hink--platinum, rhodium, iridium, and that gang, you know. While I'm
doing this, you might be getting those five coils into exact resonance,
if you want to."

"Sure I want to," and Nadia made her way across to the short-wave
oscillator and set to work.

After an hour or so, bent over her delicate task, she began to twitch
uneasily, then shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

"What's the idea of staring at me so?" she broke out suddenly. "How do
you expect me to tune these things up if you...." She stopped abruptly,
mouth open in amazement, as she turned toward Stevens. He had not been
looking at her, but he turned a surprised face from his own task at the
sound of her voice. "Excuse me, please, Steve. I don't know what's the
matter with me--must be getting jumpy, I guess."

"I wish that was all, but it isn't!" Face suddenly grim and hard,
Stevens leaped to the communicator plate and shot the beam out into
space. "There's an answer, but that isn't it. You're a fine-tuned
instrument yourself, ace, and you've detected something.... I thought
so! There's the answer--the guy that was looking at you!"

Plainly there was revealed upon the plate a small, spherical space-ship,
very like the one that had attacked and destroyed the _Arcturus_. After
Nadia had taken one glance at it, Stevens shut off the power and leaped
out into the shop. He closed all the bulkhead doors and air-break
openings, then closed and secured the massive insulating door of the
lifeboat in which they had made their headquarters. Then, after they
had again put on the space-suits they had taken off such a short time
before, he extinguished all the lights and hooded the communicator
screen before he ventured again to glance out into the void.

"If I had a brain in my head, instead of the pint of bean soup I've got
up there, we'd have worn these when they cut up the _Arcturus_, and
saved us a lot of mental wear and tear," he remarked. "They were right
there in the lockers all the time, and I knew it!"

"Well, we got away, anyway. You couldn't be expected to think of
everything at once. We didn't have much time, you know."

"No, but I should have thought of anything as obvious as that, anyway.
Wonder how they found us? Did they detect us, or did they come out
to this comet after metal, same as we did, and find us accidentally?
However, it all works out the same--they're apparently out to get us.
I'm afraid this is going to be a whole lot like a rabbit fig