He stood, open-mouthed, as the "thing" suddenly shot off the boat seat with a hissing roar like that of a small rocket. It scorched the paint as it took off with small, orange-green flares emanating from the tubular quills. It shot upward with incredible speed and was almost immediately lost to view. Storm's mouth closed slowly. "Hell!" he said, a little dazedly. "I'm afraid to start fishing again, Frank. Might catch a cross between a battleship and a whale." "I'm hauling up anchor," Hammond countered, grimly. "I don't like the looks of this at all. The coast guard ought to hear of this." He got one hand on the anchor rope and was starting to hoist in when the strange "catch" suddenly reappeared. It came down in a long slant, circled over the skiff a few times, and finally settled on the scorched seat from which it had taken off. Hammond stared at the thing and swore. Peter Storm took a firm hold of his oar. Holes suddenly appeared in the strange craft. Hammond noticed that there were no doors in evidence. The holes seemed to dilate open, like camera shutters, in the gleaming body. From these openings a host of small creatures crawled. They swarmed out toward both ends of the boat seat. Storm straightened, oar in hand. "Ants!" he snapped, disgustedly. He began to swing the ash blade down on the scurrying creatures. The things continued to move about, apparently unharmed. Dents appeared in the oar and in the seat. Hammond bent over the scurrying creatures and studied them. "No use, Pete," he muttered. "They're not ants. There's no division of head, thorax and abdomen. They're eight-legged and cephalothoracic--more like the arachnids." His startled surprise was fading under the prod of scientific curiosity. "Funny thing, Pete--the legs and shells seem to be composed of the same substance as the 'thing' they come from. Look!" Storm dropped his oar and came forward. The boat rocked a little to his shift of weight. A faint humming came from the "thing" on the seat, catching his attention. But Hammond, intent on one of the small creatures he was about to pick up, did not notice. Not until Pete's hoarse shout jerked him away. "Look out, Frank! That tube--" Hammond straightened up to face his friend. But Peter Storm had vanished, as if he had never been! Between Hammond and where Storm had been was the "thing" on the seat. The humming emanating from it now was distinctly audible, and ominous! A shining tube, mounted in a turret, had appeared in one of the openings. The tube was swinging around, lining itself on Hammond. The dazed chemist did not think. He reacted instinctively, knowing, somehow, that that tube was related to Storm's disappearance. He twisted, violently, and tried to dive over the boat side. Something halted him in the act. He felt a strange numbness wrap itself about him, and a cold like nothing he had ever experienced penetrated to his very vitals. Then he felt himself falling, as if through an endless blackness....