usly, they had escaped.

Antazzo laughed; a hollow mirthless cackle. His fingers shook crazily
when he untwisted them from their grip on the port rail.

"Good work, my friend. Very good, indeed," he jabbered, his chin
quivering in nervous reaction. "And now we carry on--on to Io."

Blaine Carson, almost wishing they had collided with the spire, set
himself grimly to the task. He was powerless to refuse.

CHAPTER II

_The Second Satellite_

When, eventually, they swung into the orbit of Jupiter and headed in
toward the enormous red-belted body, the two Earth men were heartily
disgusted with the voyage and with themselves. Repeated doses of the
pink gas--the ignominy of their utter subservience to the will of
Antazzo--had worn them down no less than had the hard work and loss of
sleep. Both were in vile humor. They endured the triumphant chatter of
their captor in bitter silence.

"Over there, my friends," he said, pointing; "see? It is our
destination. The golden crescent, Io, is something over a quarter
million of your miles from the mother planet. See it? It is home, my
friends; home to me and for yourselves in the future--if the Zara
spares your lives. Lay your course to the body, Carson."

Blaine growled as he sighted through the telescope. Yet, in spite of
his fury, he could not overcome the feeling of excitement that came to
him when the powerful glass brought the satellite near. This body was
like nothing else in the heavens. Antazzo had called it the golden
crescent. Rather, it was of gleaming coppery hue, and now, as they
swung around, it was fully illuminated--a brilliant sphere of unbroken
contour. Smoothly globular, there was not one projection or indentation
to indicate the existence of land or sea, mountain or valley, on its
surface. It was like a ball of solid copper, scintillant there in the
weak sunlight and the reflected light from its great mother planet.

Antazzo laughed over his absorption. "Looks peculiar to you, does it
not?" he asked; "rather different from any of the bodies you have
visited, you are thinking."

Blaine grunted wordless assent. The globe that was Io rushed in to meet
them, growing ever larger in the field of the telescope. Now it
appeared that there were tiny seams in the smooth surface, a regular
criss-cross pattern of fine lines that looked like--Lord, yes, that was
it! The body was constructed from an infinite number of copper plates,
riveted or brazed togeth