"Here! This is the place!" It was a windowless cubicle, but with a second door set opposite the one by which Shane stood. He scanned the massive control panels, the complicated dials and instruments. "Quick! How do you start the lift?" Outside, the other _Chonya_ called: "They're coming! I'll try to hold them--!" His voice was a trifle ragged. "The lift--?" Dylar stared at the Earthman. "But why--?" "Forget 'why'!" Shane slashed fiercely. "Quick! Show me!" The technician scanned the maze of instruments. "This must be it! See! Here is the linking mechanism that couples it to the shaft cap, so that the top opens as the tube rises--" Out beyond the shaft, something crashed. "They're trying to smash in the door!" the crewman there shouted. "There--! I got him!" Shane whipped up his light-pistol. Face etched with strain, he focussed the beam on the linking mechanism. Wires gave way. Dylar stared. Gears twisted under the heat of the beam. A shaft snapped. "Start the lift!" Shane clipped between clenched teeth. "Of course!" cried Dylar. He threw switches. "Here they come!" the Chonya outside shouted. The next instant, his voice bubbled off in a scream. Shane leaped to the doorway, lanced a beam of light as a tentacled Thorian came into view. The creature slid back out of range. The Earthman shot a glance at the Paulsini tube. Smoothly, silently, it was rising, climbing swiftly towards the top of the shaft. * * * * * A _fala_ hurled a lance-prod at Shane. It grazed his ribs. The sting of it hurt. Cursing, he dropped to one knee and triggered a beam at the Martian. "It's almost there!" Dylar cried. Shane risked another glance. Even as he looked, the end of the tube reached the dome. For an instant it seemed to hesitate there. Then, with a faint groaning as of machinery under strain, it thrust on again ... harder ... harder ... harder.... The machinery of the lift groaned louder. "Watch out!" shouted Dylar. Shane leaped back in the same fraction of a second that the great tube burst. The noise was like a thunder-clap. It was as if the tube had exploded in mid-air. Shane glimpsed a Uranian racing towards him, and knew that he had waited too long, that he could never bring his pistol up in time; then saw the hairy thing reduced to bloody pulp by a great shard of blast-driven silicon. It broke the paralysis that gripped him. He caught Dylar's arm. "Come on! Quick! To the ship!" "Through that horde in the corridor?" The technician shook his head. "No, _Gar_ Shane. You have performed a miracle--but not even you can travel that road." A woman's voice said: "Then come this way." Shane and the _Chonya_ whirled. She stood in the shadows of the control room's second doorway--a slim, shining figure in a toga of silver cloth. Shane said: "Kyrsis--!"