ould like to hear it!"

"I want you to notice something first," the expert replied. "But don't
look for what's there--look for what _isn't_ there."

"Well, the armor is gone. So are the shielding cases, shafts, spindles,
the housings and stems ..." the captain's voice died away as his eyes
raced over the collection. "Why everything that was made of wood,
bakelite, copper, aluminum, silver, bronze, or anything but steel hasn't
been touched, and every bit of that is gone. But that doesn't make
sense--what does it mean?"

"I don't know--yet," Cleveland replied, slowly. "But I'm afraid that
there's more, and worse." He opened a space-suit reverently, revealing
the face; a face calm and peaceful, but utterly, sickeningly white.
Still reverently, he made a deep incision in the brawny neck, severing
the jugular vein, then went on, soberly:

"You never imagined such a thing as _white_ blood, either, but it all
checks up. Someway, somehow, every atom of free or combined iron in this
whole volume of space was made off with."

"Huh? How come? And above all, _why_?" from the amazed and staring
officers.

"You know as much as I do," grimly, ponderingly. "If it were not for the
fact that there are solid asteroids of iron out beyond Mars, I would say
that somebody wanted iron badly enough to wipe out the fleet and the
planetoid to get it. But anyway, whoever they were, they carried enough
power so that our armament didn't bother them at all. They simply took
the metal they wanted and went away with it--so fast that I couldn't
trace them with an ultra-beam. There's only one thing plain; but that's
so plain that it scares me stiff. This whole affair spells intelligence,
with a capital 'I', and that intelligence is anything but friendly. I
want to put Fred Rodebush at work on this just as fast as I can get
him."

He stepped over to his ultra-projector and put in a call for Virgil
Samms, whose face soon appeared upon his screen.

"We got it all, Virgil," he reported. "It's something
extraordinary--bigger, wider, and deeper than any of us dreamed. It may
be urgent, too, so I think I had better shoot the stuff in on an
ultra-beam and save some time. Fred has a telemagneto recorder there
that he can synchronize with this outfit easily enough. Right?"

"Right. Good work, Lyman--thanks," came back terse approval and
appreciation, and soon the steel wires were again flashing from reel to
reel. This time, however, their varying magnet