light, a wavering pin
point in the dark hole, could be seen. At last the light stopped moving
and Tom knew Strong had reached the bottom.

"Hallooooooo!" The captain's voice echoed faintly up the dark shaft.
"The belt communicators don't work!" he yelled. "Come on down!"

"Be right with you, sir!" yelled Tom. He scratched a message on the
wooden floor of the shack for the emergency crew. Then he stripped off
his jacket, wrapped it around the rope, secured the light to his belt,
and stepped off into the darkness.

Slowly, his hands tight around the rope through his jacket, Tom slipped
down the deep shaft. He kept his eyes averted from the black hole
beneath him, looking instead at the sides of the shaft. Once, when he
thought he had gone about seven hundred feet, he saw that he was passing
through a stratum of thick clay and could see the preserved bones of
long-dead mammals, protruding from the side of the shaft.

Finally Tom's feet touched solid ground and he released the rope. It was
cold in the bottom of the shaft and he hastily put his jacket back on.

"Captain Strong?" he called. There was no answer. Tom flashed the light
around and saw a low, narrow tunnel leading off to his left.

He walked slowly, and the newly dug sides of the tunnel seemed to close
in on him menacingly. It was quiet. Not the blank silence of space that
Tom was used to, but the deathlike stillness of a tomb. It sent chills
up and down his spine. Finally he stepped around a sharp bend and
stopped abruptly.

"Captain Strong!"

The Solar Guard officer was stooping over, his light resting on the
ground, reading something he held in his hand. He looked up at Tom and
jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. Tom flashed his light in that
direction.

"By the rings of Saturn!" exclaimed Tom. There in front of him, ripped
open like a can of sardines, was the gleaming metal skin of the time
capsule! The dirt floor of the tunnel around Strong and beside the
capsule was littered with audio spools, sound disks, micropapers, and
stereo slides.

Tom kneeled down beside his skipper and stammered, "What--what does it
mean, sir?"

"It means," answered Strong slowly, "that we're dealing with two of the
cleverest men in the universe! If they've stolen what I think they have,
the entire Solar Guard, Solar Alliance, and just about everyone in the
universe is at their mercy!"

* * * * *

"How do you feel, Roger?" asked A