trip from the earth to Mars,
he reports his findings and suggestions to Mr. Newton, chief
of the Interplanetary Corporation.

Stevens then takes Nadia, Mr. Newton's beautiful young daughter,
on a specially conducted sight-seeing tour of the Arcturus and
thoroughly explains to her all of the works of the vessel. Nadia
has herself had a good science education. While they are down at
the bottom of the ship--nearing the end of their tour--Stevens
feels a barely perceptible movement of the vessel from its course.
When he turns on the visiplate, he is horrified to find that a
mysterious ray of unparalleled power has neatly sliced the Arcturus
in several places.

Nadia and Stevens are completely separated from the rest of the
crew and passengers of the ship, so they get into a lifeboat,
which is equipped for a limited amount of space travel. Despite
the strict and apparently effective vigilance of the enemy
destroyer, Stevens and Nadia make their getaway in the lifeboat,
which they aptly call "Forlorn Hope," and finally make a safe
landing on Ganymede, where Stevens plans to build a power-plant
and a radio transmitter, to enable him to communicate with the
earth or with the IPV Sirius, which is used by Westfall and Brandon
(two of the world's best scientists) as a floating laboratory.

With the very scant apparatus and material available, Stevens
sets to work on his power plant. Just as they have it completed
and ready to start for Cantrell's Comet, where Stevens believes
he can obtain the necessary metal for his giant transmitting
tube, they experience a close call with carnivorous plants on the
satellite and later with savage inhabitants, which precipitates
their trip to the comet.

CHAPTER V

Cantrell's Comet

Far out in space, Jupiter, a tiny moon and its satellites mere
pin-points of light, Stevens turned to his companion with a grin.

"Well, Nadia, old golf-shootist, here's where we turn spacehounds again.
Hope you like it better this time, because I'm afraid that we'll have to
stay weightless for quite a while." He slowly throttled down the mighty
flow of power, and watched the conflicting emotions play over Nadia's
face in her purely personal battle against the sickening sensations
caused by the decrease in their acceleration.

"I'm sorry as the dickens, sweetheart," he went on, tenderly, a