more and
more agitated, until it was churning up the waves around it like a
wounded and agonized monster of the sea.

Suddenly the front end tilted upward and the monster rose clear of the
water. It shot straight up into the air at a speed so terrific that they
could scarcely follow it.

"It's gone!" gasped Fragoni. "Those brainless, mindless automatons must
have survived!"

"No," remarked Steinholt thoughtfully. "I don't believe that there is
any life left on that thing. No one had closed the well when it rose,
and it would mean death to go out into space with the ship in that
condition."

"Then what made it go up?" demanded Lazarre. "Can the damn thing run
itself, Steinholt?"

"I imagine," recalled the Teuton, "that our bolts killed every living
thing that was on the craft but that, at the same time, they set the
mechanism of the monster into action. Ah," he moaned, "but that is too
bad. We could have learned much by an examination of the interior of
that liner of the air."

* * * * *

A cry from Inga startled them and they saw that she was looking skyward,
with terror in her eyes.

They followed her gaze and there, streaking through the black clouds,
they saw a long trail of white fire.

"It's that thing!" exclaimed Fragoni. "I tell you that those upon it
still live and that they are about to wreak vengeance upon us."

"No," said Steinholt positively. "You are wrong, Fragoni. What is
happening may be almost as disastrous, though," he admitted. "That
leviathan is in its death agonies; it is a metal monster gone mad, and
none can say what will happen before it expires."

"The place for us," asserted Dirk hurriedly, "is in the Worldwide Tower.
There we can keep track of what is transpiring and try to decide what to
do."

The others agreed with him and, seeking the westward level of flight, he
sped the plane in the direction of the mammoth pyramid from which the
news of the world was broadcast.

They reached the vast structure in a few minutes, and, after dropping
the plane on a landing stage, they went into the operating room.

Here they learned quickly that the craft of the Lodorians was doing
incalculable damage, and that it was throwing the population of the
world into an unprecedented panic.

It was, apparently, following an erratic, uncertain orbit that took it
far out into space and then back quite close to the surface of the earth
again.

* *