eed.

"Well, the thing's got us, whatever it is," said Jim as he pulled his
controls to neutral, shutting off all power. Now that the danger had
assumed a tangible form, he appeared as cool and collected as ever, to
my surprise, I found that I had recovered control of my muscle and of my
voice. I became aware that the shoulder which Jim had gripped was aching
badly, and I rubbed it absently.

"What is it, Jim?" I asked for the third time.

"I don't know," he replied. "It is some horrible inhabitant of space,
something unknown to us on earth. From its appearance and actions, I
think it must be a huge single-celled animal of the type of the earthly
amoeba. If an amoeba is that large here, what must an elephant look
like? However, I expect that we'll learn more about the matter later
because it's taking us with it, wherever it's going."

* * * * *

Suddenly the flyer became dark inside. I looked at the nearest window,
but I could not even detect its outline. I reached for the light switch,
but a sudden change in direction threw me against the wall. There was an
instant of intense heat in the flyer.

"We have passed the heaviside layer," said Jim. "The brute has changed
direction, and we felt that heat when he took us through the infra-red
wall."

I reached again for the light switch, but before I could find it our
motion ceased and an instant later the flyer was filled with glaring
sunlight. We both turned to the window.

We lay on a glistening plain of bluish hue which stretched without a
break as far as we could see. Not a thing broke the monotony of our
vision. We turned to the opposite window. How can I describe the sight
which met our horrified gaze? On the plain before us lay a huge purple
monstrosity of gargantuan dimensions. The thing was a shapeless mass,
only the four huge eyes standing out regarding us balefully. The mass
was continually changing its outline and, as we watched, a long streamer
extended itself from the body toward us. Over and around the flyer the
feeler went, while green and red colors played over first one and then
another of the huge eyes before us. The feeler wrapped itself around the
flyer and we were lifted into the air toward those horrible eyes. We had
almost reached them when the thing dropped us. We fell to the plain with
a crash. We staggered to our feet again and looked out. Our captor was
battling for its life.

* * *