o his skin, I guessed that he was
from the Venus Central State. He seemed much perturbed that Dr. Brende
was dead. Occasionally he burst into English as he rebuked one of the
others for the killing.

No more than a moment had passed. Georg joined Elza and me. We stood
waiting. Georg whispered: "They killed Robins and his helpers. In
there----" He gestured. "I saw them lying in there. If only I had--"

Argo was standing before us. "This is a very pleasant surprise--" He
spoke the careful English of the educated foreigner. His tone was
ironical. "Very pleasant--"

Abruptly he turned away again. But in that instant, his eyes had roved
Elza in a way that turned me cold.

They led us away, down a padded hallway into the instrument room. It was
in full operation; our Inter-Allied news-tape was clicking; the low
voice of the announcer droned through the silence. I started toward the
tape, but Argo waved me away. He had volunteered us nothing, and again
Georg advised silence.

Argo had given his orders. Through a window I saw men carrying apparatus
from the house. A small metal frame of sun-mirrors, prisms and vacuum
tubes. Georg whispered: "Father's model."

The man with it passed beyond my sight. Others came along, carrying the
cylinders of books--Dr. Brende's notes--and a variety of other
paraphernalia. Carrying it back from the shore toward the headlands of
the Cape, where I realized now they had an aero secreted.

Argo was at a mirror; he had a head-piece on; he was talking into a
disc--talking in a private code. I could see the surface of the small
mirror. A room, with windows. Through one of the windows, by daylight,
palms and huge banana leaves were visible. A room seemingly in the
tropics of our own hemisphere.

Argo was triumphant--explaining, doubtless, that he had captured us.
Mingled with his voice, the Inter-Allied announcer was saying:

_"Greater-New York 10.32 Martian Helio, via Tokyohama: Little People
Proclamation----"_

A man standing near the tape switched off the droning voice. At the
receiving table, every few seconds came the buzz of the laboratory's
call. Wrangel Island again calling Robins; but no one paid any heed.
Argo finished at the mirror. He glanced over the tape, smiling
sardonically. Then, methodically, deliberately, he swept the instruments
to the floor, jerked out the connections, turned out the
current--wrecked it all with a few strokes. A moment later we were taken
away.

Outs