f my plates are
getting hot--if I hold this voltage much longer, the whole secondary
bank of tubes is going out. All x--you're on zero!"

"All x!" Flashing and waning, the lights upon the screen formed
fleeting, shifting, nebulous images of a relay station upon distant
Earth; but the utmost power of the transmitting fields could neither
steady the image nor hold it.

"Back off, Mac," Brandon instructed. "I'm afraid we can't hold 'em
direct--no use blowing a bank of tubes. We'll try relaying through
Mars--we can hold them there, I think. It will muss up reception some,
but it will probably be better than direct, at that. Point oh five three
six ... all x--shoot!"

Brandon's relay station upon Mars was finally raised and held, and
a corps of keenly interested engineers there made short work of the
Earth-Mars linkage. Soon the screen glowed with the picture of the
transmitter-room of the Terrestrial station, and while the three men
were waiting for Mrs. Newton to be called to her own television set,
the door behind them opened. Nadia and her escorts entered the room--but
Stevens' eyes saw only the entrancing vision of loveliness that was his
bride. Dressed in a clinging white gown of shimmering silk, her hair a
golden blond corona, sweetly curved lips slightly parted and wide eyes
eloquent, she paused momentarily as Stevens came to his feet and stared
at her, his very heart in his eyes.

"You never saw me in a dress before--do you like me, Steve?"

"_Like_ you! You're beautiful!" and gray eyes and brown, deep with
wonder and with love, met and held as, unheeding the presence of their
friends, they went into each other's arms in a coalescence as inevitable
and as final as Fate itself.

"Hi, Nadia old dear!" and "Daughter, from what I can see of my
son-in-law, I believe that he may do," came together from the speaker.
Nadia tore herself from Stevens' embrace, to see upon the lambent screen
the happily smiling faces of her mother and sister.

"Mother! Claire! Oh, you three wonder-workers!" She addressed
simultaneously the distant Terrestrials and the scientists at her side,
while broken exclamations, punctuated by ominous, crackling snaps, came
from the laboring amplifier.

"Sorry to interrupt," MacDonald's voice broke in, "but you'll have to
hurry it up. Alcantro and Fedanzo are doing their best, but every plate
in my secondary bank's red hot, and you could fry an egg on any one of
my transformers. Even my primary