rth now."

* * * * *

I looked down, but could see nothing below us but the dense cloud of
black soot resulting from the destruction of the heaviside layer. Like
Carpenter, I felt sleepy, and I suppressed a yawn as I turned again to
the window.

"Look here, Jim!" I cried suddenly. "What's that?"

He moved in a leisurely manner to my side and looked out. As he did so I
felt his hand tighten on my shoulder with a desperate grip. Down the
wall of red which surrounded us was coming an object of some kind. The
thing was fully seventy-five yards long and half as wide at its main
portion, while long irregular streams extended for a hundred yards on
each side of it. There seemed to be dozens of them.

"What is it, Jim?" I asked in a voice which sounded high and unnatural
to me.

"I don't know," he muttered, half to me and half to himself. "Good Lord,
there's another of them!"

He pointed. Not far from the first of the things came another, even
larger than the first. They were moving sluggishly along the red light,
seeming to flow rather than to crawl. I had a horrible feeling that they
were alive and malignant. Carpenter stepped back to the controls of the
flyer and stopped our movement; we hung in space, watching them. The
things were almost level with us, but their sluggish movement was
downward toward the earth. In color, they were a brilliant crimson,
deepening into purple near the center. Just as the first of them came
opposite us it paused, and slowly a portion of the mass extended itself
from the main bulk; and then, like doors opening, four huge eyes, each
of them twenty feet in diameter, opened and stared at us.

"It's alive, Jim," I quavered. I hardly knew my own voice as I spoke.

* * * * *

Jim stepped back to the controls with a white face, and slowly we moved
closer to the mass. As we approached I thought that I could detect a
fleeting passage of expression in those huge eyes. Then they disappeared
and only a huge crimson and purple blob lay before us. Jim moved the
controls again and the flyer came to a stop.

Two long streamers moved out from the mass. Suddenly there was a jerk to
the ship which threw us both to the floor. It started upward at express
train speed. Jim staggered to his feet, grasped the controls and started
all four bow motors at full capacity, but even this enormous force had
not the slightest effect in diminishing our sp