers, then emerged into an apartment more elaborately furnished than any seen so far. Into this they shouldered rudely. At sight of them a gross figure, a mountainous mass of jelly parodying Magogean manhood, came mincing up to them on swollen feet emitting shrill little bleats of horror and dismay.

"Kraedar! Tramir! A thousand pardons, but these are the women's quarters. You have no right here."

"Beat it, capon!" grunted Lark, and with a twist of his foot sent the piping eunuch sprawling. He lifted his voice. "Penny! Nora! Where are you?"

At his cry a flurry sounded from an adjacent chamber as curtains flung apart and Penny and Nora ran to greet them. They still wore the peasant rags in which they had been sold.

Penny cried, "Lark! We knew you'd find us! We knew you would come!"

And Nora echoed, "We were waiting. But Gary, what does the alarm mean? When they heard it, those who were attending us fled. All the women in Khundru have taken shelter—"

"And every man has gone to his post," explained Gary. "They've spotted the Gogean army outside the city. We must work fast before they can turn their armaments on our unprotected friends. Come on."

"Yes, but where?"

"To the control tower. It's the key to the whole situation."

This time their flight through the avenues of the Palace Royal was not so unimpeded as before. The entire city had sprung to a state of alert. As they left the residential quarters and moved once more into that portion of the citadel which was its walled fortress, they passed on several occasions small bodies of troops hurrying toward designated battle posts. As they passed gun stations they saw artillery crews huddled behind flame guns and rotors which, through slits in the palace wall, commanded wide areas of the city before and below. Twice their passage was challenged. Once by a patrol sentry whom Lark easily satisfied.

"Kraedar Gorilu and one attendant on special duty. Taking these two females to the dungeons for safekeeping."

"Very good, sir," said the sentry, and permitted them to pass.

But the second challenge was not so easily averted. This came from a kraedar of equal rank to him as whom Lark masqueraded. This noble made the fatal error of attempting to question the fugitives without first calling assistance.

"Kraedar Gorilu?" he repeated. "I know no such lord. And your trappings designate you as one of the inner Palace Guard. Why, then, are you fleeing in this direction? And why are you drawing that gun, kraedar?"

"Because," answered Lark simply, "you ask too damn many questions, and we haven't got time to answer them. Sorry, pal!"

And they left the inquisitive kraedar behind, inquisitive and suspicious no longer....

But finally they went again to that section of the Palace Royal which they knew to be its nerve center. From the deepening throb of many motors, and by the slowly increasing static crackling of dynamos endlessly turning, they knew when they had reached their objective.

But there was something missing. Something which puzzled and worried Gary Lane. So much so that as they approached the central control tower he drew his companions to a halt in the shadow of a deserted lookout niche.

"Wait a minute," he warned. "Let's stop and look this situation over. There's something wrong here."

"Wrong," repeated Lark. "What's wrong about it? Everything looks O.Q. to me. We got this far without trouble—well, much, that is. And judging by appearances, that doorway—" He nodded—"opens to the control tower proper. So far as I can see there's not a damn soul around to stop us."

"That's just it! This is the nerve center of the entire Magogean defense system. Look ... look below, there!" Gary gestured to the window slit by which they were huddled. Through it could be seen the lower court of the Palace Royal and several streets of Khundru beyond. All had been emptied of vehicular traffic and were aswarm with fighting men prepared to repel any invasion attempt. "They've got the Palace guarded to the hilt ... but the main control tower doesn't have a man around it!"

Lark chuckled cheerfully. "Just like the Magogeans. Dr. Kang's been saying all along they don't have good sense. So much the better for us. Come on ... let's get going. We've got to open that barrier.

"Well, all right," agreed Gary. "But be careful. I don't like this."

So they crossed the last open space between their present post and the partially isolated control tower, a domed minaret of a building constructed within the palace walls but remote from other portions of the edifice.

Serving to strengthen Gary's suspicions, the door of this tower was not even locked, but yielded readily to their pressure.

Within this dome the thrumming drone of motors sounded more insistent than ever. It throbbed in their ears, their brains, their veins, like the slow and deadly dripping of a creeping poison. It was an audible magnet which drew them to the innermost chamber.

And here again—stunningly!—was the door unlocked! Its latch clicked at Gary's pressure. The heavy door swung slowly open, and a bright room yawned before them; a tremendous, vaulted chamber in which were mounted gigantic instruments of almost unguessable size and power.

The control panels governing these instruments were set on high walls, but as they entered Gary saw that a single figure, garbed in smock and apron of laboratory white, head encased in a heavy visionplated shield similar to that used by welders, sufficed to keep all this intricate paraphernalia in working order. This single technician was darting back and forth before his control banks, here touching a vernier, there readjusting a rheostat, elsewhere depressing a stud which performed some unfathomable duty.

At sight of this single lab man, O'Day's exultation could no longer be restrained. With a gleeful cry he charged into the room, handgun drawn and menacing. His voice cried in swift command. "All right, you at the controls there! Turn around, and put your hands up—Up, I said!"