two-man cruiser as a miniature replica of the giant camera ship and carrying identical equipment. It was a complete traveling laboratory, with built-in cameras and searchlights that could stab out from every angle through the transparent nose. During space flights it remained in its cradle within the larger vessel, but now it rested on the lava plain near by, ready for a take-off.

Three days had passed and Quade was still stumped. He couldn’t penetrate the wall of stupidity that shielded the Zonals from all advances. Once or twice he thought he was making some headway with the first Zonal they had encountered—whom Wolfe had irreverently dubbed Speedy. But Speedy, though extremely curious, shot off like a rocket whenever Quade felt he was getting somewhere.

In the great camera-ship Quade was donning his protective armor. He had decided to make a survey of the surrounding terrain in the little cruiser, on the chance that Udell’s trained Zonals might have wandered away. The icy rampart was no barrier to them, for they rocketed over it like birds.

Wolfe, leaning against a table stacked with experimental apparatus, looked tired.

“Want me to go along, Tony?” he asked.

“You’d better stay here and keep things moving,” Quade said.

“What things?”

“Yeah, I know. Everything’s ready for shooting. We could roll any time—except for the Zonals. I’ve got to find some way—”

Quade, struggling into his suit, lurched into a cabinet and deftly caught a small bottle as it fell.

“Neo-curare. Don’t want to smash that. I may use it on myself if I have to face Von Zorn without a picture.”

“Tony,” Wolfe said hastily. “I think I see Kathleen Gregg.”

“What!”

Quade whirled awkwardly, peering through the ship’s nose. A gyroplane had landed and a slim figure in gleaming space-armor was clambering out. It was, indeed, Kathleen.

“Blast!” Quade said, lurching toward a port. Halfway out he remembered the neo-curare and hastily stuck it in one of the self-sealing pockets in his suit. Pumice ground under his heels. The gyroplane, he saw, was already surging up, angling toward the ice barrier. Kathleen was trotting along briskly, but there was a 

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