e to the surface.

Parkinson could not tell how long he sat there, but from the
appearance of the sun, he thought that at the very shortest, an hour
passed by while he remained on that spot. And during that time, the
throbbing gradually increased until the metal began vibrating under
his feet.

Suddenly the bacteriologist leaped aside. The vibrating had reached
its height, and the meteor seemed to lurch, to tilt at a sharp angle.
His leap carried him to firm footing again. And then, his thirst and
hopeless position completely forgotten, Parkinson stared in
fascination at the amazing spectacle before him.

* * * * *

An eighteen-foot disc of metal, a perfect circle, seemed to have been
cut out of the top of the meteor. While he watched, it began turning
slowly, ponderously, and started sinking into the meteor. As it sank,
Parkinson fancied that it grew transparent, and gradually vanished
into nothingness--but he wasn't sure.

A great pit, eighteen feet wide, but far deeper, lay before him in the
very place where, not more than ten minutes before, he had stood. Not
a moment too soon had he leaped.

Motionless he stood there, waiting in tense expectation. What would
happen next, he had not the least idea, but he couldn't prevent his
imagination from running riot.

He hadn't long to wait before his watching was rewarded. A few minutes
after the pit appeared, he heard a loud, high-pitched whir coming from
the heart of the meteor. As it grew louder, it assumed a higher and
still higher key, finally rising above the range of human ears. And at
that moment the strange vehicle arose to the surface.

A simple-appearing mechanism was the car, consisting of a twelve-foot
sphere of the same bronze-like metal that made up the meteor, with a
huge wheel, like a bronze cincture, around its middle. It was the
whirling of this great wheel that had caused the high-pitched
whirring. The entire, strange machine was surrounded by a peculiar
green radiance, a radiance that seemed to crackle ominously as the
sphere hovered over the mouth of the pit.

For a moment the car hung motionless, then it drifted slowly to the
surface of the meteor, landing a few feet away from Parkinson. Hastily
he drew back from the greenly phosphorescent thing--but not before he
had experienced an unpleasant prickling sensation over his entire
body.

As the bacteriologist drew away, there was a sharp, audible click
within t