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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75478 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                        The Crystal Planetoids
+
+                        By STANTON A. COBLENTZ
+
+                    There in the sky was a vast web
+                   and perched on it were invisible
+                     beings--what did it all mean?
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                       Amazing Stories May 1942.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+Philip Dunbar ran a lean exploratory hand through his tousled long
+black hair. There was a sardonic, faintly quizzical look in his dark,
+trimly moustached face, which acquaintances were inclined to describe
+as "handsome, but saturnine." His little jet-points of eyes, as he
+stared across at the next laboratory table, glittered enigmatically.
+
+"Well, Ronny," he inquired, in a drawl that rasped, "found it at last?"
+
+Ronald Gates peered up from amid a mass of lenses, batteries and wires.
+His frank, open face widened into a broad smile. His clear blue eyes
+sparkled.
+
+"Yes, by heaven," he confessed, enthusiastically, "I think I've got
+that devil licked!"
+
+Instantly Dunbar was at his side.
+
+"Like hell you have!" he doubted.
+
+At the same time, from the opposite end of the great laboratory, a
+feminine voice broke out,
+
+"Oh, good, Ronald, I knew you'd do it!" And the tall form of Eleanor
+Firth, its youthful attractiveness scarcely dimmed by the stained
+rubber gloves and apron she was wearing, came gliding toward the men.
+Her big golden-brown eyes blazed with admiration as she turned them
+full upon Gates. "I knew it, Ronald--I knew you simply had to!"
+
+To an onlooker, the relationship of the men and the girl would have
+been crystal-clear. Dunbar's manner, as he glared at Gates, was
+dagger-sharp; Gates had no eyes for Dunbar at all; while both men
+regarded the young lady with softening glances that were eloquent.
+
+Why was it, Dunbar reflected, that they had all taken to staying in
+overtime here at their place of employment, the laboratory of the
+Merlin Research Institute? True, Gates was all worked up about that
+damnable invention of his! And Eleanor--wasn't it just like a woman
+to find an excuse to stay when she knew Gates would be there? As for
+himself--if he didn't want to be shoved out of the picture, he had no
+choice but to work on after hours!
+
+"Yes, by glory! I think I've done the trick!" Gates was exclaiming. "If
+you folk'll just come with me to the roof, I'll demonstrate!"
+
+He took up a black instrument resembling a pair of opera glasses,
+except that it was equipped with large red lenses, and was attached by
+wires to a cluster of minute batteries and radio-like tubes.
+
+"What did you say you call the contraption?" asked Dunbar, as Gates
+started upstairs with his invention.
+
+"The Infra-Red Eye."
+
+"Why in blazes do you call it that?"
+
+"Just wait a minute, and you'll see. You know as well as I do, Dunbar,
+photographs taken in infra-red light will reveal clear details through
+a mist. Why must the human eye be blind where the camera can see?
+It is all a question of securing the proper adaptation to etheric
+vibrations--which I have done by means of invisible rays produced by
+electrical action on certain iridium and osmium salts in these tubes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dunbar grunted a half coherent reply, and threw open the roof-door. As
+they came out into the heavy mist-laden air of the late July afternoon,
+the humidity rolled from them visibly. There was a peculiar stagnation
+in the atmosphere, as though the very breath of heaven had been
+congealed. Featureless gray clouds hung wearily over the landscape; a
+dull, blank haze obscured everything beyond a few hundred yards. One
+might have said that the very elements had gone to sleep.
+
+"Goodness, I do wish we could get some relief from this atrocious
+heat!" sighed Eleanor.
+
+"The twenty-ninth continuous day of it, unless I've missed my count!"
+grumbled Dunbar, as he mopped his perspiring brow. "Doesn't it beat the
+devil? What's more, it's getting worse!"
+
+"Yes, and the strangest thing of all is, it seems to affect the whole
+world!" returned the girl. "I just can't believe it's not something
+more than common weather!"
+
+"Hate to tell you what I suspect it is!" returned Dunbar, ominously.
+
+"Come, come, folks, what are you so cheerful about, all of a sudden?"
+Gates demanded, as he examined the adjustments of the wires. "Good
+heavens! I'm sick and tired of hearing there's something supernatural
+about a heat spell, just because it happens to be unusually prolonged."
+
+"Yes, but the other phenomena!" broke in Dunbar, his sharp eyes
+glinting with hostility. "The dust clouds--the checking of normal wind
+movements--the indefinable thickening in the atmosphere--the thunder
+storms of unprecedented violence--"
+
+"Nothing has been definitely established," denied Gates. "Personally,
+I doubt if it's anything at all, aside from a cycle of exceptional
+sun-spot activity. But we're wasting our time. Ready now for the
+infra-red eye?"
+
+"I'm all keyed up!" announced Eleanor, casting the young man one of her
+strangely kindled, animated glances.
+
+"Here, you make the first test," he decided, thrusting the black
+instrument into her hands. "Just fit it to your eyes like binoculars.
+Turn that screw for the adjustment. Wait! I'll see to the current!"
+
+He switched a lever, drew back a panel, and pressed a button. But,
+aside from a faint whirring sound, there was no apparent effect.
+
+"Now focus the instrument!" he went on. "Point it anywhere. If you
+don't see through that haze as easily as a knife cuts butter, then set
+me down as a fraud and a liar!"
+
+The girl screwed up her eyes. Faint wrinkles were visible on her broad,
+creamy white brow. A second passed in silence. Then an astonishing
+change overcame her countenance.
+
+All at once, her lips drew apart in an incredulous expression. A gasp
+came from between her lips. A pallor spread across her cheeks. For
+several seconds she remained as if glued to the instrument.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grimacing wrily, she snapped herself away from the eye-piece with a
+horrified,
+
+"Ugh!" Her eyes bulged. Her whole form was trembling.
+
+"I--I--I guess I'm seeing things!" she explained, lamely.
+
+Then, observing how strangely Dunbar was staring at her, she thrust the
+instrument at him.
+
+"Here, you--you just look for yourself!"
+
+Dunbar took up the apparatus, and peered through it steadily for
+perhaps half a minute. But he too, when he put it down, was visibly
+paler.
+
+"God! Am I crazy?" he grunted. "Here, Ronny, better have a peep
+yourself--"
+
+But Gates had already snatched up the instrument. And he too gasped as
+he adjusted the lenses. For he saw nothing that he had anticipated.
+
+The only purpose of the Infra-Red Eye, as he himself had declared, had
+been to penetrate a haze. But how startlingly the results had exceeded
+expectations!
+
+Spread far above the earth's surface, in the form of colossal cobwebs,
+were long tenuous strands, woven in a web many layers deep. The
+threads, colorless and almost transparent, were thin as though composed
+of some silken fabric; but were enormously long, and stretched in great
+curves from horizon to zenith. Over the entire firmament they seemed
+to be bent and twisted by the tens of thousands, forming intricate
+geometric patterns, and uncannily giving the impression of enclosing
+the earth in a great cage. Wavering slightly in the faint breezes of
+the upper spaces, they covered every section of the visible heavens,
+even spreading their dim crisscrossing bars across the moon.
+
+As if this discovery in itself was not ghastly enough, a still more
+terrible sight presented itself. Scores of beings, vaguely human-shaped
+and each with many limbs dangling octopus-like, swung agilely along
+the gigantic webs. Of prodigious size--seemingly not less than fifteen
+or twenty feet tall--the creatures were of a watery pallor that made
+only the bare outlines of their forms visible. Each, in the middle of
+an egg-shaped head, displayed two oddly three-cornered eyes that glowed
+with dull red flames; each possessed six or eight many-fingered hands
+with which it was adding new segments to the monstrous web.
+
+With a groan, Gates put down the instrument; and, wiping his streaming
+brow, sagged against a wall for support. But the horror in his eyes
+matched that in the faces of his companions as the three stared at one
+another in open-mouthed amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Terror Strikes
+
+
+It was as Dunbar had remarked. For nearly a month, unexampled
+meteorological disturbances had been occurring throughout the earth.
+Not only in the northern hemisphere had a record heat blanketed every
+land; in regions far below the Equator, the accustomed mid-winter chill
+had disappeared; indeed, an almost tropical calm had been reported
+as far south as Cape Horn. Everywhere on the earth's surface, normal
+wind currents had been retarded or halted; everywhere dust and mist
+had accumulated; everywhere--even in the usually thunderless coastal
+regions of California--electrical storms of unparalleled violence had
+been of almost daily occurrence. But scientists, having no plausible
+explanation, had for the most part looked on in mute bewilderment.
+
+There were, however, some who professed to believe that the shattered
+remnants of a comet had entered the earth's atmosphere; and supported
+their theory by pointing out that quantities of some gaseous foreign
+substance, which as yet they had been unable to analyze, had been
+detected in the stratosphere; while scores of high-flying airplanes had
+recently been slowed down or wrecked by unexplained impediments.
+
+Few persons as yet saw any connection between the extraordinary weather
+and the reports of astronomers that dozens of minute bodies had been
+detected through telescopes, revolving as satellites about the earth
+just beyond its atmospheric limits. For lack of a better theory, it was
+assumed that they were asteroids or "minor planets" which had ventured
+too close to the earth and had been caught by its gravitational
+power; although no one could say why so many of them should have
+been discovered almost simultaneously. Besides, it was hard to
+account for the peculiar glassy appearance of these so-called Crystal
+Planetoids--an appearance which did not at all indicate the nickel or
+iron composition that might have been expected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not all these facts were in the minds of the three observers on the
+roof as they made their disconcerting discovery. But there were certain
+things which they did realize clearly enough.
+
+"By glory," exclaimed Gates, his big eyes as wide with surprise as
+though he had seen the dead. "By glory! I just can't believe those
+great spidery devils are real--"
+
+"Real or not, I--I've got a feeling we shouldn't stay here," Eleanor
+muttered, her face still white, as she started toward the door.
+"I--I--something tells me it isn't safe!"
+
+"What in tarnation do you think can happen to us here more than down
+below?" demanded Gates. And then, with a shrug, "I'm going to take
+another peep through that glass!"
+
+"Sure, go ahead! Might as well all wait, and die together!" Dunbar
+growled. "D'ye know, I've got an idea Eleanor's right. If we've a spark
+of sense left in our hides--"
+
+Gates cast him a scornful glance, noting what an abject figure he
+seemed to be, as, with terror convulsing his lean, moustached face, he
+went slouching away.
+
+"Hope I'll fall dead before I get so soft!" reflected the inventor.
+
+Yet, despite himself, his pulses were throbbing as he returned to
+the Infra-Red Ray and observed the ominous, ruddy glow that, within
+the last minute, had come across the heavens. Was not the atmosphere
+thicker, hotter, heavier than ever? Why did it seem to bear down on
+him like a stony weight? Why within him that impulse which he sternly
+repressed--that impulse to race for shelter?
+
+For a few seconds, after he had re-adjusted the instrument, he saw only
+what he had observed before: the prodigious spidery webs, with the huge
+octopus-limbed creatures swinging across them.
+
+But almost immediately he made another observation. And, as he did
+so, a cry came to his lips. It was a cry of horror, issuing from some
+vast instinctive depth--a cry such as one might utter if one saw a
+man-eating tiger springing toward one with wide-open jaws. "For God's
+sake! Quick! Run--for your lives!"
+
+Even as he uttered this plea, Gates dropped the instrument and started
+away. Dunbar was already in the doorway, into which he was disappearing
+with the violence of panic; while just behind him Eleanor was
+scampering like a frightened wild thing.
+
+But they were just a second too late. There came a rushing as of a
+great wind. There came a moment as of immense shadows, sweeping down
+with lightning velocity. There came a glimpse of tenuous shapes in
+rapid motion, a little like the spokes of a furiously turning wheel. At
+the same time, in a nightmarish, unbelievable fashion, Gates saw Dunbar
+and Eleanor arrested in mid-flight. Something vague and gray, which
+looked like a gigantic claw, seemed to be woven about them both. But it
+all happened too quickly for him to be sure. In the same instant, he
+beheld them both jerked into air; then whirled skyward at rocket speed,
+while their cries rang in his ears.
+
+[Illustration: The girl's scream rang out as the tentacles reached down
+and enfolded them in steel mesh.]
+
+At the same instant also, as he stared at his companions, stunned and
+gasping, he felt something soft but powerful seizing him about the
+middle--something wriggling, and snake-like, and icy chill of touch. He
+was never to know whether he screamed in the extremity of his terror;
+all that he was aware of was that there came a mighty jerk, and that,
+helpless as a hare in an eagle's talons, he rose into air with a speed
+that almost beat out his breath; and saw the roofs of the city fading
+beneath him amid the reddish haze.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For several minutes, beneath the clubbing rapidity of the flight, the
+captive's senses deserted him. And when, feeling dazed and drugged, he
+revived, it was to find himself amid a universe of fog in which the
+earth had receded from sight. He had, however, the distinct sensation
+of still rising--rising at tremendous speed. And he noticed--and
+this, to his mind, was the most incredible thing of all--that he was
+surrounded by an egg-shaped jelly-like transparent envelope about
+fifteen feet long. Not until much later did he realize that this
+envelope enclosed oxygen enough for him to breathe, and maintained it
+at a temperature and pressure without which life at his great elevation
+would have been impossible.
+
+He had no way of knowing how much time went by in that nightmarish
+flight. He did, however, feel sure that many minutes had passed before
+at length he found himself above the mists. Blanketed in vapor,
+the earth rolled beneath him, shadowy and featureless; while, in a
+crepuscular dimness, he saw the stars glittering from the purple-gray
+void. But what particularly held his attention was the sight of several
+monstrous creatures--long and spidery, and with dangling octopus
+limbs--which drifted ghost-like through the vagueness just outside the
+egg-shaped envelope, with malevolently glowing three-cornered reddish
+eyes.
+
+As he still rose, past what might have been the upper limits of the
+stratosphere, he saw a silvery globe sparkling above him in the
+moonlight. At first he thought it to be a mere speck; but its disk
+rapidly widened, until it appeared as large as the sun, then as great
+as several suns, then seemed to fill the entire heavens with its pale
+glassy form, which shed a tintless cold light that made Gates shudder.
+
+Actually, the sphere was not more than a few hundred yards across; but
+to the bewildered victim it seemed enormous as some prodigy of nature.
+His confusion was only increased by the fact that he saw the stars
+moving rapidly past it, with a westward drift, showing that it was
+swinging swiftly to the east on an orbit of its own. So dazed was the
+captive that it took him minutes to identify it as one of the Crystal
+Planetoids.
+
+By this time, they had reached the surface of the sphere, which he
+could see to be composed of a jelly-like substance with the appearance
+of milky glass. As they drew near, their speed rapidly diminished,
+until they came to a halt almost in contact with the great globe. Then,
+as if at its own volition, part of the surface billowed back, like a
+paper flap blown by the wind; and Gates, with the sensation of one
+entering a prison in a strange land, found himself drifting inside the
+sphere.
+
+As suddenly as if it had evaporated, the egg-shaped envelope had
+disappeared, and he caught a whiff of hot, heavy, foul-smelling air,
+reminding him of a breeze straight from a menagerie. He coughed and
+gasped, and, as he did so, became aware of an unimaginably horrifying
+scene.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood inside the sphere at its lowest part, and gazed up into a
+circular space that, to his startled senses, seemed of stupendous
+magnitude. Woven about this vastness at all heights and angles was an
+intricacy of webs; webs built in concentric circles; webs composed of
+long parallel cables crisscrossed by shorter cables; webs ascending
+as sharply as the riggings of sailing vessels; and webs spun into
+hammock-like floating platforms. All the strands were thinner than
+a man's small finger, and shimmered strangely in the many-hued
+fluorescence of great light-patches on the ceiling; and somehow their
+iridescence, their shifting rainbow hues, their purples, ambers,
+aqua-marines, scarlets and turquoise blues, made them seem all the
+stranger and more sinister.
+
+But most sinister of all were the great beings sprinting along the webs
+or dangling spider-like from a thread. Now for the first time Gates
+saw his captors clearly; for now--as he was later to learn--they had
+brushed off the powder that made them virtually invisible to human
+eyes, and stood forth in their full grotesqueness.
+
+Their outlines were what he had already seen: gigantic, spidery, with
+octopus limbs ending in many tentacle-like curling fingers. He had
+not known, however, that the monsters were encased in a scaly armor,
+which glittered with every peacock hue in the unearthly light, changing
+chameleon-like from ruby to emerald, and from gold and violet to
+bronze, jade and sulphur-yellow. He had not known that they had wide
+pouting greenish-gray lips, from which at times a faint smoke issued.
+He had not realized that they were equipped with long whips of tails,
+each ending in a horny dart, with which they could strike an enemy with
+appalling effect. He had not anticipated that they would talk with a
+peculiar whirr, a little like the grating of a buzz-saw; nor had he
+expected to see the pouches beneath their lower ribs, in which some of
+them, kangaroo-fashion, carried their young.
+
+Scarcely had Gates been deposited in the Planetoid when he made still
+another discovery.
+
+"Great heavens, look at Ronald!" he heard a familiar feminine voice.
+And, wheeling about, he found himself staring at Dunbar and Eleanor,
+who gaped at him not half a dozen yards away.
+
+Both were, literally, as white as ghosts--wide-eyed as persons who
+have looked on unmentionable horror. Gates noticed that Dunbar's hair,
+usually so sleekly glossed, straggled in wild disorder; that his tie
+was a rag, and his coat buttons torn off as if in a struggle; while
+Eleanor's clothes were in rumpled disorder. Yet he noted with relief
+that neither captive, apparently, had been hurt.
+
+"Thank God!" the girl explained. "You're whole and sound!"
+
+"Even if a little mussed up," Dunbar forced out, with a wry grimace.
+"Good Lord! Why, his shirt is in ribbons! And his collar--"
+
+But he was not to finish the sentence. For Gates suddenly cried out,
+with a sensation as if a boa constrictor had seized him about the
+chest. One of the monsters, its red eyes glaring balefully, had reached
+down and grasped him in its tentacles; and, with the manner of a master
+reprimanding a disobedient puppy, had begun to carry him away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Red-Hood
+
+
+Straight up and up a swinging ladder the prisoner was borne for scores
+of yards; while, as he gazed into the abyss and thought of the result
+if his captor's hold should slacken, his head reeled with vertigo.
+
+But his terror was not for himself alone. Even as he was hurtled high
+in air, he glanced down and saw an octopus's arm wrapping itself about
+a feminine form. And fury and alarm for Eleanor's sake drowned out all
+self-concern. In a flash, as his persecutor wound his way through the
+webbed void, he relived the history of his acquaintance with Eleanor.
+He saw again that day, little more than a year ago, when she, fresh
+from college, had come to the laboratory; and recalled the great leap
+his heart had given, and how he had gone away thinking only of her. But
+a natural timidity had delayed his advances; while Dunbar, the silent,
+morose Dunbar, whom nobody liked, had not been so restrained. Could
+she not see that the man, though clever enough, was as self-centered
+as a porcupine? How could she have fallen for this schemer? Not that
+she had fallen for him absolutely! Though they had been seen together
+frequently, was she not always gracious to Gates? Yet the rivalry of
+the two men was bubbling way beneath the surface like acid.
+
+These thoughts, which passed through Gates' mind in much less time than
+it takes to repeat them, were interrupted by a peculiar squeal which
+his captor gave out as he reached one of the hammock-like floating
+platforms and released the victim. Clinging to this unsteady island
+high in air, in imminent peril of plunging into a two-hundred-foot
+gulf, the prisoner was not likely to attempt escape!
+
+But even had there been anywhere to flee, he would have been held by
+the magnetism of a particularly large, sinister-looking pair of crimson
+eyes, which glowed from a monster who appeared, to Gates' startled
+gaze, to be at least twenty-five feet tall. A blood-red hood, placed
+upon the creature's many-hued mail, set him off from all his fellows;
+as did the air of autocratic command which, somehow, Gates sensed
+rather than observed directly.
+
+While he stood gaping at this goblin, a sharp cry to his left caught
+his attention; and, wheeling about, he observed Eleanor and Dunbar
+being deposited at his side. Both were trembling, as well they might,
+after their journey up the web, but he thought he saw a glint of relief
+in the girl's eyes, as he gestured to her.
+
+A long, portentous silence fell as the red-hooded brute glared at his
+victims. Gates had the sensation of standing before a judge about to
+pass sentence of execution.
+
+Then there came a throaty rumbling, followed by a buzzing as of a
+multitude of bees; after which, to the hearers' incredulous amazement,
+these words rasped forth, in grossly accented yet quite recognizable
+English,
+
+"Welcome, my guests! Welcome to our web!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three humans stared at one another, their lips agape. Had they all
+gone crazy?
+
+The red eyes of the beast gave a wicked twinkle. Somehow, with their
+triangular scarlet pupils, they seemed more diabolical than ever.
+
+"Come, come, do you not return my greeting?" buzzed the creature; while
+a grating noise, which may have been laughter, came from his companions.
+
+"How--how in thunder do you come to speak English?" sputtered Gates,
+feeling that he was but living through a nightmare from which he would
+soon awaken.
+
+Again that grating noise, like harsh laughter.
+
+"English--pooh! It is not hard to learn. It is not as if it were an
+advanced language," proceeded Red-Hood. "But you earthlings, with your
+minor-planetary minds, may not understand. Do you want me to explain?"
+
+"Why not?" gasped Gates. But had he not steadied himself barely in
+time, he might have fallen off the platform.
+
+"Well, it is all so very simple," went on the monster. "When
+arriving here, we covered ourselves with the powder Amvol-Amvol,
+which makes us invisible, or almost so. We then roamed your planet
+for many days, unseen by you, observing your habits, and listening
+to your conversations. Not being slow-witted like earth denizens,
+we were able to pick up the meaning of the words, which we held in
+our memories--memories that register everything, and never forget.
+After all, it is not for nothing that we are gifted with Saturnian
+intellects."
+
+"Saturnian?" demanded Dunbar.
+
+"Yes, that is the word you would use, is it not? We come from the
+planet Olar-olargulu, the ringed one."
+
+The hearers remained silent. After all, it had been evident from the
+first that the strangers had not been born on earth!
+
+"This is our first experience with the inferior globules," continued
+the speaker, in a voice like a growl. "We have never before spoken with
+any of you Nignigs, or lesser peoples. But of late centuries we of
+Saturn have become too numerous, even for the great size of our native
+planet. So we have been looking for provinces to colonize. For various
+reasons, we have chosen the earth. As for Mars--it is too small to
+bother with. Jupiter, unfortunately, is too powerfully defended by its
+three-footed dwarfs. And Venus is too near the sun for comfort. So we
+are prepared to take over the earth."
+
+"Take over--the earth?" demanded the three humans, in one voice.
+
+"What else? After all, are we not entitled to it, by virtue of our
+superior intelligence?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His hearers could merely stare in bewildered silence.
+
+"Our method, you see, is simple. We have ferried these cars--which
+you call the Crystal Planetoids--all the way from Saturn, and placed
+them in positions to whirl about the earth as satellites, enabling us
+to drop down upon our future domains at leisure, while weaving our
+clogclotlas--"
+
+"Your what?" demanded Gates.
+
+"Pardon me," apologized Red-Hood, while a spout of smoke came from
+between his thick grayish-green lips, and his tail lashed out and shot
+its hornet dart to within half a dozen inches of the young man's face.
+"Pardon me--I had forgotten myself, and used a Saturnian term. Weaving
+our webs, I should have said. You see, it is necessary to spin these
+webs thoroughly through your entire atmosphere before choking out all
+the planet's native life."
+
+The speaker had made this announcement in as quiet a manner as though
+he had merely foretold that tomorrow's weather would be rainy.
+
+Hence his hearers were hardly able to take in his full dread meaning.
+They merely gaped at him as though he were perpetrating a ghastly joke.
+
+"What! Do you doubt me?" rattled out the monster. "Beware lest I take
+offense! We Saturnians never lie to our inferiors."
+
+This assertion was punctuated by another flick of the creature's tail,
+whose rapier-like barb barely missed Dunbar's nose.
+
+"But you don't mean to say you would actually exterminate
+us--exterminate us all--" began Eleanor; then faltered, and halted in
+confusion.
+
+"Why not? Would you earth-creatures hesitate to wipe out a hive of
+ants? Doubtless they too have minds, and even a civilization of a sort.
+But what is that to you? If they got in your way, would you not crush
+them?"
+
+"So we are no more to you than ants?"
+
+"Do not flatter yourselves. Why should we be sentimentalists, and spare
+you nignigs unless you can serve us?"
+
+The puff of smoke that came from between the monster's lips, as he spat
+out these words, was so heavy that all three humans gasped, with the
+stench of sulphur in their nostrils.
+
+"As I have said," he went on, "our clogclotlas, or webs, have been
+woven all through your atmosphere, checking the usual wind currents,
+and laying down a blanket that will enclose the planet's heat, until
+after a time every living creature will be baked or choked to death in
+one vast oven. Of course, like any other great engineering project,
+this will take time. We cannot expect to complete the good work in less
+than a year or two."
+
+In Gates' disturbed fancy, it seemed that many-colored points of light,
+like little demons, danced malevolently upon the huge expanse of his
+captor's armor.
+
+Yet there was just a trace of incredulity in his tone, as he demanded,
+
+"If this is all true, why do you trouble to tell us about it? We for
+our part do not warn the ants we intend to trample!"
+
+"Nor do we!" Red-Hood's words came in a snort, and his tail flicked
+through the air in an angry crackling. "But whether we will spare you
+or sting you to death remains to be seen!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The beast took a sudden step forward, and Gates found himself almost
+projected off the platform as the monster shot out at him,
+
+"Do you not think we brought you to the Planetoid for a purpose? For a
+long while, have we not been looking for suitable earth-captives? No,
+not at first members of the common pack! We wanted prisoners who knew
+something of your science, rudimentary as that is. When you went to
+the roof down there to use your ray machine--the Infra-Red Eye, as you
+call it--you set up etheric vibrations that instantly attracted our
+attention. Your ability to produce such vibrations told us that you
+were the folk we were seeking. So we lost no time about capturing you."
+
+During the moment of silence that followed, Dunbar turned toward Gates
+with unveiled enmity in his snapping black eyes.
+
+"So!" he snarled. "It was your damned invention that got us into this
+mess!"
+
+Gates made no reply; but an answer came from an unexpected direction.
+
+"You should thank him, earth-man, for getting you into this mess.
+Because of his invention, you three may live while all other
+earth-creatures perish!"
+
+"What in God's name would life on such terms be worth?" Gates demanded.
+But a sob to his left caught his attention; and, wheeling about, he
+joined Dunbar in trying to console the weeping girl.
+
+With a contemptuous glint in his triangular eyes, Red-Hood stood
+looking on; but it was several minutes before he resumed,
+
+"Life is dear to all creatures--and you will find it not worthless on
+our terms!"
+
+"What are your terms?"
+
+It was Dunbar who asked this question, while Gates felt a silent
+resentment against the other man leap up within him.
+
+"They are really most reasonable," the monster announced, sliding
+back and forth on the web, while his scales clanked ominously. "You
+see, even after all we have done, we find it hard to work on earth.
+The air is much too thin. After we have thickened the atmosphere with
+a complete network, things will be different; but as yet we labor
+under great disadvantages. What we need are tanks of compressed air
+to help our breathing. Such compressed air can be supplied only by
+you earth-creatures, since in our haste, unfortunately, we neglected
+to bring our automatic condensers from Saturn. That is why we have
+captured you. And that is why we promise you your lives--if you will do
+us a little service."
+
+Gates glared back at Red-Hood in unconcealed fury. That this
+creature, who was threatening to wipe out the human race, should ask
+for his assistance--the idea was too preposterous, too heinous for
+consideration! And he was glad to note, from the revulsion in Eleanor's
+face, that she felt no less shocked than he.
+
+But it was in unbelief, swiftly turning to anger, that he heard
+Dunbar's low, even voice, inquire,
+
+"And what little service do you want of us?"
+
+The gray-green lips of the Saturnian opened in a hideous grin.
+
+"I knew from the first," he rasped, "that you earth-animals would
+be reasonable. Our proposition is simply this: we will release you
+all, on condition that, on your return to earth, you prepare great
+containers of compressed air, according to our directions. If you do
+this faithfully, we will see that your lives are spared even after the
+extinction of all other earth-creatures."
+
+"And if we refuse?" demanded Gates.
+
+Red-Hood took a menacing stride forward.
+
+"You will not refuse!" he proclaimed, again with a puff of sulphur
+fumes. "For, in that case, you will suffer a fate a hundred times worse
+than death!"
+
+With ominous rapidity, the monster's tail whipped out once more,
+flashing back and forth before all three captives. And Gates, edging
+again toward the webbed abyss, had a momentary idea of leaping over
+the brink. But even as this thought came to him, he felt an ice-cold
+arm lashing him in a firm grip. Harsh, loud and ironic, the monster's
+derision grated in his ears,
+
+"Not yet, my friend, not yet! The road of escape will be long and
+spiky! The road of escape will be long and spiky for all who defy the
+will of Saturn!"
+
+These words were emphasized by a peal of laughter, shrill, grating,
+diabolical, wherein all the onlooking monsters joined in one prolonged
+scream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"Co-operate--and Live!"
+
+
+"Earth-Men, we are not impatient! We know your minds work like rusty
+hinges--but what else can be expected of the minor planets? So take a
+little time. Consult with one another. We will allow you half an hour.
+Then we will be back, and learn if you prefer to co-operate--or to die
+a thousand deaths!"
+
+With an agile looping movement, Red-Hood started down one of the cable
+ladders, followed by all his retinue.
+
+"One thing more!" he warned, noting how longingly Gates was staring
+into the abyss. "Take care not to fall off the platform! In that case,
+strong arms will be waiting to catch you--and your punishment will be
+heavy in proportion to the crime!"
+
+"How heavy will that be?" defied Gates, wondering what they could do to
+him worse than they had already threatened.
+
+Scarlet flashes shot from the monster's eyes. "One hundred of your
+kind," he snorted, "will be picked up from the streets of your cities,
+and crushed to death as hostages! Such is the vengeance of Saturn!"
+
+As the creature left, with a low hissing as of escaping steam, Gates
+felt as never before that he was in contact with a force having nothing
+in common with humanity.
+
+Silence ruled for a moment, while the three prisoners sat facing one
+another on their high swinging perch. But their horror-filled eyes were
+eloquent.
+
+"God in heaven! I don't suppose there's much for us to decide!" mumbled
+Gates, grimly, while he stared as in a nightmare at the looping,
+crisscrossing intricacy of cables overhead.
+
+"No, I'm sure not!" sighed Eleanor.
+
+"Any idiot could see that!" Dunbar muttered. "Don't know what we need
+this half hour to think about!"
+
+Another gloomy silence ensued.
+
+"Well, at least I'm glad we're agreed," declared Gates, who, to tell
+the truth, was a little surprised at Dunbar's sudden manifestation of
+decent feeling.
+
+"Wouldn't we be imbeciles not to be," Dunbar drawled, running a lean,
+long-fingered hand reflectively across his jutting chin. "All comes
+down, I guess, to a question of saving our own hides. As for me--I
+never did exactly hanker to shine as a martyr."
+
+"Martyr?" echoed Gates. And all at once he knew the full enormity of
+Dunbar's treason--yes, knew beyond all need for further questioning!
+
+At the same time, he noticed Eleanor's nauseated look.
+
+"Goddamn it, Ronny, mean to say I got you wrong? So you folks are not
+with me after all?" demanded Dunbar, incredulously. "Deuce take you! I
+never thought you were that crazy!"
+
+"If you call it crazy not to betray your whole race--"
+
+"I'd like to know what in hell my whole race has ever done for me!"
+retorted Dunbar. "Lot it'll help them if I let myself be ground to bits
+by those snaky dragons! No, sirree, you can play the saint if you want
+to--but I'll think you're both hell-blasted fools. As for me--I'll
+co-operate--and live!"
+
+"I'd rather be a hell-blasted fool than live with the world's blood on
+my hands. Wouldn't you, Eleanor?"
+
+"A thousand times over!" attested the girl. And in her animated eyes,
+as she nodded assent, there was a warmth Gates hadn't observed in them
+before.
+
+"You're letting your feelings rule you, Ronny, not your mind!" swore
+Dunbar. "That's the trouble with you--too infernal much of a dreamer!
+Can't face reality! Why, haven't I seen it in you all along? You
+haven't got the guts of a jellyfish! That's why I've despised you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There it was out in the open again, their antagonism flaring
+white-hot. Somehow it seemed strange, ludicrous that the three of them
+should be perched here, on the rim of eternity as it were, and be doing
+nothing better than air their personal enmities. Yet, after all, did
+Gates not know that Dunbar had always loathed him?
+
+It was Eleanor's voice that broke the brief, bristling silence.
+Struggling to gain control of herself, she cast a defiant glance at
+Dunbar. "You are badly mistaken, Philip!" she defended, crisply, "if
+you think Ronald hasn't got, as you say, the guts of a jellyfish. I
+guess it doesn't take so much guts to be a traitor, the way you're
+planning, Mr. Dunbar! And let us both die while you go pleasantly along
+your way!"
+
+Tears were in the girl's eyes; she had to avert her face violently to
+prevent a telltale overflow.
+
+Dunbar's answer was a low, gruff laugh.
+
+"Good Lord! What makes you think I'm willing to let you both die?
+Ronny can do what he damn well wants to--guess the world will outlive
+his loss. But you, my girl--do you think I'll let you be massacred
+just because most of our good-for-nothing species is due to be wiped
+out? Believe me, if there's going to be one man survive the slaughter,
+there'll be one woman too--just to start the new world right! Do you
+get me?"
+
+As he crept nearer to her along the web, his little black eyes widened
+in a leer.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, the full implications of his words became
+clear. Red-Hood and the other Saturnians had returned; and, ringing
+their captives about in a glittering circle, had demanded their
+decision. And Eleanor and Gates had defied them with a resolute "No!",
+regardless of the thunderous rumblings and the spouts of smoke that
+came from their masters' lips.
+
+But Dunbar took another track.
+
+"Worthy visitors from Saturn," he said, with mincing gestures, "I am
+glad to co-operate with you. But, in return, I ask one small boon."
+
+"What boon?"
+
+"If I help you, O noble ones, I must do so without restraint. But this
+cannot be unless you grant me the favor I ask. You see, O Lords, we
+earth-men are so made that we cannot do our best work without a woman
+at our side. So I crave of you--spare the life of this female here;
+release her, so that she may labor with me!"
+
+A snort from Red-Hood drowned out Eleanor's shocked protests.
+
+"But this woman, O earthling, has refused to co-operate. She deserves
+the fate worse than death, which we have in store for her."
+
+"Women, O Lords, are ever fickle and changeable of mind. If you will
+but spare her, I will see that she will co-operate."
+
+The Saturnians held a brief conference among themselves, in tones like
+rapid gurglings. Then Red-Hood turned back toward Dunbar. "It is so, O
+Nignig! On our planet, too, the female of the species is fickle, and
+changes her mind like the lightning." And then, pointing scornfully at
+Gates, "Do you also ask us to spare your other companion?"
+
+"Not so, O Lords! I ask the woman only!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eleanor's despairing cry was muffled amid the bellowing of the
+Saturnians, as they once more conferred, punctuating their debate with
+flashes of their many-colored armor, and with innumerable puffs of
+smoke ... in a discussion that lasted for many minutes.
+
+Finally, discharging sulphur fumes from little orifices at the ends of
+his long twining fingers, Red-Hood turned back to his Quisling.
+
+"Let it be so!" he rattled out. "On one condition, we will release the
+woman. She will serve as a pledge for the faithful performance of your
+promise. If you fail us, by even the minutest fraction of a fraction of
+a degree, be sure she will not escape, but will perish along with you
+on the Barbs of Slow Agony!"
+
+Eleanor gasped; and peering up into the relentless red eyes of her
+captors, knew that all protest would be futile.
+
+"Zoltevi! Zoltevi! Quimboson!" she heard Red-Hood rasping, as one of
+his long tentacled arms motioned to two retainers. And after a brief
+interchange in their native tongue, the pair stepped forth, and she
+felt the octopus arms of one of the giants winding about her, while
+Dunbar was snatched up in the claws of the second.
+
+"My followers will give you your instructions!" Red-Hood growled at
+his new servant; while Eleanor, with swimming head, felt herself being
+borne down the great swaying web.
+
+"Have faith! Have faith! We will win out yet!" she thought she heard a
+familiar voice calling after her. Or was it that, in her bewilderment,
+she had only imagined? For her last glimpse at Gates showed him
+standing erect and defiant enough, but so feeble-looking, of such
+midget size beside the many-armed, tailed monsters that towered above
+him to the height of the great dinosaurs of vanished ages!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Paralyzed!
+
+
+Compared with Gates as he stared up at his captors, Daniel in the
+lion's den may have considered himself almost among friends.
+
+For a moment after the departure of the two other humans along with
+Zoltevi and Quimboson, no sound was audible except that of the
+threshing, sighing cables, and of the deep, throaty breathing of the
+monsters.
+
+Then in silence--a silence more terrible than any spoken
+threat--Red-Hood advanced toward his victim. Gates, sensing his
+sinister intention, spontaneously pressed back. But Red-Hood drew
+nearer still, this time with a ten-foot stride. And Gates retreated to
+the extreme outer edge of the platform. Another inch, and he would have
+fallen!
+
+But before he could plunge to a welcome deliverance, his persecutor's
+long tail shot out. With a rapid whirring motion, sounding a little
+like the warning buzz of a rattlesnake, it flicked by his left arm. And
+this time it did not miss. A glancing stroke touched him painlessly,
+leaving an abrasion hardly more noticeable than the prick of a pin.
+
+But instantly something else occurred--something all too noticeable!
+Gates felt a numbness shoot along the arm, which took on the lifeless
+feeling of a jaw into which a dentist has pumped several charges of
+novocain. And from the arm the feeling spread to his left shoulder,
+then over to the right shoulder, then down toward his abdomen, and up
+his neck, and along the right arm, and through both legs to the toes.
+
+It all happened in a matter of seconds. Almost before he had had
+time to grasp the full dread facts, he found himself paralyzed. Yes,
+paralyzed practically completely! Except for a slight wriggling
+movement in his feet and fingers, he was unable to stir! In his horror,
+he attempted to cry out; but his tongue would not obey the impulse; all
+that came forth was a whisper-thin gurgling. Meanwhile, no longer able
+to maintain an upright position, he had sagged to the floor of the
+web, where he lay like a bundle of rags.
+
+Strangely enough, however, the higher nerve centers appeared
+unaffected; his mind had not lost any of its clarity. It was, in fact,
+as though his mental reactions had suddenly been heightened, now that
+his physical frame was as if dead.
+
+After a minute of silent gloating, during which he stood leering down
+at the victim, Red-Hood drew wide his green-gray lips, and huskily
+inquired,
+
+"How do you feel now, O earthling? That was what we call a tail-prick.
+Had the blow struck beneath the surface, you would have perished. But
+that would not have served our purpose. You can do more for us alive
+than dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Savage and determined was the secret compact that Gates made with
+himself: he would perish in agony, a hundred times over, sooner than
+voluntarily help his captors by so much as the flick of one finger!
+
+But Red-Hood, as if aware of his thoughts, twisted those great bag-like
+lips of his into a sardonic grin, and grumbled,
+
+"It will not be up to you, my friend, whether you assist us or not.
+You see, there is nothing you can do against Lethemaz--the poison we
+apply with the tips of our tails. For a hundred thousand cycles our
+scientists have worked, until it has become the most efficient venom
+in the universe. A tenth of a drop--which is just what we used--will
+keep a mite like you paralyzed for days, unless we apply the proper
+antidote."
+
+To Gates' horrified consciousness there had come the memory of certain
+wasps which injected a paralyzing fluid into their spider prey, keeping
+them alive but helpless for an indefinite period, so that they might
+nourish the next wasp generation.
+
+But the fate of the spiders seemed almost enviable beside his own. For
+they at least would at last know an end to their captivity!
+
+As this thought shot through his mind, he heard Red-Hood conferring
+in undertones with two subordinates. And the latter, after a moment,
+approached him and produced long cables, which they began to twist and
+loop about his body. For what purpose? He could not even guess. Yet the
+wicked twinkles in their three-cornered red eyes told him that they
+were up to some new villainy. A minute later, when they began to carry
+him down the web, amid the shimmering many-hued strands, how fervently
+he wished that he had seized his opportunity before it was too late,
+and had fallen off the platform to his doom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Twelve hours had gone by. The Crystal Planetoid, whirling on its orbit
+about the earth, had swung back to the point at which the three humans
+had entered it. And a man and a girl, deposited by two invisible
+attendants, had found themselves back near the spot where their
+adventures had begun.
+
+They had come down in a fog--which was not surprising, since fogs now
+hovered continually over the earth; and their exact point of descent
+was an isolated spot in a city park, a mile or two from the laboratory.
+Dunbar recognized the place with a satisfied grunt, as he identified
+a certain rustic bridge over a small stream. "Good! Just ideal for a
+little chat!"
+
+It seemed as if a huge shadow drifted over them and away, and vaguely
+they were aware that the two Saturnians had departed.
+
+"What is there to chat about, Mr. Dunbar?" she flung back haughtily.
+
+There was a silken purr in the man's voice. But determination marked
+his manner as he imposed himself in the girl's path.
+
+"Now listen here, young lady. There are several things you might as
+well understand. The first is that you must co-operate."
+
+"Co-operate?" she tossed back, shrilly, and paused long enough for a
+contemptuous fling of laughter. "Why, who wouldn't die sooner than
+co-operate with those beasts--those dev--"
+
+He had come closer to her, and his voice was coaxing, almost caressing.
+
+"Do you think it was for their sake, Eleanor? Why do you think I saved
+you, except for your own precious self? If you will only co-operate
+with me--with _me_--"
+
+"I'd rather co-operate with a viper!"
+
+She had recoiled as though he were indeed the creature she had
+mentioned; and he found it necessary to seize her arm in order to
+prevent her departure.
+
+"Come, let's forget all this, Eleanor. I know what nervous stress you
+are under. When you return to yourself, you will realize all that I
+have done for you. If I hadn't said a word in your behalf--"
+
+"In _my_ behalf! Good heavens, man!" she retorted, bitterly.
+"Don't you think I could have saved my own life, if I had been willing
+to stoop to your kind of treason?"
+
+"Treason or not, we shall see. We shall see. Meanwhile, I warn you,
+don't try to interfere when I fulfill my agreement--when I prepare
+those vats of compressed air--"
+
+"And what if I report you to the authorities?"
+
+"Report? By Christ! You wouldn't be that stupid? You wouldn't drive me
+to action against you, would you?"
+
+His tone had become subtly menacing as he leaned over her, and
+whispered, almost furtively,
+
+"Besides, have you not as much at stake as I, my girl? Remember, you
+are a pledge for my success. If I fail--"
+
+"If you fail, I will give thanks to heaven!"
+
+With a determined effort, she had thrust herself forward; while he,
+following through the fog, pleaded and expostulated, in tones half like
+a lover, half like a taskmaster. At length, through the mist, there
+came a choked sobbing. And thin and faint, where two enormous creatures
+stood invisibly amid the vapors, there sounded an eerie squeak, like
+the muffled mockery of demons.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chief of Police Joe McCullough had settled back to a good fat cigar
+and the latest issue of the "Sports Digest." His long legs stretched
+lankily across a chair; his heavy red face wore an expression almost
+of contentment, except when now and then he mopped the sweat from his
+brow with a crimson-bordered handkerchief. "Damn this heat!" he finally
+muttered, glaring at the electric fan as if to accuse it of criminal
+conspiracy. And just then the door opened, and the sandy head of
+Sergeant Johannsen intruded.
+
+"Sorry to butt in, Chief, but a dame out here wants to see you."
+
+McCullough let out a low oath. "Didn't I tell you I don't want to be
+pestered? See her yourself, Johannsen. You're no slouch when it comes
+to dames." And, with a growl, he turned back to the "Sports Digest."
+
+"But she swears she's gotta see you, Chief. Just can't do a thing with
+her. Something damned important, she says."
+
+"Tell her to go to hell!"
+
+Even as he spoke, a woman's face poked itself through the doorway.
+It was a face naturally comely, with clear blue eyes, and handsomely
+chiselled chin and brow; but just now she looked like the victim of a
+cyclone. Her clothes were rumpled; her disordered hair hung far down
+her forehead; there were tear-stains beneath her eyes, which blazed
+with a wild, impatient light.
+
+"Chief McCullough?" she demanded.
+
+Had she been a man, she would have been ejected without debate. As
+it was, the Chief merely gaped at her, abashed, while awkwardly
+withdrawing his feet from their comfortable perch. "Yes, Ma'am. What
+can I do for you?"
+
+"Something nobody else can do, Mr. McCullough. I know of a plot,
+sir--the most fiendish plot ever imagined. You'll hardly believe it,
+but I've just come down--well, down from one of the Crystal Planetoids,
+where they've hatched a scheme to capture the earth."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+McCullough gaped, and let the "Sports Digest" drop from his hands. He
+had had experience with crazy women before, but never with one who had
+dug out a scheme to capture the earth. The best thing to do with her
+kind was to let them rave on. If you tried to interrupt them, they were
+apt to get hysterical.
+
+And so it was with a polite but skeptical smile that he listened to
+her story of invaders as tall as a two-story house, who had enormous
+stinging tails and were invisible in ordinary light. Mid-way in her
+recital, he scowled reproof at Sergeant Johannsen, who seemed about to
+break out in open laughter; and, when she had finished, he thoughtfully
+took up his cigar, which he had put down for the moment, and remarked,
+with an attempt at courtesy,
+
+"Well, now that's all too bad, Sister. The thing I'd advise you to do
+is to go home and sleep it off. These are queer times, you know. Why,
+with all this heat and tension, it's surprising we're not all seeing
+rattlesnakes and tigers. So you just have a good sleep, and tomorrow
+you'll feel better."
+
+The girl stared at McCullough in dismay.
+
+"But, my God, I'm not dreaming!" she insisted. "This is real--take my
+word for it, horribly real! There's a man--I can give you his name--who
+is working right now for the invaders, preparing tanks of compressed
+air. If you don't help--and immediately--"
+
+She was interrupted by Johannsen, who, no longer able to contain
+himself, exploded in one mighty roar.
+
+At the same time, she caught the amused glint in McCullough's eyes;
+and all at once she felt sick--sick to the very pit of her being. And,
+realizing the uselessness of further pleas, she turned without another
+word, and stumbled blindly toward the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+An Offering from the Clouds
+
+
+At almost any other time in modern history, the disappearance of a
+promising young scientist would have created a sensation. As it was,
+the newspapers were so preoccupied with other events that they merely
+noted incidentally that "Ronald Gates, a technician employed by the
+Merlin Research Institute, has dropped mysteriously out of sight.
+No clue to his whereabouts has been found either at his lodgings or
+his place of employment. Suspicions of suicide, and of kidnaping for
+ransom, have not been confirmed."
+
+Yet hardly was this story printed when extraordinary rumors began
+to be heard. So wild, so fantastic were the tales that most hearers
+shook their heads skeptically; newspapers denied them space; and even
+the most credulous old wives found belief stretched to the breaking
+point. But there were many who swore to the authenticity of the
+accounts. Ronald Gates, they attested, had been seen again; had been
+seen dangling in air, like a fly in a spider's web! About him were thin
+shimmering strands, which vanished into a mist; while he himself swung
+not many feet above the earth, was both gagged and bound. Some declared
+that he was inert, and dead as a stone; but others averred that they
+had seen him making frantic movements with his feet, and with the tips
+of his fingers.
+
+Among the few who listened seriously to these reports was Eleanor
+Firth. Rousing herself from the sick bed in which she had been confined
+for two days, suffering from what the doctor diagnosed as "nervous
+delusions," she set out toward the field at the outskirts of town,
+where, she had been told, the dangling apparition had been seen.
+
+As she left the house, a skulking form slunk from behind a tree half a
+block away; and slithered to the nearest phone booth. She did not see
+the figure; but thought that it was by a queer coincidence that, after
+she had boarded a street car ten minutes later, she saw a taxicab just
+keeping pace with the trolley, and inside the vehicle recognized the
+slim dark shape of Dunbar.
+
+At first she thought of turning back. But thinking that she might have
+made a mistake in identification, or that Dunbar might turn off in some
+other direction without seeing her, she continued on her way.
+
+Twenty minutes later, when the car had reached its terminal, the
+taxicab was still a little behind.
+
+But she could give little thought just then to the cab and its
+occupant. Through the mist she saw some vacant lots about a hundred
+yards away, where a crowd was assembled. And, with a fluttering heart,
+she pressed forward, racing rather than walking toward the crowd in the
+field.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the outskirts of the throng she joined the others in staring vaguely
+upward into the hazes, although at first she saw nothing.
+
+"Why, he just seems to come and go," she heard a neighbor remarking.
+"Dips down, and then pops up again like a jack-in-the-box. You'd think
+he was held on strings."
+
+"There he is!" a child cried out, eagerly. "Oh, Mamma, look! He's
+upside down!"
+
+Surely enough, a figure was drifting out of the dense ceiling of fog.
+It was a figure as stiff and lifeless-looking as a manikin, except
+for the spasmodic twitching of the feet and fingers. And it was, as
+the child had exclaimed, upside down! Nothing could be weirder or
+more unnatural-looking than the way in which it slowly approached, in
+a diver's posture, with its arms outspread beneath it, and its feet
+uppermost. Obviously, it was supported by unseen hands or cables; yet
+Eleanor, no matter how she strained her eyes, could catch no glimpse of
+those cobweb strands which, she knew, encompassed it in a thick web.
+
+For a moment or two, as she stared in a ghastly fascination,
+recognition did not come to her. Then all at once she cried out in
+astonished, dreadful certainty. That frank, open face, with the
+aquiline nose and broad, high forehead; those masses of coffee-brown
+hair, lying dishevelled along the brow--how could she help recognize
+them, even though the tanned skin was covered with a dense stubble, and
+the once-mobile features looked inflexible as marble!
+
+"Ronny! Ronny!" she exclaimed, sagging for support against a fat
+woman, who grumbled at her aberrations. And even as she spoke, she
+thought that she was answered by a glint in the eyes of the floating
+apparition. Yes, surely there was a responsive gleam! a vivid, deep
+fire which no paralysis could quench! She knew, she knew that Ronny had
+seen her, had recognized her!
+
+But, at the same time, his eyes were kindled with such sorrow, such
+suffering that she thought of a martyr writhing at the stake.
+
+Downward he floated, until he dangled but ten or twelve feet above
+her head. Only ten or twelve feet, she thought, yet what infinities
+between them! But almost immediately, he began to retreat. Jerked by
+the unseen cords, he slowly arose, was gradually pulled around to a
+horizontal position, and mounted until by degrees he was lost in the
+mist. And, all the while, from the watching crowd, came cries of wonder
+and amazement.
+
+But just as the figure disappeared, Eleanor noticed something hardly
+less extraordinary. She could have sworn that, a moment before, a man
+had stood just to her right, had pressed almost elbow to elbow with
+her; and she knew that he had not strolled away. Yet suddenly she heard
+a groan from where he had been; then a swift swishing; and, turning,
+found that he was gone. Literally, he had vanished into thin air!
+
+The next moment, when a frightened woman began crying, "John, John,
+where are you? For goodness' sake, where are you, John?" it seemed
+inevitable that there should be no response.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But her mind had no chance to dwell upon the incident. For she felt
+some one tapping her upon the shoulder; and, turning, stared into the
+dark, sardonically grinning face that she wished to see least of all
+faces on earth.
+
+How she hated him for the triumphant leer with which he devoured her!
+How she detested the manner in which he spoke, bowing urbanely, and
+with an ironic purr in his voice! "Ah, Eleanor! Nice to meet you here!"
+Somehow, she had the feeling of a bird in the fowler's hands!
+
+"What a piece of good luck for us both, meeting like this!" he
+murmured. "Better step over this way, Eleanor, there are some things to
+talk over."
+
+"I can't imagine what!" she denied.
+
+But she caught the warning glint in his eyes. "Be unreasonable, young
+lady, and I don't answer for the consequences!"
+
+In any case, she reflected, she could not stand here arguing with him;
+could not make a public spectacle of herself. And so, choking down the
+voice of inner warning, she followed him toward the waiting taxicab.
+
+As they started off, a cry rang from the crowd; and, looking up, she
+saw the dangling figure emerging again from the mist. Strangely, it was
+propelled--almost thrust--in her direction, until it floated a mere
+half a dozen feet overhead. The face, as before, was rigid as rock, but
+the eyes glared with anger--anger fierce, vehement, concentrated, which
+seemed to focus in two fierce fire-points of light. Eleanor noticed how
+Dunbar, after a single glance, winced and turned away--slunk away, it
+seemed to her, in the manner of a whipped hound.
+
+Upon reaching the taxicab, the girl hesitated. That warning voice,
+stronger now and more insistent, bade her not to enter. But the man's
+tones, soft and coaxing, appealed, "There's something I must tell
+you--I _must_, Eleanor, if you want to save yourself and our
+friend up above."
+
+The plea for herself alone would not have sufficed; but at the
+reference to Ronald she felt herself yielding.
+
+"Come, let's drive around town a while--anywhere at all you say," he
+suggested, "before having you taken back home."
+
+After all, she thought, what harm in driving around a bit? She was
+almost exhausted, and it would be so much easier not to have to go home
+by trolley! Besides, she was so faint that there was little power in
+her to resist Dunbar's will.
+
+And so she found herself preceding him into the cab, although still
+that warning voice cautioned, "Don't! Don't! Don't!"
+
+"Anywhere around the suburbs," Dunbar instructed the driver. And then
+the door slammed, and they were on their way. But, as the wheels
+whirred beneath her, she would have given her last penny to be safely
+on the ground again.
+
+Subtly, insidiously, her companion's manner had changed. There was
+a menacing note beneath the silken purr as he turned to her, and
+demanded, "And now, young lady, maybe you will tell me why you have not
+been co-operating?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She writhed; withdrew from him as far as possible; and made no answer.
+How idiotic of her to have let him lure her into the taxi!
+
+"Maybe you will tell me," he went on, "why it was you went to the
+police to report me? No! don't say you didn't! I have informants!"
+
+"That is to say, you've been shadowing me with spies, Mr. Dunbar?" she
+retorted, turning upon him with spirit.
+
+"I don't care a damn what you call it!" he snarled. "Simple fact is I
+couldn't afford to take any chances. But I really didn't think you'd be
+imbecilic enough to report me--since we're both in the same boat. If
+the Saturnians murder me, they murder you too! Remember that!"
+
+"So that's what you decoyed me into the car to say, Mr. Dunbar?"
+
+"I didn't decoy you. But I did want to warn you. If you give me your
+solemn promise, Eleanor, to keep a tight lock on your tongue, and not
+interfere with me any further, I'll let you go about your way. But not
+unless!"
+
+"I don't propose to argue with you, Mr. Dunbar!" Her tones were slow,
+incisive, cutting. "Now if you'll have the kindness to give the driver
+my address--"
+
+"Not so fast there, my girl! We've still got some things to thresh out.
+Just because you don't seem to care about your own life, it doesn't
+follow I'm going to let you throw mine away!"
+
+At last the mask was falling off. He glared; his teeth bit into his
+lower lip; his manner was truculent. "Good Lord, Eleanor, don't you
+know those Saturnians are watching everything you do? How long do you
+think their patience will last? What do you suppose old Red-Hood will
+do when he finds you're all set to betray him?"
+
+"Betray _him_?" Scornfully she laughed. "So that's the only
+betrayal you're thinking of? Now will you kindly give that driver my
+address?"
+
+He made no move to obey.
+
+"If you won't, then I will!" she decided, starting up.
+
+But a powerful hand had seized her, and thrust her back. "I tell you,
+my girl, we've got to thresh this out!"
+
+"I tell you, there's nothing to thresh out!"
+
+Before her inner vision there flashed again a figure, with
+pain-tormented eyes, who dangled helplessly high in air. And she
+clenched her fists, and secretly swore a bitter oath.
+
+"So then it's not peace, but a sword?" he flung out, as if reading her
+thoughts. "In that case, you force me to act in self-defense!"
+
+Despite the quietness of his manner, she was becoming more and more
+frightened. Her heart fluttered; she remembered again that voice of
+warning which she had not heeded; and felt suddenly too weak and
+helpless to make the attempt--the obviously futile attempt--to call out
+to the driver.
+
+From an inner pocket he had pulled a little vial filled with a
+dark-brown fluid. And, from another pocket, he drew a hypodermic needle.
+
+"Lucky for us both that, being a chemist, I can prepare my own
+formulas," he went on, with an oily drawl. "Now this won't do you any
+real harm, Eleanor, so I'd advise you not to struggle. That will only
+make it harder for you, and not help at all in the end."
+
+"For God's sake," she screamed, "what are you going to do?"
+
+Wildly she stared out of the taxicab, with some vague idea of yelling
+for help or jumping. But they were speeding along an almost houseless
+suburban road, with not a person in sight; and to attempt to jump, even
+if she should succeed, would be mere suicide.
+
+Meanwhile he had dipped the needle in the brown fluid, and she saw its
+thin, sinister point approaching.
+
+"Just hold out your arm," he advised. "It will be all over in a second."
+
+She was to remember hazily that she attempted a shriek, which was
+muffled by his throttling hand. She was to remember that she struggled
+spasmodically; beat at her oppressor with blind, self-protective
+fury. But this was all that she did recollect ... aside from the fact
+that there came a sharp stabbing sensation just above her wrist ...
+followed by a shooting pain in her head, an overwhelming dizziness, a
+reeling and swaying, and, suddenly and mercifully, a black, dreamless
+unconsciousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Prisoners' Progress
+
+
+Lethemaz, the paralyzing drug of the Saturnians, had one quality for
+which Gates was sometimes thankful, and which sometimes he bitterly
+cursed. Despite the total incapacity of his body, his brain, as we have
+seen, was able to work with new keenness and clarity. Yet his increased
+mental awareness only added to his agony. For it made him see the
+horror, the helplessness of his plight in even more pitiful sharpness.
+
+Eleanor had been right in supposing that his eyes had glowed with
+recognition as he dangled in air above her. She had been right in
+believing that he had glared at the sight of Dunbar. But she could
+not have known what torment seethed behind that rigid brow of his.
+She could not have known the tantalizing madness of one who, hour
+after hour, realizes that he is being used as a tool for the furies
+of destruction, yet is powerless to speak or act. Nor could she have
+guessed what dire new discoveries the captive had made.
+
+From time to time Gates was carried back to the Crystal Planetoid,
+where a sting from one of the monsters' tails applied a deparalyzing
+fluid. Thus he found occasional relief--which, however, was not to be
+credited to any feeling of mercy on the part of the captors. No! for he
+could not be fed while paralyzed. And thanks to the way in which he was
+jolted around, he had to be given food every few days if he was not to
+perish.
+
+As yet, it was not only the purpose of the invaders to keep him alive,
+but to obtain as many living humans as possible. Dozens of men and
+women, as he saw to his dismay, had been brought to the Planetoid and
+paralyzed. Like flies tangled in the webs of gigantic spiders, the
+victims lay scattered about the webs. And Gates realized that he was,
+in a sense, responsible. Yes, he had been the unwilling tool to trap
+them; it was as a bait that he had been dangled above the earth ...
+so that, when the people congregated beneath, the Saturnians might
+take their pick and whisk the victims away while the crowd was too
+preoccupied to be aware what had happened.
+
+But why did they desire so many humans? Gates had the boldness to put
+this question to Red-Hood during one of his de-paralyzed intervals;
+and, to his surprise, the monster immediately rasped out an answer:
+
+"Nignig, surely you have not the brains of a gnat, else you would have
+guessed! We capture you earthlings so as to dangle you above the earth
+as a lure to capture other earthlings!"
+
+"And why capture other earthlings?"
+
+"Why?" The giant's red eyes twinkled with amusement, as at a child who
+persists in asking the ridiculous. "Naturally, we want specimens of
+all the human fauna, of every race and color, so that we may skin and
+dry them in the interest of science, and bring them back to Saturn as
+specimens for the Museum of Unnatural History."
+
+Noting the horror with which Gates greeted this explanation, Red-Hood
+went on to state,
+
+"After all, Nignig, you should be grateful to us for seeking to
+preserve some trace of your species, instead of obliterating it
+entirely. You earth-creatures have no sense of gratitude!"
+
+Thanks to this information, Gates' mind was more busy than ever with
+the problem of circumventing the Saturnians. His first thought was to
+destroy his own value to them by means of a hunger strike. But the
+result was that his food, in liquid form, was forced down his throat;
+while the Saturnians, apparently fearing that he would resort to other
+means to take his own life, vigilantly followed his every movement.
+
+Nevertheless, after a time, an idea did come to him--an idea that at
+first appeared wild and impossible, and yet seemed to offer the only
+prospect, however remote, of regaining his freedom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But before he could try out the scheme, matters on earth went from bad
+to worse.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Daily the unexplained thickening of the atmosphere was
+growing more noticeable. Daily the air was becoming heavier, more
+sluggish, more humid, and hotter. Thunder storms of greater violence
+than ever had become of daily occurrence in widely scattered sections
+of the earth. Droughts in some regions, and floods in others, had
+scarred the surface of the planet. Temperatures running well into the
+hundreds were now common in districts where eighty had been considered
+hot. Some sections, indeed, had become uninhabitable.
+
+By the first of August, the deaths ascribed to the heat in the great
+cities of the eastern United States had risen to a daily average of
+scores of thousands. Mass migrations were in progress from tropical and
+sub-tropical regions--by every obtainable device, by liner, freighter
+and tugboat, by private car, truck and airplane, the inhabitants of
+South and Central America were streaming toward the temperate and polar
+regions. In India, scores of millions were flocking into the Himalayas;
+in Africa, the population was perishing like ants, and no count of
+the mortality was even attempted; in the South Seas the customary
+trade winds did not blow, and the waters became too warm for bathing.
+For the first time in history the Antarctic Continent, its glaciers
+beginning to melt, offered promise of becoming habitable; while men of
+daring laid plans to establish winter homes in Labrador and Greenland.
+Meanwhile vast once-verdant sections of America, Asia and Europe had
+been seared to a leafless brown.--Ed.]
+
+To say that the world was frantic would be to understate. Who of us
+that lived through those cataclysmic days will ever forget how men
+walked the streets with white, harried faces, their beards untended,
+their clothes in soiled disarray? Who will ever forget the sense of
+being at a world's end? Who will not shudder again as he recalls the
+appeals made to scientists by government officials--the desperate
+appeals headlined in the papers and blared through the radio: "As you
+value your lives, find the cause of the disturbance! Find the cause of
+this monstrous distortion of nature! Give us a remedy! Give us a remedy
+soon, soon--or it will be too late!"
+
+But scientists labored hard and long--labored fifteen or eighteen hours
+a day, and found no remedy. Some, in fact, maintained that no remedy
+was possible. Who that is now of middle age cannot re-live the day when
+Dr. Arnold Woodrum, of the Cyclops Observatory, let it be known in an
+interview that he believed the Solar System to be passing through a
+region of space crossed by radio-active forces, which would gradually
+raise the temperature until all life was burned to a crisp? In the
+absence of any more definite knowledge, this view was widely accepted.
+And prayers and lamentations became universal.
+
+It is a never-to-be-forgiven crime that the one man who, in these
+circumstances, could have poured out valuable information, was a man
+who kept his lips tight-shut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a private laboratory improvised in his apartment, Philip Dunbar
+was hard at work. Motors buzzed about him; tubes and wires were woven
+intricately across the room; while dark hissing vapors and spouts
+of steam issued from numerous valves and retorts. Piled deep in one
+corner, were dozens of great torpedo-shaped steel tubes, some of them
+sealed, some of them ending in complicated coils of rubber tubing; and
+it was to these that the worker gave his chief attention.
+
+After several hours, Dunbar paused; sighed; mopped his sweaty brow;
+turned a switch that sent the motors groaning to a halt; and, after
+unlocking the door, stepped into an adjoining room.
+
+There he was confronted by a girl who, her hands joined behind her back
+and her teeth biting into her lower lip, had been pacing slowly back
+and forth.
+
+She cast him a scornful glance, and continued ranging the floor.
+
+"Listen, Eleanor!" he said. "You don't have to carry on like this.
+Don't act like a prisoner. Make yourself at home. In that case in the
+foyer, you'll find some mighty interesting books--"
+
+There was fury in her manner as she turned upon him. "Well, what am I
+but a prisoner? Do you want me to bow down and thank you for keeping me
+locked here these last seven days?"
+
+His tone was quiet, restrained, almost reproachful.
+
+"But what do you expect, Eleanor? Surely, you understand the
+circumstances--"
+
+Her blue eyes blazed. He had never before noticed how strong was the
+curve of her chin, how firm the set of her jaw. "Circumstances?" she
+derided. "All that I understand is that you drugged me--kidnapped
+me--brought me here forcibly, with the help of that hireling of yours,
+the taxi driver--"
+
+"I've heard all about that before," he broke in, still without losing
+control of himself. "I know I've behaved rudely, Eleanor. But, after
+all, why not give me credit for some things? Haven't I treated you
+decently here? Have I so much as touched you with one finger, even
+though all the while I've been burning with love?"
+
+She shuddered, and recoiled.
+
+"Why do you act as if I were dirt beneath your feet?" he rushed on.
+"Haven't I done everything to make you comfortable? Haven't I fed you
+properly? My God, Eleanor! don't you know I love you?"
+
+He had pressed toward her, his eyes hot and desirous, while she had
+backed into the remotest corner of the room.
+
+"And you expect _me_ to love a traitor?" she shot at him. "Am I to
+sit by and adore you for playing Quisling to the whole Earth?"
+
+"That isn't fair, Eleanor!" he protested. "Why, most girls would feel
+indebted to me for life for saving them. You will too, never fear!
+You're just a little hysterical now, that's the trouble. But come,
+come, a little kiss is what you need to soothe you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She saw the black-moustached face drawing closer. She saw the black
+eyes sparkling with predatory glee. She knew that in an instant the
+long twining fingers would be feeling their way about her. And she
+realized the futility, the folly of calling out for help. Nevertheless,
+a scream was upon her lips.
+
+Then, when already she could feel his breath, hot and fetid as that of
+some beast of prey, relief came from an unexpected quarter.
+
+A sharp sudden rattling and snapping sounded from the direction of the
+laboratory. And through the open door she could see how, miraculously,
+the laboratory window flew open as if in a violent gale, although not
+the slightest breeze was blowing.
+
+Dunbar, hearing the noise, wheeled about, and gasped.
+
+"By Christopher, how'd that happen?"
+
+Then solemnly, after a moment, he added, "Why, I could swear I locked
+that window this morning!"
+
+As if in answer, several thick steel rods on the laboratory table began
+to dance back and forth like dry leaves in the wind.
+
+"Holy Jerusalem!" he ejaculated, backing away. "Am I going crazy?"
+
+"No, nignig, you are no crazier than ever!" returned a rasping voice,
+seemingly from nowhere. "But we have been paying you a visit of
+inspection."
+
+The two hearers stood with wide-open mouths, speechless.
+
+"I am Quimboson, the servant of the Peerless Red One," went on the
+invisible. "I am perched outside your window now, on a web you cannot
+see. Finding the window closed, I pulled it open. One of my hands is in
+the room, shuffling these little objects on the table. I can reach in
+wherever I wish. Shall I prove it?"
+
+Feeling the sudden pressure of a clammy paw against his brow, Dunbar
+was quite convinced.
+
+Now all at once the tone of the invisible became harsher, more menacing.
+
+"Earthling," he growled, "I am much displeased! The tail of the
+Peerless Red One will lash out in wrath when he hears my report. For
+instead of attending to your duties, we find you in dalliance with the
+female of your species!"
+
+"But only for a moment!" pleaded Dunbar, in a cowed manner.
+
+"A moment too much! I always thought it was a mistake to spare the
+female. When I tell the Peerless Red One, he will order her to be stung
+to death! Stung to death instantly! So I shall recommend, O earthling,
+and the Peerless Red One always takes my advice on these minor matters!"
+
+Eleanor's gasp of horror was drowned out by Dunbar's appeal.
+
+"But you've got to spare her, O Quimboson! Otherwise, how can I do my
+best work? On my oath! I shall waste no more time with her--"
+
+"Your oath, O earthling, is as a sword of sand! But no more of this
+empty talk! I go now--I go!"
+
+There came a whirring and a screeching, sounding oddly like mocking
+laughter; then the laboratory window banged to a close, and all became
+silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was several minutes before Eleanor, her face white, turned to
+Dunbar. "For God's sake, don't you see--don't you see, you _must_
+let me go! They'll be back here--they'll be back soon, and strike me
+dead--"
+
+But Dunbar had returned to the laboratory, where he had switched on the
+motors.
+
+"If I do let you go, they'll strike _me_ dead!" he snapped back.
+"Lord! Haven't you gotten me into trouble enough already?"
+
+So speaking, he slammed the door with a violent jerk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eleanor, sinking into a chair, her head buried in her hands, was driven
+more sharply than ever against the same dreary problem that had baffled
+her during all these days of her captivity.
+
+How to escape?
+
+The single door to the apartment was locked and securely barred. The
+single accessible window gave upon a concrete court four stories
+beneath--and, lest she be tempted to leap out, her approach was impeded
+by a barbed wire barricade. Telephone connections had been cut--and
+there was no neighbor to whom she could call through the sound-proof
+walls. No! she was utterly balked!
+
+Still, what matter that she might die a little ahead of the mass of
+mankind? After all, that was of no importance--but what might be vital
+was her chance to warn others of Dunbar's crime against humanity, if
+only she could escape! True, she had already tried to give warning, and
+had merely been laughed at; yet she had lately conceived a new idea,
+which might offer a dim hope if once she were free.
+
+Half swooning with the heat, she heard through the laboratory door the
+whirring of motors; and her head ached dully, and she burst into tears,
+for the dead have as much chance of rising as she had of beating down
+the monstrous forces ranged against her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The Revolt of Yellow-Claws
+
+
+Hour after hour Gates had been watching his captors. Hour after hour
+he had been scheming, observing, hoping. With the heightened mental
+quickness of his paralyzed state, he was searching for a weak spot in
+the armor of the foe. "Surely," he reflected, "there must be some flaw
+that makes them vulnerable." And it was this thought that put him on
+the track of the wild idea that appeared to offer his only prospect of
+freedom.
+
+By carefully following everything the invaders said and did, he was
+able to grasp the meaning of many words and phrases in their language.
+Even with his remarkable new rapidity of apprehension, he learned no
+more than a four-year-old might learn of English--yet this little went
+far, particularly as the enemy did not suspect that any mere earthling
+could be so intelligent.
+
+But it was his eyes and not his ears that enabled him to fathom the
+secret of the Saturnians' greatest power: their ability to make
+themselves invisible. Whenever one of the monsters wished to vanish
+from sight, he merely dusted himself with a pale-blue powder from a
+purple-veined container. Evidently the powder--acting somewhat like a
+catalyzing agent--had the effect of causing the rays of light to pass
+completely through any object, thereby rendering it invisible. But did
+it make things invisible also to Saturnian eyes? The answer was in
+the affirmative: a Saturnian dusted with Amvol-Amvol could not be seen
+by any of his fellows, nor could the webs and cables, when concealed
+beneath this substance, be observed by their makers.
+
+This was, however, of little importance to Red-Hood and his followers;
+for they relied upon sight much less than did human beings. They were
+guided largely by what they called the Communication Sense: certain
+vibrations in the air, set up by their tails, were recorded by a
+bulging organ just under the left ear of each of the creatures; and
+thus they were able to learn of their whereabouts and doings of their
+kindred even when they could not be seen.
+
+So, at least, Gates concluded after long and careful observation. And
+his scheme for escape was built upon this knowledge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But for a long while the plan did not take definite shape. And
+meanwhile he came to realize more keenly than ever how dangerous it
+would be to provoke his masters needlessly.
+
+For they had surpassingly quick and violent tempers; their rage was,
+literally, like a tornado. Many a time Gates, lying helpless in
+paralysis on a web in the Planetoid, was the terrified witness to one
+of their disputes. He was seldom able to decide just what the quarrel
+was about, the first that he ever knew of it was when a blast like a
+siren ripped at his eardrums. Then other siren blasts would follow;
+then spouts of smoke would leap through the air, and the acridness
+of sulphur would torment his nostrils; then, if he were in a favored
+position, he would see the adversaries facing one another, their tails
+lashing the atmosphere in long loops and spirals, their octopus arms
+threshing and writhing, while the screeching and bellowing would rise
+to a crescendo as of battling fiends, and the eyes of the competitors
+would blaze with fiery red flashes.
+
+There was one fight, in particular, which Gates would never forget.
+As usual, he had at first no idea of the cause; but the tumult this
+time was more diabolical than ever before. Paralyzed, he hung on a web
+several hundred feet above the floor of the Planetoid, in a grandstand
+position to view the affray. Among the lower meshes and cables,
+directly beneath him, Red-Hood stood amid steamy clouds of gas. And
+opposite him was an almost equally huge Saturnian, whose distinguishing
+features, as Gates saw it, was the clay-yellow coloration of his long
+tentacle-like claws.
+
+For a tense minute the two creatures stood opposite one another, like
+bulls ready to charge. Then out shot Red-Hood's tail, striking with a
+crash against the rainbowed armor of the foe. And Yellow-Claws' breast
+was streaked with a golden-yellow spurt of blood; and crimson fires
+shot from his lips in curling tongues. Wrathfully his own tail lashed
+out, but missed his antagonist, who had leapt back with hair-trigger
+agility; while from Red-Hood's throat came such a howl that the very
+web trembled.
+
+Gates was aware that a score of Saturnians stood watching intently
+below, at a safe distance, like spectators about a prize ring. He
+heard them whirring with excitement as the two opponents fended for
+positions. Then, to his astonishment, he saw Red-Hood springing
+forward, his octopus arms outspread, like some monster of a nightmare.
+Yellow-Claws was ready for the onslaught; and for a moment the two
+furies clashed, wrestling with hurricane vehemence ... so that they
+seemed little more than a gigantic whirl of squirming, rotating,
+threshing arms, legs and tails.
+
+But soon, with an unearthly cry, one of the creatures detached
+himself, and with cyclonic speed darted up the web. So swiftly did
+he travel that at first Gates was unable to determine that it was
+Yellow-Claws that fled, while Red-Hood pursued close behind. Up and
+down and sideways along the web, with all manner of athletic twists
+and wrigglings, the embattled pair rushed, now scores of feet above
+the observer, now hundreds of feet beneath. Once Yellow-Claws lost his
+grip and fell, but, with gymnastic swiftness, clutched at a dangling
+cable, and saved himself barely in time. Once, slashed in the neck by
+Red-Hood's tail, he let out such a roar that Gates thought he had been
+slain. Once it was Red-Hood who, torn by his opponent's tail, yelled
+in agony. Several times the rivals were screened from one another amid
+smoke clouds.
+
+Yet it was but a few minutes before the fight was over. Yellow-Claws,
+one of his arms almost half severed, waved his tail high in air, and
+uttered a shrill, "Wikyi! Wikyi! Wikyi!" ("I give up! I give up!")
+And Red-Hood, with a contemptuous snort, lashed out at him for a
+final time; and then, acknowledging the conclusion of peace, screamed
+triumphantly, and majestically stalked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But for hours the defeated giant sat on a web just below Gates,
+tending his wounds. His armor had lost its iridescence; thick smears
+of golden-orange covered its gashed surface. Yet Yellow-Claws'
+three-cornered eyes blazed with unsubdued anger; and his greenish-gray
+lips were twisted into grimaces of hate. Vengefully he muttered to
+himself, ignoring the presence of an earthling in the web above;
+vengefully he muttered three words, "Zugavl! Zugavl! Zug!"
+
+Gates did not need to know the meaning of these expressions; from the
+manner in which they were uttered, he was sure that they boded no good
+for the Peerless Red One.
+
+At about the same time, he made another important observation. Fighting
+was not the only bad habit of the Saturnians; they were subject to
+a far worse vice: that of inhaling Kishkash. This word, which was
+constantly on the monsters' lips, referred to the fumes from the
+burning of a certain dried leaf from Saturn. Nothing like it had ever
+been known on earth; a single whiff was enough to give Gates nausea; it
+had the foulest odor that had ever attacked his nostrils, being like
+the concentrated stench of putrefaction.
+
+Yet to the Saturnians it was ambrosia. They never tired of sitting over
+little pots of the glowing substance, greedily drawing the smoke into
+their lungs, amid sighs and grunts of satisfaction. And the effect upon
+them was, to say the least, peculiar: after a time, they would fall
+into a stupor, and would lie on their backs on the floor, kicking their
+legs and lashing out with their arms and tails, evidently unable to
+control their own movements. Some of them, in fact, spent half their
+time in this state of delicious drunkenness.
+
+It was from this fact that Gates hoped to profit. Eagerly he
+watched for his opportunity; and one day, when he was fortunately
+in a de-paralyzed state, the chance arrived. It had been a time of
+celebration, in commemoration of a Saturnian holiday, honoring the
+great hero Dupepu, who, it seems, had wiped out seventeen nations; and
+Kishkash, which was considered indispensable on all festal occasions,
+had been burned with exceptional lavishness. As a result, every visible
+Saturnian lay on the floor of the Planetoid, kicking up his heels,
+while whirring and mumbling the delicious nonsense of intoxication.
+
+Here, Gates instantly realized, was a heaven-sent opportunity. Left
+unguarded for the first time, he crawled down from the swinging
+platform where he had been placed for safekeeping; and, risking his
+life on a long rope-ladder, made his way to a portion of the web
+featured by several round dangling purple pouches. In these bags,
+he had observed, the natives kept their Amvol-Amvol, the powder of
+invisibility. Once he had obtained this, his scheme would be already
+half consummated!
+
+And what was to keep him from the Amvol-Amvol? Could he believe his
+senses?--believe that the precious substance was unwatched, and free
+for the taking? Yes! This seemed actually to be the case! Barring the
+remote possibility that one of the Saturnians would revive in time to
+interfere, there was nothing between him and his goal!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So down and down he climbed, along the interwoven meshes of swaying,
+shimmering cables; down like a seaman descending the riggings of a
+vessel. At length he had reached the pouches. The nearest of them, as
+large as a watermelon, was within arm's grasp. The top, moreover, was
+wide open! And, inside, he could see the sky-blue powder that for days
+he had dreamt of obtaining!
+
+Yet for just a second he hesitated. He could not guess what it was
+that chilled his hand; that restrained for a moment his desire for
+the magical substance. Was it some voice of hidden warning? He could
+not say. He only knew that he laughed silently at himself; then, with
+reviving eagerness, shot his hand into the pale-blue dust.
+
+The substance was downy soft to the touch, yet was cold as stone, and
+caused a tingling, faintly stinging sensation to creep along his skin.
+Hungrily his fingers closed over it; then, with a good handful in their
+clutch, began to withdraw.
+
+But, as they did so, Gates was startled by a sudden grating noise,
+followed by a sharp click. And a violent pain shot through his wrist.
+Teeth of steel dug into his flesh; and, in horrible realization, he
+knew that he was caught!
+
+[Illustration: The sharp jaws of the thing closed on Gates' hand.]
+
+Yes, caught like a wild beast snared in a wolf-trap! It is hard to say
+whether, in that first stunned instant, his pain or his alarm was the
+greater. Yet his mind at once took in the full dread import. The pouch
+was but a ruse; it was equipped with hidden jaws, which would close at
+the faintest touch, seizing the unwary intruder. Oh, why had he not had
+the brains to beware?
+
+From the first, he saw that escape would be impossible. Those cruel
+jaws were so made that the more he struggled, the more tightly his
+arm would be wedged between them, and the more intense his agony--if
+he were not careful, his other wrist would be caught too! Knowing
+that he would be fettered here until his masters revived from their
+intoxication; and knowing also the terrible tempers of the tribe, he
+concluded that he would be better off dead.
+
+It was as this thought bored at his brain that he heard a sound to his
+left. Low, stealthy, secretive, it yet had a vaguely familiar whirr.
+"Earthling, listen to me!"
+
+His heart gave a convulsive leap. He felt that his last moment had
+come. So he had not been alone after all, had not been unguarded!
+One of his captors, garbed in invisibility, had been watching him,
+following his every movement, gloating in his helplessness as a cat
+gloats in the sufferings of a mouse!
+
+"Earthling, listen to me!"
+
+The words had been repeated, in the same stealthy manner.
+
+"For God's sake, who are you?" the prisoner found courage to gasp.
+
+"Soon I shall say. First, let me free you from your misery."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came a snapping sound; the steel jaws clattered apart; and Gates,
+to his astonishment, withdrew a bruised and bleeding wrist.
+
+"The lower animals should not meddle with tools they do not
+understand!" mumbled the unseen. "By my home-world's outer ring! you
+did not pull down the safety clasp before sticking in your hand!"
+
+"But who--who in blazes are you?" repeated the captive, becoming
+bolder, although he could not believe that he had been freed for any
+good purpose.
+
+"Who am I?" The speaker paused long enough for a burst of low whirring
+laughter. "I am Misthrumb, though that means nothing to you. I am he
+who fought yesterday with the Peerless Red One, and was driven off, may
+the curse of the Nine Planets fall on his foul bosom!"
+
+"Oh--you mean, Yellow-Claws?"
+
+"Yellow-Claws? Well, you may call me that, for my hands are of the
+soil yellow of royalty! My blood too is yellow, golden-yellow! I am as
+high-born as the Peerless Red One. Was I not designated by the Grand
+Potentate, the Barbelcoppi, to share the leadership of this expedition?
+And has the Peerless One not denied me at every turn?--yes, may the
+demons of every vile disease prey on his liver!"
+
+Not knowing what to reply, Gates said nothing. But hope, dead only a
+minute before, had revived within him.
+
+"As if he had not already injured me enough," went on the invisible,
+"he ordered me to keep away from the great festival of Dupepu, whereat
+all my brothers make merry. Forbidden me to enjoy the delectable,
+sacred fumes of Kishkash! For that he shall suffer!"
+
+Yellow-Claws' tones, rasping and angry, indicated that the feud between
+the giants was far deeper than Gates has suspected. "And when I saw you
+creeping toward the Amvol-Amvol, O nignig, I knew that you would be the
+tool of my vengeance!"
+
+"Me?" groaned the victim. Had he escaped the frying pan only to be
+plunged into the fire?
+
+"Have no fear, earthling! My purpose matches your own. To be sure,
+there are perils--appalling perils! Not to master them is to die a
+horrible death. But to prevail is to escape from the Peerless Red
+One--and to repay him in full measure for his crimes against us both.
+Are you ready to take the risk, O earthling?"
+
+"I am ready!"
+
+"By the stars! That is more than I would have expected of one of
+your species! Then let us begin! We have but a little time before my
+brothers recover from the Kishkash."
+
+Gates could not see the creature's yellow claws as they entered the
+pouch and drew out a pale-blue powder. But he felt something soft,
+cool and tingling being sprinkled over his hands, his face, up his
+sleeves, and down his neck. And he had one of the strangest sensations
+of his life; for his body, even as he gazed at it, faded into a haze,
+and vanished. He could look through himself! could see the meshwork of
+shimmering cables as if there were nothing between!
+
+"Come!" whispered his protector. "There is no time to lose!" And then
+angrily, beneath his breath, "Zugavl! Zugavl! Zug!"
+
+Upheld and guided by Yellow-Claws--since his arms and legs, now that he
+could not see them, seemed oddly unreliable--Gates started once more
+down the web, above the spot where the intoxicated monsters, like
+huge over-turned beetles, lay on their backs with furiously wriggling
+tentacles, legs and tails.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Through the Barred Door
+
+
+If only she could get word to some one outside! If only some one could
+learn of her plight, she might be saved--might save the world! Such was
+the thought that kept pounding at Eleanor's brain as she sat stooped in
+her prison room, her head buried in her hands, while through the closed
+door came the buzzing and droning of motors.
+
+Then by degrees an idea thrust itself upon her. As she moped alone in
+her dismal monotony, she had heard every evening the shuffling of some
+one ascending the steps just beyond the barred apartment door. The
+sound always came at the same time--at five minutes before six--and
+she could recognize the peculiar dreary noise as it approached. Might
+not the passer-by, whoever he was, become her deliverer? At first she
+thought of calling out to him; but realized that, even if he took heed,
+this would merely be to warn Dunbar, who would find ways to balk her
+plan.
+
+No! she must communicate without being heard. But how? As if
+anticipating this very possibility, Dunbar had denied her all writing
+materials. She considered, indeed, the ancient device of a message
+written in her own blood, which she might scrawl on a fly-leaf torn
+from a book; but she feared that some chance blood-stain would furnish
+her captor with a fatal clue.
+
+The thought of the books, however, gave her another idea. Leaping up
+with sudden alacrity, she went to the case Dunbar had mentioned, and
+eagerly selected a volume.
+
+Passing through the room half an hour later, her oppressor paused with
+a grim smile to see her bent above "The Greycourt Murder Mystery."
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, as he leaned over her shoulder for a glance at the
+title. "Didn't know you went in for that sort of stuff. Good idea,
+though. Takes your mind off your troubles. Literature of escape, they
+call it."
+
+He did not notice the ironic glint in her eyes, nor the faint quivering
+of her voice as she replied,
+
+"Yes, that's it--literature of escape."
+
+Had his mind not been preoccupied, he would have seen how her hands
+fluttered, and how tremulously she averted his gaze.
+
+"Oh, by the way, might just as well tell you," he confided. "I've been
+making fine progress. In another five days, if all goes well, I'll be
+able to set you free."
+
+"Free?" she gasped, unbelievingly.
+
+"Yes, I'll be done with my job by then--have all the compressed air
+tanks ready, in just another five days."
+
+She started up as if she had been struck, allowing the book to slip to
+the floor unnoticed.
+
+"Five days?" she repeated, blankly, realizing how little time remained
+for her to work in. "Five days!"
+
+"God! but I'm getting fed up, slaving in this damnable heat!" he
+muttered; and then, passing out of the room, threw out at her, with a
+burst of sardonic laughter,
+
+"Now, my girl, better get back to your--your literature of escape!"
+
+Stunned, she reached for the book. Yet it was with fresh alertness,
+with a swift new eagerness, that she began racing through the pages.
+Only a few minutes later, she came to a passage that made her sit up
+with a start. Then hastily she reached for the little blue handbag she
+had carried at the time of her capture by Dunbar; and drew out a pair
+of nail scissors. Her eyes had a furtive look as she stared toward the
+doorway where Dunbar had disappeared; but her fingers worked swiftly
+and nimbly as they clipped away at the printed page.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Several hours later, Emanuel Knapp, a civil service employee, was
+on his way home to his top-floor apartment. As usual, he puffed and
+wheezed as he climbed the weary five flights in the old-fashioned
+"walk-up" building; and, as usual for many weeks past, he sweated in
+the deadly heat. Arriving at the fourth floor, he paused to regain his
+breath; and, as he did so, he became conscious of a low rustling, and
+saw a thin bit of paper being ejected beneath the door of Apartment "4
+E."
+
+"Well now, isn't that funny," he thought; and, though not naturally a
+curious man, reached automatically for the paper.
+
+As he opened it, he saw to his surprise that it was part of the title
+page of a book, and his eyes fell upon the conspicuous printed word,
+MURDER.
+
+"What the heck! Am I going crazy with the heat?" he mumbled to himself;
+and noticing several smaller specks of paper fluttering loose from the
+larger one, he reached down for them also.
+
+"For heaven's sake, rescue me!" he read on the first of the slips,
+which was printed in large book type; while another slip bore, in the
+same type, an even more startling notation, "I'm caught in the toils of
+the slimiest devil God ever put on earth!"
+
+Now Emanuel Knapp was not a man naturally quick of apprehension. Hence
+he was not certain that anything was really seriously amiss. "Most
+likely there's some crazy loon inside--or else it's just a practical
+joke," he reflected, as he scowled at the door of 4 E.
+
+Having thus solved the mystery, he wiped his streaming red brow, and
+bleakly started up the final flights of stairs.
+
+But, as he did so, he spied a third printed slip at the base of the
+steps. And wearily he reached down for it.
+
+"Lord help us, sir, don't hesitate a minute!" he read. "Not one minute,
+or it will be too late!"
+
+"By gum," he meditated, "wonder if there mightn't be something in it
+after all. Maybe I ought to notify the police. No harm, anyway, in
+letting 'em know."
+
+But the thought of retreating down those four long flights of stairs
+was far from inviting. However, his interest being aroused, he pressed
+one ear against the door of 4 E. And, from within, he heard a low
+droning sound.
+
+"By glory," he concluded, starting down the stairs, "maybe it's a
+counterfeiting gang!"
+
+Fifteen minutes later, two officers of the law had marched in Knapp's
+company to the door of 4 E. And after prolonged rapping and violent
+bell-ringing, the door had opened, to reveal a man in a chemist's
+stained white robe, who greeted them blandly, and professed great
+surprise at their call.
+
+"Looks like you've got the wrong apartment, Officers," he protested,
+suavely, when shown the clippings picked up by Knapp. "I've been busy
+all day with some experiments in the laboratory. There's no one else in
+the place."
+
+"Well, damn it, the story did look phoney to me!" admitted Officer
+O'Madden, glaring reproachfully at Knapp. "What the hell! a regular
+cock-and-bull yarn! If the Chief hadn't ordered us to come--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Officer Frye was of a different turn of mind. "Perfectly sure
+you're the only person here, Mister?" he demanded of Dunbar.
+
+"Hasn't been another soul around for weeks."
+
+"Sure of that?"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"Then what is that blue handbag doing over there on the settee?"
+
+Dunbar could not quite control a startled gasp. His eyes flashed, and
+his lips twitched oddly. But he did not reply.
+
+"Mind if I look at it?"
+
+Dunbar, imposing himself in the way, started to protest. But the
+officer had already shoved himself into the room. In an instant he had
+snatched up the handbag and slipped open the clasp. And from within he
+had taken a small printed card, and read, "Miss Eleanor Firth."
+
+"Firth? Eleanor Firth?" gasped O'Madden. "By crimps! ain't that the
+girl what disappeared the other day? Why, her folks set up a hell of a
+row--I was in the station when they popped in. Foul play, they called
+it."
+
+A long weighted silence followed. Dunbar glanced furtively toward the
+door, as if looking for some easy way of escape. His eyes blazed with
+the fury of the trapped animal.
+
+"Well, maybe it's just what you call a coincidence," drawled Officer
+Frye. "Anyway, guess we'd better take a look around."
+
+Despite Dunbar's protestations, the officers proceeded to ransack the
+room--though without results. And while they were peering under tables,
+behind sofas and into closets, Knapp stood with his nose pressed
+suspiciously against a locked door.
+
+"Say, Officer, there's a funny smell coming from over here," he
+reported.
+
+"The whole place smells funny, if you ask me!" mumbled Frye. And then,
+turning to Dunbar, "Guess you'd better let us peep in there, Brother!"
+
+The chemist stood with his back firmly pressed against the door. "I'll
+be damned if you will! That's my private laboratory. I'm in the midst
+of an experiment, which will be ruined if I let any light in!"
+
+"To hell with your experiment! Stand aside, Brother!"
+
+But not until two pairs of strong arms had flung him away did Dunbar
+forsake the door. And not until two strong pairs of shoulders had
+pressed themselves against the partition did the lock show signs of
+yielding. It was just when it began to crack that Dunbar made his dash
+toward the front entrance--to be thwarted by the lucky chance that
+Knapp blocked his way, giving Frye time to lay hands upon him, while
+O'Madden finished the little business of breaking down the door.
+
+As the barrier gave way, an unpleasant odor, a little like ether,
+penetrated to the men's nostrils.
+
+"Jumping crickets!" cried O'Madden. "What in tarnation is this!"
+
+Stretched full-length on the floor in the electric light, with
+pale bloodless face and inert, apparently unbreathing form, was a
+dishevelled young woman, her unbared left arm displaying a long bloody
+streak.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the first amazed instant of the discovery, Officer Frye almost lost
+his grip on Dunbar.
+
+"The saints preserve us! Is she dead?" he gasped.
+
+"Looks like it," concluded O'Madden. "First let's attend to this devil,
+then we'll investigate."
+
+Out rattled a pair of handcuffs, which clapped themselves about
+Dunbar's wrists.
+
+Bending down to the girl, Frye felt her forehead. "Why, she's still
+warm," he discovered. "Couldn't be dead very long."
+
+"You blinking idiots!" raged the captive, struggling in O'Madden's
+bear-like grip. "What makes you think she's dead? Why, she'll recover
+soon enough. If you'll give me a chance, I'll bring her back right now.
+We were just performing a little experiment--"
+
+"Experiment! Like hell!"
+
+It was only then that Frye observed the hypodermic needle on the floor
+a few feet from the unconscious girl.
+
+"Guess you can tell them all about that down at the station house," he
+observed, caustically. "Meanwhile we'd better bring the lady down to
+the doc's office on the first floor. You just keep your grip on that
+thug, O'Madden!"
+
+Six-foot giant that he was, Frye had gathered the girl into his arms as
+easily as if she had been a sofa pillow.
+
+"By God, if you don't let me go," threatened Dunbar, his black eyes
+glittering like a crowd of devils dancing, "I swear you'll rue the day!"
+
+Frye's answer was a hoarse burst of laughter.
+
+But cutting through his laughter with the sharpness of an earthquake,
+there came a rattling and banging at the laboratory window. And while
+the two officers and Knapp stood as if transfixed, the window shade
+flew up and the window burst open, though there was nothing visible to
+account for the commotion, O'Madden afterwards asserted that a cold
+breeze blew by him, though the thermometer stood around 100; and Frye,
+whose courage no one had ever doubted, did not deny that the hair on
+his head prickled and a chill swept down his spine.
+
+"If only it'd been something I could of seen, no matter what, I'd of
+stood up against it," he recited, as he told of the event between gulps
+of whisky. "What the devil! A man can only die once! But this thing
+that you couldn't see or put hands on--Christ, I'd rather fight a herd
+of stampeding elephants!"
+
+The fact was, as both officers testified, that the very walls of the
+room shook, as if rocked by some mighty force. Dunbar's handcuffs,
+though O'Madden swore that he had clasped them on firmly, fell to the
+floor as though they had been mere bands of paper. An eerie whirring
+voice, proceeding as if from nowhere, gave warning, "Harm him not,
+earthlings, or beware the consequences!" And, at the same time, Dunbar
+was jerked out of the astonished officer's grip!
+
+Yes, jerked away completely, like a toy torn from a child's hands! From
+the expression on his face, it was evident that he was as bewildered as
+anyone as he went gliding toward the window and out--out into the open
+air, where he disappeared in the fog! While, even as he vanished, the
+window shade snapped down and the window slammed shut.
+
+"By glory, the place is haunted!" mumbled O'Madden, crossing himself.
+And as the three men, with the unconscious girl, emerged from the outer
+door of 4 E, their faces streamed with a sweat that did not come from
+the heat alone; and they knew that there was no force on earth powerful
+enough to induce them to set foot across that threshold again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A Plunge in the Dark
+
+
+Beneath the great translucent milky-white envelope of the Planetoid,
+Gates stood in an egg-shaped jelly-like car about thirty feet tall. He
+was still invisible, even to himself; and could not see the gigantic
+companion who shared with him his curious vehicle. But through the
+gelatinous walls he could view the vast cloud-covered expanse of the
+earth as it rolled by far beneath.
+
+"Now we must wait, nignig," his unseen companion was saying, "until we
+whirl around on our orbit to your own part of the globe. Fortunately,
+it is but a minute planet, and the journey will take scarcely another
+hour. The instruments will tell us when we arrive. But by my tail! may
+my brothers not revive before then!"
+
+"What will we do, when we get to earth?" inquired Gates.
+
+"Do?" hissed Yellow-Claws. "What do you expect? Why, get vengeance, as
+I have told you, earthling!"
+
+"But how get vengeance?"
+
+"You shall see! May the blue lightnings blast me, if you do not see!
+I shall discredit the leadership of the Peerless Red One! I shall
+frustrate his schemes! I shall invalidate him, as we say on Saturn!
+Then he will go back home in disgrace, like the scum of the abyss
+that he is! He will commit Guhl-Guhli--which is to say, he will sting
+himself to death, and I will come into my own! Then, nignig, I will
+return and conquer this world as it should be conquered!"
+
+Gates groaned. He began to see that at heart Yellow-Claws was no
+better than Red-Hood; all he would give the earth would be a momentary
+reprieve.
+
+Yet was not even a momentary reprieve better than nothing?
+
+So at any rate, Gates asked himself a little later in a spasm of alarm.
+Not quite an hour had gone by; and Yellow-Claws was just preparing to
+cut the egg-shaped car adrift. But suddenly, through the jelly-like
+shell of the Planetoid, huge spidery shapes were seen in shadowy
+movement. And Yellow-Claws whirred with excitement, "Quick, earthling,
+quick! or they'll be upon us!"
+
+There came a ripping sound, though no cutting instrument was visible;
+and the car began to plummet earthward.
+
+But at the same time, through apertures in the walls of the Planetoid,
+a score of octopus-limbed creatures began to glide, their angry eyes
+glaring, like triangular rubies, their arms waving fantastically.
+Around the Planetoid and beneath it they darted, then, gradually
+becoming dimmer of outline, disappeared from sight.
+
+But Gates was not to be deceived. He knew that they had but garbed
+themselves in invisibility. He knew that the vibrations given off by
+Yellow-Claws' body would guide them, although their foe could not be
+seen. And he was appallingly aware that the whole pack of them were in
+pursuit of his protector.
+
+"By our planet's ten moons! they must not catch us!" rattled out
+Yellow-Claws. "If we are captured, we will suffer the penalty of
+deserters. We will be slain--yes, slain by the method of Multiple
+Agony, which torments every nerve of the body for many days before
+death brings relief."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down, down, down they dashed. They rushed through the stratosphere, and
+the earth seemed to leap forward to meet them. But reaching the heavier
+layers of the atmosphere, they were checked by the resistance of the
+air--and were checked even more by the tangle of invisible Saturnian
+webs.
+
+Almost at the same time, they were lost in a fog. Whether the earth
+were near or far they could not say; they bobbed around like a ship on
+a stormy sea. "Cursed be all the demons of outer space! Something's
+wrong with the direction gauge!" muttered Yellow-Claws.
+
+Even as he spoke, there came a roar from somewhere near at hand. And a
+dull-red smoke-puff burst through the fog overhead.
+
+"Fiery imps of Jupiter!" growled Yellow-Claws. "They've got the range!"
+
+It was an extraordinary battle that followed. Both sides were
+invisible; both aimed frightening flashes in the other's direction.
+Grimly Gates reflected that earth-folk, watching the demonstration
+from below, would think an unusually severe thunder storm in progress.
+For, in truth, there were all the symptoms of a thunder storm. The sky
+rumbled with detonations as of gigantic artillery; red lightnings and
+blue and purple shot through the hazes in zigzag streaks; rain began to
+fall in howling torrents. How it was that they escaped destruction in
+that first moment of the encounter was more than Gates could explain;
+for he saw crimson bars and blue balls of fire playing along the outer
+surface of the jelly-like envelope.
+
+Manifestly, the car was made of a strongly non-conducting substance;
+but, even so, he expected the whole fragile affair to collapse
+instantly.
+
+But the speed of their descent, it soon appeared, was greater than they
+had imagined; in less than five minutes, they grew conscious of vague
+outlines just beneath. At almost the same moment, there came a violent
+threshing and bumping, and Gates, stunned and bruised, was aware of
+vague projections, which he recognized as the limbs of trees.
+
+At the same time, he was startled by a loud popping, as of a suddenly
+deflated balloon.
+
+"By the Eleventh Asteroid!" rasped Yellow-Claws. "We're being torn to
+shreds!"
+
+Surely enough, the branches of the tree had slashed through the
+gelatinous envelope, which was hanging from the foliage in wispy,
+thinly palpitating bands and tatters. Their car--or, rather, all that
+was left of it--had lodged in the upper limbs of a huge oak, forty feet
+above ground!
+
+Not that this distance meant anything, so far as Yellow-Claws was
+concerned. But his protective envelope had been destroyed; and though a
+red spout of smoke vomited from between his gray-green lips and lunged
+toward his foe in forked lightnings, he knew that the battle was lost.
+
+"Stay where you are, earthling!" he muttered. "They must not find you!
+By my fifth arm! They will pay dearly for my life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before these words had died in his ears, Gates knew that Yellow-Claws
+had sprung down from the tree. The lightnings had become a little more
+remote, though hardly less terrible. Then a scream shrilled from the
+distance, and Gates rejoiced to know that one of the enemy had been
+struck. But almost immediately, closer at hand, there rose an unearthly
+shriek, followed by a groan as of some being in utmost anguish.
+
+"Thur-glut-nu! Thur-glut-nu!" came terribly, in the Saturnian tongue.
+And then less fiercely, to Gates,
+
+"May all the devils of the space-ways curse them! They've hit me! Hit
+me, earthling, in the middle nerve center!"--by which he referred to
+a spot beneath the left shoulder, which, Gates had learned, was a
+Saturnian's one really vulnerable point.
+
+Yellow-Claws' next words were rasping and horrible beyond description.
+
+"Flee, nignig, flee! I invoke on them the curses of a thousand dead
+generations! the venom of all black planets! I--I--by my father's
+claws, I shall never see Saturn again!"
+
+The cry trailed off into a confusion of words in the sufferer's native
+tongue. There came another moan; then a series of terrifying snorts,
+snarls and bellowings, as of a wolf-pack closing in on its prey. And
+red and green lightnings flashed, and blue fireballs played among the
+treetops ... while a pandemonium of thunder drowned out that fiendish
+chorus.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: On Earth, fireballs can travel along a wire fence, but
+are grounded instantly they come to a wooden post, provided they are
+in direct contact. However, these unearthly fireballs seem to have a
+negative quality.--Ed.]
+
+Quivering, Gates clung to his perch high in the oak-tree. At any
+moment, he expected to be snatched up by an invisible arm. Yet time
+went by, the lightnings and thunders faded out, and at last he began to
+breathe more easily. He heard the threshing as of mighty forms moving
+past him. They brushed by the tree; they whisked through the woods to
+right and to left. But thanks to his invisibility; thanks also to the
+fact that, unlike Yellow-Claws, he set up no etheric vibration that his
+enemies could detect, he remained unmolested.
+
+It seemed a long while before at last all became quiet. Then, as the
+immediate danger passed, the rescued man began to take stock of his
+position.
+
+"By god," he reflected, with a wry grimace, "I'd better not start
+crowing just yet!" For had he escaped only in order to face a
+lingering, more cruel doom? Lost in some unknown corner of the woods,
+perhaps many miles from home; invisible, and without food, money, or
+other means of making his way, he was, to say the least, in a desperate
+pass. Would he be able, despite all handicaps, to make his way to
+civilization before Dunbar could carry out his Mephistophelean plots?
+
+His teeth bit into his lower lip with a grimness of determination as,
+in the misty twilight, he felt his way down from the tree and began
+searching for an outlet from the wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Electronic Space Ray
+
+
+The story of Officers Frye and O'Madden was greeted at the station
+with incredulous smiles. Evidently these two doughty old members
+of the force had been drinking too heavily; or else, like so many
+thousands, had gone crazy with the heat. Nevertheless, thanks to
+their allegations, two of their brother officers were dispatched to
+investigate Philip Dunbar's apartment.
+
+An hour later, they returned. Their uniforms were rumpled; their hair
+lay loose and dishevelled across their sweaty red brows; their eyes
+popped from their heads, and their hands shook and twitched with
+nervous palpitations. Their experience was thus reported to Captain
+Donnelley by Officer Halloran:
+
+"We went up to that hell's nest, and worse luck to us! Got in without
+any trouble, didn't we, Jensen? Somebody pulled the door open, and said
+in the doggonest funniest voice you ever heard, 'Come in, earthlings,
+we want some sport!' We knew then there was bats in somebody's belfry,
+but went in anyway, and would you b'lieve it, there wasn't nobody near
+the door. We walked further inside, and saw a guy working over a lot of
+tubes and bottles; he said his name was Dunbar all right, and yelled
+at us, 'I warn you, get out, before it is too late!' ... 'We've got
+a warrant for your arrest,' says I, 'so you'd better come nice and
+quiet.' At that he just laughed, didn't he, Jensen?"
+
+"You'd of thought it was something funny, being arrested, by jiminy!"
+affirmed Officer Jensen.
+
+"Well, nobody wouldn't ever believe it, but before I could get to the
+guy, the handcuffs was knocked right outer my hands," went on Halloran.
+"Not by that fellow Dunbar, neither, curse him! He was over on the
+other side of the room. Somebody hit me right through the air, with
+something I couldn't see. May I be boiled in tar if I lie!"
+
+"You sure oughter be boiled in tar, if you expect me to believe that
+tommy-rot!" growled the Captain.
+
+"Well, b'lieve it or not, that ain't nothing to what happened to me,"
+Jensen took up the story. "I felt something grabbing me by the hair.
+Yes, so help me God! I reached up my hand, and felt something cold and
+hard, like a lobster's claw. But you still couldn't see a damned thing!"
+
+"Ought of heard what a yell Jensen let out," Halloran continued. "Sure
+was fit to wake the dead!"
+
+"Oh, gwan!" countered Jensen. "'Twasn't nothing to the way you hollered
+when you was pitched plumb across the room!"
+
+"Well, who wouldn't holler if they was batted hard against the wall by
+some invisible devil? I ain't boasting when I say I'm a tough nut to
+crack, but when that thing, whatever it was, began tweaking my ears and
+nose and saying, 'This is the way we'll twist your necks, earthlings,
+if the likes of you ever come back here'--well then, what in thunder do
+you think I'd do? Stay to get my neck twisted?"
+
+The Captain meanwhile was smiling cynically.
+
+"You boys sure must think I like fish stories!" he remarked.
+
+It may not be that any one took Jensen and Halloran quite seriously.
+Yet was it not hard to believe that four trusty old members of the
+force had all gone crazy? The fact is, in any case, that when the
+Captain considered sending two more men to the mysterious apartment, he
+could find no one who did not threaten to resign from the force sooner
+than accept the assignment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eleanor meanwhile, as Dunbar had predicted, had regained consciousness.
+Yet she could give only a confused account of what had happened. "When
+the bell began ringing so furiously," she testified, "I thought I
+heard Dunbar stealing behind me, but paid no attention till suddenly I
+felt a sharp jab in one arm. By then it was too late even to cry out.
+Everything went black around me before I'd even had time to realize
+he'd stabbed me again with the hypodermic."
+
+Thanks to her entreaties and the testimony of the officers, she was
+granted a bodyguard of two detectives; for, as she asserted, "The
+minute I walk out by myself, that fiend will re-capture me. And I have
+work to do--very important work, if the world is to be saved!"
+
+Every one smiled in half-veiled amusement. Yet no one could deny the
+deadly seriousness of the girl's manner.
+
+No one could deny, either, that she was in danger from some mysterious
+source. On the day after her release, two men in a taxicab swerved
+suddenly around a street corner, and came within an inch of snatching
+her from under the noses of the detectives. The would-be abductors,
+though unsuccessful, made good their escape; and, later that same day,
+a still more ominous event occurred.
+
+Eleanor was walking in a fog not far from one of the city's main
+intersections, when suddenly she felt something clutching her. She
+cried out in her terror; and the detectives, though seeing nothing,
+fired into the mist. Evidently it was a mere lucky shot that struck the
+unseen aggressor under the left shoulder, at his "middle nerve center,"
+his most vulnerable spot. At any rate, an unearthly howl came from
+the invisible--and, more significant yet, a spout of something thick,
+sticky and golden-orange jutted to the pavement as if from nowhere.
+And the girl felt the claws of the invisible relaxing.
+
+"Another damned attack of nerves," Police Captain Donnelley called it,
+when the incident was reported. Yet, being unable to account for the
+golden-yellow liquid, he consented to double the girl's bodyguard.
+
+Knowing that the time was exceedingly short--in fact, to take
+Dunbar's word for it, but four days of grace remained--she worked
+with desperation. Her first idea was to obtain possession of Gates'
+infra-red eye, which might show the authorities the cobweb meshes
+that entangled the planet, and so perhaps rouse them to eleventh hour
+action. But how obtain this invaluable device? Neither a search of the
+laboratory, nor a ransacking of Gates' home, revealed any trace of
+the instrument. Eleanor remembered in despair how, on that memorable
+evening on the roof, the inventor dropped the device just as the
+Saturnians swooped down; and she concluded that it had either been
+broken, lost, or snatched up by the invaders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Therefore she turned to her one other hope. For almost a year,
+during spare hours in the laboratory, she had been working on what
+she called the Electronic Space Ray--a beam designed to pierce and
+dissolve the upper cloud formations. This ray, a modification of the
+X-ray, engendered by an application of several hundred thousand volts
+of electricity, had the power of cutting like a knife through any
+mist, causing the vapors to disperse as though blown aside by a gale.
+Its range, apparently, was enormous; Eleanor believed it capable of
+bridging the gulf from the earth to the moon, and held that it would be
+highly effective at several hundred miles.
+
+Therefore the question arose: if the rays could dissipate a cloud,
+could they not penetrate the gelatinous envelopes of the Crystal
+Planetoids? Was it not conceivable that they could rip the Planetoids
+apart, as a balloon may be ripped by a bullet? She did not know, but
+the chance, however fantastic it seemed, was not to be ignored.
+
+Surrounded by her four guards, she hastened to the laboratory of the
+Merlin Research Institute; and, requiring solitude for efficient work,
+busied herself from dawn to dusk and even through the early hours of
+daylight to perfect her invention. Formerly she had expected to be able
+to finish the contrivance at her leisure. But now with what feverish
+haste she labored, scarcely taking time to eat, to sleep, to think
+except of one thing only!
+
+At first the fear haunted her that the Saturnians would break in, and
+steal her away despite her bodyguard. But was it that the one lucky
+shot, which had spilled the golden-orange blood of her attacker, had
+deterred the invaders? More probably, they did not think her worth
+bothering about--what could she, one poor feeble woman, do to avert the
+doom that had been so well plotted, and that was so soon to descend?
+
+The heat, as she worked, had risen to furnace intensity. Temperatures
+below a hundred were now rarely found near sea level in the so-called
+temperate regions; all breezes, except those engendered by electric
+fans, were memories of the dear departed days; while so many areas were
+parched and browned, so many people were perishing on all sides, that
+bureau of statistics no longer kept records. That the long-awaited Day
+of Judgment was at hand; that the destruction of the earth and all its
+inhabitants was a matter but of weeks or at most of months, was now the
+theme of preachers and laymen alike; millions, ceasing to hope, passed
+their days amid a long mumbling of lamentations and prayers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile few knew or cared about the young woman who, with eyes red
+and strained, with fingers deft yet nervously hurried, with skin and
+apron mottled with chemicals, yet with a spirit that refused to give
+up, labored amid the motors and ray-spouting tubes, the flasks and
+crucibles of the steamy hot laboratory. Nearly five days had gone by
+before she had put her machine into working order--five days which, in
+view of the time lost under the spell of the hypodermic drug, should
+bring her beyond the deadline set by Dunbar. Already, perhaps, he
+had turned over the containers of compressed air to the Saturnians!
+Already they were making their last deadly assault! Already it was too
+late--too late to save the earth!
+
+Nevertheless, if but one chance in ten thousand remained, that chance
+must not be tossed aside.
+
+Her machine, when ready, was a monstrous-looking affair, somewhat
+resembling a siege-gun in appearance. The fifteen-foot steel snout,
+shooting upward like a spire from the central mass of lenses, prisms
+and radio-like tubes, was attached by wires to several huge dynamos. A
+telescope, fastened to the side of the main tube, connected with the
+range finder; while the whole could be moved hither and thither on
+wheels, a little like a great gun on its carriage.
+
+Three skilled mechanics, who had helped to construct the apparatus on
+Eleanor's instructions, shook their heads doubtfully over the completed
+instrument. "The lady must be crazy," they muttered in private, "if she
+thinks such a rigamagig can save the world!"
+
+The skeptics were, it is true, just a little impressed by the first
+demonstration. The machine was wheeled into a courtyard adjoining the
+Research Institute; and its mouth was pointed upward into the mists
+that precluded visibility above a hundred feet. At a signal, the power
+was turned on; there came a low whirring, accompanied by blue flashes;
+and almost instantly, as if some unseen fist had thrust its way through
+them, the vapors disappeared from a circle of sky about ten degrees
+across, and the azure of heaven appeared for the first time in many
+days.
+
+Equally impressive was the next experiment. A number of open jars of
+gelatin were placed against the walls of the building, and the machine
+was pointed toward them. For half a dozen seconds they were bombarded
+by the rays; then, upon examination, the gelatin was found to have
+vanished--to have dissolved despite the intervening glass of the jars,
+which themselves had seemingly been unaffected!
+
+A faint glow of hope came to the girl's mind as she witnessed these
+results. Could it be that, after all, not everything was lost? A
+machine that could work such miracles might also perform wonders
+against the Planetoids!
+
+But even as this thought flashed over her, there came another
+realization--a numb, dull realization that struck her like a hand of
+lead. On one of the Planetoids, hundreds if not thousands of humans
+were held--at least, so she judged from the reports of the many that
+disappeared mysteriously after setting out to see Gates dangled
+from the web of the invaders. Worst of all! The man she loved was a
+prisoner! If she destroyed the Planetoids, she would destroy Ronald!
+And after that, though the world lived on, what meaning would life have
+for her?
+
+But only for a moment did she hesitate. They had reached a point where
+the fate of individuals did not matter. The sacrifice of all the
+captives, lamentable as it would be--the sacrifice of her lover--the
+sacrifice of herself--what did all this count beside the future of the
+human race?
+
+Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, she turned back to the
+Electronic Space Ray. Her eyes were desolate but her manner was
+determined as she picked up the range finder and revolved the telescope
+through a newly cleared circle of blue sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Prelude to Battle
+
+
+There are some grave disadvantages in being invisible. So, at least,
+Gates concluded as he went groping through the woods in the effort to
+find his bearings. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to ask a
+passer-by the way, and to be greeted with a shriek, and watch the man
+turn and dash away frantically, as from a ghost. It is aggravating to
+reach an automobile road and find every car trying to drive full-tilt
+through one. Gates felt like a man returning from the dead as he picked
+his way out of the woods, and, reaching a village, began to make a few
+civil inquiries.... Inevitably, he found, his hearers would flee the
+vicinity of his voice; and the harder he tried to call them back the
+faster they would run.
+
+He passed the night in an open field under a haystack--which,
+considering the heat, was not at all a hardship. In the morning, driven
+by hunger, he strolled into a farmhouse; and while the family stampeded
+like sheep from the sound of his footsteps, he calmly helped himself
+to some ham and biscuits from the kitchen table. Having thus satisfied
+his needs, he wandered away along a railroad track, and after about an
+hour's walk reached a junction, where a sign on the station showed him
+that he was two hundred miles from home. "God! How'm I ever going to
+make the distance?" he wondered, reflecting that he had not a penny in
+his pockets.
+
+Twenty minutes later, while he still stood there baffled, a train
+puffed into the station--one of the few still running in those
+disorganized days. Several people stepped aboard; and, without
+hesitation, he joined them, trusting to his invisibility to save him
+from the demands of the ticket-taker.
+
+As there was no unoccupied seat, he stood in the vestibule, which
+caused not a little confusion, as people kept brushing against him as
+they went by, greatly to their consternation. Long before they had
+reached their destination, in fact, half the passengers were ready
+to swear that the train was haunted. This view was furthered by Buck
+Johnson, one of the colored waiters in the dining car, who testified
+that while his back was turned the better part of the contents of
+a tray disappeared--and that he turned about just in time to see a
+sausage go floating down the passageway, although nobody was in sight!
+
+It was fortunate, Gates thought, that the train was air-conditioned;
+the cool, fresh atmosphere made it easier for him to think. And,
+certainly, he needed to think as never before. What would he do upon
+getting back home? Obviously, go as soon as possible to Dunbar's
+apartment, to check that traitor's vile designs, if there were still
+time! And to rescue Eleanor from his clutches! But was it not already
+too late? Gates gravely feared so. Besides, how prevail against Dunbar,
+protected as he was by the overweening power of the Saturnians?
+
+"Well, at least," Gates reflected, "I can't be seen--that's one
+strategic advantage." But it would take more than his invisibility to
+win the battle. He must have weapons--weapons of unrivalled power. And
+where could such be found?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this thought he remembered a certain invention he had toyed with
+months before. This was a knife which he called the Electric Blade:
+a folding strip of metal, small and compact, and short enough to be
+carried in a man's hip pocket, yet capable of being extended to the
+length of one's forearm, when it would cut with the sharpness of a
+sword. To it was attached a minute but powerful storage battery which
+Gates had perfected: a battery that made it possible for the blade to
+slash back and forth with such swiftness that the eye could hardly
+follow its motions. The inventor had believed that the weapon might
+prove valuable for close combat work in warfare; but had lost interest
+in it temporarily while working on that still more important device,
+the Infra-Red Eye.
+
+It was, however, with the greatest of enthusiasm that he thought
+now of the Electric Blade. Might this not be just what he needed in
+the conflict with Dunbar? Knowing something of the prowess of the
+Saturnians, he was far from sure; nevertheless, he swore a bitter oath,
+"I'll have a try at it, even if they hack me to mincemeat!"--which, he
+realized, they were only too likely to do.
+
+The Electric Blade, he recalled, had been left in his locker at the
+Merlin Research Institute. Accordingly, it was to this spot that he
+must hasten immediately upon returning to the city.
+
+It was night by the time he had reached the building; and the front
+door was locked. But seeing a light inside, he rapped. As no answer
+came, he rapped again, this time more loudly; and then rapped once
+more, still more loudly. It was only after the fourth or fifth summons
+that he heard shuffling footsteps warily approaching. "What the devil!"
+he muttered to himself. "Do they think I want to steal the building?"
+
+"Who's there?" a voice from within demanded, huskily.
+
+"It's I! Ronald Gates! An employee of the Institute!"
+
+There was a momentary hesitation. He heard two men conferring in
+whispers; then the door opened a few inches, and he stared into the
+muzzle of a revolver, behind which glowered the grim, determined face
+of a uniformed man.
+
+"Don't be scared, Officer," he began, slightly amused. "I can establish
+my identity--"
+
+Instantly there rang out a yell from the uniformed man. Savagely the
+door banged to a close. "By God! It's one of them devils from Saturn!"
+
+Almost simultaneously, he heard another voice taking up the cry. "Run,
+Miss, run! Quick! Ain't no time to waste! One of them fiends is after
+you again!"
+
+From within, he heard a woman's scream. "Out this way! This way!" And
+all other sounds were lost amid the scurrying of feet.
+
+But had those tones not had a familiar ring? Could it be--or was his
+heated imagination only playing tricks?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He lost no time, however, in useless questionings. Realizing that the
+fugitives must leave by the rear exit, on another street, he raced
+around the block, in such haste that he bowled over two pedestrians,
+who were never to know what had hit them. As he approached the rear
+door, he saw five figures hurriedly emerge, among them a young woman,
+the sight of whom caused his heart to pound furiously.
+
+"Eleanor!" he shouted. "Eleanor!"
+
+The girl glanced toward him, and shrieked. Even if she recognized his
+voice, she thought that it was merely one of the Saturnians imitating
+him.
+
+"Eleanor! Eleanor!" he repeated. "It's I, Ronald! It's I!"
+
+But it was doubtful if she even heard. Preceding the four
+policemen--pushed and shoved by them, for he had never seen men in more
+frantic haste--she was lost to view inside a black sedan. A moment
+later, the car had spurted from sight around the corner.
+
+Greatly shaken, Gates returned to the Institute. It was much--very
+much--to know that Eleanor was alive, and apparently not in Dunbar's
+hands. But to have her flee him as though he were a plague-bearer;
+to be mistaken by her for one of the Saturnians--that was a new and
+totally unexpected experience. Now, as never before, he began to curse
+his invisibility.
+
+But there was work to be done--work from which he must not be deterred
+even by the thought of Eleanor. And at this point, as if by way of
+compensation, his invisibility served him to excellent purpose. How,
+considering that the doors were all locked, could he get into the
+Institute? Contemplatively he strolled around the building, and saw
+that the one possible entry was by means of an open window facing the
+fire escape on the third floor. To hoist himself up to the fire escape
+was, to be sure, no great task for one of his agility; but as it gave
+upon a main street, where many people were passing, it would have
+been impossible for any ordinary man to accomplish the feat without
+detection. As it was, however, he managed the entry with ease.
+
+Once within, he felt his way down to the locker room, where he switched
+on the lights, and turned to his own locker--the combination of which,
+fortunately, had not been altered. A moment later, the door rattled
+open. He saw that the interior had been disturbed, as though somebody
+had entered during his absence and fumbled among the contents; but
+his pulses leapt with excitement when, safely hidden in a corner, he
+located a steel-sheathed apparatus of about the size of a large pistol.
+
+"Thank heaven!" he muttered. "This little blade may hold the world's
+destiny!"
+
+He placed the instrument carefully beneath his garments, so that it
+too became invisible; closed the locker; and started away, with the
+knowledge that he hastened to a battle that could end only in victory
+or death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Electric Blade Swings
+
+
+Stripped to the waist, Philip Dunbar worked in the electric glare of
+the oven-hot laboratory. The throbbing of motors made a dull undertone
+in his ears as he examined the register connecting with the steel
+cylinders of compressed air. His dark face had become long and haggard;
+his eyes glittered with a wild, almost demoniacal light. But a grunt of
+satisfaction came from between those two thin cynic lips of his as he
+muttered,
+
+"Thank the Lord! At last it's done!"
+
+"Thank not the Lord, earthling! Thank us!" a whirring voice sounded
+from just outside the window. "For many days we have followed your
+labors. For many days we have assisted. Nevertheless, you are a day
+behind schedule. A whole day, earthling!"
+
+"I have done my best!" sighed Dunbar. "Could I help it if I was sick
+with the heat for two days, and could hardly work?"
+
+"We will forgive you this once, nignig, although on our planet we are
+not such weaklings as to get sick. After all, you have served us not
+badly. Tomorrow, with the compressed air to improve our efficiency, we
+will be lords of this world!"
+
+"Tomorrow we will be lords of this world!" another voice, from an
+invisible source, weirdly repeated.
+
+"Earthling, we have one more command," buzzed the first voice. "These
+casks of compressed air are hard for us to reach through your narrow
+window. See that they are placed outside on the ground. Have them put
+there early tomorrow, that we may gather them up with ease."
+
+"I shall do so!" acceded Dunbar. And hastily he added, "Then you will
+not--will not forget your promise?"
+
+"Never fear!" a voice of reassurance droned. "When all the rest of your
+race sleeps in the long Forever, you will be glad to be alive--you, the
+last man!"
+
+"I will be glad to be alive," acknowledged Dunbar. But his voice had a
+tone of sadness; his long, lean, dark countenance drooped.
+
+"One thing more! The female of my race--the girl I call Eleanor--have
+you not saved her as a reward for my services? Through the wiles of
+wicked connivers, she has escaped. Once more I ask you, can you not
+seize her and bring her back?"
+
+"Once more I tell you, earthling, the Peerless Red One has changed his
+mind about the female of your species. In truth, we were not sorry when
+she got away; and made but little effort to re-capture her, for she
+drew your mind from your work. The Peerless Red One has decided, if the
+female of the species is crafty enough to get away, might she not be
+crafty enough to cause us much trouble? No, earthling! Let her perish
+with the rest of her crawling species!"
+
+Dunbar groaned, and sank disconsolately to the laboratory floor.
+Had he not learned that nothing was more futile than to argue with a
+Saturnian?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dreary gray of dawn was visible through the stagnant cloud-banks by
+the time Gates had started toward Dunbar's apartment.
+
+One thing, in particular, had delayed him. Having secured the Electric
+Blade, he decided that he must also obtain the Infra-Red Eye as
+a precaution in case of conflict with the Saturnians. One of the
+instruments, he recalled to his regret, had been lost during that first
+encounter with the invaders from space. But there was another, which
+he had left for safekeeping in the home of his old friend Bill Denny.
+Here, however, was indeed a predicament! How could he get to Denny and
+ask for his property, now that he was invisible? After much thought,
+he concluded that only one course was open to him; hence, taking a
+flashlight from his locker at the Institute, he hurried to Bill's home,
+climbed in through a window, and began to ransack his friend's spare
+room, where he knew the Infra-Red Eye was kept.
+
+It was this that gave rise to the panic in the Denny household; to
+Martha Denny's screams when she awakened long after midnight and saw a
+light proceeding as if on its own volition down the empty hallway. Bill
+Denny, who went to investigate, said that he heard the sound of racing
+footsteps, and caught a gleam, which he attributed to a burglar's
+flashlight; and this theory was borne out the following morning by the
+disordered state of the spare room. But what nobody could understand
+was that a bill-packed wallet, which stood in plain sight, had been
+untouched; while the only thing taken was the peculiar-looking
+contraption entrusted to Bill weeks ago by his missing friend, poor
+old Ronny Gates.
+
+Meantime, with the Infra-Red Eye shielded from sight beneath his
+garments, Gates was approaching Dunbar's apartment house. As he drew
+near in the early dawn, he paused in an adjoining court; and a thrill
+of satisfaction shot through him to know that, after all, he was not
+too late. No! but he was barely in time! For two workmen, heaving and
+panting, were throwing a thick steel cylinder on top of a great heap.
+
+Beside them stood Dunbar, looking hot and unhappy as he directed their
+movements with nervous haste. "Now you fellows, just one more!" he was
+ordering, with a growl. "Go up and get it, and I'll pay you off! Go on,
+quick! God! what are you such snails about?"
+
+As the men slouched away, Gates let out an unconscious grunt; at which
+Dunbar turned toward him sharply, terror in his piercing black little
+eyes. "Good heavens!" he muttered to himself, as he hastily lit a
+cigarette. "I'm getting so I see things everywhere!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later, the last of the cylinders had been deposited on
+the heap; the workmen had been paid, and had gone shuffling off; and
+Dunbar, leaning against the pile, was awaiting the arrival of the
+Saturnians. Nor had he long to wait. The laborers had hardly passed out
+of sight around the corner, when one of the cylinders began to move as
+of its own will, and, with gradually accelerating velocity, shot into
+the air and out of sight.
+
+Now if ever, Gates realized, was the time to act! With trembling speed,
+he drew the Infra-Red Eye from under his coat, so as to reveal the
+Saturnians who, he felt sure, were all about him. For a moment alarm
+possessed him; for the Eye, being visible, would betray him to the foe!
+But no! evidently some of the Amvol-Amvol had been rubbed upon it in
+its contact with his clothes; it too was invisible!
+
+Hastily he adjusted it, by means of tight bands running around his
+head; yet not so hastily as to make unnecessary noise. How fortunate,
+he thought, that the Saturnians' ears were less acute than some of
+their other senses! Yet what he saw, after he had turned the proper
+screws and levers, was nothing to reassure him. Not one Saturnian, nor
+even two, as he had expected! Nor even five or six! At least twelve
+of the great creatures, with their dangling octopus limbs, their long
+stinging tails, their red triangular eyes--at least twelve of them,
+all seeming of a watery pallor through the Infra-Red Eye! And among
+them, leading them as he strutted savagely back and forth among the
+compressed air containers, was the over-towering form of Red-Hood!
+
+Pressed into a basement doorway for protection, Gates planned his
+action. His mind worked with spring-like rapidity; he knew that he had
+not a second to waste. Two advantages were his: the Electric Blade, and
+his ability to take his adversaries by surprise. But how slight these
+assets seemed by comparison with the number and prowess of his foes!
+
+Yet not for an instant did he flinch. If he must die, then he must
+die! Out from beneath his coat came the Electric Blade, its sheath
+fortunately invisible; but after he had set the motors into operation,
+the whirring sound betrayed him.
+
+"What's that?" came suspiciously from one of the Saturnians, in his
+native tongues, as the monster started toward the source of the sound.
+
+Instantly Gates released the blade to its full length. But, as he did
+so, he received another shock. The metal, in its folded position, had
+evidently missed contact with the Amvol-Amvol! It could be seen just
+like any ordinary steel!
+
+"Ah! What devil have we here?" dinned from the Saturnian, in a mighty
+roar. And he lunged in Gates' direction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he did so, the blade began to swing with such speed that it made
+but a gray blur. Too swift for the Saturnians to follow its movements,
+the steel slashed at the assailant, whom Gates could clearly see
+through the Infra-Red Eye. The first blows made but minor dents in
+the creature's tough armor; but after a second or two Gates swung the
+weapon upward toward the enemy's left shoulder.
+
+Horrible to hear was the monster's howl as the Middle Nerve Center was
+penetrated and fountains of golden-orange overflowed the pavement.
+Terrible beyond words was his death-yell as he sagged and sank, and,
+with all his limbs threshing violently, clutched blindly for his foe.
+
+But Gates had leapt out of range. Vehemently he was darting hither
+and thither among the Saturnians, slashing in all directions with the
+furiously swinging blade. He could see the octopus limbs of half a
+score of the creatures writhing simultaneously toward him, interfering
+with one another in their convulsive movements. However, they aimed
+not at him but at the blade, and always they struck at the point where
+it had been just a fraction of a second before their blows descended.
+Thus, by a hair's breadth, Gates was able to elude them.
+
+[Illustration: Gates fired desperately at the advancing creatures.]
+
+How long would he be able to keep up the unequal struggle? His strength
+was waning; his breath was coming hard and fast; its very sound would
+have betrayed him had it not been for the other noises of battle.
+Already he had wounded several adversaries, though not mortally; their
+golden-yellow blood flowed, but they still fought on. Time after time
+he felt himself brushed by their sweeping arms; felt their deathly
+cold claws against his skin. Once, by less than a finger's breadth, he
+escaped a lashing envenomed tail.
+
+Even as he lodged this peril, Gates recognized the huge gray-green
+lips of Red-Hood. He saw the malevolent red light in the eyes of his
+chief antagonist; and, like a matador fleeing a bull, he ducked and
+ran sideways. Then, with ferocious suddenness, he turned and swung the
+flashing blade upward.
+
+A fraction of a second too soon or too late, and he would have been
+lost. A few inches too high, or a few inches too low, and he might as
+well not have fought at all. But Red-Hood, stooping low as he charged
+head forward, had exposed the vulnerable left shoulder. And straight
+through the susceptible spot burst the cleaving, electrically driven
+blade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Red-Hood's roar of rage and agony, as he sank amid hideous convulsions,
+was all but drowned by the dismayed bellowings of his companions. One
+and all, as though they had hit a blank wall, halted in shrieking
+consternation at the sight of their smitten leader. And Gates,
+springing forward, profited from that instant of demoralization, to
+strike another of the creatures through the Middle Nerve Center.
+
+As he leapt back, barely in time to avert the drive of the swinging
+tail, he made an amazing observation. The creatures were all in flight!
+From their terrorized cries, he knew that they thought they were
+fighting not one man, but an invisible army!
+
+But the last of the monsters, as he turned to flee, swung back briefly.
+Crouched in a cranny against a coal-bin, was a cowering form, its
+eyes wide with terror. "You, nignig--you, you are the root of all our
+trouble!" rasped the Saturnian. "You have betrayed us! You shall be
+punished!"
+
+Out swung the terrible tail; its barbed point, with the speed of
+an arrow, plunged into Dunbar's heart. And as the victim, gasping,
+collapsed in his own blood, his assailant went swinging away up a great
+cobweb.
+
+Meanwhile Gates, sinking in exhaustion to the pavement, stared at the
+stones smeared with great streaks of golden-yellow; stared at the still
+untouched containers of compressed air, and solemnly mumbled a prayer
+of thanksgiving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Deliverance
+
+
+Gates' first thought, after recovering his breath, was to finish his
+half-completed task. What if the Saturnian retreat were but temporary?
+What if the foe should rally, and return with redoubled fury? What if,
+after all, they should seize the containers of compressed air, and so
+accomplish their original purpose and conquer the planet?
+
+"By glory! not if I can prevent!" Gates swore a secret oath, as he
+staggered toward the great steel cylinders. To carry off even one of
+the heavy affairs would, obviously, be impossible--but was there no
+other way? After a swift examination, he noticed a little faucet-like
+spout at the end of one of the vessels, and took it to be a valve to
+relieve excessive pressure.
+
+"Just five minutes' leeway," he thought, "and there won't be a whiff of
+compressed air left in the whole shooting match!"
+
+At the same time, he gave the spigot a swift turn in his fingers.
+
+Instantly there came such a blast that he was stunned. A loud popping,
+as of an explosion, dinned in his ears. He reeled backward, knocked
+over as by a hurricane. For a second or two a great fury of escaping
+air blew by him.
+
+Still a little dazed, he picked himself up a minute later, cursing
+his own stupidity. In his haste he had turned the vent on full force,
+so relieving far too much pressure--with results that might have been
+disastrous.
+
+Worst of all! what if the commotion should summon the Saturnians back?
+
+Even as this fear swept across him, he made a discovery which, for the
+moment, alarmed him even more. He could see himself again! His arms,
+his legs, and all of his body, were perfectly visible! The blast of air
+had been powerful enough to blow away all the Amvol-Amvol, the powder
+of invisibility!
+
+Aware that he would be utterly at the Saturnians' mercy should they
+return, he worked quickly as possible to release the compressed air
+from the other containers. At any moment, he expected to be snatched
+up by a huge swooping claw, and borne away to his doom. But time went
+by, and the monsters did not re-appear. And at length the last of the
+compressed air cylinders was empty!
+
+Then for the first time, as he started hastily away, a flash of joyous
+realization swept over him. What a relief to be visible again! Once
+more he could be received as a man!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in the morning, following the alarm from the supposed Saturnians,
+Eleanor insisted on resuming work at the Electronic Space Ray.
+Surrounded by a whole squad of policemen--since her four previous
+protectors had insisted that they were too few--she entered the
+courtyard adjoining the Research Institute, where her machine with its
+fifteen-foot cannon-like muzzle was pointed skyward. Now at last she
+was ready for the crucial work!
+
+Reaching the courtyard, she adjusted the instrument; cleared an
+open circle of blue sky; and in so doing destroyed, she knew, an
+incalculable number of the invisible cobwebs that clogged the
+atmosphere. But she was out after bigger prey than cobwebs. By means of
+the telescope she located a tiny shining speck which she recognized as
+one of the Crystal Planetoids; and, with trembling hands, pointed her
+machine toward the section of the sky containing the Planetoid.
+
+Then, for the barest fraction of a second, she hesitated. She knew it
+was but womanly weakness; she knew it was unworthy, inconsistent with
+her all-important scheme; yet the hot tears trickled down her cheeks,
+and something clutched at her throat. The next flick of her fingers
+might be the movement that destroyed scores of human beings, among them
+Ronny, her lover.
+
+None the less, she held back only for an instant. Her fingers flashed
+against a lever; and a faint clicking came to her ears. With eyes glued
+to the telescope, she watched; and immediately, it seemed, she made out
+a puff of red fire where the Planetoid had been--a puff that swiftly
+gave way to long ruddy streamers, which almost as swiftly vanished.
+
+Still struggling, she could not keep back her sobs. "Ronny would
+forgive me, if he knew!" she consoled herself. Nevertheless, several
+minutes had passed, before, with a great effort of will, she turned to
+the range finder, and prepared to look for another Planetoid.
+
+Then it was, that all at once, there came a sound which she heard in
+mute, incredulous amazement. What was that voice?--that familiar, that
+exultant voice arising suddenly behind her! "Eleanor!"
+
+Wheeling about, she faced what she at first mistook for an apparition.
+Could this be Ronald? this dishevelled man with the face ghostly pale,
+although his eyes were agleam with joy?
+
+But as he strode forward, and flung out his arms, she knew that he was
+indeed no phantom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No less surprising than the speed with which the Saturnians had
+overspread the earth was the rapidity with which the peril receded.
+Within a few weeks, while dozens of Electronic Space Rays swept the
+heavens to clear away the great cobwebs, the temperature of the planet
+returned to normal; the winds blew again as usual; the ferocious
+thunder storms, the floods and the droughts had dwindled to ghastly
+memories. If any of the monsters still ranged the earth, they had
+returned to remote, unpeopled regions; no trace of them was ever
+seen, except for some mysterious streaks of yellow-orange observed by
+mariners on an islet near Cape Horn, where the last of the invaders had
+been dashed to their doom.
+
+As for the Planetoids--so mercilessly were they hunted by the Space
+Rays that, within a week, the most careful searching of the heavens
+failed to reveal even one of the great gelatinous balls. The watchers
+on Saturn, it was generally agreed, would not be encouraged by the
+results of their expedition! And if ever they should attempt another
+invasion, the weapons to repel them would be at hand.
+
+Meantime, while paeans of thanksgiving resounded from all lands, the
+world's eyes were focused on two individuals. The nuptials of Eleanor
+Firth and Ronald Gates, which were celebrated a few weeks after the
+overthrow of the Menace, were the occasion for universal rejoicing, for
+nothing could have appeared more fitting than the union of these two.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75478 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75478 ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>The Crystal Planetoids</h1>
+
+<p class="ph1">By STANTON A. COBLENTZ</p>
+
+<p>There in the sky was a vast web<br>
+and perched on it were invisible<br>
+beings—what did it all mean?</p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br>
+Amazing Stories May 1942.<br>
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br>
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Chapter I</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Terror Strikes</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Red-Hood</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">"Co-operate--and Live!"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Paralyzed!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">An Offering from the Clouds</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Prisoners' Progress</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Revolt of Yellow-Claws</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Through the Barred Door</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">A Plunge in the Dark</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The Electronic Space Ray</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Prelude to Battle</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Electric Blade Swings</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Deliverance</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Philip Dunbar ran a lean exploratory hand through his tousled long
+black hair. There was a sardonic, faintly quizzical look in his dark,
+trimly moustached face, which acquaintances were inclined to describe
+as "handsome, but saturnine." His little jet-points of eyes, as he
+stared across at the next laboratory table, glittered enigmatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ronny," he inquired, in a drawl that rasped, "found it at last?"</p>
+
+<p>Ronald Gates peered up from amid a mass of lenses, batteries and wires.
+His frank, open face widened into a broad smile. His clear blue eyes
+sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, by heaven," he confessed, enthusiastically, "I think I've got
+that devil licked!"</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Dunbar was at his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Like hell you have!" he doubted.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, from the opposite end of the great laboratory, a
+feminine voice broke out,</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, good, Ronald, I knew you'd do it!" And the tall form of Eleanor
+Firth, its youthful attractiveness scarcely dimmed by the stained
+rubber gloves and apron she was wearing, came gliding toward the men.
+Her big golden-brown eyes blazed with admiration as she turned them
+full upon Gates. "I knew it, Ronald—I knew you simply had to!"</p>
+
+<p>To an onlooker, the relationship of the men and the girl would have
+been crystal-clear. Dunbar's manner, as he glared at Gates, was
+dagger-sharp; Gates had no eyes for Dunbar at all; while both men
+regarded the young lady with softening glances that were eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>Why was it, Dunbar reflected, that they had all taken to staying in
+overtime here at their place of employment, the laboratory of the
+Merlin Research Institute? True, Gates was all worked up about that
+damnable invention of his! And Eleanor—wasn't it just like a woman
+to find an excuse to stay when she knew Gates would be there? As for
+himself—if he didn't want to be shoved out of the picture, he had no
+choice but to work on after hours!</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, by glory! I think I've done the trick!" Gates was exclaiming. "If
+you folk'll just come with me to the roof, I'll demonstrate!"</p>
+
+<p>He took up a black instrument resembling a pair of opera glasses,
+except that it was equipped with large red lenses, and was attached by
+wires to a cluster of minute batteries and radio-like tubes.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say you call the contraption?" asked Dunbar, as Gates
+started upstairs with his invention.</p>
+
+<p>"The Infra-Red Eye."</p>
+
+<p>"Why in blazes do you call it that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just wait a minute, and you'll see. You know as well as I do, Dunbar,
+photographs taken in infra-red light will reveal clear details through
+a mist. Why must the human eye be blind where the camera can see?
+It is all a question of securing the proper adaptation to etheric
+vibrations—which I have done by means of invisible rays produced by
+electrical action on certain iridium and osmium salts in these tubes."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Dunbar grunted a half coherent reply, and threw open the roof-door. As
+they came out into the heavy mist-laden air of the late July afternoon,
+the humidity rolled from them visibly. There was a peculiar stagnation
+in the atmosphere, as though the very breath of heaven had been
+congealed. Featureless gray clouds hung wearily over the landscape; a
+dull, blank haze obscured everything beyond a few hundred yards. One
+might have said that the very elements had gone to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness, I do wish we could get some relief from this atrocious
+heat!" sighed Eleanor.</p>
+
+<p>"The twenty-ninth continuous day of it, unless I've missed my count!"
+grumbled Dunbar, as he mopped his perspiring brow. "Doesn't it beat the
+devil? What's more, it's getting worse!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and the strangest thing of all is, it seems to affect the whole
+world!" returned the girl. "I just can't believe it's not something
+more than common weather!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hate to tell you what I suspect it is!" returned Dunbar, ominously.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, folks, what are you so cheerful about, all of a sudden?"
+Gates demanded, as he examined the adjustments of the wires. "Good
+heavens! I'm sick and tired of hearing there's something supernatural
+about a heat spell, just because it happens to be unusually prolonged."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but the other phenomena!" broke in Dunbar, his sharp eyes
+glinting with hostility. "The dust clouds—the checking of normal wind
+movements—the indefinable thickening in the atmosphere—the thunder
+storms of unprecedented violence—"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing has been definitely established," denied Gates. "Personally,
+I doubt if it's anything at all, aside from a cycle of exceptional
+sun-spot activity. But we're wasting our time. Ready now for the
+infra-red eye?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all keyed up!" announced Eleanor, casting the young man one of her
+strangely kindled, animated glances.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, you make the first test," he decided, thrusting the black
+instrument into her hands. "Just fit it to your eyes like binoculars.
+Turn that screw for the adjustment. Wait! I'll see to the current!"</p>
+
+<p>He switched a lever, drew back a panel, and pressed a button. But,
+aside from a faint whirring sound, there was no apparent effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Now focus the instrument!" he went on. "Point it anywhere. If you
+don't see through that haze as easily as a knife cuts butter, then set
+me down as a fraud and a liar!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl screwed up her eyes. Faint wrinkles were visible on her broad,
+creamy white brow. A second passed in silence. Then an astonishing
+change overcame her countenance.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, her lips drew apart in an incredulous expression. A gasp
+came from between her lips. A pallor spread across her cheeks. For
+several seconds she remained as if glued to the instrument.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Grimacing wrily, she snapped herself away from the eye-piece with a
+horrified,</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" Her eyes bulged. Her whole form was trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"I—I—I guess I'm seeing things!" she explained, lamely.</p>
+
+<p>Then, observing how strangely Dunbar was staring at her, she thrust the
+instrument at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, you—you just look for yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar took up the apparatus, and peered through it steadily for
+perhaps half a minute. But he too, when he put it down, was visibly
+paler.</p>
+
+<p>"God! Am I crazy?" he grunted. "Here, Ronny, better have a peep
+yourself—"</p>
+
+<p>But Gates had already snatched up the instrument. And he too gasped as
+he adjusted the lenses. For he saw nothing that he had anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>The only purpose of the Infra-Red Eye, as he himself had declared, had
+been to penetrate a haze. But how startlingly the results had exceeded
+expectations!</p>
+
+<p>Spread far above the earth's surface, in the form of colossal cobwebs,
+were long tenuous strands, woven in a web many layers deep. The
+threads, colorless and almost transparent, were thin as though composed
+of some silken fabric; but were enormously long, and stretched in great
+curves from horizon to zenith. Over the entire firmament they seemed
+to be bent and twisted by the tens of thousands, forming intricate
+geometric patterns, and uncannily giving the impression of enclosing
+the earth in a great cage. Wavering slightly in the faint breezes of
+the upper spaces, they covered every section of the visible heavens,
+even spreading their dim crisscrossing bars across the moon.</p>
+
+<p>As if this discovery in itself was not ghastly enough, a still more
+terrible sight presented itself. Scores of beings, vaguely human-shaped
+and each with many limbs dangling octopus-like, swung agilely along
+the gigantic webs. Of prodigious size—seemingly not less than fifteen
+or twenty feet tall—the creatures were of a watery pallor that made
+only the bare outlines of their forms visible. Each, in the middle of
+an egg-shaped head, displayed two oddly three-cornered eyes that glowed
+with dull red flames; each possessed six or eight many-fingered hands
+with which it was adding new segments to the monstrous web.</p>
+
+<p>With a groan, Gates put down the instrument; and, wiping his streaming
+brow, sagged against a wall for support. But the horror in his eyes
+matched that in the faces of his companions as the three stared at one
+another in open-mouthed amazement.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">The Terror Strikes</p>
+
+
+<p>It was as Dunbar had remarked. For nearly a month, unexampled
+meteorological disturbances had been occurring throughout the earth.
+Not only in the northern hemisphere had a record heat blanketed every
+land; in regions far below the Equator, the accustomed mid-winter chill
+had disappeared; indeed, an almost tropical calm had been reported
+as far south as Cape Horn. Everywhere on the earth's surface, normal
+wind currents had been retarded or halted; everywhere dust and mist
+had accumulated; everywhere—even in the usually thunderless coastal
+regions of California—electrical storms of unparalleled violence had
+been of almost daily occurrence. But scientists, having no plausible
+explanation, had for the most part looked on in mute bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>There were, however, some who professed to believe that the shattered
+remnants of a comet had entered the earth's atmosphere; and supported
+their theory by pointing out that quantities of some gaseous foreign
+substance, which as yet they had been unable to analyze, had been
+detected in the stratosphere; while scores of high-flying airplanes had
+recently been slowed down or wrecked by unexplained impediments.</p>
+
+<p>Few persons as yet saw any connection between the extraordinary weather
+and the reports of astronomers that dozens of minute bodies had been
+detected through telescopes, revolving as satellites about the earth
+just beyond its atmospheric limits. For lack of a better theory, it was
+assumed that they were asteroids or "minor planets" which had ventured
+too close to the earth and had been caught by its gravitational
+power; although no one could say why so many of them should have
+been discovered almost simultaneously. Besides, it was hard to
+account for the peculiar glassy appearance of these so-called Crystal
+Planetoids—an appearance which did not at all indicate the nickel or
+iron composition that might have been expected.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Not all these facts were in the minds of the three observers on the
+roof as they made their disconcerting discovery. But there were certain
+things which they did realize clearly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"By glory," exclaimed Gates, his big eyes as wide with surprise as
+though he had seen the dead. "By glory! I just can't believe those
+great spidery devils are real—"</p>
+
+<p>"Real or not, I—I've got a feeling we shouldn't stay here," Eleanor
+muttered, her face still white, as she started toward the door.
+"I—I—something tells me it isn't safe!"</p>
+
+<p>"What in tarnation do you think can happen to us here more than down
+below?" demanded Gates. And then, with a shrug, "I'm going to take
+another peep through that glass!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, go ahead! Might as well all wait, and die together!" Dunbar
+growled. "D'ye know, I've got an idea Eleanor's right. If we've a spark
+of sense left in our hides—"</p>
+
+<p>Gates cast him a scornful glance, noting what an abject figure he
+seemed to be, as, with terror convulsing his lean, moustached face, he
+went slouching away.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope I'll fall dead before I get so soft!" reflected the inventor.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, despite himself, his pulses were throbbing as he returned to
+the Infra-Red Ray and observed the ominous, ruddy glow that, within
+the last minute, had come across the heavens. Was not the atmosphere
+thicker, hotter, heavier than ever? Why did it seem to bear down on
+him like a stony weight? Why within him that impulse which he sternly
+repressed—that impulse to race for shelter?</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds, after he had re-adjusted the instrument, he saw only
+what he had observed before: the prodigious spidery webs, with the huge
+octopus-limbed creatures swinging across them.</p>
+
+<p>But almost immediately he made another observation. And, as he did
+so, a cry came to his lips. It was a cry of horror, issuing from some
+vast instinctive depth—a cry such as one might utter if one saw a
+man-eating tiger springing toward one with wide-open jaws. "For God's
+sake! Quick! Run—for your lives!"</p>
+
+<p>Even as he uttered this plea, Gates dropped the instrument and started
+away. Dunbar was already in the doorway, into which he was disappearing
+with the violence of panic; while just behind him Eleanor was
+scampering like a frightened wild thing.</p>
+
+<p>But they were just a second too late. There came a rushing as of a
+great wind. There came a moment as of immense shadows, sweeping down
+with lightning velocity. There came a glimpse of tenuous shapes in
+rapid motion, a little like the spokes of a furiously turning wheel. At
+the same time, in a nightmarish, unbelievable fashion, Gates saw Dunbar
+and Eleanor arrested in mid-flight. Something vague and gray, which
+looked like a gigantic claw, seemed to be woven about them both. But it
+all happened too quickly for him to be sure. In the same instant, he
+beheld them both jerked into air; then whirled skyward at rocket speed,
+while their cries rang in his ears.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt="">
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>The girl's scream rang out as the tentacles reached down and enfolded them in steel mesh.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>At the same instant also, as he stared at his companions, stunned and
+gasping, he felt something soft but powerful seizing him about the
+middle—something wriggling, and snake-like, and icy chill of touch. He
+was never to know whether he screamed in the extremity of his terror;
+all that he was aware of was that there came a mighty jerk, and that,
+helpless as a hare in an eagle's talons, he rose into air with a speed
+that almost beat out his breath; and saw the roofs of the city fading
+beneath him amid the reddish haze.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>For several minutes, beneath the clubbing rapidity of the flight, the
+captive's senses deserted him. And when, feeling dazed and drugged, he
+revived, it was to find himself amid a universe of fog in which the
+earth had receded from sight. He had, however, the distinct sensation
+of still rising—rising at tremendous speed. And he noticed—and
+this, to his mind, was the most incredible thing of all—that he was
+surrounded by an egg-shaped jelly-like transparent envelope about
+fifteen feet long. Not until much later did he realize that this
+envelope enclosed oxygen enough for him to breathe, and maintained it
+at a temperature and pressure without which life at his great elevation
+would have been impossible.</p>
+
+<p>He had no way of knowing how much time went by in that nightmarish
+flight. He did, however, feel sure that many minutes had passed before
+at length he found himself above the mists. Blanketed in vapor,
+the earth rolled beneath him, shadowy and featureless; while, in a
+crepuscular dimness, he saw the stars glittering from the purple-gray
+void. But what particularly held his attention was the sight of several
+monstrous creatures—long and spidery, and with dangling octopus
+limbs—which drifted ghost-like through the vagueness just outside the
+egg-shaped envelope, with malevolently glowing three-cornered reddish
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As he still rose, past what might have been the upper limits of the
+stratosphere, he saw a silvery globe sparkling above him in the
+moonlight. At first he thought it to be a mere speck; but its disk
+rapidly widened, until it appeared as large as the sun, then as great
+as several suns, then seemed to fill the entire heavens with its pale
+glassy form, which shed a tintless cold light that made Gates shudder.</p>
+
+<p>Actually, the sphere was not more than a few hundred yards across; but
+to the bewildered victim it seemed enormous as some prodigy of nature.
+His confusion was only increased by the fact that he saw the stars
+moving rapidly past it, with a westward drift, showing that it was
+swinging swiftly to the east on an orbit of its own. So dazed was the
+captive that it took him minutes to identify it as one of the Crystal
+Planetoids.</p>
+
+<p>By this time, they had reached the surface of the sphere, which he
+could see to be composed of a jelly-like substance with the appearance
+of milky glass. As they drew near, their speed rapidly diminished,
+until they came to a halt almost in contact with the great globe. Then,
+as if at its own volition, part of the surface billowed back, like a
+paper flap blown by the wind; and Gates, with the sensation of one
+entering a prison in a strange land, found himself drifting inside the
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p>As suddenly as if it had evaporated, the egg-shaped envelope had
+disappeared, and he caught a whiff of hot, heavy, foul-smelling air,
+reminding him of a breeze straight from a menagerie. He coughed and
+gasped, and, as he did so, became aware of an unimaginably horrifying
+scene.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He stood inside the sphere at its lowest part, and gazed up into a
+circular space that, to his startled senses, seemed of stupendous
+magnitude. Woven about this vastness at all heights and angles was an
+intricacy of webs; webs built in concentric circles; webs composed of
+long parallel cables crisscrossed by shorter cables; webs ascending
+as sharply as the riggings of sailing vessels; and webs spun into
+hammock-like floating platforms. All the strands were thinner than
+a man's small finger, and shimmered strangely in the many-hued
+fluorescence of great light-patches on the ceiling; and somehow their
+iridescence, their shifting rainbow hues, their purples, ambers,
+aqua-marines, scarlets and turquoise blues, made them seem all the
+stranger and more sinister.</p>
+
+<p>But most sinister of all were the great beings sprinting along the webs
+or dangling spider-like from a thread. Now for the first time Gates
+saw his captors clearly; for now—as he was later to learn—they had
+brushed off the powder that made them virtually invisible to human
+eyes, and stood forth in their full grotesqueness.</p>
+
+<p>Their outlines were what he had already seen: gigantic, spidery, with
+octopus limbs ending in many tentacle-like curling fingers. He had
+not known, however, that the monsters were encased in a scaly armor,
+which glittered with every peacock hue in the unearthly light, changing
+chameleon-like from ruby to emerald, and from gold and violet to
+bronze, jade and sulphur-yellow. He had not known that they had wide
+pouting greenish-gray lips, from which at times a faint smoke issued.
+He had not realized that they were equipped with long whips of tails,
+each ending in a horny dart, with which they could strike an enemy with
+appalling effect. He had not anticipated that they would talk with a
+peculiar whirr, a little like the grating of a buzz-saw; nor had he
+expected to see the pouches beneath their lower ribs, in which some of
+them, kangaroo-fashion, carried their young.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Gates been deposited in the Planetoid when he made still
+another discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Great heavens, look at Ronald!" he heard a familiar feminine voice.
+And, wheeling about, he found himself staring at Dunbar and Eleanor,
+who gaped at him not half a dozen yards away.</p>
+
+<p>Both were, literally, as white as ghosts—wide-eyed as persons who
+have looked on unmentionable horror. Gates noticed that Dunbar's hair,
+usually so sleekly glossed, straggled in wild disorder; that his tie
+was a rag, and his coat buttons torn off as if in a struggle; while
+Eleanor's clothes were in rumpled disorder. Yet he noted with relief
+that neither captive, apparently, had been hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" the girl explained. "You're whole and sound!"</p>
+
+<p>"Even if a little mussed up," Dunbar forced out, with a wry grimace.
+"Good Lord! Why, his shirt is in ribbons! And his collar—"</p>
+
+<p>But he was not to finish the sentence. For Gates suddenly cried out,
+with a sensation as if a boa constrictor had seized him about the
+chest. One of the monsters, its red eyes glaring balefully, had reached
+down and grasped him in its tentacles; and, with the manner of a master
+reprimanding a disobedient puppy, had begun to carry him away.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Red-Hood</p>
+
+
+<p>Straight up and up a swinging ladder the prisoner was borne for scores
+of yards; while, as he gazed into the abyss and thought of the result
+if his captor's hold should slacken, his head reeled with vertigo.</p>
+
+<p>But his terror was not for himself alone. Even as he was hurtled high
+in air, he glanced down and saw an octopus's arm wrapping itself about
+a feminine form. And fury and alarm for Eleanor's sake drowned out all
+self-concern. In a flash, as his persecutor wound his way through the
+webbed void, he relived the history of his acquaintance with Eleanor.
+He saw again that day, little more than a year ago, when she, fresh
+from college, had come to the laboratory; and recalled the great leap
+his heart had given, and how he had gone away thinking only of her. But
+a natural timidity had delayed his advances; while Dunbar, the silent,
+morose Dunbar, whom nobody liked, had not been so restrained. Could
+she not see that the man, though clever enough, was as self-centered
+as a porcupine? How could she have fallen for this schemer? Not that
+she had fallen for him absolutely! Though they had been seen together
+frequently, was she not always gracious to Gates? Yet the rivalry of
+the two men was bubbling way beneath the surface like acid.</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts, which passed through Gates' mind in much less time than
+it takes to repeat them, were interrupted by a peculiar squeal which
+his captor gave out as he reached one of the hammock-like floating
+platforms and released the victim. Clinging to this unsteady island
+high in air, in imminent peril of plunging into a two-hundred-foot
+gulf, the prisoner was not likely to attempt escape!</p>
+
+<p>But even had there been anywhere to flee, he would have been held by
+the magnetism of a particularly large, sinister-looking pair of crimson
+eyes, which glowed from a monster who appeared, to Gates' startled
+gaze, to be at least twenty-five feet tall. A blood-red hood, placed
+upon the creature's many-hued mail, set him off from all his fellows;
+as did the air of autocratic command which, somehow, Gates sensed
+rather than observed directly.</p>
+
+<p>While he stood gaping at this goblin, a sharp cry to his left caught
+his attention; and, wheeling about, he observed Eleanor and Dunbar
+being deposited at his side. Both were trembling, as well they might,
+after their journey up the web, but he thought he saw a glint of relief
+in the girl's eyes, as he gestured to her.</p>
+
+<p>A long, portentous silence fell as the red-hooded brute glared at his
+victims. Gates had the sensation of standing before a judge about to
+pass sentence of execution.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a throaty rumbling, followed by a buzzing as of a
+multitude of bees; after which, to the hearers' incredulous amazement,
+these words rasped forth, in grossly accented yet quite recognizable
+English,</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, my guests! Welcome to our web!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The three humans stared at one another, their lips agape. Had they all
+gone crazy?</p>
+
+<p>The red eyes of the beast gave a wicked twinkle. Somehow, with their
+triangular scarlet pupils, they seemed more diabolical than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, do you not return my greeting?" buzzed the creature; while
+a grating noise, which may have been laughter, came from his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"How—how in thunder do you come to speak English?" sputtered Gates,
+feeling that he was but living through a nightmare from which he would
+soon awaken.</p>
+
+<p>Again that grating noise, like harsh laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"English—pooh! It is not hard to learn. It is not as if it were an
+advanced language," proceeded Red-Hood. "But you earthlings, with your
+minor-planetary minds, may not understand. Do you want me to explain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" gasped Gates. But had he not steadied himself barely in
+time, he might have fallen off the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is all so very simple," went on the monster. "When
+arriving here, we covered ourselves with the powder Amvol-Amvol,
+which makes us invisible, or almost so. We then roamed your planet
+for many days, unseen by you, observing your habits, and listening
+to your conversations. Not being slow-witted like earth denizens,
+we were able to pick up the meaning of the words, which we held in
+our memories—memories that register everything, and never forget.
+After all, it is not for nothing that we are gifted with Saturnian
+intellects."</p>
+
+<p>"Saturnian?" demanded Dunbar.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is the word you would use, is it not? We come from the
+planet Olar-olargulu, the ringed one."</p>
+
+<p>The hearers remained silent. After all, it had been evident from the
+first that the strangers had not been born on earth!</p>
+
+<p>"This is our first experience with the inferior globules," continued
+the speaker, in a voice like a growl. "We have never before spoken with
+any of you Nignigs, or lesser peoples. But of late centuries we of
+Saturn have become too numerous, even for the great size of our native
+planet. So we have been looking for provinces to colonize. For various
+reasons, we have chosen the earth. As for Mars—it is too small to
+bother with. Jupiter, unfortunately, is too powerfully defended by its
+three-footed dwarfs. And Venus is too near the sun for comfort. So we
+are prepared to take over the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Take over—the earth?" demanded the three humans, in one voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What else? After all, are we not entitled to it, by virtue of our
+superior intelligence?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>His hearers could merely stare in bewildered silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Our method, you see, is simple. We have ferried these cars—which
+you call the Crystal Planetoids—all the way from Saturn, and placed
+them in positions to whirl about the earth as satellites, enabling us
+to drop down upon our future domains at leisure, while weaving our
+clogclotlas—"</p>
+
+<p>"Your what?" demanded Gates.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," apologized Red-Hood, while a spout of smoke came from
+between his thick grayish-green lips, and his tail lashed out and shot
+its hornet dart to within half a dozen inches of the young man's face.
+"Pardon me—I had forgotten myself, and used a Saturnian term. Weaving
+our webs, I should have said. You see, it is necessary to spin these
+webs thoroughly through your entire atmosphere before choking out all
+the planet's native life."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker had made this announcement in as quiet a manner as though
+he had merely foretold that tomorrow's weather would be rainy.</p>
+
+<p>Hence his hearers were hardly able to take in his full dread meaning.
+They merely gaped at him as though he were perpetrating a ghastly joke.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Do you doubt me?" rattled out the monster. "Beware lest I take
+offense! We Saturnians never lie to our inferiors."</p>
+
+<p>This assertion was punctuated by another flick of the creature's tail,
+whose rapier-like barb barely missed Dunbar's nose.</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't mean to say you would actually exterminate
+us—exterminate us all—" began Eleanor; then faltered, and halted in
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Would you earth-creatures hesitate to wipe out a hive of
+ants? Doubtless they too have minds, and even a civilization of a sort.
+But what is that to you? If they got in your way, would you not crush
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"So we are no more to you than ants?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not flatter yourselves. Why should we be sentimentalists, and spare
+you nignigs unless you can serve us?"</p>
+
+<p>The puff of smoke that came from between the monster's lips, as he spat
+out these words, was so heavy that all three humans gasped, with the
+stench of sulphur in their nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>"As I have said," he went on, "our clogclotlas, or webs, have been
+woven all through your atmosphere, checking the usual wind currents,
+and laying down a blanket that will enclose the planet's heat, until
+after a time every living creature will be baked or choked to death in
+one vast oven. Of course, like any other great engineering project,
+this will take time. We cannot expect to complete the good work in less
+than a year or two."</p>
+
+<p>In Gates' disturbed fancy, it seemed that many-colored points of light,
+like little demons, danced malevolently upon the huge expanse of his
+captor's armor.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there was just a trace of incredulity in his tone, as he demanded,</p>
+
+<p>"If this is all true, why do you trouble to tell us about it? We for
+our part do not warn the ants we intend to trample!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do we!" Red-Hood's words came in a snort, and his tail flicked
+through the air in an angry crackling. "But whether we will spare you
+or sting you to death remains to be seen!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The beast took a sudden step forward, and Gates found himself almost
+projected off the platform as the monster shot out at him,</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think we brought you to the Planetoid for a purpose? For a
+long while, have we not been looking for suitable earth-captives? No,
+not at first members of the common pack! We wanted prisoners who knew
+something of your science, rudimentary as that is. When you went to
+the roof down there to use your ray machine—the Infra-Red Eye, as you
+call it—you set up etheric vibrations that instantly attracted our
+attention. Your ability to produce such vibrations told us that you
+were the folk we were seeking. So we lost no time about capturing you."</p>
+
+<p>During the moment of silence that followed, Dunbar turned toward Gates
+with unveiled enmity in his snapping black eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"So!" he snarled. "It was your damned invention that got us into this
+mess!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates made no reply; but an answer came from an unexpected direction.</p>
+
+<p>"You should thank him, earth-man, for getting you into this mess.
+Because of his invention, you three may live while all other
+earth-creatures perish!"</p>
+
+<p>"What in God's name would life on such terms be worth?" Gates demanded.
+But a sob to his left caught his attention; and, wheeling about, he
+joined Dunbar in trying to console the weeping girl.</p>
+
+<p>With a contemptuous glint in his triangular eyes, Red-Hood stood
+looking on; but it was several minutes before he resumed,</p>
+
+<p>"Life is dear to all creatures—and you will find it not worthless on
+our terms!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are your terms?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Dunbar who asked this question, while Gates felt a silent
+resentment against the other man leap up within him.</p>
+
+<p>"They are really most reasonable," the monster announced, sliding
+back and forth on the web, while his scales clanked ominously. "You
+see, even after all we have done, we find it hard to work on earth.
+The air is much too thin. After we have thickened the atmosphere with
+a complete network, things will be different; but as yet we labor
+under great disadvantages. What we need are tanks of compressed air
+to help our breathing. Such compressed air can be supplied only by
+you earth-creatures, since in our haste, unfortunately, we neglected
+to bring our automatic condensers from Saturn. That is why we have
+captured you. And that is why we promise you your lives—if you will do
+us a little service."</p>
+
+<p>Gates glared back at Red-Hood in unconcealed fury. That this
+creature, who was threatening to wipe out the human race, should ask
+for his assistance—the idea was too preposterous, too heinous for
+consideration! And he was glad to note, from the revulsion in Eleanor's
+face, that she felt no less shocked than he.</p>
+
+<p>But it was in unbelief, swiftly turning to anger, that he heard
+Dunbar's low, even voice, inquire,</p>
+
+<p>"And what little service do you want of us?"</p>
+
+<p>The gray-green lips of the Saturnian opened in a hideous grin.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew from the first," he rasped, "that you earth-animals would
+be reasonable. Our proposition is simply this: we will release you
+all, on condition that, on your return to earth, you prepare great
+containers of compressed air, according to our directions. If you do
+this faithfully, we will see that your lives are spared even after the
+extinction of all other earth-creatures."</p>
+
+<p>"And if we refuse?" demanded Gates.</p>
+
+<p>Red-Hood took a menacing stride forward.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not refuse!" he proclaimed, again with a puff of sulphur
+fumes. "For, in that case, you will suffer a fate a hundred times worse
+than death!"</p>
+
+<p>With ominous rapidity, the monster's tail whipped out once more,
+flashing back and forth before all three captives. And Gates, edging
+again toward the webbed abyss, had a momentary idea of leaping over
+the brink. But even as this thought came to him, he felt an ice-cold
+arm lashing him in a firm grip. Harsh, loud and ironic, the monster's
+derision grated in his ears,</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, my friend, not yet! The road of escape will be long and
+spiky! The road of escape will be long and spiky for all who defy the
+will of Saturn!"</p>
+
+<p>These words were emphasized by a peal of laughter, shrill, grating,
+diabolical, wherein all the onlooking monsters joined in one prolonged
+scream.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">"Co-operate—and Live!"</p>
+
+
+<p>"Earth-Men, we are not impatient! We know your minds work like rusty
+hinges—but what else can be expected of the minor planets? So take a
+little time. Consult with one another. We will allow you half an hour.
+Then we will be back, and learn if you prefer to co-operate—or to die
+a thousand deaths!"</p>
+
+<p>With an agile looping movement, Red-Hood started down one of the cable
+ladders, followed by all his retinue.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing more!" he warned, noting how longingly Gates was staring
+into the abyss. "Take care not to fall off the platform! In that case,
+strong arms will be waiting to catch you—and your punishment will be
+heavy in proportion to the crime!"</p>
+
+<p>"How heavy will that be?" defied Gates, wondering what they could do to
+him worse than they had already threatened.</p>
+
+<p>Scarlet flashes shot from the monster's eyes. "One hundred of your
+kind," he snorted, "will be picked up from the streets of your cities,
+and crushed to death as hostages! Such is the vengeance of Saturn!"</p>
+
+<p>As the creature left, with a low hissing as of escaping steam, Gates
+felt as never before that he was in contact with a force having nothing
+in common with humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Silence ruled for a moment, while the three prisoners sat facing one
+another on their high swinging perch. But their horror-filled eyes were
+eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>"God in heaven! I don't suppose there's much for us to decide!" mumbled
+Gates, grimly, while he stared as in a nightmare at the looping,
+crisscrossing intricacy of cables overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm sure not!" sighed Eleanor.</p>
+
+<p>"Any idiot could see that!" Dunbar muttered. "Don't know what we need
+this half hour to think about!"</p>
+
+<p>Another gloomy silence ensued.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at least I'm glad we're agreed," declared Gates, who, to tell
+the truth, was a little surprised at Dunbar's sudden manifestation of
+decent feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't we be imbeciles not to be," Dunbar drawled, running a lean,
+long-fingered hand reflectively across his jutting chin. "All comes
+down, I guess, to a question of saving our own hides. As for me—I
+never did exactly hanker to shine as a martyr."</p>
+
+<p>"Martyr?" echoed Gates. And all at once he knew the full enormity of
+Dunbar's treason—yes, knew beyond all need for further questioning!</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, he noticed Eleanor's nauseated look.</p>
+
+<p>"Goddamn it, Ronny, mean to say I got you wrong? So you folks are not
+with me after all?" demanded Dunbar, incredulously. "Deuce take you! I
+never thought you were that crazy!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you call it crazy not to betray your whole race—"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to know what in hell my whole race has ever done for me!"
+retorted Dunbar. "Lot it'll help them if I let myself be ground to bits
+by those snaky dragons! No, sirree, you can play the saint if you want
+to—but I'll think you're both hell-blasted fools. As for me—I'll
+co-operate—and live!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather be a hell-blasted fool than live with the world's blood on
+my hands. Wouldn't you, Eleanor?"</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand times over!" attested the girl. And in her animated eyes,
+as she nodded assent, there was a warmth Gates hadn't observed in them
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"You're letting your feelings rule you, Ronny, not your mind!" swore
+Dunbar. "That's the trouble with you—too infernal much of a dreamer!
+Can't face reality! Why, haven't I seen it in you all along? You
+haven't got the guts of a jellyfish! That's why I've despised you!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There it was out in the open again, their antagonism flaring
+white-hot. Somehow it seemed strange, ludicrous that the three of them
+should be perched here, on the rim of eternity as it were, and be doing
+nothing better than air their personal enmities. Yet, after all, did
+Gates not know that Dunbar had always loathed him?</p>
+
+<p>It was Eleanor's voice that broke the brief, bristling silence.
+Struggling to gain control of herself, she cast a defiant glance at
+Dunbar. "You are badly mistaken, Philip!" she defended, crisply, "if
+you think Ronald hasn't got, as you say, the guts of a jellyfish. I
+guess it doesn't take so much guts to be a traitor, the way you're
+planning, Mr. Dunbar! And let us both die while you go pleasantly along
+your way!"</p>
+
+<p>Tears were in the girl's eyes; she had to avert her face violently to
+prevent a telltale overflow.</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar's answer was a low, gruff laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! What makes you think I'm willing to let you both die?
+Ronny can do what he damn well wants to—guess the world will outlive
+his loss. But you, my girl—do you think I'll let you be massacred
+just because most of our good-for-nothing species is due to be wiped
+out? Believe me, if there's going to be one man survive the slaughter,
+there'll be one woman too—just to start the new world right! Do you
+get me?"</p>
+
+<p>As he crept nearer to her along the web, his little black eyes widened
+in a leer.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later, the full implications of his words became
+clear. Red-Hood and the other Saturnians had returned; and, ringing
+their captives about in a glittering circle, had demanded their
+decision. And Eleanor and Gates had defied them with a resolute "No!",
+regardless of the thunderous rumblings and the spouts of smoke that
+came from their masters' lips.</p>
+
+<p>But Dunbar took another track.</p>
+
+<p>"Worthy visitors from Saturn," he said, with mincing gestures, "I am
+glad to co-operate with you. But, in return, I ask one small boon."</p>
+
+<p>"What boon?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I help you, O noble ones, I must do so without restraint. But this
+cannot be unless you grant me the favor I ask. You see, O Lords, we
+earth-men are so made that we cannot do our best work without a woman
+at our side. So I crave of you—spare the life of this female here;
+release her, so that she may labor with me!"</p>
+
+<p>A snort from Red-Hood drowned out Eleanor's shocked protests.</p>
+
+<p>"But this woman, O earthling, has refused to co-operate. She deserves
+the fate worse than death, which we have in store for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Women, O Lords, are ever fickle and changeable of mind. If you will
+but spare her, I will see that she will co-operate."</p>
+
+<p>The Saturnians held a brief conference among themselves, in tones like
+rapid gurglings. Then Red-Hood turned back toward Dunbar. "It is so, O
+Nignig! On our planet, too, the female of the species is fickle, and
+changes her mind like the lightning." And then, pointing scornfully at
+Gates, "Do you also ask us to spare your other companion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, O Lords! I ask the woman only!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Eleanor's despairing cry was muffled amid the bellowing of the
+Saturnians, as they once more conferred, punctuating their debate with
+flashes of their many-colored armor, and with innumerable puffs of
+smoke ... in a discussion that lasted for many minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, discharging sulphur fumes from little orifices at the ends of
+his long twining fingers, Red-Hood turned back to his Quisling.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it be so!" he rattled out. "On one condition, we will release the
+woman. She will serve as a pledge for the faithful performance of your
+promise. If you fail us, by even the minutest fraction of a fraction of
+a degree, be sure she will not escape, but will perish along with you
+on the Barbs of Slow Agony!"</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor gasped; and peering up into the relentless red eyes of her
+captors, knew that all protest would be futile.</p>
+
+<p>"Zoltevi! Zoltevi! Quimboson!" she heard Red-Hood rasping, as one of
+his long tentacled arms motioned to two retainers. And after a brief
+interchange in their native tongue, the pair stepped forth, and she
+felt the octopus arms of one of the giants winding about her, while
+Dunbar was snatched up in the claws of the second.</p>
+
+<p>"My followers will give you your instructions!" Red-Hood growled at
+his new servant; while Eleanor, with swimming head, felt herself being
+borne down the great swaying web.</p>
+
+<p>"Have faith! Have faith! We will win out yet!" she thought she heard a
+familiar voice calling after her. Or was it that, in her bewilderment,
+she had only imagined? For her last glimpse at Gates showed him
+standing erect and defiant enough, but so feeble-looking, of such
+midget size beside the many-armed, tailed monsters that towered above
+him to the height of the great dinosaurs of vanished ages!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Paralyzed!</p>
+
+
+<p>Compared with Gates as he stared up at his captors, Daniel in the
+lion's den may have considered himself almost among friends.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment after the departure of the two other humans along with
+Zoltevi and Quimboson, no sound was audible except that of the
+threshing, sighing cables, and of the deep, throaty breathing of the
+monsters.</p>
+
+<p>Then in silence—a silence more terrible than any spoken
+threat—Red-Hood advanced toward his victim. Gates, sensing his
+sinister intention, spontaneously pressed back. But Red-Hood drew
+nearer still, this time with a ten-foot stride. And Gates retreated to
+the extreme outer edge of the platform. Another inch, and he would have
+fallen!</p>
+
+<p>But before he could plunge to a welcome deliverance, his persecutor's
+long tail shot out. With a rapid whirring motion, sounding a little
+like the warning buzz of a rattlesnake, it flicked by his left arm. And
+this time it did not miss. A glancing stroke touched him painlessly,
+leaving an abrasion hardly more noticeable than the prick of a pin.</p>
+
+<p>But instantly something else occurred—something all too noticeable!
+Gates felt a numbness shoot along the arm, which took on the lifeless
+feeling of a jaw into which a dentist has pumped several charges of
+novocain. And from the arm the feeling spread to his left shoulder,
+then over to the right shoulder, then down toward his abdomen, and up
+his neck, and along the right arm, and through both legs to the toes.</p>
+
+<p>It all happened in a matter of seconds. Almost before he had had
+time to grasp the full dread facts, he found himself paralyzed. Yes,
+paralyzed practically completely! Except for a slight wriggling
+movement in his feet and fingers, he was unable to stir! In his horror,
+he attempted to cry out; but his tongue would not obey the impulse; all
+that came forth was a whisper-thin gurgling. Meanwhile, no longer able
+to maintain an upright position, he had sagged to the floor of the
+web, where he lay like a bundle of rags.</p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough, however, the higher nerve centers appeared
+unaffected; his mind had not lost any of its clarity. It was, in fact,
+as though his mental reactions had suddenly been heightened, now that
+his physical frame was as if dead.</p>
+
+<p>After a minute of silent gloating, during which he stood leering down
+at the victim, Red-Hood drew wide his green-gray lips, and huskily
+inquired,</p>
+
+<p>"How do you feel now, O earthling? That was what we call a tail-prick.
+Had the blow struck beneath the surface, you would have perished. But
+that would not have served our purpose. You can do more for us alive
+than dead."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Savage and determined was the secret compact that Gates made with
+himself: he would perish in agony, a hundred times over, sooner than
+voluntarily help his captors by so much as the flick of one finger!</p>
+
+<p>But Red-Hood, as if aware of his thoughts, twisted those great bag-like
+lips of his into a sardonic grin, and grumbled,</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be up to you, my friend, whether you assist us or not.
+You see, there is nothing you can do against Lethemaz—the poison we
+apply with the tips of our tails. For a hundred thousand cycles our
+scientists have worked, until it has become the most efficient venom
+in the universe. A tenth of a drop—which is just what we used—will
+keep a mite like you paralyzed for days, unless we apply the proper
+antidote."</p>
+
+<p>To Gates' horrified consciousness there had come the memory of certain
+wasps which injected a paralyzing fluid into their spider prey, keeping
+them alive but helpless for an indefinite period, so that they might
+nourish the next wasp generation.</p>
+
+<p>But the fate of the spiders seemed almost enviable beside his own. For
+they at least would at last know an end to their captivity!</p>
+
+<p>As this thought shot through his mind, he heard Red-Hood conferring
+in undertones with two subordinates. And the latter, after a moment,
+approached him and produced long cables, which they began to twist and
+loop about his body. For what purpose? He could not even guess. Yet the
+wicked twinkles in their three-cornered red eyes told him that they
+were up to some new villainy. A minute later, when they began to carry
+him down the web, amid the shimmering many-hued strands, how fervently
+he wished that he had seized his opportunity before it was too late,
+and had fallen off the platform to his doom!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Twelve hours had gone by. The Crystal Planetoid, whirling on its orbit
+about the earth, had swung back to the point at which the three humans
+had entered it. And a man and a girl, deposited by two invisible
+attendants, had found themselves back near the spot where their
+adventures had begun.</p>
+
+<p>They had come down in a fog—which was not surprising, since fogs now
+hovered continually over the earth; and their exact point of descent
+was an isolated spot in a city park, a mile or two from the laboratory.
+Dunbar recognized the place with a satisfied grunt, as he identified
+a certain rustic bridge over a small stream. "Good! Just ideal for a
+little chat!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if a huge shadow drifted over them and away, and vaguely
+they were aware that the two Saturnians had departed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is there to chat about, Mr. Dunbar?" she flung back haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silken purr in the man's voice. But determination marked
+his manner as he imposed himself in the girl's path.</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen here, young lady. There are several things you might as
+well understand. The first is that you must co-operate."</p>
+
+<p>"Co-operate?" she tossed back, shrilly, and paused long enough for a
+contemptuous fling of laughter. "Why, who wouldn't die sooner than
+co-operate with those beasts—those dev—"</p>
+
+<p>He had come closer to her, and his voice was coaxing, almost caressing.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it was for their sake, Eleanor? Why do you think I saved
+you, except for your own precious self? If you will only co-operate
+with me—with <i>me</i>—"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather co-operate with a viper!"</p>
+
+<p>She had recoiled as though he were indeed the creature she had
+mentioned; and he found it necessary to seize her arm in order to
+prevent her departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let's forget all this, Eleanor. I know what nervous stress you
+are under. When you return to yourself, you will realize all that I
+have done for you. If I hadn't said a word in your behalf—"</p>
+
+<p>"In <i>my</i> behalf! Good heavens, man!" she retorted, bitterly.
+"Don't you think I could have saved my own life, if I had been willing
+to stoop to your kind of treason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Treason or not, we shall see. We shall see. Meanwhile, I warn you,
+don't try to interfere when I fulfill my agreement—when I prepare
+those vats of compressed air—"</p>
+
+<p>"And what if I report you to the authorities?"</p>
+
+<p>"Report? By Christ! You wouldn't be that stupid? You wouldn't drive me
+to action against you, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>His tone had become subtly menacing as he leaned over her, and
+whispered, almost furtively,</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, have you not as much at stake as I, my girl? Remember, you
+are a pledge for my success. If I fail—"</p>
+
+<p>"If you fail, I will give thanks to heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>With a determined effort, she had thrust herself forward; while he,
+following through the fog, pleaded and expostulated, in tones half like
+a lover, half like a taskmaster. At length, through the mist, there
+came a choked sobbing. And thin and faint, where two enormous creatures
+stood invisibly amid the vapors, there sounded an eerie squeak, like
+the muffled mockery of demons.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chief of Police Joe McCullough had settled back to a good fat cigar
+and the latest issue of the "Sports Digest." His long legs stretched
+lankily across a chair; his heavy red face wore an expression almost
+of contentment, except when now and then he mopped the sweat from his
+brow with a crimson-bordered handkerchief. "Damn this heat!" he finally
+muttered, glaring at the electric fan as if to accuse it of criminal
+conspiracy. And just then the door opened, and the sandy head of
+Sergeant Johannsen intruded.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to butt in, Chief, but a dame out here wants to see you."</p>
+
+<p>McCullough let out a low oath. "Didn't I tell you I don't want to be
+pestered? See her yourself, Johannsen. You're no slouch when it comes
+to dames." And, with a growl, he turned back to the "Sports Digest."</p>
+
+<p>"But she swears she's gotta see you, Chief. Just can't do a thing with
+her. Something damned important, she says."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her to go to hell!"</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke, a woman's face poked itself through the doorway.
+It was a face naturally comely, with clear blue eyes, and handsomely
+chiselled chin and brow; but just now she looked like the victim of a
+cyclone. Her clothes were rumpled; her disordered hair hung far down
+her forehead; there were tear-stains beneath her eyes, which blazed
+with a wild, impatient light.</p>
+
+<p>"Chief McCullough?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Had she been a man, she would have been ejected without debate. As
+it was, the Chief merely gaped at her, abashed, while awkwardly
+withdrawing his feet from their comfortable perch. "Yes, Ma'am. What
+can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something nobody else can do, Mr. McCullough. I know of a plot,
+sir—the most fiendish plot ever imagined. You'll hardly believe it,
+but I've just come down—well, down from one of the Crystal Planetoids,
+where they've hatched a scheme to capture the earth."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>McCullough gaped, and let the "Sports Digest" drop from his hands. He
+had had experience with crazy women before, but never with one who had
+dug out a scheme to capture the earth. The best thing to do with her
+kind was to let them rave on. If you tried to interrupt them, they were
+apt to get hysterical.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was with a polite but skeptical smile that he listened to
+her story of invaders as tall as a two-story house, who had enormous
+stinging tails and were invisible in ordinary light. Mid-way in her
+recital, he scowled reproof at Sergeant Johannsen, who seemed about to
+break out in open laughter; and, when she had finished, he thoughtfully
+took up his cigar, which he had put down for the moment, and remarked,
+with an attempt at courtesy,</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now that's all too bad, Sister. The thing I'd advise you to do
+is to go home and sleep it off. These are queer times, you know. Why,
+with all this heat and tension, it's surprising we're not all seeing
+rattlesnakes and tigers. So you just have a good sleep, and tomorrow
+you'll feel better."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared at McCullough in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my God, I'm not dreaming!" she insisted. "This is real—take my
+word for it, horribly real! There's a man—I can give you his name—who
+is working right now for the invaders, preparing tanks of compressed
+air. If you don't help—and immediately—"</p>
+
+<p>She was interrupted by Johannsen, who, no longer able to contain
+himself, exploded in one mighty roar.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, she caught the amused glint in McCullough's eyes;
+and all at once she felt sick—sick to the very pit of her being. And,
+realizing the uselessness of further pleas, she turned without another
+word, and stumbled blindly toward the doorway.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">An Offering from the Clouds</p>
+
+
+<p>At almost any other time in modern history, the disappearance of a
+promising young scientist would have created a sensation. As it was,
+the newspapers were so preoccupied with other events that they merely
+noted incidentally that "Ronald Gates, a technician employed by the
+Merlin Research Institute, has dropped mysteriously out of sight.
+No clue to his whereabouts has been found either at his lodgings or
+his place of employment. Suspicions of suicide, and of kidnaping for
+ransom, have not been confirmed."</p>
+
+<p>Yet hardly was this story printed when extraordinary rumors began
+to be heard. So wild, so fantastic were the tales that most hearers
+shook their heads skeptically; newspapers denied them space; and even
+the most credulous old wives found belief stretched to the breaking
+point. But there were many who swore to the authenticity of the
+accounts. Ronald Gates, they attested, had been seen again; had been
+seen dangling in air, like a fly in a spider's web! About him were thin
+shimmering strands, which vanished into a mist; while he himself swung
+not many feet above the earth, was both gagged and bound. Some declared
+that he was inert, and dead as a stone; but others averred that they
+had seen him making frantic movements with his feet, and with the tips
+of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Among the few who listened seriously to these reports was Eleanor
+Firth. Rousing herself from the sick bed in which she had been confined
+for two days, suffering from what the doctor diagnosed as "nervous
+delusions," she set out toward the field at the outskirts of town,
+where, she had been told, the dangling apparition had been seen.</p>
+
+<p>As she left the house, a skulking form slunk from behind a tree half a
+block away; and slithered to the nearest phone booth. She did not see
+the figure; but thought that it was by a queer coincidence that, after
+she had boarded a street car ten minutes later, she saw a taxicab just
+keeping pace with the trolley, and inside the vehicle recognized the
+slim dark shape of Dunbar.</p>
+
+<p>At first she thought of turning back. But thinking that she might have
+made a mistake in identification, or that Dunbar might turn off in some
+other direction without seeing her, she continued on her way.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later, when the car had reached its terminal, the
+taxicab was still a little behind.</p>
+
+<p>But she could give little thought just then to the cab and its
+occupant. Through the mist she saw some vacant lots about a hundred
+yards away, where a crowd was assembled. And, with a fluttering heart,
+she pressed forward, racing rather than walking toward the crowd in the
+field.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At the outskirts of the throng she joined the others in staring vaguely
+upward into the hazes, although at first she saw nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he just seems to come and go," she heard a neighbor remarking.
+"Dips down, and then pops up again like a jack-in-the-box. You'd think
+he was held on strings."</p>
+
+<p>"There he is!" a child cried out, eagerly. "Oh, Mamma, look! He's
+upside down!"</p>
+
+<p>Surely enough, a figure was drifting out of the dense ceiling of fog.
+It was a figure as stiff and lifeless-looking as a manikin, except
+for the spasmodic twitching of the feet and fingers. And it was, as
+the child had exclaimed, upside down! Nothing could be weirder or
+more unnatural-looking than the way in which it slowly approached, in
+a diver's posture, with its arms outspread beneath it, and its feet
+uppermost. Obviously, it was supported by unseen hands or cables; yet
+Eleanor, no matter how she strained her eyes, could catch no glimpse of
+those cobweb strands which, she knew, encompassed it in a thick web.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment or two, as she stared in a ghastly fascination,
+recognition did not come to her. Then all at once she cried out in
+astonished, dreadful certainty. That frank, open face, with the
+aquiline nose and broad, high forehead; those masses of coffee-brown
+hair, lying dishevelled along the brow—how could she help recognize
+them, even though the tanned skin was covered with a dense stubble, and
+the once-mobile features looked inflexible as marble!</p>
+
+<p>"Ronny! Ronny!" she exclaimed, sagging for support against a fat
+woman, who grumbled at her aberrations. And even as she spoke, she
+thought that she was answered by a glint in the eyes of the floating
+apparition. Yes, surely there was a responsive gleam! a vivid, deep
+fire which no paralysis could quench! She knew, she knew that Ronny had
+seen her, had recognized her!</p>
+
+<p>But, at the same time, his eyes were kindled with such sorrow, such
+suffering that she thought of a martyr writhing at the stake.</p>
+
+<p>Downward he floated, until he dangled but ten or twelve feet above
+her head. Only ten or twelve feet, she thought, yet what infinities
+between them! But almost immediately, he began to retreat. Jerked by
+the unseen cords, he slowly arose, was gradually pulled around to a
+horizontal position, and mounted until by degrees he was lost in the
+mist. And, all the while, from the watching crowd, came cries of wonder
+and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>But just as the figure disappeared, Eleanor noticed something hardly
+less extraordinary. She could have sworn that, a moment before, a man
+had stood just to her right, had pressed almost elbow to elbow with
+her; and she knew that he had not strolled away. Yet suddenly she heard
+a groan from where he had been; then a swift swishing; and, turning,
+found that he was gone. Literally, he had vanished into thin air!</p>
+
+<p>The next moment, when a frightened woman began crying, "John, John,
+where are you? For goodness' sake, where are you, John?" it seemed
+inevitable that there should be no response.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>But her mind had no chance to dwell upon the incident. For she felt
+some one tapping her upon the shoulder; and, turning, stared into the
+dark, sardonically grinning face that she wished to see least of all
+faces on earth.</p>
+
+<p>How she hated him for the triumphant leer with which he devoured her!
+How she detested the manner in which he spoke, bowing urbanely, and
+with an ironic purr in his voice! "Ah, Eleanor! Nice to meet you here!"
+Somehow, she had the feeling of a bird in the fowler's hands!</p>
+
+<p>"What a piece of good luck for us both, meeting like this!" he
+murmured. "Better step over this way, Eleanor, there are some things to
+talk over."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't imagine what!" she denied.</p>
+
+<p>But she caught the warning glint in his eyes. "Be unreasonable, young
+lady, and I don't answer for the consequences!"</p>
+
+<p>In any case, she reflected, she could not stand here arguing with him;
+could not make a public spectacle of herself. And so, choking down the
+voice of inner warning, she followed him toward the waiting taxicab.</p>
+
+<p>As they started off, a cry rang from the crowd; and, looking up, she
+saw the dangling figure emerging again from the mist. Strangely, it was
+propelled—almost thrust—in her direction, until it floated a mere
+half a dozen feet overhead. The face, as before, was rigid as rock, but
+the eyes glared with anger—anger fierce, vehement, concentrated, which
+seemed to focus in two fierce fire-points of light. Eleanor noticed how
+Dunbar, after a single glance, winced and turned away—slunk away, it
+seemed to her, in the manner of a whipped hound.</p>
+
+<p>Upon reaching the taxicab, the girl hesitated. That warning voice,
+stronger now and more insistent, bade her not to enter. But the man's
+tones, soft and coaxing, appealed, "There's something I must tell
+you—I <i>must</i>, Eleanor, if you want to save yourself and our
+friend up above."</p>
+
+<p>The plea for herself alone would not have sufficed; but at the
+reference to Ronald she felt herself yielding.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let's drive around town a while—anywhere at all you say," he
+suggested, "before having you taken back home."</p>
+
+<p>After all, she thought, what harm in driving around a bit? She was
+almost exhausted, and it would be so much easier not to have to go home
+by trolley! Besides, she was so faint that there was little power in
+her to resist Dunbar's will.</p>
+
+<p>And so she found herself preceding him into the cab, although still
+that warning voice cautioned, "Don't! Don't! Don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere around the suburbs," Dunbar instructed the driver. And then
+the door slammed, and they were on their way. But, as the wheels
+whirred beneath her, she would have given her last penny to be safely
+on the ground again.</p>
+
+<p>Subtly, insidiously, her companion's manner had changed. There was
+a menacing note beneath the silken purr as he turned to her, and
+demanded, "And now, young lady, maybe you will tell me why you have not
+been co-operating?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She writhed; withdrew from him as far as possible; and made no answer.
+How idiotic of her to have let him lure her into the taxi!</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you will tell me," he went on, "why it was you went to the
+police to report me? No! don't say you didn't! I have informants!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is to say, you've been shadowing me with spies, Mr. Dunbar?" she
+retorted, turning upon him with spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care a damn what you call it!" he snarled. "Simple fact is I
+couldn't afford to take any chances. But I really didn't think you'd be
+imbecilic enough to report me—since we're both in the same boat. If
+the Saturnians murder me, they murder you too! Remember that!"</p>
+
+<p>"So that's what you decoyed me into the car to say, Mr. Dunbar?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't decoy you. But I did want to warn you. If you give me your
+solemn promise, Eleanor, to keep a tight lock on your tongue, and not
+interfere with me any further, I'll let you go about your way. But not
+unless!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't propose to argue with you, Mr. Dunbar!" Her tones were slow,
+incisive, cutting. "Now if you'll have the kindness to give the driver
+my address—"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast there, my girl! We've still got some things to thresh out.
+Just because you don't seem to care about your own life, it doesn't
+follow I'm going to let you throw mine away!"</p>
+
+<p>At last the mask was falling off. He glared; his teeth bit into his
+lower lip; his manner was truculent. "Good Lord, Eleanor, don't you
+know those Saturnians are watching everything you do? How long do you
+think their patience will last? What do you suppose old Red-Hood will
+do when he finds you're all set to betray him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Betray <i>him</i>?" Scornfully she laughed. "So that's the only
+betrayal you're thinking of? Now will you kindly give that driver my
+address?"</p>
+
+<p>He made no move to obey.</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't, then I will!" she decided, starting up.</p>
+
+<p>But a powerful hand had seized her, and thrust her back. "I tell you,
+my girl, we've got to thresh this out!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, there's nothing to thresh out!"</p>
+
+<p>Before her inner vision there flashed again a figure, with
+pain-tormented eyes, who dangled helplessly high in air. And she
+clenched her fists, and secretly swore a bitter oath.</p>
+
+<p>"So then it's not peace, but a sword?" he flung out, as if reading her
+thoughts. "In that case, you force me to act in self-defense!"</p>
+
+<p>Despite the quietness of his manner, she was becoming more and more
+frightened. Her heart fluttered; she remembered again that voice of
+warning which she had not heeded; and felt suddenly too weak and
+helpless to make the attempt—the obviously futile attempt—to call out
+to the driver.</p>
+
+<p>From an inner pocket he had pulled a little vial filled with a
+dark-brown fluid. And, from another pocket, he drew a hypodermic needle.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky for us both that, being a chemist, I can prepare my own
+formulas," he went on, with an oily drawl. "Now this won't do you any
+real harm, Eleanor, so I'd advise you not to struggle. That will only
+make it harder for you, and not help at all in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake," she screamed, "what are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Wildly she stared out of the taxicab, with some vague idea of yelling
+for help or jumping. But they were speeding along an almost houseless
+suburban road, with not a person in sight; and to attempt to jump, even
+if she should succeed, would be mere suicide.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he had dipped the needle in the brown fluid, and she saw its
+thin, sinister point approaching.</p>
+
+<p>"Just hold out your arm," he advised. "It will be all over in a second."</p>
+
+<p>She was to remember hazily that she attempted a shriek, which was
+muffled by his throttling hand. She was to remember that she struggled
+spasmodically; beat at her oppressor with blind, self-protective
+fury. But this was all that she did recollect ... aside from the fact
+that there came a sharp stabbing sensation just above her wrist ...
+followed by a shooting pain in her head, an overwhelming dizziness, a
+reeling and swaying, and, suddenly and mercifully, a black, dreamless
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Prisoners' Progress</p>
+
+
+<p>Lethemaz, the paralyzing drug of the Saturnians, had one quality for
+which Gates was sometimes thankful, and which sometimes he bitterly
+cursed. Despite the total incapacity of his body, his brain, as we have
+seen, was able to work with new keenness and clarity. Yet his increased
+mental awareness only added to his agony. For it made him see the
+horror, the helplessness of his plight in even more pitiful sharpness.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor had been right in supposing that his eyes had glowed with
+recognition as he dangled in air above her. She had been right in
+believing that he had glared at the sight of Dunbar. But she could
+not have known what torment seethed behind that rigid brow of his.
+She could not have known the tantalizing madness of one who, hour
+after hour, realizes that he is being used as a tool for the furies
+of destruction, yet is powerless to speak or act. Nor could she have
+guessed what dire new discoveries the captive had made.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time Gates was carried back to the Crystal Planetoid,
+where a sting from one of the monsters' tails applied a deparalyzing
+fluid. Thus he found occasional relief—which, however, was not to be
+credited to any feeling of mercy on the part of the captors. No! for he
+could not be fed while paralyzed. And thanks to the way in which he was
+jolted around, he had to be given food every few days if he was not to
+perish.</p>
+
+<p>As yet, it was not only the purpose of the invaders to keep him alive,
+but to obtain as many living humans as possible. Dozens of men and
+women, as he saw to his dismay, had been brought to the Planetoid and
+paralyzed. Like flies tangled in the webs of gigantic spiders, the
+victims lay scattered about the webs. And Gates realized that he was,
+in a sense, responsible. Yes, he had been the unwilling tool to trap
+them; it was as a bait that he had been dangled above the earth ...
+so that, when the people congregated beneath, the Saturnians might
+take their pick and whisk the victims away while the crowd was too
+preoccupied to be aware what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>But why did they desire so many humans? Gates had the boldness to put
+this question to Red-Hood during one of his de-paralyzed intervals;
+and, to his surprise, the monster immediately rasped out an answer:</p>
+
+<p>"Nignig, surely you have not the brains of a gnat, else you would have
+guessed! We capture you earthlings so as to dangle you above the earth
+as a lure to capture other earthlings!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why capture other earthlings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" The giant's red eyes twinkled with amusement, as at a child who
+persists in asking the ridiculous. "Naturally, we want specimens of
+all the human fauna, of every race and color, so that we may skin and
+dry them in the interest of science, and bring them back to Saturn as
+specimens for the Museum of Unnatural History."</p>
+
+<p>Noting the horror with which Gates greeted this explanation, Red-Hood
+went on to state,</p>
+
+<p>"After all, Nignig, you should be grateful to us for seeking to
+preserve some trace of your species, instead of obliterating it
+entirely. You earth-creatures have no sense of gratitude!"</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to this information, Gates' mind was more busy than ever with
+the problem of circumventing the Saturnians. His first thought was to
+destroy his own value to them by means of a hunger strike. But the
+result was that his food, in liquid form, was forced down his throat;
+while the Saturnians, apparently fearing that he would resort to other
+means to take his own life, vigilantly followed his every movement.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, after a time, an idea did come to him—an idea that at
+first appeared wild and impossible, and yet seemed to offer the only
+prospect, however remote, of regaining his freedom.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>But before he could try out the scheme, matters on earth went from bad
+to worse.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>To say that the world was frantic would be to understate. Who of us
+that lived through those cataclysmic days will ever forget how men
+walked the streets with white, harried faces, their beards untended,
+their clothes in soiled disarray? Who will ever forget the sense of
+being at a world's end? Who will not shudder again as he recalls the
+appeals made to scientists by government officials—the desperate
+appeals headlined in the papers and blared through the radio: "As you
+value your lives, find the cause of the disturbance! Find the cause of
+this monstrous distortion of nature! Give us a remedy! Give us a remedy
+soon, soon—or it will be too late!"</p>
+
+<p>But scientists labored hard and long—labored fifteen or eighteen hours
+a day, and found no remedy. Some, in fact, maintained that no remedy
+was possible. Who that is now of middle age cannot re-live the day when
+Dr. Arnold Woodrum, of the Cyclops Observatory, let it be known in an
+interview that he believed the Solar System to be passing through a
+region of space crossed by radio-active forces, which would gradually
+raise the temperature until all life was burned to a crisp? In the
+absence of any more definite knowledge, this view was widely accepted.
+And prayers and lamentations became universal.</p>
+
+<p>It is a never-to-be-forgiven crime that the one man who, in these
+circumstances, could have poured out valuable information, was a man
+who kept his lips tight-shut.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In a private laboratory improvised in his apartment, Philip Dunbar
+was hard at work. Motors buzzed about him; tubes and wires were woven
+intricately across the room; while dark hissing vapors and spouts
+of steam issued from numerous valves and retorts. Piled deep in one
+corner, were dozens of great torpedo-shaped steel tubes, some of them
+sealed, some of them ending in complicated coils of rubber tubing; and
+it was to these that the worker gave his chief attention.</p>
+
+<p>After several hours, Dunbar paused; sighed; mopped his sweaty brow;
+turned a switch that sent the motors groaning to a halt; and, after
+unlocking the door, stepped into an adjoining room.</p>
+
+<p>There he was confronted by a girl who, her hands joined behind her back
+and her teeth biting into her lower lip, had been pacing slowly back
+and forth.</p>
+
+<p>She cast him a scornful glance, and continued ranging the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Eleanor!" he said. "You don't have to carry on like this.
+Don't act like a prisoner. Make yourself at home. In that case in the
+foyer, you'll find some mighty interesting books—"</p>
+
+<p>There was fury in her manner as she turned upon him. "Well, what am I
+but a prisoner? Do you want me to bow down and thank you for keeping me
+locked here these last seven days?"</p>
+
+<p>His tone was quiet, restrained, almost reproachful.</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you expect, Eleanor? Surely, you understand the
+circumstances—"</p>
+
+<p>Her blue eyes blazed. He had never before noticed how strong was the
+curve of her chin, how firm the set of her jaw. "Circumstances?" she
+derided. "All that I understand is that you drugged me—kidnapped
+me—brought me here forcibly, with the help of that hireling of yours,
+the taxi driver—"</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard all about that before," he broke in, still without losing
+control of himself. "I know I've behaved rudely, Eleanor. But, after
+all, why not give me credit for some things? Haven't I treated you
+decently here? Have I so much as touched you with one finger, even
+though all the while I've been burning with love?"</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered, and recoiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you act as if I were dirt beneath your feet?" he rushed on.
+"Haven't I done everything to make you comfortable? Haven't I fed you
+properly? My God, Eleanor! don't you know I love you?"</p>
+
+<p>He had pressed toward her, his eyes hot and desirous, while she had
+backed into the remotest corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"And you expect <i>me</i> to love a traitor?" she shot at him. "Am I to
+sit by and adore you for playing Quisling to the whole Earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't fair, Eleanor!" he protested. "Why, most girls would feel
+indebted to me for life for saving them. You will too, never fear!
+You're just a little hysterical now, that's the trouble. But come,
+come, a little kiss is what you need to soothe you!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She saw the black-moustached face drawing closer. She saw the black
+eyes sparkling with predatory glee. She knew that in an instant the
+long twining fingers would be feeling their way about her. And she
+realized the futility, the folly of calling out for help. Nevertheless,
+a scream was upon her lips.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when already she could feel his breath, hot and fetid as that of
+some beast of prey, relief came from an unexpected quarter.</p>
+
+<p>A sharp sudden rattling and snapping sounded from the direction of the
+laboratory. And through the open door she could see how, miraculously,
+the laboratory window flew open as if in a violent gale, although not
+the slightest breeze was blowing.</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar, hearing the noise, wheeled about, and gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"By Christopher, how'd that happen?"</p>
+
+<p>Then solemnly, after a moment, he added, "Why, I could swear I locked
+that window this morning!"</p>
+
+<p>As if in answer, several thick steel rods on the laboratory table began
+to dance back and forth like dry leaves in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Jerusalem!" he ejaculated, backing away. "Am I going crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, nignig, you are no crazier than ever!" returned a rasping voice,
+seemingly from nowhere. "But we have been paying you a visit of
+inspection."</p>
+
+<p>The two hearers stood with wide-open mouths, speechless.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Quimboson, the servant of the Peerless Red One," went on the
+invisible. "I am perched outside your window now, on a web you cannot
+see. Finding the window closed, I pulled it open. One of my hands is in
+the room, shuffling these little objects on the table. I can reach in
+wherever I wish. Shall I prove it?"</p>
+
+<p>Feeling the sudden pressure of a clammy paw against his brow, Dunbar
+was quite convinced.</p>
+
+<p>Now all at once the tone of the invisible became harsher, more menacing.</p>
+
+<p>"Earthling," he growled, "I am much displeased! The tail of the
+Peerless Red One will lash out in wrath when he hears my report. For
+instead of attending to your duties, we find you in dalliance with the
+female of your species!"</p>
+
+<p>"But only for a moment!" pleaded Dunbar, in a cowed manner.</p>
+
+<p>"A moment too much! I always thought it was a mistake to spare the
+female. When I tell the Peerless Red One, he will order her to be stung
+to death! Stung to death instantly! So I shall recommend, O earthling,
+and the Peerless Red One always takes my advice on these minor matters!"</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor's gasp of horror was drowned out by Dunbar's appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"But you've got to spare her, O Quimboson! Otherwise, how can I do my
+best work? On my oath! I shall waste no more time with her—"</p>
+
+<p>"Your oath, O earthling, is as a sword of sand! But no more of this
+empty talk! I go now—I go!"</p>
+
+<p>There came a whirring and a screeching, sounding oddly like mocking
+laughter; then the laboratory window banged to a close, and all became
+silent.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was several minutes before Eleanor, her face white, turned to
+Dunbar. "For God's sake, don't you see—don't you see, you <i>must</i>
+let me go! They'll be back here—they'll be back soon, and strike me
+dead—"</p>
+
+<p>But Dunbar had returned to the laboratory, where he had switched on the
+motors.</p>
+
+<p>"If I do let you go, they'll strike <i>me</i> dead!" he snapped back.
+"Lord! Haven't you gotten me into trouble enough already?"</p>
+
+<p>So speaking, he slammed the door with a violent jerk.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Eleanor, sinking into a chair, her head buried in her hands, was driven
+more sharply than ever against the same dreary problem that had baffled
+her during all these days of her captivity.</p>
+
+<p>How to escape?</p>
+
+<p>The single door to the apartment was locked and securely barred. The
+single accessible window gave upon a concrete court four stories
+beneath—and, lest she be tempted to leap out, her approach was impeded
+by a barbed wire barricade. Telephone connections had been cut—and
+there was no neighbor to whom she could call through the sound-proof
+walls. No! she was utterly balked!</p>
+
+<p>Still, what matter that she might die a little ahead of the mass of
+mankind? After all, that was of no importance—but what might be vital
+was her chance to warn others of Dunbar's crime against humanity, if
+only she could escape! True, she had already tried to give warning, and
+had merely been laughed at; yet she had lately conceived a new idea,
+which might offer a dim hope if once she were free.</p>
+
+<p>Half swooning with the heat, she heard through the laboratory door the
+whirring of motors; and her head ached dully, and she burst into tears,
+for the dead have as much chance of rising as she had of beating down
+the monstrous forces ranged against her.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">The Revolt of Yellow-Claws</p>
+
+
+<p>Hour after hour Gates had been watching his captors. Hour after hour
+he had been scheming, observing, hoping. With the heightened mental
+quickness of his paralyzed state, he was searching for a weak spot in
+the armor of the foe. "Surely," he reflected, "there must be some flaw
+that makes them vulnerable." And it was this thought that put him on
+the track of the wild idea that appeared to offer his only prospect of
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>By carefully following everything the invaders said and did, he was
+able to grasp the meaning of many words and phrases in their language.
+Even with his remarkable new rapidity of apprehension, he learned no
+more than a four-year-old might learn of English—yet this little went
+far, particularly as the enemy did not suspect that any mere earthling
+could be so intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>But it was his eyes and not his ears that enabled him to fathom the
+secret of the Saturnians' greatest power: their ability to make
+themselves invisible. Whenever one of the monsters wished to vanish
+from sight, he merely dusted himself with a pale-blue powder from a
+purple-veined container. Evidently the powder—acting somewhat like a
+catalyzing agent—had the effect of causing the rays of light to pass
+completely through any object, thereby rendering it invisible. But did
+it make things invisible also to Saturnian eyes? The answer was in
+the affirmative: a Saturnian dusted with Amvol-Amvol could not be seen
+by any of his fellows, nor could the webs and cables, when concealed
+beneath this substance, be observed by their makers.</p>
+
+<p>This was, however, of little importance to Red-Hood and his followers;
+for they relied upon sight much less than did human beings. They were
+guided largely by what they called the Communication Sense: certain
+vibrations in the air, set up by their tails, were recorded by a
+bulging organ just under the left ear of each of the creatures; and
+thus they were able to learn of their whereabouts and doings of their
+kindred even when they could not be seen.</p>
+
+<p>So, at least, Gates concluded after long and careful observation. And
+his scheme for escape was built upon this knowledge.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>But for a long while the plan did not take definite shape. And
+meanwhile he came to realize more keenly than ever how dangerous it
+would be to provoke his masters needlessly.</p>
+
+<p>For they had surpassingly quick and violent tempers; their rage was,
+literally, like a tornado. Many a time Gates, lying helpless in
+paralysis on a web in the Planetoid, was the terrified witness to one
+of their disputes. He was seldom able to decide just what the quarrel
+was about, the first that he ever knew of it was when a blast like a
+siren ripped at his eardrums. Then other siren blasts would follow;
+then spouts of smoke would leap through the air, and the acridness
+of sulphur would torment his nostrils; then, if he were in a favored
+position, he would see the adversaries facing one another, their tails
+lashing the atmosphere in long loops and spirals, their octopus arms
+threshing and writhing, while the screeching and bellowing would rise
+to a crescendo as of battling fiends, and the eyes of the competitors
+would blaze with fiery red flashes.</p>
+
+<p>There was one fight, in particular, which Gates would never forget.
+As usual, he had at first no idea of the cause; but the tumult this
+time was more diabolical than ever before. Paralyzed, he hung on a web
+several hundred feet above the floor of the Planetoid, in a grandstand
+position to view the affray. Among the lower meshes and cables,
+directly beneath him, Red-Hood stood amid steamy clouds of gas. And
+opposite him was an almost equally huge Saturnian, whose distinguishing
+features, as Gates saw it, was the clay-yellow coloration of his long
+tentacle-like claws.</p>
+
+<p>For a tense minute the two creatures stood opposite one another, like
+bulls ready to charge. Then out shot Red-Hood's tail, striking with a
+crash against the rainbowed armor of the foe. And Yellow-Claws' breast
+was streaked with a golden-yellow spurt of blood; and crimson fires
+shot from his lips in curling tongues. Wrathfully his own tail lashed
+out, but missed his antagonist, who had leapt back with hair-trigger
+agility; while from Red-Hood's throat came such a howl that the very
+web trembled.</p>
+
+<p>Gates was aware that a score of Saturnians stood watching intently
+below, at a safe distance, like spectators about a prize ring. He
+heard them whirring with excitement as the two opponents fended for
+positions. Then, to his astonishment, he saw Red-Hood springing
+forward, his octopus arms outspread, like some monster of a nightmare.
+Yellow-Claws was ready for the onslaught; and for a moment the two
+furies clashed, wrestling with hurricane vehemence ... so that they
+seemed little more than a gigantic whirl of squirming, rotating,
+threshing arms, legs and tails.</p>
+
+<p>But soon, with an unearthly cry, one of the creatures detached
+himself, and with cyclonic speed darted up the web. So swiftly did
+he travel that at first Gates was unable to determine that it was
+Yellow-Claws that fled, while Red-Hood pursued close behind. Up and
+down and sideways along the web, with all manner of athletic twists
+and wrigglings, the embattled pair rushed, now scores of feet above
+the observer, now hundreds of feet beneath. Once Yellow-Claws lost his
+grip and fell, but, with gymnastic swiftness, clutched at a dangling
+cable, and saved himself barely in time. Once, slashed in the neck by
+Red-Hood's tail, he let out such a roar that Gates thought he had been
+slain. Once it was Red-Hood who, torn by his opponent's tail, yelled
+in agony. Several times the rivals were screened from one another amid
+smoke clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was but a few minutes before the fight was over. Yellow-Claws,
+one of his arms almost half severed, waved his tail high in air, and
+uttered a shrill, "Wikyi! Wikyi! Wikyi!" ("I give up! I give up!")
+And Red-Hood, with a contemptuous snort, lashed out at him for a
+final time; and then, acknowledging the conclusion of peace, screamed
+triumphantly, and majestically stalked away.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>But for hours the defeated giant sat on a web just below Gates,
+tending his wounds. His armor had lost its iridescence; thick smears
+of golden-orange covered its gashed surface. Yet Yellow-Claws'
+three-cornered eyes blazed with unsubdued anger; and his greenish-gray
+lips were twisted into grimaces of hate. Vengefully he muttered to
+himself, ignoring the presence of an earthling in the web above;
+vengefully he muttered three words, "Zugavl! Zugavl! Zug!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates did not need to know the meaning of these expressions; from the
+manner in which they were uttered, he was sure that they boded no good
+for the Peerless Red One.</p>
+
+<p>At about the same time, he made another important observation. Fighting
+was not the only bad habit of the Saturnians; they were subject to
+a far worse vice: that of inhaling Kishkash. This word, which was
+constantly on the monsters' lips, referred to the fumes from the
+burning of a certain dried leaf from Saturn. Nothing like it had ever
+been known on earth; a single whiff was enough to give Gates nausea; it
+had the foulest odor that had ever attacked his nostrils, being like
+the concentrated stench of putrefaction.</p>
+
+<p>Yet to the Saturnians it was ambrosia. They never tired of sitting over
+little pots of the glowing substance, greedily drawing the smoke into
+their lungs, amid sighs and grunts of satisfaction. And the effect upon
+them was, to say the least, peculiar: after a time, they would fall
+into a stupor, and would lie on their backs on the floor, kicking their
+legs and lashing out with their arms and tails, evidently unable to
+control their own movements. Some of them, in fact, spent half their
+time in this state of delicious drunkenness.</p>
+
+<p>It was from this fact that Gates hoped to profit. Eagerly he
+watched for his opportunity; and one day, when he was fortunately
+in a de-paralyzed state, the chance arrived. It had been a time of
+celebration, in commemoration of a Saturnian holiday, honoring the
+great hero Dupepu, who, it seems, had wiped out seventeen nations; and
+Kishkash, which was considered indispensable on all festal occasions,
+had been burned with exceptional lavishness. As a result, every visible
+Saturnian lay on the floor of the Planetoid, kicking up his heels,
+while whirring and mumbling the delicious nonsense of intoxication.</p>
+
+<p>Here, Gates instantly realized, was a heaven-sent opportunity. Left
+unguarded for the first time, he crawled down from the swinging
+platform where he had been placed for safekeeping; and, risking his
+life on a long rope-ladder, made his way to a portion of the web
+featured by several round dangling purple pouches. In these bags,
+he had observed, the natives kept their Amvol-Amvol, the powder of
+invisibility. Once he had obtained this, his scheme would be already
+half consummated!</p>
+
+<p>And what was to keep him from the Amvol-Amvol? Could he believe his
+senses?—believe that the precious substance was unwatched, and free
+for the taking? Yes! This seemed actually to be the case! Barring the
+remote possibility that one of the Saturnians would revive in time to
+interfere, there was nothing between him and his goal!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So down and down he climbed, along the interwoven meshes of swaying,
+shimmering cables; down like a seaman descending the riggings of a
+vessel. At length he had reached the pouches. The nearest of them, as
+large as a watermelon, was within arm's grasp. The top, moreover, was
+wide open! And, inside, he could see the sky-blue powder that for days
+he had dreamt of obtaining!</p>
+
+<p>Yet for just a second he hesitated. He could not guess what it was
+that chilled his hand; that restrained for a moment his desire for
+the magical substance. Was it some voice of hidden warning? He could
+not say. He only knew that he laughed silently at himself; then, with
+reviving eagerness, shot his hand into the pale-blue dust.</p>
+
+<p>The substance was downy soft to the touch, yet was cold as stone, and
+caused a tingling, faintly stinging sensation to creep along his skin.
+Hungrily his fingers closed over it; then, with a good handful in their
+clutch, began to withdraw.</p>
+
+<p>But, as they did so, Gates was startled by a sudden grating noise,
+followed by a sharp click. And a violent pain shot through his wrist.
+Teeth of steel dug into his flesh; and, in horrible realization, he
+knew that he was caught!</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt="">
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>The sharp jaws of the thing closed on Gates' hand.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>Yes, caught like a wild beast snared in a wolf-trap! It is hard to say
+whether, in that first stunned instant, his pain or his alarm was the
+greater. Yet his mind at once took in the full dread import. The pouch
+was but a ruse; it was equipped with hidden jaws, which would close at
+the faintest touch, seizing the unwary intruder. Oh, why had he not had
+the brains to beware?</p>
+
+<p>From the first, he saw that escape would be impossible. Those cruel
+jaws were so made that the more he struggled, the more tightly his
+arm would be wedged between them, and the more intense his agony—if
+he were not careful, his other wrist would be caught too! Knowing
+that he would be fettered here until his masters revived from their
+intoxication; and knowing also the terrible tempers of the tribe, he
+concluded that he would be better off dead.</p>
+
+<p>It was as this thought bored at his brain that he heard a sound to his
+left. Low, stealthy, secretive, it yet had a vaguely familiar whirr.
+"Earthling, listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>His heart gave a convulsive leap. He felt that his last moment had
+come. So he had not been alone after all, had not been unguarded!
+One of his captors, garbed in invisibility, had been watching him,
+following his every movement, gloating in his helplessness as a cat
+gloats in the sufferings of a mouse!</p>
+
+<p>"Earthling, listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>The words had been repeated, in the same stealthy manner.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, who are you?" the prisoner found courage to gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon I shall say. First, let me free you from your misery."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There came a snapping sound; the steel jaws clattered apart; and Gates,
+to his astonishment, withdrew a bruised and bleeding wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"The lower animals should not meddle with tools they do not
+understand!" mumbled the unseen. "By my home-world's outer ring! you
+did not pull down the safety clasp before sticking in your hand!"</p>
+
+<p>"But who—who in blazes are you?" repeated the captive, becoming
+bolder, although he could not believe that he had been freed for any
+good purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Who am I?" The speaker paused long enough for a burst of low whirring
+laughter. "I am Misthrumb, though that means nothing to you. I am he
+who fought yesterday with the Peerless Red One, and was driven off, may
+the curse of the Nine Planets fall on his foul bosom!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh—you mean, Yellow-Claws?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yellow-Claws? Well, you may call me that, for my hands are of the
+soil yellow of royalty! My blood too is yellow, golden-yellow! I am as
+high-born as the Peerless Red One. Was I not designated by the Grand
+Potentate, the Barbelcoppi, to share the leadership of this expedition?
+And has the Peerless One not denied me at every turn?—yes, may the
+demons of every vile disease prey on his liver!"</p>
+
+<p>Not knowing what to reply, Gates said nothing. But hope, dead only a
+minute before, had revived within him.</p>
+
+<p>"As if he had not already injured me enough," went on the invisible,
+"he ordered me to keep away from the great festival of Dupepu, whereat
+all my brothers make merry. Forbidden me to enjoy the delectable,
+sacred fumes of Kishkash! For that he shall suffer!"</p>
+
+<p>Yellow-Claws' tones, rasping and angry, indicated that the feud between
+the giants was far deeper than Gates has suspected. "And when I saw you
+creeping toward the Amvol-Amvol, O nignig, I knew that you would be the
+tool of my vengeance!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me?" groaned the victim. Had he escaped the frying pan only to be
+plunged into the fire?</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear, earthling! My purpose matches your own. To be sure,
+there are perils—appalling perils! Not to master them is to die a
+horrible death. But to prevail is to escape from the Peerless Red
+One—and to repay him in full measure for his crimes against us both.
+Are you ready to take the risk, O earthling?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready!"</p>
+
+<p>"By the stars! That is more than I would have expected of one of
+your species! Then let us begin! We have but a little time before my
+brothers recover from the Kishkash."</p>
+
+<p>Gates could not see the creature's yellow claws as they entered the
+pouch and drew out a pale-blue powder. But he felt something soft,
+cool and tingling being sprinkled over his hands, his face, up his
+sleeves, and down his neck. And he had one of the strangest sensations
+of his life; for his body, even as he gazed at it, faded into a haze,
+and vanished. He could look through himself! could see the meshwork of
+shimmering cables as if there were nothing between!</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" whispered his protector. "There is no time to lose!" And then
+angrily, beneath his breath, "Zugavl! Zugavl! Zug!"</p>
+
+<p>Upheld and guided by Yellow-Claws—since his arms and legs, now that he
+could not see them, seemed oddly unreliable—Gates started once more
+down the web, above the spot where the intoxicated monsters, like
+huge over-turned beetles, lay on their backs with furiously wriggling
+tentacles, legs and tails.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Through the Barred Door</p>
+
+
+<p>If only she could get word to some one outside! If only some one could
+learn of her plight, she might be saved—might save the world! Such was
+the thought that kept pounding at Eleanor's brain as she sat stooped in
+her prison room, her head buried in her hands, while through the closed
+door came the buzzing and droning of motors.</p>
+
+<p>Then by degrees an idea thrust itself upon her. As she moped alone in
+her dismal monotony, she had heard every evening the shuffling of some
+one ascending the steps just beyond the barred apartment door. The
+sound always came at the same time—at five minutes before six—and
+she could recognize the peculiar dreary noise as it approached. Might
+not the passer-by, whoever he was, become her deliverer? At first she
+thought of calling out to him; but realized that, even if he took heed,
+this would merely be to warn Dunbar, who would find ways to balk her
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>No! she must communicate without being heard. But how? As if
+anticipating this very possibility, Dunbar had denied her all writing
+materials. She considered, indeed, the ancient device of a message
+written in her own blood, which she might scrawl on a fly-leaf torn
+from a book; but she feared that some chance blood-stain would furnish
+her captor with a fatal clue.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of the books, however, gave her another idea. Leaping up
+with sudden alacrity, she went to the case Dunbar had mentioned, and
+eagerly selected a volume.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the room half an hour later, her oppressor paused with
+a grim smile to see her bent above "The Greycourt Murder Mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed, as he leaned over her shoulder for a glance at the
+title. "Didn't know you went in for that sort of stuff. Good idea,
+though. Takes your mind off your troubles. Literature of escape, they
+call it."</p>
+
+<p>He did not notice the ironic glint in her eyes, nor the faint quivering
+of her voice as she replied,</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's it—literature of escape."</p>
+
+<p>Had his mind not been preoccupied, he would have seen how her hands
+fluttered, and how tremulously she averted his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by the way, might just as well tell you," he confided. "I've been
+making fine progress. In another five days, if all goes well, I'll be
+able to set you free."</p>
+
+<p>"Free?" she gasped, unbelievingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll be done with my job by then—have all the compressed air
+tanks ready, in just another five days."</p>
+
+<p>She started up as if she had been struck, allowing the book to slip to
+the floor unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>"Five days?" she repeated, blankly, realizing how little time remained
+for her to work in. "Five days!"</p>
+
+<p>"God! but I'm getting fed up, slaving in this damnable heat!" he
+muttered; and then, passing out of the room, threw out at her, with a
+burst of sardonic laughter,</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my girl, better get back to your—your literature of escape!"</p>
+
+<p>Stunned, she reached for the book. Yet it was with fresh alertness,
+with a swift new eagerness, that she began racing through the pages.
+Only a few minutes later, she came to a passage that made her sit up
+with a start. Then hastily she reached for the little blue handbag she
+had carried at the time of her capture by Dunbar; and drew out a pair
+of nail scissors. Her eyes had a furtive look as she stared toward the
+doorway where Dunbar had disappeared; but her fingers worked swiftly
+and nimbly as they clipped away at the printed page.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Several hours later, Emanuel Knapp, a civil service employee, was
+on his way home to his top-floor apartment. As usual, he puffed and
+wheezed as he climbed the weary five flights in the old-fashioned
+"walk-up" building; and, as usual for many weeks past, he sweated in
+the deadly heat. Arriving at the fourth floor, he paused to regain his
+breath; and, as he did so, he became conscious of a low rustling, and
+saw a thin bit of paper being ejected beneath the door of Apartment "4
+E."</p>
+
+<p>"Well now, isn't that funny," he thought; and, though not naturally a
+curious man, reached automatically for the paper.</p>
+
+<p>As he opened it, he saw to his surprise that it was part of the title
+page of a book, and his eyes fell upon the conspicuous printed word,
+MURDER.</p>
+
+<p>"What the heck! Am I going crazy with the heat?" he mumbled to himself;
+and noticing several smaller specks of paper fluttering loose from the
+larger one, he reached down for them also.</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, rescue me!" he read on the first of the slips,
+which was printed in large book type; while another slip bore, in the
+same type, an even more startling notation, "I'm caught in the toils of
+the slimiest devil God ever put on earth!"</p>
+
+<p>Now Emanuel Knapp was not a man naturally quick of apprehension. Hence
+he was not certain that anything was really seriously amiss. "Most
+likely there's some crazy loon inside—or else it's just a practical
+joke," he reflected, as he scowled at the door of 4 E.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus solved the mystery, he wiped his streaming red brow, and
+bleakly started up the final flights of stairs.</p>
+
+<p>But, as he did so, he spied a third printed slip at the base of the
+steps. And wearily he reached down for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord help us, sir, don't hesitate a minute!" he read. "Not one minute,
+or it will be too late!"</p>
+
+<p>"By gum," he meditated, "wonder if there mightn't be something in it
+after all. Maybe I ought to notify the police. No harm, anyway, in
+letting 'em know."</p>
+
+<p>But the thought of retreating down those four long flights of stairs
+was far from inviting. However, his interest being aroused, he pressed
+one ear against the door of 4 E. And, from within, he heard a low
+droning sound.</p>
+
+<p>"By glory," he concluded, starting down the stairs, "maybe it's a
+counterfeiting gang!"</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later, two officers of the law had marched in Knapp's
+company to the door of 4 E. And after prolonged rapping and violent
+bell-ringing, the door had opened, to reveal a man in a chemist's
+stained white robe, who greeted them blandly, and professed great
+surprise at their call.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like you've got the wrong apartment, Officers," he protested,
+suavely, when shown the clippings picked up by Knapp. "I've been busy
+all day with some experiments in the laboratory. There's no one else in
+the place."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, damn it, the story did look phoney to me!" admitted Officer
+O'Madden, glaring reproachfully at Knapp. "What the hell! a regular
+cock-and-bull yarn! If the Chief hadn't ordered us to come—"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>But Officer Frye was of a different turn of mind. "Perfectly sure
+you're the only person here, Mister?" he demanded of Dunbar.</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't been another soul around for weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is that blue handbag doing over there on the settee?"</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar could not quite control a startled gasp. His eyes flashed, and
+his lips twitched oddly. But he did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind if I look at it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar, imposing himself in the way, started to protest. But the
+officer had already shoved himself into the room. In an instant he had
+snatched up the handbag and slipped open the clasp. And from within he
+had taken a small printed card, and read, "Miss Eleanor Firth."</p>
+
+<p>"Firth? Eleanor Firth?" gasped O'Madden. "By crimps! ain't that the
+girl what disappeared the other day? Why, her folks set up a hell of a
+row—I was in the station when they popped in. Foul play, they called
+it."</p>
+
+<p>A long weighted silence followed. Dunbar glanced furtively toward the
+door, as if looking for some easy way of escape. His eyes blazed with
+the fury of the trapped animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe it's just what you call a coincidence," drawled Officer
+Frye. "Anyway, guess we'd better take a look around."</p>
+
+<p>Despite Dunbar's protestations, the officers proceeded to ransack the
+room—though without results. And while they were peering under tables,
+behind sofas and into closets, Knapp stood with his nose pressed
+suspiciously against a locked door.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Officer, there's a funny smell coming from over here," he
+reported.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole place smells funny, if you ask me!" mumbled Frye. And then,
+turning to Dunbar, "Guess you'd better let us peep in there, Brother!"</p>
+
+<p>The chemist stood with his back firmly pressed against the door. "I'll
+be damned if you will! That's my private laboratory. I'm in the midst
+of an experiment, which will be ruined if I let any light in!"</p>
+
+<p>"To hell with your experiment! Stand aside, Brother!"</p>
+
+<p>But not until two pairs of strong arms had flung him away did Dunbar
+forsake the door. And not until two strong pairs of shoulders had
+pressed themselves against the partition did the lock show signs of
+yielding. It was just when it began to crack that Dunbar made his dash
+toward the front entrance—to be thwarted by the lucky chance that
+Knapp blocked his way, giving Frye time to lay hands upon him, while
+O'Madden finished the little business of breaking down the door.</p>
+
+<p>As the barrier gave way, an unpleasant odor, a little like ether,
+penetrated to the men's nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping crickets!" cried O'Madden. "What in tarnation is this!"</p>
+
+<p>Stretched full-length on the floor in the electric light, with
+pale bloodless face and inert, apparently unbreathing form, was a
+dishevelled young woman, her unbared left arm displaying a long bloody
+streak.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In the first amazed instant of the discovery, Officer Frye almost lost
+his grip on Dunbar.</p>
+
+<p>"The saints preserve us! Is she dead?" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like it," concluded O'Madden. "First let's attend to this devil,
+then we'll investigate."</p>
+
+<p>Out rattled a pair of handcuffs, which clapped themselves about
+Dunbar's wrists.</p>
+
+<p>Bending down to the girl, Frye felt her forehead. "Why, she's still
+warm," he discovered. "Couldn't be dead very long."</p>
+
+<p>"You blinking idiots!" raged the captive, struggling in O'Madden's
+bear-like grip. "What makes you think she's dead? Why, she'll recover
+soon enough. If you'll give me a chance, I'll bring her back right now.
+We were just performing a little experiment—"</p>
+
+<p>"Experiment! Like hell!"</p>
+
+<p>It was only then that Frye observed the hypodermic needle on the floor
+a few feet from the unconscious girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you can tell them all about that down at the station house," he
+observed, caustically. "Meanwhile we'd better bring the lady down to
+the doc's office on the first floor. You just keep your grip on that
+thug, O'Madden!"</p>
+
+<p>Six-foot giant that he was, Frye had gathered the girl into his arms as
+easily as if she had been a sofa pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, if you don't let me go," threatened Dunbar, his black eyes
+glittering like a crowd of devils dancing, "I swear you'll rue the day!"</p>
+
+<p>Frye's answer was a hoarse burst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>But cutting through his laughter with the sharpness of an earthquake,
+there came a rattling and banging at the laboratory window. And while
+the two officers and Knapp stood as if transfixed, the window shade
+flew up and the window burst open, though there was nothing visible to
+account for the commotion, O'Madden afterwards asserted that a cold
+breeze blew by him, though the thermometer stood around 100; and Frye,
+whose courage no one had ever doubted, did not deny that the hair on
+his head prickled and a chill swept down his spine.</p>
+
+<p>"If only it'd been something I could of seen, no matter what, I'd of
+stood up against it," he recited, as he told of the event between gulps
+of whisky. "What the devil! A man can only die once! But this thing
+that you couldn't see or put hands on—Christ, I'd rather fight a herd
+of stampeding elephants!"</p>
+
+<p>The fact was, as both officers testified, that the very walls of the
+room shook, as if rocked by some mighty force. Dunbar's handcuffs,
+though O'Madden swore that he had clasped them on firmly, fell to the
+floor as though they had been mere bands of paper. An eerie whirring
+voice, proceeding as if from nowhere, gave warning, "Harm him not,
+earthlings, or beware the consequences!" And, at the same time, Dunbar
+was jerked out of the astonished officer's grip!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, jerked away completely, like a toy torn from a child's hands! From
+the expression on his face, it was evident that he was as bewildered as
+anyone as he went gliding toward the window and out—out into the open
+air, where he disappeared in the fog! While, even as he vanished, the
+window shade snapped down and the window slammed shut.</p>
+
+<p>"By glory, the place is haunted!" mumbled O'Madden, crossing himself.
+And as the three men, with the unconscious girl, emerged from the outer
+door of 4 E, their faces streamed with a sweat that did not come from
+the heat alone; and they knew that there was no force on earth powerful
+enough to induce them to set foot across that threshold again.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A Plunge in the Dark</p>
+
+
+<p>Beneath the great translucent milky-white envelope of the Planetoid,
+Gates stood in an egg-shaped jelly-like car about thirty feet tall. He
+was still invisible, even to himself; and could not see the gigantic
+companion who shared with him his curious vehicle. But through the
+gelatinous walls he could view the vast cloud-covered expanse of the
+earth as it rolled by far beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we must wait, nignig," his unseen companion was saying, "until we
+whirl around on our orbit to your own part of the globe. Fortunately,
+it is but a minute planet, and the journey will take scarcely another
+hour. The instruments will tell us when we arrive. But by my tail! may
+my brothers not revive before then!"</p>
+
+<p>"What will we do, when we get to earth?" inquired Gates.</p>
+
+<p>"Do?" hissed Yellow-Claws. "What do you expect? Why, get vengeance, as
+I have told you, earthling!"</p>
+
+<p>"But how get vengeance?"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall see! May the blue lightnings blast me, if you do not see!
+I shall discredit the leadership of the Peerless Red One! I shall
+frustrate his schemes! I shall invalidate him, as we say on Saturn!
+Then he will go back home in disgrace, like the scum of the abyss
+that he is! He will commit Guhl-Guhli—which is to say, he will sting
+himself to death, and I will come into my own! Then, nignig, I will
+return and conquer this world as it should be conquered!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates groaned. He began to see that at heart Yellow-Claws was no
+better than Red-Hood; all he would give the earth would be a momentary
+reprieve.</p>
+
+<p>Yet was not even a momentary reprieve better than nothing?</p>
+
+<p>So at any rate, Gates asked himself a little later in a spasm of alarm.
+Not quite an hour had gone by; and Yellow-Claws was just preparing to
+cut the egg-shaped car adrift. But suddenly, through the jelly-like
+shell of the Planetoid, huge spidery shapes were seen in shadowy
+movement. And Yellow-Claws whirred with excitement, "Quick, earthling,
+quick! or they'll be upon us!"</p>
+
+<p>There came a ripping sound, though no cutting instrument was visible;
+and the car began to plummet earthward.</p>
+
+<p>But at the same time, through apertures in the walls of the Planetoid,
+a score of octopus-limbed creatures began to glide, their angry eyes
+glaring, like triangular rubies, their arms waving fantastically.
+Around the Planetoid and beneath it they darted, then, gradually
+becoming dimmer of outline, disappeared from sight.</p>
+
+<p>But Gates was not to be deceived. He knew that they had but garbed
+themselves in invisibility. He knew that the vibrations given off by
+Yellow-Claws' body would guide them, although their foe could not be
+seen. And he was appallingly aware that the whole pack of them were in
+pursuit of his protector.</p>
+
+<p>"By our planet's ten moons! they must not catch us!" rattled out
+Yellow-Claws. "If we are captured, we will suffer the penalty of
+deserters. We will be slain—yes, slain by the method of Multiple
+Agony, which torments every nerve of the body for many days before
+death brings relief."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Down, down, down they dashed. They rushed through the stratosphere, and
+the earth seemed to leap forward to meet them. But reaching the heavier
+layers of the atmosphere, they were checked by the resistance of the
+air—and were checked even more by the tangle of invisible Saturnian
+webs.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the same time, they were lost in a fog. Whether the earth
+were near or far they could not say; they bobbed around like a ship on
+a stormy sea. "Cursed be all the demons of outer space! Something's
+wrong with the direction gauge!" muttered Yellow-Claws.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke, there came a roar from somewhere near at hand. And a
+dull-red smoke-puff burst through the fog overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"Fiery imps of Jupiter!" growled Yellow-Claws. "They've got the range!"</p>
+
+<p>It was an extraordinary battle that followed. Both sides were
+invisible; both aimed frightening flashes in the other's direction.
+Grimly Gates reflected that earth-folk, watching the demonstration
+from below, would think an unusually severe thunder storm in progress.
+For, in truth, there were all the symptoms of a thunder storm. The sky
+rumbled with detonations as of gigantic artillery; red lightnings and
+blue and purple shot through the hazes in zigzag streaks; rain began to
+fall in howling torrents. How it was that they escaped destruction in
+that first moment of the encounter was more than Gates could explain;
+for he saw crimson bars and blue balls of fire playing along the outer
+surface of the jelly-like envelope.</p>
+
+<p>Manifestly, the car was made of a strongly non-conducting substance;
+but, even so, he expected the whole fragile affair to collapse
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p>But the speed of their descent, it soon appeared, was greater than they
+had imagined; in less than five minutes, they grew conscious of vague
+outlines just beneath. At almost the same moment, there came a violent
+threshing and bumping, and Gates, stunned and bruised, was aware of
+vague projections, which he recognized as the limbs of trees.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, he was startled by a loud popping, as of a suddenly
+deflated balloon.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Eleventh Asteroid!" rasped Yellow-Claws. "We're being torn to
+shreds!"</p>
+
+<p>Surely enough, the branches of the tree had slashed through the
+gelatinous envelope, which was hanging from the foliage in wispy,
+thinly palpitating bands and tatters. Their car—or, rather, all that
+was left of it—had lodged in the upper limbs of a huge oak, forty feet
+above ground!</p>
+
+<p>Not that this distance meant anything, so far as Yellow-Claws was
+concerned. But his protective envelope had been destroyed; and though a
+red spout of smoke vomited from between his gray-green lips and lunged
+toward his foe in forked lightnings, he knew that the battle was lost.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where you are, earthling!" he muttered. "They must not find you!
+By my fifth arm! They will pay dearly for my life!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Before these words had died in his ears, Gates knew that Yellow-Claws
+had sprung down from the tree. The lightnings had become a little more
+remote, though hardly less terrible. Then a scream shrilled from the
+distance, and Gates rejoiced to know that one of the enemy had been
+struck. But almost immediately, closer at hand, there rose an unearthly
+shriek, followed by a groan as of some being in utmost anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"Thur-glut-nu! Thur-glut-nu!" came terribly, in the Saturnian tongue.
+And then less fiercely, to Gates,</p>
+
+<p>"May all the devils of the space-ways curse them! They've hit me! Hit
+me, earthling, in the middle nerve center!"—by which he referred to
+a spot beneath the left shoulder, which, Gates had learned, was a
+Saturnian's one really vulnerable point.</p>
+
+<p>Yellow-Claws' next words were rasping and horrible beyond description.</p>
+
+<p>"Flee, nignig, flee! I invoke on them the curses of a thousand dead
+generations! the venom of all black planets! I—I—by my father's
+claws, I shall never see Saturn again!"</p>
+
+<p>The cry trailed off into a confusion of words in the sufferer's native
+tongue. There came another moan; then a series of terrifying snorts,
+snarls and bellowings, as of a wolf-pack closing in on its prey. And
+red and green lightnings flashed, and blue fireballs played among the
+treetops ... while a pandemonium of thunder drowned out that fiendish
+chorus.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>Quivering, Gates clung to his perch high in the oak-tree. At any
+moment, he expected to be snatched up by an invisible arm. Yet time
+went by, the lightnings and thunders faded out, and at last he began to
+breathe more easily. He heard the threshing as of mighty forms moving
+past him. They brushed by the tree; they whisked through the woods to
+right and to left. But thanks to his invisibility; thanks also to the
+fact that, unlike Yellow-Claws, he set up no etheric vibration that his
+enemies could detect, he remained unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed a long while before at last all became quiet. Then, as the
+immediate danger passed, the rescued man began to take stock of his
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"By god," he reflected, with a wry grimace, "I'd better not start
+crowing just yet!" For had he escaped only in order to face a
+lingering, more cruel doom? Lost in some unknown corner of the woods,
+perhaps many miles from home; invisible, and without food, money, or
+other means of making his way, he was, to say the least, in a desperate
+pass. Would he be able, despite all handicaps, to make his way to
+civilization before Dunbar could carry out his Mephistophelean plots?</p>
+
+<p>His teeth bit into his lower lip with a grimness of determination as,
+in the misty twilight, he felt his way down from the tree and began
+searching for an outlet from the wilderness.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">The Electronic Space Ray</p>
+
+
+<p>The story of Officers Frye and O'Madden was greeted at the station
+with incredulous smiles. Evidently these two doughty old members
+of the force had been drinking too heavily; or else, like so many
+thousands, had gone crazy with the heat. Nevertheless, thanks to
+their allegations, two of their brother officers were dispatched to
+investigate Philip Dunbar's apartment.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, they returned. Their uniforms were rumpled; their hair
+lay loose and dishevelled across their sweaty red brows; their eyes
+popped from their heads, and their hands shook and twitched with
+nervous palpitations. Their experience was thus reported to Captain
+Donnelley by Officer Halloran:</p>
+
+<p>"We went up to that hell's nest, and worse luck to us! Got in without
+any trouble, didn't we, Jensen? Somebody pulled the door open, and said
+in the doggonest funniest voice you ever heard, 'Come in, earthlings,
+we want some sport!' We knew then there was bats in somebody's belfry,
+but went in anyway, and would you b'lieve it, there wasn't nobody near
+the door. We walked further inside, and saw a guy working over a lot of
+tubes and bottles; he said his name was Dunbar all right, and yelled
+at us, 'I warn you, get out, before it is too late!' ... 'We've got
+a warrant for your arrest,' says I, 'so you'd better come nice and
+quiet.' At that he just laughed, didn't he, Jensen?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd of thought it was something funny, being arrested, by jiminy!"
+affirmed Officer Jensen.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, nobody wouldn't ever believe it, but before I could get to the
+guy, the handcuffs was knocked right outer my hands," went on Halloran.
+"Not by that fellow Dunbar, neither, curse him! He was over on the
+other side of the room. Somebody hit me right through the air, with
+something I couldn't see. May I be boiled in tar if I lie!"</p>
+
+<p>"You sure oughter be boiled in tar, if you expect me to believe that
+tommy-rot!" growled the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, b'lieve it or not, that ain't nothing to what happened to me,"
+Jensen took up the story. "I felt something grabbing me by the hair.
+Yes, so help me God! I reached up my hand, and felt something cold and
+hard, like a lobster's claw. But you still couldn't see a damned thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ought of heard what a yell Jensen let out," Halloran continued. "Sure
+was fit to wake the dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, gwan!" countered Jensen. "'Twasn't nothing to the way you hollered
+when you was pitched plumb across the room!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who wouldn't holler if they was batted hard against the wall by
+some invisible devil? I ain't boasting when I say I'm a tough nut to
+crack, but when that thing, whatever it was, began tweaking my ears and
+nose and saying, 'This is the way we'll twist your necks, earthlings,
+if the likes of you ever come back here'—well then, what in thunder do
+you think I'd do? Stay to get my neck twisted?"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain meanwhile was smiling cynically.</p>
+
+<p>"You boys sure must think I like fish stories!" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be that any one took Jensen and Halloran quite seriously.
+Yet was it not hard to believe that four trusty old members of the
+force had all gone crazy? The fact is, in any case, that when the
+Captain considered sending two more men to the mysterious apartment, he
+could find no one who did not threaten to resign from the force sooner
+than accept the assignment.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Eleanor meanwhile, as Dunbar had predicted, had regained consciousness.
+Yet she could give only a confused account of what had happened. "When
+the bell began ringing so furiously," she testified, "I thought I
+heard Dunbar stealing behind me, but paid no attention till suddenly I
+felt a sharp jab in one arm. By then it was too late even to cry out.
+Everything went black around me before I'd even had time to realize
+he'd stabbed me again with the hypodermic."</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to her entreaties and the testimony of the officers, she was
+granted a bodyguard of two detectives; for, as she asserted, "The
+minute I walk out by myself, that fiend will re-capture me. And I have
+work to do—very important work, if the world is to be saved!"</p>
+
+<p>Every one smiled in half-veiled amusement. Yet no one could deny the
+deadly seriousness of the girl's manner.</p>
+
+<p>No one could deny, either, that she was in danger from some mysterious
+source. On the day after her release, two men in a taxicab swerved
+suddenly around a street corner, and came within an inch of snatching
+her from under the noses of the detectives. The would-be abductors,
+though unsuccessful, made good their escape; and, later that same day,
+a still more ominous event occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor was walking in a fog not far from one of the city's main
+intersections, when suddenly she felt something clutching her. She
+cried out in her terror; and the detectives, though seeing nothing,
+fired into the mist. Evidently it was a mere lucky shot that struck the
+unseen aggressor under the left shoulder, at his "middle nerve center,"
+his most vulnerable spot. At any rate, an unearthly howl came from
+the invisible—and, more significant yet, a spout of something thick,
+sticky and golden-orange jutted to the pavement as if from nowhere.
+And the girl felt the claws of the invisible relaxing.</p>
+
+<p>"Another damned attack of nerves," Police Captain Donnelley called it,
+when the incident was reported. Yet, being unable to account for the
+golden-yellow liquid, he consented to double the girl's bodyguard.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that the time was exceedingly short—in fact, to take
+Dunbar's word for it, but four days of grace remained—she worked
+with desperation. Her first idea was to obtain possession of Gates'
+infra-red eye, which might show the authorities the cobweb meshes
+that entangled the planet, and so perhaps rouse them to eleventh hour
+action. But how obtain this invaluable device? Neither a search of the
+laboratory, nor a ransacking of Gates' home, revealed any trace of
+the instrument. Eleanor remembered in despair how, on that memorable
+evening on the roof, the inventor dropped the device just as the
+Saturnians swooped down; and she concluded that it had either been
+broken, lost, or snatched up by the invaders.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Therefore she turned to her one other hope. For almost a year,
+during spare hours in the laboratory, she had been working on what
+she called the Electronic Space Ray—a beam designed to pierce and
+dissolve the upper cloud formations. This ray, a modification of the
+X-ray, engendered by an application of several hundred thousand volts
+of electricity, had the power of cutting like a knife through any
+mist, causing the vapors to disperse as though blown aside by a gale.
+Its range, apparently, was enormous; Eleanor believed it capable of
+bridging the gulf from the earth to the moon, and held that it would be
+highly effective at several hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the question arose: if the rays could dissipate a cloud,
+could they not penetrate the gelatinous envelopes of the Crystal
+Planetoids? Was it not conceivable that they could rip the Planetoids
+apart, as a balloon may be ripped by a bullet? She did not know, but
+the chance, however fantastic it seemed, was not to be ignored.</p>
+
+<p>Surrounded by her four guards, she hastened to the laboratory of the
+Merlin Research Institute; and, requiring solitude for efficient work,
+busied herself from dawn to dusk and even through the early hours of
+daylight to perfect her invention. Formerly she had expected to be able
+to finish the contrivance at her leisure. But now with what feverish
+haste she labored, scarcely taking time to eat, to sleep, to think
+except of one thing only!</p>
+
+<p>At first the fear haunted her that the Saturnians would break in, and
+steal her away despite her bodyguard. But was it that the one lucky
+shot, which had spilled the golden-orange blood of her attacker, had
+deterred the invaders? More probably, they did not think her worth
+bothering about—what could she, one poor feeble woman, do to avert the
+doom that had been so well plotted, and that was so soon to descend?</p>
+
+<p>The heat, as she worked, had risen to furnace intensity. Temperatures
+below a hundred were now rarely found near sea level in the so-called
+temperate regions; all breezes, except those engendered by electric
+fans, were memories of the dear departed days; while so many areas were
+parched and browned, so many people were perishing on all sides, that
+bureau of statistics no longer kept records. That the long-awaited Day
+of Judgment was at hand; that the destruction of the earth and all its
+inhabitants was a matter but of weeks or at most of months, was now the
+theme of preachers and laymen alike; millions, ceasing to hope, passed
+their days amid a long mumbling of lamentations and prayers.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Meanwhile few knew or cared about the young woman who, with eyes red
+and strained, with fingers deft yet nervously hurried, with skin and
+apron mottled with chemicals, yet with a spirit that refused to give
+up, labored amid the motors and ray-spouting tubes, the flasks and
+crucibles of the steamy hot laboratory. Nearly five days had gone by
+before she had put her machine into working order—five days which, in
+view of the time lost under the spell of the hypodermic drug, should
+bring her beyond the deadline set by Dunbar. Already, perhaps, he
+had turned over the containers of compressed air to the Saturnians!
+Already they were making their last deadly assault! Already it was too
+late—too late to save the earth!</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, if but one chance in ten thousand remained, that chance
+must not be tossed aside.</p>
+
+<p>Her machine, when ready, was a monstrous-looking affair, somewhat
+resembling a siege-gun in appearance. The fifteen-foot steel snout,
+shooting upward like a spire from the central mass of lenses, prisms
+and radio-like tubes, was attached by wires to several huge dynamos. A
+telescope, fastened to the side of the main tube, connected with the
+range finder; while the whole could be moved hither and thither on
+wheels, a little like a great gun on its carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Three skilled mechanics, who had helped to construct the apparatus on
+Eleanor's instructions, shook their heads doubtfully over the completed
+instrument. "The lady must be crazy," they muttered in private, "if she
+thinks such a rigamagig can save the world!"</p>
+
+<p>The skeptics were, it is true, just a little impressed by the first
+demonstration. The machine was wheeled into a courtyard adjoining the
+Research Institute; and its mouth was pointed upward into the mists
+that precluded visibility above a hundred feet. At a signal, the power
+was turned on; there came a low whirring, accompanied by blue flashes;
+and almost instantly, as if some unseen fist had thrust its way through
+them, the vapors disappeared from a circle of sky about ten degrees
+across, and the azure of heaven appeared for the first time in many
+days.</p>
+
+<p>Equally impressive was the next experiment. A number of open jars of
+gelatin were placed against the walls of the building, and the machine
+was pointed toward them. For half a dozen seconds they were bombarded
+by the rays; then, upon examination, the gelatin was found to have
+vanished—to have dissolved despite the intervening glass of the jars,
+which themselves had seemingly been unaffected!</p>
+
+<p>A faint glow of hope came to the girl's mind as she witnessed these
+results. Could it be that, after all, not everything was lost? A
+machine that could work such miracles might also perform wonders
+against the Planetoids!</p>
+
+<p>But even as this thought flashed over her, there came another
+realization—a numb, dull realization that struck her like a hand of
+lead. On one of the Planetoids, hundreds if not thousands of humans
+were held—at least, so she judged from the reports of the many that
+disappeared mysteriously after setting out to see Gates dangled
+from the web of the invaders. Worst of all! The man she loved was a
+prisoner! If she destroyed the Planetoids, she would destroy Ronald!
+And after that, though the world lived on, what meaning would life have
+for her?</p>
+
+<p>But only for a moment did she hesitate. They had reached a point where
+the fate of individuals did not matter. The sacrifice of all the
+captives, lamentable as it would be—the sacrifice of her lover—the
+sacrifice of herself—what did all this count beside the future of the
+human race?</p>
+
+<p>Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, she turned back to the
+Electronic Space Ray. Her eyes were desolate but her manner was
+determined as she picked up the range finder and revolved the telescope
+through a newly cleared circle of blue sky.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Prelude to Battle</p>
+
+
+<p>There are some grave disadvantages in being invisible. So, at least,
+Gates concluded as he went groping through the woods in the effort to
+find his bearings. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to ask a
+passer-by the way, and to be greeted with a shriek, and watch the man
+turn and dash away frantically, as from a ghost. It is aggravating to
+reach an automobile road and find every car trying to drive full-tilt
+through one. Gates felt like a man returning from the dead as he picked
+his way out of the woods, and, reaching a village, began to make a few
+civil inquiries.... Inevitably, he found, his hearers would flee the
+vicinity of his voice; and the harder he tried to call them back the
+faster they would run.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the night in an open field under a haystack—which,
+considering the heat, was not at all a hardship. In the morning, driven
+by hunger, he strolled into a farmhouse; and while the family stampeded
+like sheep from the sound of his footsteps, he calmly helped himself
+to some ham and biscuits from the kitchen table. Having thus satisfied
+his needs, he wandered away along a railroad track, and after about an
+hour's walk reached a junction, where a sign on the station showed him
+that he was two hundred miles from home. "God! How'm I ever going to
+make the distance?" he wondered, reflecting that he had not a penny in
+his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later, while he still stood there baffled, a train
+puffed into the station—one of the few still running in those
+disorganized days. Several people stepped aboard; and, without
+hesitation, he joined them, trusting to his invisibility to save him
+from the demands of the ticket-taker.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no unoccupied seat, he stood in the vestibule, which
+caused not a little confusion, as people kept brushing against him as
+they went by, greatly to their consternation. Long before they had
+reached their destination, in fact, half the passengers were ready
+to swear that the train was haunted. This view was furthered by Buck
+Johnson, one of the colored waiters in the dining car, who testified
+that while his back was turned the better part of the contents of
+a tray disappeared—and that he turned about just in time to see a
+sausage go floating down the passageway, although nobody was in sight!</p>
+
+<p>It was fortunate, Gates thought, that the train was air-conditioned;
+the cool, fresh atmosphere made it easier for him to think. And,
+certainly, he needed to think as never before. What would he do upon
+getting back home? Obviously, go as soon as possible to Dunbar's
+apartment, to check that traitor's vile designs, if there were still
+time! And to rescue Eleanor from his clutches! But was it not already
+too late? Gates gravely feared so. Besides, how prevail against Dunbar,
+protected as he was by the overweening power of the Saturnians?</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at least," Gates reflected, "I can't be seen—that's one
+strategic advantage." But it would take more than his invisibility to
+win the battle. He must have weapons—weapons of unrivalled power. And
+where could such be found?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At this thought he remembered a certain invention he had toyed with
+months before. This was a knife which he called the Electric Blade:
+a folding strip of metal, small and compact, and short enough to be
+carried in a man's hip pocket, yet capable of being extended to the
+length of one's forearm, when it would cut with the sharpness of a
+sword. To it was attached a minute but powerful storage battery which
+Gates had perfected: a battery that made it possible for the blade to
+slash back and forth with such swiftness that the eye could hardly
+follow its motions. The inventor had believed that the weapon might
+prove valuable for close combat work in warfare; but had lost interest
+in it temporarily while working on that still more important device,
+the Infra-Red Eye.</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, with the greatest of enthusiasm that he thought
+now of the Electric Blade. Might this not be just what he needed in
+the conflict with Dunbar? Knowing something of the prowess of the
+Saturnians, he was far from sure; nevertheless, he swore a bitter oath,
+"I'll have a try at it, even if they hack me to mincemeat!"—which, he
+realized, they were only too likely to do.</p>
+
+<p>The Electric Blade, he recalled, had been left in his locker at the
+Merlin Research Institute. Accordingly, it was to this spot that he
+must hasten immediately upon returning to the city.</p>
+
+<p>It was night by the time he had reached the building; and the front
+door was locked. But seeing a light inside, he rapped. As no answer
+came, he rapped again, this time more loudly; and then rapped once
+more, still more loudly. It was only after the fourth or fifth summons
+that he heard shuffling footsteps warily approaching. "What the devil!"
+he muttered to himself. "Do they think I want to steal the building?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?" a voice from within demanded, huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"It's I! Ronald Gates! An employee of the Institute!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary hesitation. He heard two men conferring in
+whispers; then the door opened a few inches, and he stared into the
+muzzle of a revolver, behind which glowered the grim, determined face
+of a uniformed man.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be scared, Officer," he began, slightly amused. "I can establish
+my identity—"</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there rang out a yell from the uniformed man. Savagely the
+door banged to a close. "By God! It's one of them devils from Saturn!"</p>
+
+<p>Almost simultaneously, he heard another voice taking up the cry. "Run,
+Miss, run! Quick! Ain't no time to waste! One of them fiends is after
+you again!"</p>
+
+<p>From within, he heard a woman's scream. "Out this way! This way!" And
+all other sounds were lost amid the scurrying of feet.</p>
+
+<p>But had those tones not had a familiar ring? Could it be—or was his
+heated imagination only playing tricks?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He lost no time, however, in useless questionings. Realizing that the
+fugitives must leave by the rear exit, on another street, he raced
+around the block, in such haste that he bowled over two pedestrians,
+who were never to know what had hit them. As he approached the rear
+door, he saw five figures hurriedly emerge, among them a young woman,
+the sight of whom caused his heart to pound furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Eleanor!" he shouted. "Eleanor!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl glanced toward him, and shrieked. Even if she recognized his
+voice, she thought that it was merely one of the Saturnians imitating
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Eleanor! Eleanor!" he repeated. "It's I, Ronald! It's I!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was doubtful if she even heard. Preceding the four
+policemen—pushed and shoved by them, for he had never seen men in more
+frantic haste—she was lost to view inside a black sedan. A moment
+later, the car had spurted from sight around the corner.</p>
+
+<p>Greatly shaken, Gates returned to the Institute. It was much—very
+much—to know that Eleanor was alive, and apparently not in Dunbar's
+hands. But to have her flee him as though he were a plague-bearer;
+to be mistaken by her for one of the Saturnians—that was a new and
+totally unexpected experience. Now, as never before, he began to curse
+his invisibility.</p>
+
+<p>But there was work to be done—work from which he must not be deterred
+even by the thought of Eleanor. And at this point, as if by way of
+compensation, his invisibility served him to excellent purpose. How,
+considering that the doors were all locked, could he get into the
+Institute? Contemplatively he strolled around the building, and saw
+that the one possible entry was by means of an open window facing the
+fire escape on the third floor. To hoist himself up to the fire escape
+was, to be sure, no great task for one of his agility; but as it gave
+upon a main street, where many people were passing, it would have
+been impossible for any ordinary man to accomplish the feat without
+detection. As it was, however, he managed the entry with ease.</p>
+
+<p>Once within, he felt his way down to the locker room, where he switched
+on the lights, and turned to his own locker—the combination of which,
+fortunately, had not been altered. A moment later, the door rattled
+open. He saw that the interior had been disturbed, as though somebody
+had entered during his absence and fumbled among the contents; but
+his pulses leapt with excitement when, safely hidden in a corner, he
+located a steel-sheathed apparatus of about the size of a large pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven!" he muttered. "This little blade may hold the world's
+destiny!"</p>
+
+<p>He placed the instrument carefully beneath his garments, so that it
+too became invisible; closed the locker; and started away, with the
+knowledge that he hastened to a battle that could end only in victory
+or death.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">The Electric Blade Swings</p>
+
+
+<p>Stripped to the waist, Philip Dunbar worked in the electric glare of
+the oven-hot laboratory. The throbbing of motors made a dull undertone
+in his ears as he examined the register connecting with the steel
+cylinders of compressed air. His dark face had become long and haggard;
+his eyes glittered with a wild, almost demoniacal light. But a grunt of
+satisfaction came from between those two thin cynic lips of his as he
+muttered,</p>
+
+<p>"Thank the Lord! At last it's done!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank not the Lord, earthling! Thank us!" a whirring voice sounded
+from just outside the window. "For many days we have followed your
+labors. For many days we have assisted. Nevertheless, you are a day
+behind schedule. A whole day, earthling!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done my best!" sighed Dunbar. "Could I help it if I was sick
+with the heat for two days, and could hardly work?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will forgive you this once, nignig, although on our planet we are
+not such weaklings as to get sick. After all, you have served us not
+badly. Tomorrow, with the compressed air to improve our efficiency, we
+will be lords of this world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tomorrow we will be lords of this world!" another voice, from an
+invisible source, weirdly repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Earthling, we have one more command," buzzed the first voice. "These
+casks of compressed air are hard for us to reach through your narrow
+window. See that they are placed outside on the ground. Have them put
+there early tomorrow, that we may gather them up with ease."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do so!" acceded Dunbar. And hastily he added, "Then you will
+not—will not forget your promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear!" a voice of reassurance droned. "When all the rest of your
+race sleeps in the long Forever, you will be glad to be alive—you, the
+last man!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will be glad to be alive," acknowledged Dunbar. But his voice had a
+tone of sadness; his long, lean, dark countenance drooped.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing more! The female of my race—the girl I call Eleanor—have
+you not saved her as a reward for my services? Through the wiles of
+wicked connivers, she has escaped. Once more I ask you, can you not
+seize her and bring her back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once more I tell you, earthling, the Peerless Red One has changed his
+mind about the female of your species. In truth, we were not sorry when
+she got away; and made but little effort to re-capture her, for she
+drew your mind from your work. The Peerless Red One has decided, if the
+female of the species is crafty enough to get away, might she not be
+crafty enough to cause us much trouble? No, earthling! Let her perish
+with the rest of her crawling species!"</p>
+
+<p>Dunbar groaned, and sank disconsolately to the laboratory floor.
+Had he not learned that nothing was more futile than to argue with a
+Saturnian?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The dreary gray of dawn was visible through the stagnant cloud-banks by
+the time Gates had started toward Dunbar's apartment.</p>
+
+<p>One thing, in particular, had delayed him. Having secured the Electric
+Blade, he decided that he must also obtain the Infra-Red Eye as
+a precaution in case of conflict with the Saturnians. One of the
+instruments, he recalled to his regret, had been lost during that first
+encounter with the invaders from space. But there was another, which
+he had left for safekeeping in the home of his old friend Bill Denny.
+Here, however, was indeed a predicament! How could he get to Denny and
+ask for his property, now that he was invisible? After much thought,
+he concluded that only one course was open to him; hence, taking a
+flashlight from his locker at the Institute, he hurried to Bill's home,
+climbed in through a window, and began to ransack his friend's spare
+room, where he knew the Infra-Red Eye was kept.</p>
+
+<p>It was this that gave rise to the panic in the Denny household; to
+Martha Denny's screams when she awakened long after midnight and saw a
+light proceeding as if on its own volition down the empty hallway. Bill
+Denny, who went to investigate, said that he heard the sound of racing
+footsteps, and caught a gleam, which he attributed to a burglar's
+flashlight; and this theory was borne out the following morning by the
+disordered state of the spare room. But what nobody could understand
+was that a bill-packed wallet, which stood in plain sight, had been
+untouched; while the only thing taken was the peculiar-looking
+contraption entrusted to Bill weeks ago by his missing friend, poor
+old Ronny Gates.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, with the Infra-Red Eye shielded from sight beneath his
+garments, Gates was approaching Dunbar's apartment house. As he drew
+near in the early dawn, he paused in an adjoining court; and a thrill
+of satisfaction shot through him to know that, after all, he was not
+too late. No! but he was barely in time! For two workmen, heaving and
+panting, were throwing a thick steel cylinder on top of a great heap.</p>
+
+<p>Beside them stood Dunbar, looking hot and unhappy as he directed their
+movements with nervous haste. "Now you fellows, just one more!" he was
+ordering, with a growl. "Go up and get it, and I'll pay you off! Go on,
+quick! God! what are you such snails about?"</p>
+
+<p>As the men slouched away, Gates let out an unconscious grunt; at which
+Dunbar turned toward him sharply, terror in his piercing black little
+eyes. "Good heavens!" he muttered to himself, as he hastily lit a
+cigarette. "I'm getting so I see things everywhere!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A few minutes later, the last of the cylinders had been deposited on
+the heap; the workmen had been paid, and had gone shuffling off; and
+Dunbar, leaning against the pile, was awaiting the arrival of the
+Saturnians. Nor had he long to wait. The laborers had hardly passed out
+of sight around the corner, when one of the cylinders began to move as
+of its own will, and, with gradually accelerating velocity, shot into
+the air and out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Now if ever, Gates realized, was the time to act! With trembling speed,
+he drew the Infra-Red Eye from under his coat, so as to reveal the
+Saturnians who, he felt sure, were all about him. For a moment alarm
+possessed him; for the Eye, being visible, would betray him to the foe!
+But no! evidently some of the Amvol-Amvol had been rubbed upon it in
+its contact with his clothes; it too was invisible!</p>
+
+<p>Hastily he adjusted it, by means of tight bands running around his
+head; yet not so hastily as to make unnecessary noise. How fortunate,
+he thought, that the Saturnians' ears were less acute than some of
+their other senses! Yet what he saw, after he had turned the proper
+screws and levers, was nothing to reassure him. Not one Saturnian, nor
+even two, as he had expected! Nor even five or six! At least twelve
+of the great creatures, with their dangling octopus limbs, their long
+stinging tails, their red triangular eyes—at least twelve of them,
+all seeming of a watery pallor through the Infra-Red Eye! And among
+them, leading them as he strutted savagely back and forth among the
+compressed air containers, was the over-towering form of Red-Hood!</p>
+
+<p>Pressed into a basement doorway for protection, Gates planned his
+action. His mind worked with spring-like rapidity; he knew that he had
+not a second to waste. Two advantages were his: the Electric Blade, and
+his ability to take his adversaries by surprise. But how slight these
+assets seemed by comparison with the number and prowess of his foes!</p>
+
+<p>Yet not for an instant did he flinch. If he must die, then he must
+die! Out from beneath his coat came the Electric Blade, its sheath
+fortunately invisible; but after he had set the motors into operation,
+the whirring sound betrayed him.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" came suspiciously from one of the Saturnians, in his
+native tongues, as the monster started toward the source of the sound.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Gates released the blade to its full length. But, as he did
+so, he received another shock. The metal, in its folded position, had
+evidently missed contact with the Amvol-Amvol! It could be seen just
+like any ordinary steel!</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! What devil have we here?" dinned from the Saturnian, in a mighty
+roar. And he lunged in Gates' direction.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As he did so, the blade began to swing with such speed that it made
+but a gray blur. Too swift for the Saturnians to follow its movements,
+the steel slashed at the assailant, whom Gates could clearly see
+through the Infra-Red Eye. The first blows made but minor dents in
+the creature's tough armor; but after a second or two Gates swung the
+weapon upward toward the enemy's left shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Horrible to hear was the monster's howl as the Middle Nerve Center was
+penetrated and fountains of golden-orange overflowed the pavement.
+Terrible beyond words was his death-yell as he sagged and sank, and,
+with all his limbs threshing violently, clutched blindly for his foe.</p>
+
+<p>But Gates had leapt out of range. Vehemently he was darting hither
+and thither among the Saturnians, slashing in all directions with the
+furiously swinging blade. He could see the octopus limbs of half a
+score of the creatures writhing simultaneously toward him, interfering
+with one another in their convulsive movements. However, they aimed
+not at him but at the blade, and always they struck at the point where
+it had been just a fraction of a second before their blows descended.
+Thus, by a hair's breadth, Gates was able to elude them.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt="">
+  <div class="caption">
+    <p>Gates fired desperately at the advancing creatures.</p>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>How long would he be able to keep up the unequal struggle? His strength
+was waning; his breath was coming hard and fast; its very sound would
+have betrayed him had it not been for the other noises of battle.
+Already he had wounded several adversaries, though not mortally; their
+golden-yellow blood flowed, but they still fought on. Time after time
+he felt himself brushed by their sweeping arms; felt their deathly
+cold claws against his skin. Once, by less than a finger's breadth, he
+escaped a lashing envenomed tail.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he lodged this peril, Gates recognized the huge gray-green
+lips of Red-Hood. He saw the malevolent red light in the eyes of his
+chief antagonist; and, like a matador fleeing a bull, he ducked and
+ran sideways. Then, with ferocious suddenness, he turned and swung the
+flashing blade upward.</p>
+
+<p>A fraction of a second too soon or too late, and he would have been
+lost. A few inches too high, or a few inches too low, and he might as
+well not have fought at all. But Red-Hood, stooping low as he charged
+head forward, had exposed the vulnerable left shoulder. And straight
+through the susceptible spot burst the cleaving, electrically driven
+blade.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Red-Hood's roar of rage and agony, as he sank amid hideous convulsions,
+was all but drowned by the dismayed bellowings of his companions. One
+and all, as though they had hit a blank wall, halted in shrieking
+consternation at the sight of their smitten leader. And Gates,
+springing forward, profited from that instant of demoralization, to
+strike another of the creatures through the Middle Nerve Center.</p>
+
+<p>As he leapt back, barely in time to avert the drive of the swinging
+tail, he made an amazing observation. The creatures were all in flight!
+From their terrorized cries, he knew that they thought they were
+fighting not one man, but an invisible army!</p>
+
+<p>But the last of the monsters, as he turned to flee, swung back briefly.
+Crouched in a cranny against a coal-bin, was a cowering form, its
+eyes wide with terror. "You, nignig—you, you are the root of all our
+trouble!" rasped the Saturnian. "You have betrayed us! You shall be
+punished!"</p>
+
+<p>Out swung the terrible tail; its barbed point, with the speed of
+an arrow, plunged into Dunbar's heart. And as the victim, gasping,
+collapsed in his own blood, his assailant went swinging away up a great
+cobweb.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Gates, sinking in exhaustion to the pavement, stared at the
+stones smeared with great streaks of golden-yellow; stared at the still
+untouched containers of compressed air, and solemnly mumbled a prayer
+of thanksgiving.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">Deliverance</p>
+
+
+<p>Gates' first thought, after recovering his breath, was to finish his
+half-completed task. What if the Saturnian retreat were but temporary?
+What if the foe should rally, and return with redoubled fury? What if,
+after all, they should seize the containers of compressed air, and so
+accomplish their original purpose and conquer the planet?</p>
+
+<p>"By glory! not if I can prevent!" Gates swore a secret oath, as he
+staggered toward the great steel cylinders. To carry off even one of
+the heavy affairs would, obviously, be impossible—but was there no
+other way? After a swift examination, he noticed a little faucet-like
+spout at the end of one of the vessels, and took it to be a valve to
+relieve excessive pressure.</p>
+
+<p>"Just five minutes' leeway," he thought, "and there won't be a whiff of
+compressed air left in the whole shooting match!"</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, he gave the spigot a swift turn in his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there came such a blast that he was stunned. A loud popping,
+as of an explosion, dinned in his ears. He reeled backward, knocked
+over as by a hurricane. For a second or two a great fury of escaping
+air blew by him.</p>
+
+<p>Still a little dazed, he picked himself up a minute later, cursing
+his own stupidity. In his haste he had turned the vent on full force,
+so relieving far too much pressure—with results that might have been
+disastrous.</p>
+
+<p>Worst of all! what if the commotion should summon the Saturnians back?</p>
+
+<p>Even as this fear swept across him, he made a discovery which, for the
+moment, alarmed him even more. He could see himself again! His arms,
+his legs, and all of his body, were perfectly visible! The blast of air
+had been powerful enough to blow away all the Amvol-Amvol, the powder
+of invisibility!</p>
+
+<p>Aware that he would be utterly at the Saturnians' mercy should they
+return, he worked quickly as possible to release the compressed air
+from the other containers. At any moment, he expected to be snatched
+up by a huge swooping claw, and borne away to his doom. But time went
+by, and the monsters did not re-appear. And at length the last of the
+compressed air cylinders was empty!</p>
+
+<p>Then for the first time, as he started hastily away, a flash of joyous
+realization swept over him. What a relief to be visible again! Once
+more he could be received as a man!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Early in the morning, following the alarm from the supposed Saturnians,
+Eleanor insisted on resuming work at the Electronic Space Ray.
+Surrounded by a whole squad of policemen—since her four previous
+protectors had insisted that they were too few—she entered the
+courtyard adjoining the Research Institute, where her machine with its
+fifteen-foot cannon-like muzzle was pointed skyward. Now at last she
+was ready for the crucial work!</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the courtyard, she adjusted the instrument; cleared an
+open circle of blue sky; and in so doing destroyed, she knew, an
+incalculable number of the invisible cobwebs that clogged the
+atmosphere. But she was out after bigger prey than cobwebs. By means of
+the telescope she located a tiny shining speck which she recognized as
+one of the Crystal Planetoids; and, with trembling hands, pointed her
+machine toward the section of the sky containing the Planetoid.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for the barest fraction of a second, she hesitated. She knew it
+was but womanly weakness; she knew it was unworthy, inconsistent with
+her all-important scheme; yet the hot tears trickled down her cheeks,
+and something clutched at her throat. The next flick of her fingers
+might be the movement that destroyed scores of human beings, among them
+Ronny, her lover.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, she held back only for an instant. Her fingers flashed
+against a lever; and a faint clicking came to her ears. With eyes glued
+to the telescope, she watched; and immediately, it seemed, she made out
+a puff of red fire where the Planetoid had been—a puff that swiftly
+gave way to long ruddy streamers, which almost as swiftly vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Still struggling, she could not keep back her sobs. "Ronny would
+forgive me, if he knew!" she consoled herself. Nevertheless, several
+minutes had passed, before, with a great effort of will, she turned to
+the range finder, and prepared to look for another Planetoid.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was, that all at once, there came a sound which she heard in
+mute, incredulous amazement. What was that voice?—that familiar, that
+exultant voice arising suddenly behind her! "Eleanor!"</p>
+
+<p>Wheeling about, she faced what she at first mistook for an apparition.
+Could this be Ronald? this dishevelled man with the face ghostly pale,
+although his eyes were agleam with joy?</p>
+
+<p>But as he strode forward, and flung out his arms, she knew that he was
+indeed no phantom!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>No less surprising than the speed with which the Saturnians had
+overspread the earth was the rapidity with which the peril receded.
+Within a few weeks, while dozens of Electronic Space Rays swept the
+heavens to clear away the great cobwebs, the temperature of the planet
+returned to normal; the winds blew again as usual; the ferocious
+thunder storms, the floods and the droughts had dwindled to ghastly
+memories. If any of the monsters still ranged the earth, they had
+returned to remote, unpeopled regions; no trace of them was ever
+seen, except for some mysterious streaks of yellow-orange observed by
+mariners on an islet near Cape Horn, where the last of the invaders had
+been dashed to their doom.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Planetoids—so mercilessly were they hunted by the Space
+Rays that, within a week, the most careful searching of the heavens
+failed to reveal even one of the great gelatinous balls. The watchers
+on Saturn, it was generally agreed, would not be encouraged by the
+results of their expedition! And if ever they should attempt another
+invasion, the weapons to repel them would be at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, while paeans of thanksgiving resounded from all lands, the
+world's eyes were focused on two individuals. The nuptials of Eleanor
+Firth and Ronald Gates, which were celebrated a few weeks after the
+overthrow of the Menace, were the occasion for universal rejoicing, for
+nothing could have appeared more fitting than the union of these two.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Daily the unexplained thickening of the atmosphere was
+growing more noticeable. Daily the air was becoming heavier, more
+sluggish, more humid, and hotter. Thunder storms of greater violence
+than ever had become of daily occurrence in widely scattered sections
+of the earth. Droughts in some regions, and floods in others, had
+scarred the surface of the planet. Temperatures running well into the
+hundreds were now common in districts where eighty had been considered
+hot. Some sections, indeed, had become uninhabitable.</p>
+
+<p>By the first of August, the deaths ascribed to the heat in the great
+cities of the eastern United States had risen to a daily average of
+scores of thousands. Mass migrations were in progress from tropical and
+sub-tropical regions—by every obtainable device, by liner, freighter
+and tugboat, by private car, truck and airplane, the inhabitants of
+South and Central America were streaming toward the temperate and polar
+regions. In India, scores of millions were flocking into the Himalayas;
+in Africa, the population was perishing like ants, and no count of
+the mortality was even attempted; in the South Seas the customary
+trade winds did not blow, and the waters became too warm for bathing.
+For the first time in history the Antarctic Continent, its glaciers
+beginning to melt, offered promise of becoming habitable; while men of
+daring laid plans to establish winter homes in Labrador and Greenland.
+Meanwhile vast once-verdant sections of America, Asia and Europe had
+been seared to a leafless brown.—Ed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> On Earth, fireballs can travel along a wire fence, but
+are grounded instantly they come to a wooden post, provided they are
+in direct contact. However, these unearthly fireballs seem to have a
+negative quality.—Ed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75478 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75478 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75478)