f their power
and stood by, waiting. I wasn't looking at you when you released your
zone. One moment it was there, and the next, the stranger had been cut
in pieces. The rest you know."

"We're sure glad you two got away, Dunark. Well, Mart, what say we drag
that guy in and give him the once-over?"

* * * * *

Seaton swung the attractors holding the prisoner until they were in line
with the main air-lock, then reduced the power of the repellers. As he
approached the lock various controls were actuated, and soon the
stranger stood in the control room, held immovable against one wall,
while Crane, with a 0.50-caliber elephant gun, stood against the other.

"Perhaps you girls should go somewhere else," suggested Crane.

"Not on your life!" protested Dorothy, who, eyes wide and flushed with
excitement, stood near a door, with a heavy automatic pistol in her
hand. "I wouldn't miss this for a farm!"

"Got him solid," declared Seaton, after a careful inspection of the
various attractors and repellers he had bearing upon the prisoner, "Now
let's get him out of that suit. No--better read his air first,
temperature and pressure--might analyze it, too."

Nothing could be seen of the person of the stranger, since he was
encased in vacuum armor, but it was plainly evident that he was very
short and immensely broad and thick. By means of hollow needles forced
through the leather-like material of the suit Seaton drew off a sample
of the atmosphere within, into an Orsat apparatus, while Crane made
pressure and temperature readings.

"Temperature, one hundred ten degrees. Pressure, twenty-eight
pounds--about the same as ours is, now that we have stepped it up to
keep the Osnomians from suffering."

Seaton soon reported that the atmosphere was quite similar to that of
the _Skylark_, except that it was much higher in carbon dioxide and
carried an extremely high percentage of water vapor. He took up a pair
of heavy shears and laid the suit open full length, on both sides,
knowing that the powerful attractors would hold the stranger immovable.
He then wrenched off the helmet and cast the whole suit aside, revealing
the enemy officer, clad in a tunic of scarlet silk.

He was less than five feet tall. His legs were merely blocks, fully as
great in diameter as they were in length, supporting a torso of
Herculean dimensions. His arms were as large as a strong man's thigh and
hung almost to the floor. H