insects are capable of simple reasoning, but the
development in this direction is only of the most elementary nature.
As compared to man it is safe to say that they do not reason. They are
guided by instinct.

This again is the most efficient way to organize their affairs. It
requires no long period of training. They can begin performing all
their useful functions as soon as their bodily development makes it
possible. No one need teach them how to catch their prey, how to build
their nests or shelters. Instinct takes care of this. But this,
obviously the best system in a world wholly governed by instinct, is
not so desirable when the instinctively actuated insect encounters
another form of life, as man, which is capable of reason. The
reasoning individual can play all kinds of tricks on the individual
who is actuated by instinct.

The Ghost World

_By Sewell Peaslee Wright_

[Illustration: _My whole attention was focused upon the strange
beings._]

[Sidenote: Commander John Hanson records another of his thrilling
interplanetary adventures with the Special Patrol Service.]

I was asleep when our danger was discovered, but I knew the instant
the attention signal sounded that the situation was serious. Kincaide,
my second officer, had a cool head, and he would not have called me
except in a tremendous emergency.

"Hanson speaking!" I snapped into the microphone. "What's up, Mr.
Kincaide?"

"A field of meteorites sweeping into our path, sir." Kincaide's voice
was tense. "I have altered our course as much as I dared and am
reducing speed at emergency rate, but this is the largest swarm of
meteorites I have ever seen. I am afraid that we must pass through at
least a section of it."

"With you in a moment, Mr. Kincaide!" I dropped the microphone and
snatched up my robe, knotting its cord about me as I hurried out of my
stateroom. In those days, interplanetary ships did not have their
auras of repulsion rays to protect them from meteorites, it must be
remembered. Two skins of metal were all that lay between the _Ertak_
and all the dangers of space.

I took the companionway to the navigating room two steps at a time and
fairly burst into the room.

Kincaide was crouched over the two charts that pictured the space
around us, microphone pressed to his lips. Through the plate glass
partition I could see the men in the operating room tensed over their
wheels and levers and dials. Kincaide glanced up as I ent