"This is the end of the line," the girl said. She gave a short laugh. "Do you realize, Mr. Starr, you haven't even asked me my name?" He colored, stammered something. "It's Linda," she said, "Linda Hall. Come. Up this way." The climb was hard, grueling work, and when at length they reached the summit, man and girl were panting from the exertion. But here Jimmy looked upon a scene of utter desolation. As far as the eye could reach stretched a vast plain. No cairn, no monolithic pile of rocks broke the bleak monotony. Linda, however, moved forward with a quick step. She had a small metal box with needle dials in her hand now, and she consulted it at intervals. For a quarter of a mile they plodded across the flat. Then Jimmy saw that the needles on the dials were fluttering wildly. "Stand here," she told him. She moved off on a tangent, walking carefully, studying the ground. He watched her figure grow smaller and smaller. Abruptly she halted and waved to him frantically. He hurried to her side. She stood at the brink of a deep cleft in the plain floor. Rectangular in shape, it seemed to bore down and down into measureless depths. Jimmy felt his heart skip a beat. A flight of ladder-like stairs descended into the well, and lying prone at the top of those stairs was a man. A deep searing burn ran from his temple down the left side of his face, about which blood had caked and hardened. Jimmy knelt and fumbled for a pulse. A faint flutter touched his fingers. He whipped a flask from his pocket and brought it to the man's lips. He moaned, opened his eyes weakly and rose up on one elbow. "Who are you?" Jimmy demanded. At first his words were unintelligible. Then the haze which clouded his eyes cleared somewhat. "Name's Hanley," he said weakly. "Phil Hanley. Represent the _Martian Globe_. Hamilton Garth's down there. We've got to stop him." Hanley struggled with short jerky sentences. "Garth blasted me with a heat gun. Tried to do it once before in my own apartment, but I managed to get away from him. This time he thought he'd done for me. He's after the figurines. _By the blazing eternal! Are you the Nebula?_" * * * * * Six hundred and thirty-nine steps led to the bottom of the shaft. In places the rock had crumbled so badly the greatest care had to be taken, or a misstep would have meant plunging into the abyss. Curiously, no sand seemed to have drifted here; the air was dry and clear. Hanley, still unsteady from the burn he had received, examined the hieroglyphics on the stone walls with puzzled eyes. "This place must have been discovered before," he said. "It isn't possible that this shaft could have remained here all these years without someone stumbling upon it."