quietly, Rufus."

Marshall's hand came up from the lower part of his space suiting, holding a flame-gun that was pointed at Rufus Thallin, but that young man was no longer there. Leaping with all of his strength, he dove clear across the room. His shoulders struck the metal suiting and the gun flew from Marshall's hand.

One balled fist came up to a defensive position, kept on going. Rufus followed it with another, a straight punch that carried his full weight behind it. Keith Randolph Marshall went down. He wasn't out, but when he looked into the face of the man standing over him, he stayed down.

"Get out!" snorted Rufus furiously. "Get your spacetogs on and get out before I really do commit murder. Go out to your precious, skulking space coppers. And just let them try to take me—alive!"

He picked up the flame-gun where Marshall had dropped it and watched the three of them as they fastened space toggings about their bodies. Marshall was the first to go through the airlock. Dr. Haliburton, looking slightly dazed, went next. There was only room for one of them at a time.

Alyce Marshall stood hesitant, waiting for the hiss of escaping gas that would be the signal for her turn. As she did Rufus Thallin stalked to her side, wrenched loose the upper fastening of her spacetogs. When her face came free he brushed back her tangled hair and kissed the exposed lips savagely.

"That wasn't in the bargain either!" he ground out furiously, and spun on his heel.

She was gone. He sat at the controls and waited. She would be going from the outer door of the lock now, and the space police would be creeping nearer. Perhaps Alyce would tell them how he had gained entrance to the cavern, but by that time, it would be too late.

His hand flickered over the controls. A low thunder shook the space-flyer. On the outside a seething cushion of flames would be supporting it. Through the glassite he glimpsed retreating figures, saw the cavern abruptly become as light as day.

The space-flyer floated out over the edge of the abyss and dropped. It descended straight for three miles, then followed the curl of the titanic crevice toward the horizontal. Ancient civilized men had shaped the upper cavern, men of a lost generation, but this titanic lower abyss was a fault created by nature herself.

Rocket flames cast a weird illumination on the monstrous grotto, 

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