But Paula could only stare at the bulky figure sitting opposite until he suddenly removed the spectacles, and smiled dryly, and then reached in his pockets and handed Bell two automatic pistols, and extended a tiny but very wicked weapon to Paula. He motioned to her to conceal it. Jamison--moving to make the minimum of noise--handed Bell a sheet of stiff cardboard. It passed into Bell's fingers without a rustle. He showed it silently to Paula. We were overheard last night by someone. We don't know who or how much he heard. Dictaphone in the room we talked in. Can't find out who it was or what action he's taken. We may be riding into a trap now. Ortiz has disappeared. He may be dead. We can only wait and see. The car was moving as if in city traffic, a swift dash forward and a sudden stop, and then another swift dash. But the walls within were padded so that no sound came from without save the faint vibration of the motor and now and then the distinct flexing of a spring. Then the car turned a corner. It went more rapidly. It turned another corner. And another.... In the light of the bright dome light, Bell saw beads of sweat coming out on Jamison's face. He did not dare to speak, but he formed words with his lips. "He's turning wrong! This isn't the way to the field!" Bell's jaws clenched. He took out his two automatics and looked at them carefully. And then, much too short a time from the departure for the flying field to have been reached, the car checked. It went over rough cobblestones, and Bell himself knew well that there had been no cobbled roadway between the flying field and his prison. And then the car went up a sort of ramp, a fairly steep incline which by the feel of the motor was taken in low, and on for a short distance more. Then the car stopped and the motor was cut off. Keys rattled in the lock outside. The door opened. The blunt barrel of an automatic pistol peered in. (_To be concluded in the next issue._) * * * * * [Illustration: _The Readers' Corner_ _A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories] _About Reprints_ From time to time the Editors of Astounding Stories receive letters, like the two that follow, in which Readers beg us to run reprints, and now we feel it is time to call attention to the very good reasons why we must refuse. We admit, right off, that some splendid Science Fiction stories have been published in the past--but are those now being printed in any way inferior to them? Aren't even _better_ ones being written to-day?--since a whole civilization now stirs with active interest in science?--since three or five times as many writers are now supplying us with stories to choose from?--since science and scientific theory have reached so immeasurably much farther into the Realm of the Unknown Possible? The answer is an emphatic _Yes_. We all know it.