Alertly, the eyes of the monster were watching me. Bright and hard as some blue crystal, they yet looked oddly alive. In that white, clean-molded, bird-like head, they were clear and beautiful. Perhaps, the vagrant thought crossed my reeling mind, such a machine, in cosmic justice, had as much right as man to survive... "Kel!" Verel's thin, tortured cry cut through the roaring in my ears. "Kel--_the ship!_" I twisted my head, against the smooth deadly coils of cold metal about my throat. They seemed to relax a little. My eyes cleared. I looked for the little _Barihorn_, behind us. And it was gone! That dark-shining surface, where it had been, was empty! Helpless in the tentacles of another robot, the Earth girl was staring down into that black mirror. "The ship!" she was sobbing. "It--_it fell!_" I saw it, then, beneath us--fast-dropping into that depthless pool of darkness. It was _sucked_ down, spinning end over end, far faster than it should have fallen. It became the merest whirling sliver, and was lost in the dull round reflection of the crimson sky. I shuddered, in the metal arms that held me. That black mirror-film was as mysteriously deadly as it had seemed. Which one of us might drop through it next? All my four companions were helpless as myself. The lean face of Kel Aran was very white. A scarlet stain crept from the corner of his mouth, and I saw that his lip was bitten through. "Farewell, Vere!" I heard his hopeless whisper. "We've fought in vain. Barihorn, farewell!" Strange words, from the Falcon of Earth. But his voice choked. His gasping breath stopped. His unkempt yellow head dropped limply forward, and his lean body collapsed in the silver tentacles. "Kel, Kel!" Agonized, the girl fought the silver ropes that bound her. They sank resistlessly into her white flesh. And the silver being spoke, in a clear, melodious voice. "Be still. You can accomplish nothing." That grave calm speech, from the oddly bird-like robot, was somehow a thing eerie beyond expression. And it carried a certainty of victory--of man's extinction--that chilled my heart. The white tentacles about the Earthman must have relaxed a little. Abruptly, now, he was transformed from apparent death to lightning action. He twisted and surged against the robot that held him, snatching for its unused cathode gun. His ruse came very near success. His hands found the clumsy weapon, and dragged it from its sling. But the metal coils constricted on his body. His breath came out, in an involuntary scream. His body made snapping noises, beneath that pitiless pressure. His face turned purple. Blood rushed from his lungs. He slumped again, unconscious in reality. The cathode gun fell out of his hands-- And straight through the dark-shimmering film upon which we stood, as if it had encountered no resistance whatever! It was lost in the red-mirrored disk of sky. The last trick of the Falcon had failed. XIV