himself exhausted upon a cot, while he stared, still
wordless, at the high roof overhead. But his hands that gripped and
strained at whatever they touched told of the reaction to his wild
flight.

Harkness was examining their ship, where shreds of filmy, fibrous
material still clung, when Chet spoke.

"You knew they were there?" he asked, "--and you came up to warn me?"

"Sure," Harkness answered simply.

"Thanks," Chet told him with equal brevity.

Another silence. Then: "All right, tell me! What's the story?"

And Walt Harkness told him in brief sentences of the world-wide
warning that had flashed, of the liners crashing to earth and their
cabins empty of human life.

"They could do it," said Chet. "They could open the ports and ram
those snaky heads inside to feed." He seemed to muse for a moment upon
what might have come to him.

"My speed saved me," he told Harkness. "Man, how that ship can travel!
I shook them off a hundred times--outmaneuvered them when I could--but
they came right back for more.

"How do they propel themselves?" he demanded.

"No one knows," Harkness told him. "That luminosity in action means
something--some conversion of energy, electrical, perhaps, to carry
them on lines of force of which we know nothing as yet. That's a
guess--but they do it. You and I can swear to that."

Chet was pondering deeply. "High-level lanes are closed," he said,
"and we are blockaded like the rest of the world. It looks as if our
space flights were off. And the Dark Moon trip! We could have made it,
too."

* * * * *

If there was a questioning note in those last remarks it was answered
promptly.

"No!" said Harkness with explosive emphasis. "They won't stop me." He
struck one clenched fist upon the gleaming hull beside him.

"This is all I've got. And I won't have this if that gang of
Schwartzmann's gets its hands upon it. The best I could expect would
be a long-drawn fight in the courts, and I can't afford it. I am going
up. We've got something good here; we know it's good. And we'll prove
it to the world by reaching the Dark Moon."

Another filmy, fibrous mass that had been torn from one of the
monsters of the heights slid from above to make a splotch of colorless
matter upon the floor.

Harkness stared at it. The firm line of his lips set more firmly
still, but his eyes had another expression as he glanced at Chet. He
would go alone if he must; no barricade o