stranger spoke thoughtfully. "In that I understand your
viewpoint thoroughly. But, after I have remodeled your power-plant into
ours and have piloted you to our planet, what assurance have I that you
will liberate me, as you have said?"

"None whatever--I have made and am asking no promises, since I cannot
expect you to trust me, any more than I can trust you. Enough of this
argument! I am master here, and I am dictating terms. We can get along
without you. Therefore you must decide quickly whether you would rather
die suddenly and surely, here in space and right now, or help us as I
demand and live until you get back home--enjoying meanwhile your life
and whatever chance you think you may have of being liberated within the
atmosphere of your own planet."

"Just a minute, Chief!" Loring said, in English, his back to the
prisoner. "Wouldn't we gain more by killing him and going back to Seaton
and the green system, as you suggested?"

"No." DuQuesne also turned away, to shield his features from the
mind-reading gaze of the Fenachrone. "That was pure bluff. I don't want
to get within a million miles of Seaton until after we have the armament
of this fellow's ships. I couldn't make peace with Seaton now, even if I
wanted to--and I haven't the slightest intention of trying. I intend
killing him on sight. Here's what we're going to do. First, we'll get
what we came after. Then we'll find the _Skylark_ and blow her clear
out of space, and take over the pieces of that Fenachrone ship. After
that we'll head for the green system, and with their own stuff and what
we'll give them, they'll be able to give those fiends a hot reception.
By the time they finally destroy the Osnomians--if they do--we'll have
the world ready for them." He turned to the Fenachrone. "What is your
decision?"

"I submit, in the hope that you will keep your promise, since there is
no alternative but death," and the awful creature, still loosely held by
the attractors and carefully watched by DuQuesne and Loring, fairly tore
into the task of rebuilding the Osnomian power-plant into the
space-annihilating drive of the Fenachrone--for he well knew one fact
that DuQuesne's hurried inspection had failed to glean from the
labyrinthine intricacies of that fearsome brain: that once within the
detector screens of that distant solar system these Earth-beings would
be utterly helpless before the forces which would inevitably be turned
upon them. Also, he realized