he heard a muffled: "Yes--yes! Oh, I am glad--"

The sentence was unfinished. Before Chet's eyes a light was growing. A
mere slit at first, it grew to a luminous circle in the rocky floor. And
as it opened, he felt the pressure of his metal suit upon his body,
where before it had been slightly ballooned by the pressure of oxygen he
had maintained.

With the opening of this door to another subterranean chamber had come a
renewed atmospheric pressure. And now, in the denser gas, he saw, in
ghastly silhouette against the lighted pit, flying figures that floated
and soared on outstretched wings of inky black.

* * * * *

Beside him and above he heard the swishing flutter of other wings; he
felt himself lifted from the floor; he was being floated out above the
luminous pit by the flying things that held him.

No direct glare came from below, but a soft violet radiance. It shone
full upon him--past him--to light up and give detail to those faces that
had been featureless before. Chet had just one moment of fascinated
staring into the diabolical, pasty faces where narrow, red eyes stared
back into his. Then the squealing voices were stilled!

One, louder than the rest, rasped an order. And again Chet felt the
hands relax; once more he was falling, down--down--and still down--until
he knew that his velocity of fall meant an impact he could never
survive.

And, curiously, as he fell, his mind was entirely unconcerned with his
own fate. For himself, he had accepted death. But he saw for what seemed
like hours a vision of a familiar control room and an Irish pilot who
sat by the controls. He was looking sharply ahead, he was checking
speed, he was landing softly--safely--on a familiar field of Earth....

That passed; and, following, came a feeling of regret, a deep hurt and
a rage at his own inability to be of help. For, above him, through the
luminous air, he saw another body falling, and he knew that the girl,
too, had been thrown to the same fate.

* * * * *

Those eyes of blue had locked with his for but a few brief seconds. Who
she was--what she was--he had no way of knowing. But in that instant of
mental meeting there had passed a flash between the two that had burned
deeply into Chet's real and hidden self.

Chet, himself, had he been in laughing mood, might have smiled at the
idea of affection being born in that brief time. Yet he might have asked
i