ne thing plain; but that's
so plain that it scares me stiff. This whole affair spells intelligence,
with a capital "I", and that intelligence is anything but friendly. As
for me I want to get Fred Rodebush at work on this soon--think I'll
hurry it up a little."

He stepped over to his ultra-projector and called the Terrestrial
headquarters of the T. S. S. Samms' face soon appeared upon his screen.

"We got it all, Virgil," he reported.

"It's something extraordinary--bigger, wider, and deeper than any of us
dreamed. It may be urgent, too, so I think I had better shoot the
pictures in on the ultra-wave and save a few days. Fred has a
telemagneto recorder there that he can synchronize with this camera
outfit easily enough. Right?"

"Right. Good work, Lyman--thanks," came back terse approval and
appreciation, and soon the steel tapes were again flashing between the
feed-rolls. This time, however, their varying magnetic charges were
modulating an ultra-wave so that every detail of that calamitous battle
of the void was being screened and recorded in the innermost private
laboratory of the Triplanetary Secret Service.

Eager though he naturally was to join his fellow-scientists, Cleveland
did not waste his time during the long, but uneventful journey back to
earth. There was much to study, many improvements to be made in his
comparatively crude first ultra-camera. Then, too, there were long
conferences with Samms, and particularly with Rodebush, the mathematical
physicist, whose was the task of solving the riddles of the energies and
weapons of the Nevians. Thus it did not seem long before green Terra
grew large beneath the flying sphere of the _Chicago_.

"Going to have to circle at once, aren't you?" Cleveland asked the chief
pilot. He had been watching that officer closely for minutes, admiring
the delicacy and precision with which the great vessel was being
maneuvered preliminary to entering the earth's atmosphere.

"Yes," the pilot replied. "We had to come in in the shortest possible
time, and that meant a velocity here that we can't check without a
spiral. However, even at that we saved a lot of time. You can save quite
a bit more, though, by having a rocket-plane come out to meet us
somewhere around fifteen or twenty thousand kilometers, depending upon
where you want to land. With their power-to-mass ratio they can match
our velocity and still make the drop direct."

"Guess I'll do that--thanks," and the oper