"I knew then that something was terribly wrong with our theory—for we had always considered Venus a very young planet, whose evolution of life had not even produced a mammalian form, and would not for millions of years. Now it seemed more plausible that at a remote age Venus was inhabited by intelligent beings, perhaps more highly developed than we on Earth or Mars, and that some great catastrophe wiped them out, leaving survivors, the ancestors of the present day fauna.

"The answer," he went on, "was plain—the Ghlak-Ileth had already been to Venus! In all probability, Earth would suffer the effect of the next raid! Denny had started for Earth with his crew. I hurried to my ship and followed him. About two hours out, my mass detector indicated the presence of matter about ten thousand miles ahead, but moving toward me. In a little while I saw it, approaching headon. A huge blob of a ship, gleaming like quicksilver, shaped like a great flat-bellied slug. The Ghosts of Outer Space had come again!"

"Hold it!" cried Art. "This is getting beyond me. Who are these—"

"We call them Ghosts, or Voornizar, because they bear little resemblance to anything mortal, although they are terribly real. They are the masters, the creators of these Hell-worms, whom they planted countless eons ago on the planets of our Solar System. The impelling energy of these Ghlak-Ileth, as with their masters, and in fact all the machinery they use, is the disintegration of radium, of which they are partially composed. They devour it for food.

"We believe that the Voornizar originate in some planetary system far beyond the awful void which surrounds our solar family. Long ago, they found their radium supply disappearing, and were forced to wander in search of new deposits. They developed the Ghlak-Ileth in their laboratories to do the work of removing the radium. They were probably planted as tiny eggs or spores, each with an infinitesimal bit of radium to furnish life energy. When the creatures hatched, their instinct was to dig downward. As they went, they fed on radium and other elements.

"Thus, ever growing and multiplying, they remained, finally absorbing every bit of radium in the planet. After a fixed period, they became imbued with the impulse to return to the surface. There they were collected by the Voornizar, who returned at exactly the proper time, to extract the radium for their own use. The period of three thousand years is, we believe, the time necessary for a round trip from here to the habitat of the Voornizar. However, it may 

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