skid up in a spiral.

"I'm wondering," he observed, "if they're trying to tell us something by radio. And meanwhile I'd like a more comprehensive view of this damned checkerboard!"

A faint, faint, wavering whine came into the headphones.

"There's something," he commented "Not a main communication wave, though. A stray harmonic—and of a power beam, I think. They must use plenty short waves!"

But he was searching the deadly monotony of the grid below him as he spoke. Suddenly, he pointed. All the area below them to the horizon was filled with geometric shapes of grids and squares. But one space was different from the rest. Four squares were thrown into one, there. And as the skid dived for a nearer view, that one square was seen to be a deep, hollow shaft going down toward the very vitals of this world. As Stan looked, though, it filled swiftly with something rising from its depths. The lifting thing was a platform, and things moved about on it.

"That's that!" said Stan hardly.

He shot the skid away in level flight at topmost speed, with the great rolling machine following helplessly and ragingly on its zigzag course below.

The horizon was dark, now, with the coming night. As Stan lifted for the rocketlike trajectory that would take him back to the polar regions, the white sun sank fiercely. There was a narrow space on which the rays smote so slantingly that the least inequality of level was marked by shadow. Gigantic sand dunes were outlined there. But beyond, where the winds began, there was only featureless swirling dust.

Stan was very silent all the way back. Only, once, he said calmly, "Our power units will soak up a pretty big charge in a short time. We packed away some power before the fuse blew."

There was no comment for Esther to make. There was life on the planet. It was life which knew of their existence and presence—and had tried to kill them for the theft of some few megawatts of power. It would not be easy to make terms with the life which held other life so cheaply.

With the planet's only source of power now guarded, matters looked less bright than before. But after they had reached the icecap, and when they slanted down out of the airlessness to the spot which was their home because their seeds had been planted there—as they dived down for a landing, their real situation 

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