ship with his titanic tools in less than the two
days that it took them to reach Venone. In the meantime, the Venonian
cruiser had drawn close, and watched in amazement as the ship was
fashioned from the energy of space, became a thing of glistening matter,
materializing from the absolute void of space, and forming under titanic
tools such as the commander could not visualize.

Now, this move was partly the reason for this construction, for while
the Venonian was busy, absorbed in watching the miraculous construction,
his mind was not shielded, and it was open for observation of two such
wonderfully trained minds as those of Zezdon Afthen and Zezdon Inthel.
With their instruments and wonderfully developed mind-science, aided at
times by Morey's less skillful, but more powerful mind of his older
race, and powerful too, both because of long concentration and training,
and because of his individual inheritance, they examined the minds of
many of the officers of the ship without their awareness.

As a final test, Arcot, having finished the ship, suggested that the
Venonian officer and one of the men of his ship have a trial of mental
powers.

Zezdon Afthen tried first, and between the two ships, racing along side
by side at a speed unthinkable, the two men struggled with those forces
of will.

Quickly Zezdon Afthen told Arcot what he had learned.

The sun of Venone was close, now, and Arcot prepared to use as he
intended the little space machine he had made. Morey took it, and went
away from the _Thought_ flying on its time field. The ship had been
stocked with lead fuel for its matter-burning generators from the supply
that had been brought on the _Thought_ for emergencies, and the air had
come from the _Thought_'s great tanks. Morey was going to Venone ahead
of the _Thought_ to scout--"to see many of the important men of Venone
and find out from them what I can of the relationship between Venone and
Thett."

Hours later Morey returned with a favorable report. He had seen many of
the important men of Venone, and conversed with them mentally from the
safety of his ship, where the specially installed gravity apparatus had
protected him and the ship against the enormous gravity of this gigantic
world. He did not describe Venone; he wanted them to see it as he had
first seen it.

So the little ship, which had served its purpose now, was destroyed,
nearly a light year from Venone, and left a crushed wreck when two
pla