ny week you say," and the two
fenced on, banteringly but skilfully, with Westfall an appreciative and
unembarrassed listener.

Dinner over, Brandon and Westfall went back to the control room, where
they found Stevens already seated at one of the master screens.

"All x, Perce?"

"All x. The observers report no registrations during the last two
watches," and the three fell into discussion. Long they talked, studying
every angle of the situation confronting them; until suddenly a speaker
rattled furiously and an enormous, staring eye filled both master
plates. Brandon's hand flashed to a switch, but the image disappeared
even before he could establish the full-coverage ray screen.

"I'm on the upper band--take the lower!" he snapped, but Stevens'
projector was already in action. Trained minds all, they knew that some
intelligence had traced them, and all realized that it was of the utmost
importance to know what and where that intelligence was. Stevens found
the probing frequency in his range and they flashed their own beam along
it, encountering finally one of the monstrous Vorkulian fortresses, far
from Jupiter and almost directly between them and the planet! Its wall
screens were in operation, and no frequency at their command could
penetrate that neutralizing blanket of vibrations.

"What kind of an eye was that--ever see anything like it, Perce?"
Brandon demanded.

"I don't think so, though of course we got only an awfully short flash
of it. It didn't look like the periscopic eyes that those flying snakes
had--looked more like a hexan eye, don't you think? Couldn't very well
be hexan, though, in that kind of a ship."

"Don't think so, either. Maybe it's a purely mechanical affair that they
use for observing. Anyway, old sons, I don't like the looks of things at
all. Quince, you're the brains of this outfit--shift the massive old
intellect into high and tell us what to do."

Westfall, staring into the eyepiece of the filar micrometer, finished
measuring the apparent size of the heptagon before he turned toward
Stevens and Brandon.

"It is hard to decide upon a course of action, since anything that we
do may prove to be wrong," he said, slowly. "However, I do not see that
this latest development can operate to change the plan we have already
adopted; that of running away, straight out from the sun. We may have
to increase our acceleration to the highest value the women and babies
can stand. A series of obser