"I was voyaging to visit my brother on our satellite, Zora, when those same raiders caught sight of me and gave chase. My space compass broke, and I became lost. I found my way here just as my rocket motors consumed the last of their power."

"I see." Standish lit his pipe and began to smoke slowly. "And these raiders—they come from near here?"

"From Sirius," Ga-Marr replied. "They raid us for funds to continue their war with a planet many light years away."

For a full moment Standish sat there rigid. Then the pipe fell from his hands, and he leaped to his feet.

"Sirius!" he cried. "So those butchers are not content to place in bondage all the solar system. They must plague other worlds also!"

He paced the length of the forecastle.

"Tell me," he said, whirling abruptly, "do you know of a Sirian leader called Drum Faggard?"

Ga-Marr's eyes gleamed. "Aye. The crudest and most bloodthirsty of them all. It was he who led the attack against my people in which my brother was killed. It was he who directed the sacking of our city of Calthedra. My one hope is that some day we may meet on common ground."

The next day Standish revealed to the newcomer his plan to build a smaller space ship out of the wreckage of the old.

"Your own craft is useless without power for its rocket motors," he told Ga-Marr. "Yet it contains parts that will be valuable. Have I your consent to dismantle it?"

The stranger nodded.

"To work then. And remember, if we succeed, we may yet be able to strike at Drum Faggard."

It was the desire for revenge that spurred them on. Quickly they set about dismantling Ga-Marr's ship. Rivets were cut, bolts unscrewed, plates ripped off. Using the dismantled parts of the space liner's atomic motors, Standish fashioned a smaller but powerful engine. Gradually out of the mass a crude craft began to take form.

But they were working on counted time. Days were growing shorter; the nights, longer. Icy winds began to sweep across the ravine, bringing sleet and flurries of snow.

With the change in seasons came new dangers. Strange animal life, following the perverse migrational 

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