Above this not-too-unbelievable body, however, there was nothing familiar to us of Tellus. Instead of a back there were two pairs of mighty shoulders, from which sprang four tremendous arms, each like the trunk except longer and much stronger. Surmounting those massive shoulders there was an armored, slightly retractile neck which bore the heavily-armored “thinking” head. In this head there were no mouths, no nostrils. The four equally-spaced _pairs_ of eyes were protected by heavy ridges and plates; the entire head, except for its junction with the neck, was solidly sheathed with bare, hard, thick, tough bone. Darjeeb’s amazing head shone a clean-scrubbed white. But Luda’s—the eternal feminine!—was really something to look at. It had been sanded, buffed, and polished. It had been inlaid with bars and strips and scrolls of variously-colored metals; then decorated tastefully in red and green and blue and black enamel; then, to cap the climax, _lacquered_! But that was old stuff to Darjeeb; all he cared about was the tightness of the chains immobilizing Luda’s hands and feet. Seeing that they were all tight, he returned his attention to his visiplates; for he was not yet in the clear. Enemies might be blasting off after him any minute. A light flashed upon his detector panel. Behind him everything was clear. Nothing was coming from Dhil. Ah, there it was, coming in from open space. But nothing _could_ move that fast! A space-ship of some kind . . . Gods of the Ancients, _how_ it was coming! As a matter of fact the lifeboat was coming in at less than one light; the merest crawl, as space-speeds go. That velocity, however, was so utterly beyond anything known to his system that the usually phlematic Nhalian stood spellbound for a fraction of a second. Then he drove a hand toward a control. Too late—before the hand had covered half the distance the incomprehensibly fast ship struck his own without impact, jar, or shock. Both vessels should have been blasted to atoms; but there the stranger was, poised motionless beside him. Then, under the urge of a ridiculously tiny jet of flame, she leaped away; covering miles in an instant. Then something equally fantastic happened. She drifted heavily _backward, against_ the full force of her driving blasts! Only one explanation was possible—inertialessness! What a weapon! With that and Luda—even without Luda—the solar system would be his. No longer was it a question of Nhal conquering Dhil. He himself would become the dictator, not only of Nhal and Dhil and Lune, but also of all other worlds within reach. That vessel and its secrets _must_ be his! He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft, and as his ship approached the other he reached out both telepathically—he could neither speak nor hear—and with a spy-ray to determine the most feasible method of taking over this Godsend.