darkness sprang around us. Snap fumbled at his instrument
board. Actinic light showed dimly in the quivering, thumbnail mirrors.
Two of them. They hung poised on their cobweb wires, infinitely
sensitive to the infra-red light-rays Grantline was sending from the
moon. The mirrors in a moment began swinging. On the scale across the
room the actinic beams from them were magnified into sweeps of light.

The message!

Snap spelled it out, decoded it.

"_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
location later. Success beyond wildest hopes--_"

The mirrors hung motionless. The shield, where the Gamma rays were
bombarding, went suddenly dark.

Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore! 'Success beyond wildest
hopes.' That must mean an enormous quantity of it available!"

We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across our
open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was faintly
hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple sparks.
Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from the spider
bridge that led to our little room--someone out there trying to pry
in!

Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
light--it was all darkness to us outside. But I checked him.

"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the narrow
metal bridge.

"Wait, Snap! You stay there." I added aloud, "Well, Snap, I'm going to
bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."

* * * * *

I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges and ladders
seemed empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.

No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty. But
in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me down
the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing something I
could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking room.

I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
his cigar held a long, frail ash. It could not have been him I was
chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.

He sat up with amazem