h awed comprehension. What
patient, hopeless creatures these Rulans were! Knowing they were
doomed, and without thought of their own safety, they were bending
their every effort to the impossible task of saving the universe from
the madness of the Llotta.

"What do you know about that?" Tommy said, after a while.

"It's true, what he said?" Blaine asked. "What would happen to our
world, I mean--and to the rest?"

"Not a question of doubt. He's doped it out to a T. Smart guy, this
Dantor."

"What do you think? Is there a chance? Think--"

"Hush!" Tommy interrupted him. "Didn't you hear something?"

The silence was ghastly; depressing. Blaine heard distinctly the
beating of his own heart.

Then it was there again, that sound--a muffled scream from the other
side of the stone door. A woman's scream of desperate entreaty. A
shuddering, long-drawn moan, trailing off into deathly silence.

CHAPTER VI

_Ulana_

Blaine was tugging at the lever he had seen the Rulans use in opening
the stone door from the inside. Tommy, less excited, tried to press one
of the invisible cloaks into his free hand.

"Here," he begged. "Don't be a damn fool! They'll get you, the devils."

But the great block of stone was swinging already and the young pilot
squeezed through and into the passage. He stumbled over the crumpled
figure of a young girl and into the arms of one of the green-bronze
guards.

Recovering instantly, he prodded the big fellow's ribs with the ray
pistol. "Stick 'em up!" he snarled. Then, realizing the words were
meaningless to the other, he said, "Raise your hands--above your head!
That's right. Stand still now, or I'll use the ray."

The guard, his face ghastly in the dim light, obeyed. But his wary eyes
never left Blaine's for an instant.

A short way down the hall was the body of a young Rulan. Blaine
shuddered as he saw it was headless. The ray had nearly missed that
time, its energy spent before complete disintegration was effected. The
girl lay still at his feet. With quick fingers he frisked the guard,
finding his ray pistol and one gas grenade. What was he to do with the
big fellow? He ought to let him have it, but somehow he couldn't.

Tommy was in the passageway then, invisible. The big guard stifled an
amazed cry as his husky voice came out of the nothingness. These devils
of Earth men! They had worked their evil magic on the Zara: had she not
ordered that their lives be spared? And now th