. Keep your ray-gun ready. I wouldn't be
here if I'd not had mine."

The isuan was a big help. In its prepared form it is degrading,
mind-destroying, but in natural state it gives a powerful and
comparatively harmless stimulation. Chewing on the leaves that the
Negro brought back, they made strength and renewed vitality for their
bodies, and came, for the first time since they had started their
flight through space, to a near-normal state. Meaty, yellow globules
of pear-like fruit, followed by prudent drafts of water, aided also.
Friday's long-absent grin returned as he bit into the juicy fruit, and
he announced through a mouthful:

"Well, things're lookin' sunny again! We've got food and water inside
us; we can reach Master Leithgow's laboratory in these here suits; an'
to top it all we've finished high an' mighty Ku Sui. He's dead at
last! Boy, it sure feels good to know it!"

Eliot Leithgow was lying back, breathing deeply of the fresh morning
air. His lined, worn face and body were relaxed. "Yes," he murmured,
"it is good to know that Dr. Ku is now just a thing of the past. He
and his coordinated brains." He glanced aside at the Hawk, sitting
silent and still, and stroking, as always when in meditation, the
bangs of flaxen hair which obscured his forehead. "Why so serious,
Carse?" he asked.

* * * * *

The adventurer's gray eyes were cold and sober. No relaxation showed
in them. His hand paused in its slow smoothing movement and he spoke.

"Why I overlooked it before," he said quietly, almost as if to
himself, "I don't know. Probably because I was too tired, and too
busy, and too sick to think. But now I see."

"What?" Leithgow sat up straight.

"Eliot," said the Hawk clearly, "doesn't it seem strange to you that
Ku Sui's asteroid continued to be invisible after we had smashed
through its dome?"

"What do you mean?"

"We've assumed that our smashing the dome and opening it to space
killed Ku Sui and everyone inside, and destroyed all the mechanisms,
including the coordinated brains. But the mechanism controlling the
asteroid's invisibility was not destroyed. The place remained
invisible."

The old scientist's face grew tense. Carse paused for a moment.

"That means," he went on, "that Ku Sui provided the invisibility
machine with special protection for just such an emergency. And do you
think he would give it such protection and not his coordinated brains?
Wouldn't he