A narrow football of steel, the Interplanetary Vessel Arcturus stood upright in her berth in the dock like an egg in its cup. A hundred feet across and a hundred and seventy feet deep was that gigantic bowl, its walls supported by the structural steel and concrete of the dock and lined with hard-packed bumper-layers of hemp and fibre. High into the air extended the upper half of the ship of space—a sullen gray expanse of fifty-inch hardened steel armor, curving smoothly upward to a needle prow.

"A ll out—we climb the rest of the way on foot," Stevens told his companion, as the elevator stopped at the uppermost passenger floor. They walked across the small circular hall and the guard on duty came to attention and saluted as they approached him. "I have orders to pass you and Miss Newton, sir. Do you know all the combinations?" "I know this good old tub better than the men that built her—I helped calculate her," Stevens replied, as he stepped up to an apparently blank wall of steel and d

U pon awakening, the man's first care was to instruct the girl in the operation of the projectors, so that she could keep the heavily-armored edge of their small section, which she had promptly christened "The Forlorn Hope," between them and the grinding, clashing mass of wreckage, and thus, if it should become necessary, protect the relatively frail inner portions of their craft from damage. "Keep an eye on things for a while, Nadia," he instructed, as soon as she could handle the controls, "an

S low , hard, and disheartening as the work had been at first, Stevens had never slackened his pace, and after a time, as his facilities increased, the exasperating setbacks decreased in number and severity and his progress became faster and faster. Large as the "Forlorn Hope" was, space was soon at a premium, for their peculiarly-shaped craft became a veritable factory, housing a variety of machinery and equipment unknown in any single earthly industrial plant. Nothing was ornamental—everything

T he Interplanetary Vessel Arcturus sets out for Mars, with Breckenridge as chief pilot, carrying on board, besides its regular crew and some passengers, the famous Dr. Stevens, designer of space ships and computer. He checks computations made by astronomers stationed in floating observatories, and after he has located any trouble and suggests a plan for minimizing the hazards of the trip from the earth to Mars, he reports his findings and suggestions to Mr. Newton, chief of the Interplanetary C

F ar out in space, Jupiter, a tiny moon and its satellites mere pin-points of light, Stevens turned to his companion with a grin. "Well, Nadia, old golf-shootist, here's where we turn spacehounds again. Hope you like it better this time, because I'm afraid that we'll have to stay weightless for quite a while." He slowly throttled down the mighty flow of power, and watched the conflicting emotions play over Nadia's face in her purely personal battle against the sickening sensations caused by the

"H i , Percival Van Schravendyck Stevens!" Nadia strode purposely into Stevens' room and seized him by the shoulder. "Are you going to sleep all the way to Saturn? You answered me when I pounded on the partition with a hammer, but I don't believe that you woke up at all. Get up, you—breakfast will be all spoiled directly!" "Huh?" Stevens opened one sluggish eye; then, as the full force of the insult penetrated his consciousness, he came wide awake. "Lay off those names, ace, or you'll find yours

"M ust you you go back to Ganymede?" Barkovis asked, slowly and thoughtfully. He was sitting upon a crystal bench beside the fountain, talking with Stevens, who, dressed in his bulging space-suit, stood near an airlock of the Forlorn Hope . "It seems a shame that you should face again those unknown, monstrous creatures who so inexcusably attacked us both without provocation." "I'm not so keen on it myself, but I can't see any other way out of it," the Terrestrial replied. "We left a lot of our e

A ll humanity of Callisto, the fourth major satellite of Jupiter, had for many years been waging a desperate and apparently hopeless defense against invading hordes of six-limbed beings. Every city and town had long since been reduced to level fields of lava by the rays of the invaders. Every building and every trace of human civilization had long since disappeared from the surface of the satellite. Far below the surface lay the city of Zbardk, the largest of the few remaining strongholds of the

T he Interplanetary Vessel Arcturus sets out for Mars, with Breckenridge as chief pilot, carrying on board, besides its regular crew and some passengers, the famous Dr. Stevens, designer of space ships and computer. He checks computations made by astronomers stationed in floating observatories, and after he has located any trouble and suggests a plan for minimizing the hazards of the trip from the earth to Mars he reports his findings and suggestions to Mr. Newton, chief of the Interplanetary Co

T he Sirius loafed along through the ether at normal acceleration just outside the orbit of Mars and a million miles north of the ecliptic plane. In the control room, which had been transformed into a bewilderingly complete laboratory, Norman Brandon strode up and down, waving his arms, his unruly black hair on end, addressing savagely his friend and fellow-scientist, who sat unmoved and at ease. "For cat's sake, Quince, let's get busy! They're outside somewhere, since the police have scoured ev

T he time for the landing of the Sirius was drawing near, and the castaways upon Ganymede had donned their only suits of earthly clothing, instead of the makeshifts of mole-skin, canvas, and leather they had been wearing so long. Thorns and underbrush had pierced and torn their once natty outing costumes, and sparks and flying drops of molten metal from Stevens' first crude forges had burned in them many gaping holes. "I did the best I could with them, Steve, but they look pretty crumby," Nadia

V orkulia , the city of the Vorkuls, was an immense seven-pointed star. At its center, directly upon the south pole of Jupiter, rose a tremendous shaft—its cross-section likewise a tapering seven-pointed star—which housed the directing intelligence of the nation. Radiating from the seven cardinal points of the building were short lanes leading to star-shaped open plots, from which in turn branched out ways to other stellate areas; ways reaching, after many such steps, to the towering inner walls

F or the first time in many days Brandon and Westfall sat at dinner in the main dining room of the Sirius . They were enjoying greatly the unaccustomed pleasure of a leisurely, formal meal; but still their talk concerned the projection of pure forces instead of subjects more appropriate to the table; still their eyes paid more attention to diagrams drawn upon scraps of paper than to the diners about them. "But I tell you, Quince, you're full of little red ants, clear to the neck!" Brandon snorte

N ow that the hexan threat that had so long oppressed the humanity of the Sirius was lifted, that dull gray football of armor steel was filled with relief and rejoicing as the pilot laid his course for Europa. Lounges and saloons resounded with noise as police, passengers, and such of the crew as were at liberty made merry. The control room, in which were grouped the leaders of the expedition and the scientists, was orderly enough, but a noticeable undertone of gladness had replaced the tense ai