harge, the entire ceiling, that
seemed now like the roof of a mighty world, roared down to destruction.

The pyramidal rostrum was at one side. A cascade of shattered rock fell
like a curtain before it--a kindly curtain that hid from human sight the
hideous slaughter of a demoniac mob. It was still falling; the
imprisoned air was gathering added force to rush upward, screaming as if
the very winds were insane with joy at their release, when the great
arms of Frithjof Haldgren closed about the others of the group and half
carried them, half hurled them, down the slope.

* * * * *

The echoing clang of great doors was still with them as the bellowing
voice of Haldgren was heard.

"Get into your suits! The internal pressure is lost." Even as he spoke
the big man was clutching at his throat, though the closing doors of the
sacred room had given them respite. "Quick! They have emergency doors.
They will close them--but this part is cut off. In only minutes there
will be no air!"

But it was Chet who snapped shut the closure of Anita Haldgren's suit
before he pulled on his own. And he grinned happily through the glass of
his helmet as he saw the others safely encased, while their suits slowly
bulged as the pressure of the air about them went down and their own
tanks of oxygen took up the task of maintaining one atmosphere of
pressure.

In silence the great doors of the sacred room swung back; in silence, as
before, the Earth-folk passed through where chaos had reigned. Chet
checked them; he threw one arm clumsily around the figure of Anita
Haldgren while he turned to her brother.

"The door is open, Frithjof Haldgren," he said, and pointed upward at
the black vault of the heavens where a massive ceiling had been. In that
immensity of space, framed in the torn outlines of a shattered world,
shone a great globe--a globe like a giant moon. The Earth, unbelievably
bright, was beckoning them once more.

"The door is open," Chet repeated; "do you still wish to go home?"

CHAPTER XI

_"Bullard, of the I.B.C.!"_

The controls of a meteor ship held steady without the touch of the
pilot's hand. Chet Bullard was staring at a radiocone on the instrument
board in the control room where a voice from some super-powered station
was calling. His own radio had been crackling a call, and now this
response was coming across the void.

"Orders from the Stratosphere Control Board: You will proc