h and, with a cautious hand, pried at
the top of the sack where it was bunched over my head. Its fastening
was loose.

Another interval. A dim muffled voice; "The Wasp is in sight,
Gutierrez!"

A movement--a sound like footsteps. Probably Gutierrez moving to the
corridor window to glance at Hanley's distant hovering flyer. I hoped
it might be that: I had to take the chance.

* * * * *

I slid the bag from my face. I feared an abrupt alarm, or Gutierrez
leaping upon me. But there was silence, and I saw his vague dark
outlines at the window oval, five feet from me.

I got my ankles loose and slid the bag off. I was unsteady on my feet,
but desperation aided me.

Gutierrez half turned as I gripped him from behind. My hand on his
mouth stifled his outcry. His black knife blade waved blindly. Then my
clenched knuckle caught his temple, and dug with the twisting Santus
blow. I was expert at it, and I found the vulnerable spot.

He crumpled in my grasp, and I slid his falling body across the narrow
corridor into the nearest cubby oval.

Almost soundless; and in the control room Jetta and De Boer were
murmuring and gazing at Hanley's ship, which hung ahead and above us
at the zero-height.

I had planned all my movements. No motion was lost. Gutierrez was
about my height and build. I stripped his black suit from him, donned
it, then tied his ankles and wrists, and gagged him against the time
when he would recover consciousness. Then I stuffed his body in the
sack and tied its top.

This black suit had a mask, rolled up and fastened to the helmet. I
loosed it, dropping it over my face. Knife in hand, I stood at the
corridor window.

* * * * *

It was all black outside. The clouds were black overhead; the highest
Lowland crags, several thousand feet beneath us, were all but blotted
out in the murky darkness. Only one thing was to be seen: a quarter of
a mile ahead, now, and a thousand feet higher than our level, the
shining, bird-like outlines of Hanley's hovering little Wasp. It stood
like a painted image of an aero, alone on a dead-black background. Red
and green signal-lights dotted it, and on its stern tip a small,
spreading searchlight bathed the wings and the body with a revealing
silver radiance.

Our forward flight had been checked, and we, too, were hovering. Hans
doubtless would remain for a time in the pilot cubby; De Boer and
Jetta were in