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comrade, uncomplaining and unafraid, despite the myriad dangers which encompassed us. I wondered if, cast adrift on a strange and fierce world in the midst of enemies who had slain my father and brother, I myself would have behaved as bravely.
She was a good soldier. Impulsively I felt through the darkness and possessed myself of her hand. She made no resistance and for a time her fingers relaxed passively in my palm. Between us, as always when she was near, I felt pulsing the vital current, the current of life and hope and happiness, the current of love. For I loved her and had from the very first, when her white and suffering face seen through the transparent doors of her cube prison had incited me to rashness in an effort to relieve her distress. I felt that between us words were unnecessary and that she understood my feelings perhaps better than if I had voiced them. Yet she made no resistance!
With a passion that I was wholly unable to withstand, I reached through the night for her other hand and caught her close to me. I felt her muscles tense as she lay in my arms. Then, despite the darkness, our lips met in a first kiss.
The sweetness of her surrender dazzled me. Alone in the wreck of the shattered cabin and surrounded by the gray shadows of enemies, we knew a love such as falls to the lot of but few men and women. After a moment I released her and bent over as might any lover, to kiss my lady's hand.
A black shape looming beside us recalled us to our senses. Automatically I reached for my rifle and then realized that the shadow was Dr. Frelinghusen coming through the trap.
"Dana," he whispered, "I've done it. The scouting party is cut off from their main body. The star signal shall never be sent. We have won."
"How?" I gasped.
"Because nature is helping us," he replied. "But hurry. We must leave this place instantly. Where are the packs?"
Hidden in the shadows, it was some minutes before we found them. The doctor was fuming with an impatience so unusual that I was in some doubt as to his sanity—especially so in the light of his last statement.
At last we got under way, and clinging hand to hand made our way through the underbrush directly behind the cabin. Familiar as he was with the terrain, the doctor guided us in a straight line directly away from the city of cubes and toward the rim of the plateau. Despite his plea of the urgent necessity for haste, I forced him to move slowly and carefully.
The going was rough and highly dangerous. Stumbling through the darkness, we escaped outposts of the shadow-men only by miracles. Time after time, I feared that all was lost and that we were discovered. Then at the last possible moment, fate would intervene and save us by a hair's breadth from being captured.
It was the doctor's fearful impatience which continually threatened us with disaster. Again and again when prudence dictated that we wait and reconnoiter, he pushed boldly ahead. A tiny knight-errant with his cocked rifle in his hand and his white shirt gleaming like a torch, he violated all the rules of careful campaigning and yet escaped discovery.
As we climbed higher and approached the rim of the plateau we came into the circle of reflection from the huge lights in the circle of cubes and our dangers increased a thousandfold.
Once I paused to look behind us in amazement at what was taking place. The immense cylinder had reached a height of at least a hundred feet and was obviously nearing completion. A crew of the dark-clad workmen