l they could learn. Arcot was going to keep his system
secret, it seemed.

"At any rate," Arcot continued, "I am back in the control room, where I
belong, and you are not in the observatory where you belong. Now get out
of my territory!"

Morey pushed himself back to the observatory, and after a few minutes,
his voice came over the intercom. "Let's move on a bit more, Arcot. We
still can't get both galaxies on the same plate. Let's go on for another
hour and take our pictures from that point."

Fuller had awakened and come in in the meantime, and he wanted to know
why they didn't take some pictures from this spot.

"No point in it," said Morey. "We have the ones we took coming in; what
we want is a wide-angle shot."

Arcot threw on the space-strain drive once more, and they headed on at
top speed.

They were all in the control room, watching the instruments and
joking--principally the latter--when it happened. One instant they were
moving smoothly, weightlessly along. The next instant, the ship rocked
as though it had been struck violently! The air was a snapping inferno
of shooting sparks, and there came the sharp crash of the suddenly
volatilized silver bar that was their main power fuse. Simultaneously,
they were hurled forward with terrific force; the straps that held them
in place creaked with the sudden strain, and the men felt weak and
faint.

Consciousness nearly left them; they had been burned in a dozen places
by the leaping sparks.

Then it was over. Except that the ghost ships no longer followed them,
the _Ancient Mariner_ seemed unchanged. Around them, they could see the
dim glowing of the galaxies.

"Brother! We came near something!" Arcot cried. "It may be a wandering
star! Take a look around, quick!"

But the dark of space seemed utterly empty around them as they coasted
weightless through space. Then Arcot snapped off the lights of the
control room, and in a moment his eyes had become accustomed to the dim
lights.

It was dead ahead of them. It was a dull red glow, so dim it was
scarcely visible. Arcot realized it was a dead star.

"There it is, Morey!" he said. "A dead star, directly ahead of us! Good
God, how close are we?"

They were falling straight toward the dim red bulk.

"How far are we from it?" Fuller asked.

"At least several million--" Morey began. Then he looked at the distance
recorded on the meteor detector. "ARCOT! FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE DO SOMETHING!
THAT THING IS ONLY A