From visually above the red planet, out of nothingness a huge shape suddenly materialized. It had not been there an instant before; it seemed for the space of a thought, a transparent ghost of the vehicle; solidifying until even before I had told Frannie, I was aware that I saw it there. The vehicle unmistakable. "They've come, Frannie! I see them! Call your father. Dr. Gryce! They've come! They're safe!" How my heart leaped to be able to say it! Frannie was calling; and Dr. Gryce, no more than half awake, repeating, "They've come? They're in sight? They're safe?" This gentle old man, how full of thankfulness his heart must have been! He came stumbling into the room. "Where are they, Frank? You can see them, lad?" I could see them indeed--plainly, for abruptly I realized that they were no farther than just beyond the earth's atmosphere. And I could see also the conventional vane flying at horizontal above the vehicle's tower to denote that all was well within. They had come. They were safe. They landed in the garden. Like a wafting feather the vehicle floated down under Brett's skilled guidance. It was of a size seemingly identical with the one it had upon departure, but evidence of its trip was everywhere visible. Its gleaming milk-white color was dulled. Its sides were pitted and scarred--the metal burned. A lower corner seemed fused into a shapeless lump. The door slid open as we crowded forward. My heart was pounding. A sudden, irrelevant thought leaped to me--a thought, hope, that they might have brought back with them that strangely beautiful girl they had gone to rescue. A thought abruptly, fiercely poignant--yet with it a consciousness of its whimsicality that I--Frank Elgon--who loved Frannie Gryce, should be possessed of such incongruous desire. The door was open. Brett and Martt--queerly garbed to seem almost strangers--were crowding there, with no one else behind them. But already I had forgotten the girl. Frannie's glad cries of welcome rang out; and Dr. Gryce's tremulous greeting; and I heard my own voice, strangely calm, "Well! Brett--Martt--you got back safely, didn't you? I'm so glad--we're all so glad!" _CHAPTER 6_ THE FLIGHT INTO TIME, SIZE AND SPACE They seemed not tired, but undoubtedly they were hungry, famished; and before they would say a word of those strange things we knew they had to tell, they made us feed them. "Regular food," as Martt laughingly called it. "By the code! We've eaten for months weird things supposed to be edible. My digestion is ruined." Months! They had been gone two weeks and two days into a realm where those little sixteen days were no more than a tiny fraction of a second! Yet they spoke of months! It was very strange. "Frannie! _Don't_ ask me that again." Martt affectionately tweaked her chin. "We found her, I tell you. Wait till we've had supper--you'll hear."