paid no attention. He began to spell out, in
grim satisfaction:

"R-o-c-k-e-t s-h-i-p i-s--"

"Look out!" gasped Sylva. "They say look out, Thorn!"

Then she screamed. As Thorn swung his head around, he saw a dense mass
of white vapor rushing over the hillside toward them. He picked Sylva
up in his arms and ran madly....

The white vapor tugged at his knees. It was a variation of a
vortex-stream. He fought his way savagely toward higher ground. The
white vapor reached his waist.... It reached his shoulders.... He
slung Sylva upon his shoulder and fought more madly still to get out
of the wide white current.... It submerged him in its stinging, bitter
flood.... As he felt himself collapsing his last conscious thought was
the bitter realization that the bulbous white tower had upheld
television lenses at its top, which had watched his approach and
inspection of the rocket-ship, and had enabled those in the red
monster to accurately direct their spurt of gas.

His next sensation was that of pain in his lungs. Something that
smarted intolerably was being forced into his nostrils, and he battled
against the agony it produced. And then he heard someone chuckle
amusedly and felt the curious furry sensation of electric anesthesia
beginning....

* * * * *

When he came to himself again a machine was clicking erratically and
there was the soft whine of machinery going somewhere. He opened his
eyes and saw red all about him. He stirred, and he was free.
Painfully, he sat up and blinked about him with streaming,
gas-irritated eyes. He had been lying on a couch. He was in a room
perhaps fifteen feet by twenty, of which the floor was slightly
off-level. And everything in the room was red. Floor and walls and
ceiling, the couch he had lain on and the furniture itself. There was
a monstrous bulk of a man sitting comfortably in a chair on the other
side of the room, pecking at a device resembling a writing-machine.

Thorn sat still for an instant, gaining strength. Then he flung
himself desperately across the room, his fingers curved into talons.

Five feet, ten, with the slant of the floor giving him added
impetus.... Then his muscles tightened convulsively. A wave of pure
agony went through his body. He dropped and lay writhing on the floor,
while the high-frequency currents of an induction-screen had their way
with him. He was doubled into a knot by his muscles responding to the
electric sti