walls of the cavern chamber, their wings
folded, the antennae on their orange foreheads waving gently. None was
close, but all watched with cold, intelligent interest. I decided that I
was in Leider's headquarters, a closely guarded prisoner. It was to be
supposed that Leider had brought us here, as Hargrib had said he might,
to interview us before he finished us off.

Fear for the others laid hold of me, but I was still too dazed and giddy
to get up and look for them. I lay still, trying to remember everything.

"He waited until we made an aggressive move," I thought, "and then he
did _something_ to us. He did something which brought us shooting
through the air here to his headquarters!"

After I had progressed so far, it did not take me long to realize what
method Leider had employed to fetch us to the caverns. Nor did it take
me much longer, once I was sure of the method, to roll over heavily and
begin to yank the metal buttons off my coat. Since the many
guards--fully twenty of them--made no move to interfere, I did not stop
until I had torn every button off my clothing, dumped from my pockets
every object which had a scrap of metal on it, and even dug the metal
eyelets out of my shoes.

* * * * *

What had happened was that Leider had simply readjusted the forces of
his damned power houses so as to yank us to him, ship and all, _without_
the medium of a magnetic cable. What he had done was to direct at us a
magnetic current so terrific that, taking hold of the few odds and ends
of metal on our persons, it had snatched us bodily through space. And
the ship, too! It was stupendous; incredible.

Full consciousness had returned by this time, and fear possessed me even
more completely than it had before--fear for what might be going to
happen to Earth and fear of what might already have happened to my
friends. The Leider who had planned the Calypsus war had had no such
gigantic powers as these. As thoughts of Virginia Crane and the others
increased until they filled my whole mind, I sat up on the floor of the
cavern and then rose slowly to my feet.

The guards never relaxed their vigilance, but they made no move as I
moved; they only stared, and I ventured to call out.

"Captain Crane! Koto! LeConte!" I shouted loudly.

No answer came. Since the Orconites still did not prevent me, I began to
walk swiftly down the length of the great, echoing cathedral cavern,
toward