Kane's fingers bit into his arm. "Into the ship!" he rasped. "You'd never dent it." Nothing was between the invaders and the hull, where an open airlock, high overhead, showed as a black disc. Manning glanced over his shoulder, and in the nightmarishly flashing illumination saw Larrabie's body sprawled in a frozen convulsion, and standing over it, head thrown back, a huge hound. A black mass of yelling men was closing in.... Then the four of them were clambering up the ladder that rose dizzily to the space ship's lock forty feet above ground. Every flash of the light silhouetted them so nakedly against the great hull that it seemed impossible they should not be seen and picked off as they clung helplessly. But Manning saw Dugan above him, disappear into the lock; he heaved himself up and stumbled into the saving blackness, followed by a panting bulk that must be Vzryvov. Kane's voice came, surprisingly steady, from deeper in the tunnel-like lock, where as their eyes adjusted a faint glow was evident, seeping no doubt from a passage beyond. "This was the main loading lock, and I guess still is. They've apparently torn out all the freight decks and replaced them with a lead-lined tank for the dust bin and they've been loading it through a hatch just across the peripheral walk. But the hatch is sealed now." He did not need to add what that meant. The _Siegfried_ had its deadly cargo and was ready to take off. "Then," said Vzryvov matter-of-factly, "let us blast open the tank and scatter it with our remaining bombs. That will make it impossible for the Germans to salvage the ship, or even use this field, until the dust had burned itself out in a year or so." When Kane did not answer, the Russian growled impatiently, "We _must_ do it, and quickly. Our comrades' bodies are out there, and with them the secret of invisibility. We must make this area unapproachable!" "Wait," said Kane with a curious tense urgency. Manning wondered fleetingly if the underground leader recoiled from the suicidal action which the other urged; then he realized that Kane was listening, and listened too. The babble of voices from the ground outside had fallen to a mutter; and through it cut an incisive voice of authority. "_Es waren ihrer nur zwei?_" Another voice answered, "_Ja, Herr Oberst--wenigstens haben wir nur einen oder zwei bei der Blitzbeleuchtung gesehen_--" "_Ihr habt gar nichts Verlassliches gesehen. Aber wieviel zeigen die Photos?_" "_Zwei, Herr Oberst._" They could almost hear the commander's gusty sigh of relief. "_Nun, so haben wir sie vor uns liegen, und die Sache ist erledigt. Noch dazu werde ich ein schones Geschenk nach Deutschland schicken konnen._..." "You see," said Kane, "they think they've got us all. Evidently their cameras never caught more than two of us at once, and hooded we all looked alike. So we're reasonably safe."