madly at his bonds. Krell's face had a triumphant
look.

"Did it all work as I told you it would, Jandron?" he asked.

"It worked," Jandron answered impassively. "When they saw fifteen of us
coming from the wreck-pack in space-suits, they opened right up to us."

Kent understood, and cursed Krell's cunning. Crain, seeing the fifteen
figures approaching from the wreck-pack, had naturally thought they were
Kent's party, and had let them enter to overwhelm his half-dozen men.

"We put Crain and his men over in the _Martian Queen_," Jandron
continued, "and took all their helmets so they can't escape. The girl we
brought over here. Did you find a wreck with fuel?"

Krell nodded. "A Pluto liner a quarter-mile back, and we can pump the
fuel over here by connecting tube-lines. What the devil--"

Jandron had made a signal at which three of his men had leapt forward on
Krell, securing his hands like those of the others.

"Have you gone crazy, Jandron?" cried Krell, his face red with anger and
surprise.

"No," Jandron replied impassively; "but the men are as tired as I am of
your bossing ways, and have chosen me as their sole leader."

"You dirty double-crosser!" Krell raged. "Are you men going to let him
get away with this?"

The men paid no attention, and Jandron motioned to the airlock. "Take
them over to the _Martian Queen_ too," he ordered, "and make sure
there's no space-helmet left there. Then get back at once, for we've got
to get the fuel into this ship and make a getaway."

* * * * *

The helmets of Kent and Krell and the other helpless prisoners were put
upon them, and, with hands still bound, they were herded into the
airlock by eight of Jandron's men attired in space-suits also. The
prisoners were then joined one to another by a strand of metal cable.

Kent, glancing back into the ship as the airlock's inner door closed,
saw Jandron giving rapid orders to his followers, and noticed Marta held
back from the airlock by one of them. Krell's eyes glittered venomously
through his helmet. The outer door opened, and their guards jerked them
forth into space by the connecting cable.

They were towed helplessly along the wreck-pack's rim toward the
_Martian Queen_. Once inside its airlock, Jandron's men removed the
prisoners' space-helmets and then used the duplicate-control inside the
airlock itself to open the inner door. Through this opening they thrust
the captives, those inside t