wanted.

"Back to the roof, everybody!" I ordered, as I picked Wilma up in my
arms. With her inertron belt, she felt as light as a feather.

Gaunt joined me at once from the military office, and at the
intersection of the corridor, we came upon Blash waiting for us. Barker,
however, was not in evidence.

"Where are you, Barker?" I called.

"Go ahead," he replied. "I'll be with you on the roof at once."

We came out in the open without any further mishap, and I instructed
Gibbons in the ship to light the knob on the end of the ultron wire. It
flashed dully a few feet away from us. Just how he had maneuvered the
ship to keep our end of the line in position, without its swinging in a
tremendous arc, I have never been able to understand. Had not the night
been an unusually still one, he could not have checked the initial
pendulum-like movements. As it was, there was considerable air current
at certain of the levels, and in different directions too. But Gibbons
was an expert of rare ability and sensitivity in the handling of a
rocket ship, and he managed, with the aid of his delicate instruments,
to sense the drifts almost before they affected the fine ultron wire,
and to neutralize them with little shifts in the position of the ship.

Blash and Gaunt fastened their rings to the wire, and I hooked my own
and Wilma's on, too. But on looking around, I found Barker was still
missing.

"Barker, come!" I called. "We're waiting."

"Coming!" he replied, and indeed, at that instant, his figure appeared
up the ramp. He chuckled as he fastened his ring to the wire, and said
something about a little surprise he had left for the Hans.

"Don't reel in the wire more than a few hundred feet," I instructed
Gibbons. "It will take too long to wind it in. We'll float up, and when
we're aboard, we can drop it."

In order to float up, we had to dispense with a pound or two of weight
apiece. We hurled our swords from us, and kicked off our shoes as
Gibbons reeled up the line a bit, and then letting go of the wire, began
to hum upward on our rings with increasing velocity.

The rush of air brought Wilma to, and I hastily explained to her that we
had been successful. Receding far below us now, I could see our dully
shining knob swinging to and fro in an ever widening arc, as it crossed
and recrossed the black square of the tower roof. As an extra
precaution, I ordered Gibbons to shut off the light, and to show one
from the belly of the