CHAPTER IV

The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one man couldn't have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once.

And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a lighted cigar....

"Maybe it's the space giants?"

"Shut up!" bawled Pinkham. The officers turned toward him, brows lifting, mouths still open. "Now," he said quietly, "Circe—Miss Smith—what did you say?"

"Space giants," she repeated "I don't think they exist, but I certainly saw something."

"Give it to us slow," said Daley.

"Well, a couple of times while I was anchored to the asteroid, watching tri-di movies, I had the impression that something enormous was floating just beyond my face plate, watching me. Of course I was slowed down so far that it must have taken me an hour to register the fact, and another hour or two to flick my eyes up away from the movies. What was a second to me was at least that long. But just once I got a clear view of something incredible. It vanished almost at once."

"What was it?"

"A very big man, naked, bald, with eyes like fires. That's the only way I can describe him. He looked humanoid, except he was so big."

"How big?"

"I can't tell and hate to make a guess—but at least a thousand feet. Of course I hadn't anything to compare him with."

"Wait a minute," said Randy Kinkare, the assistant pilot, voice reeking with unbelief. "How could you see through an opaque face plate?"

"It's not opaque," said Joe Silver officiously. "It's translucent from without and transparent from within. I took a look at it this afternoon."

"Space giants," groaned someone. "Oh, Lord!"

"We can't discount it," said Pink, realizing that he was doing just that, but refusing to disbelieve Circe. Illusion? Not a lie, surely? "She wasn't drugged, after all. She was in full control of senses that were merely slowed 

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