d on. The ice-sheet continued unbroken.

* * * * *

"There!" cried Gail, suddenly.

She pointed. Blowing snow hid everything. Then there was a hole in the
whiteness, a shadow. The shadow stirred and an object too dark to be
snow appeared. It vanished again.

"There's a sheltered place!" said Gail, "and there's something dark in
it!"

Soames pulled the microphone to his lips.

"Calling base," he said briefly. "Calling base.... Hello! I'm well
beyond the last radar-fix. I think I'm bearing about one seven oh
degrees from base. Get a loran fix on me. Make it quick. I may have to
land."

He listened, pressing a button to activate the loran-relay which would
transmit a signal on signal from the base, so the bearing and distance
could be computed back at base. It was wiser to have such computations
done aground. He readied the camera again.

Gail looked through the 'copter's binoculars. The peculiar
shadow--hole--opening in the blowing snow reappeared. Something in it
looked like a missile, only it was bright metal and much too large. It
lay askew on the ice. A part of it--a large part--was smashed.

"Spaceship?" asked Gail, "do you think that's it?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Soames.

There was movement. One--two--three figures stared up from beside the
metal shape. A fourth appeared. Soames grimly took pictures. Gail gasped
suddenly:

"They're not men!" she said shakily. "Brad, they're children! Queerly
dressed children, with bare arms and legs! They're out there on the
snow! They'll freeze! We've got to help them!"

"Calling base," said Soames into the microphone. "I'm landing. I have
to. If I don't report in twenty minutes come with caution--repeat with
caution--to see what's happened. I repeat. If I do not report in twenty
minutes come with caution, caution, caution to see what is the matter."

The 'copter made a loud, loud noise as it went skittering down toward
the object--and the children--on the ice.

CHAPTER 2

The snow-mist blew aside and there was plainly a ship lying partly
crushed upon the snow. Half its length was smashed, but he could see
that it had never flown with wings. There weren't any.

"It _looks_ like a spaceship," said Gail breathlessly.

Soames spoke between set teeth.

"That would finish things for all of us!"

And it would, without any qualifications. On a world already squabbling
and divided into two main power-groups and embittered neu