debush leaped lightly
out of their transport, through her still hot outer walls. A door opened
before them and they found themselves in a large room of full daylight
illumination; the anteroom of the private office of Virgil Samms. Chiefs
of Departments sat at their desks, concentrated upon problems or at
ease, according to the demands of the moment; televisotypes and
recorders flashed busily but silently; calmly efficient men and women
went wontedly about the all-embracing business of Triplanetary's
space-pervading Secret Service.

"Right of way, Norma?" Rodebush paused briefly before the desk of the
Chief's private secretary; but even before he had spoken she had pressed
a button and the door behind her swung wide.

"You two do not need to be announced," the attractive young woman
smiled. "Go right in."

Samms met them at the door eagerly, shaking hands particularly
vigorously with Cleveland.

"Congratulations on that camera, Lyman!" he exclaimed. "You did a
wonderful piece of work on that. Help yourselves to smokes and sit
down--there are a lot of things we want to talk over. Your pictures
carried most of the story, but they would have left us pretty much at
sea without Costigan's reports. But as it was, Fred here and his crew
worked out most of the answers from the dope the two of you got; and
what few they haven't got yet they soon will have."

"Nothing new on Conway?" Cleveland was almost afraid to ask the
question.

"No." A shadow came over Samms' face. "I'm afraid ... but I'm hoping
it's only that those creatures, whatever they are, have taken him so far
away that he can't reach us."

"They certainly are so far away that we can't reach them." Rodenbush
volunteered. "We can't even get their ultra-wave interference any more."

"Yes, that's a hopeful sign," Samms went on. "I hate to think of Conway
Costigan checking out. There, fellows, was a real observer. He was the
only man, I have ever known, who combined the two qualities of the
perfect witness. He could actually see everything he looked at, and
could report it truly, to the last, least detail. Take all this stuff,
for instance; especially their ability to transform iron into a fluid
allotrope, and in that form to use its intra-atomic energy as power.
Something brand new--unheard of except in the ravings of imaginative
fiction--and yet he described their converters and projectors so
minutely that Fred was able to work out the underlying theory in thr