It seemed but a single brief moment before I glimpsed the great mass of lights, the soaring towers, of the air-city beneath rushing up toward us with unearthly speed. Even as I glimpsed it another turn of the spinning ship had thrown Macklin and Hilliard over again, and this time I clutched for a hold, found one upon the cruiser's wheel. Then, with the droning of the still-operating motors and the cries of my two companions and of the crew beneath loud in my ears, I reached with a great effort toward the control of the motors, clinging to my hold with a supreme effort. My fingers found that control, but at the moment they did so I heard a last hoarse cry from Macklin, glimpsed but yards beneath us, it seemed, the smooth surface of one of the city's narrow streets, and then flung over the control, shifting all the power of the motors from our horizontal tube-propellers to our vertical ones. The next moment a blaze of light seemed all about us, there was a terrific crash, and as I was hurled back across the bridge-room by the impact, my head met the metal wall of it and consciousness left me. When I came to it was to the realization of someone's hands endeavoring to revive me. I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a long seat of metal, with above me the metal ceiling of a white-lit room, and with Macklin and Hilliard bending anxiously over me. I strove to speak to them, desisted as my first movement made apparent to me a painful swelling on the side of my head. And then with their helping arms behind my back I sat up, looked dazedly about me. Then, the memory of what had happened rushed suddenly back upon me and I was filled with an abrupt dismay. For the white-lit room in which I sat, seeming an ante-room to other chambers beyond, held beside us three a half-dozen of men in the green, tight-fitting uniforms of the European Federation's forces, alike save in colour to our own black uniforms. They were ranged before us, watching us closely, and there swung at the belt of each a shining, long-barrelled heat-pistol, one of those hand-weapons that throw heat-cartridges smaller than the great heat-shells and bombs, but as destructive and deadly on a smaller scale. These six European Federation soldiers had their heat-pistols ready beneath their hands, and were contemplating us intently. And as I saw that, and glimpsed also through the open door to the right of us a great, smooth-floored plaza and immense buildings towering up into the outside night, brilliant with lights, and heard the roar of the crowds that seethed among those buildings, I remembered all that had befallen us, clutched Macklin's arm tightly. "The cruiser fell!" I exclaimed. "I remember the crash, now--then this is Berlin, Macklin, and we're captured!"