I saw him in an instant, the dark blob of him almost merged with the shadows, with his baggy space-suit like my own deflated in folds upon him, and his helmet folded back. Triumphant, I dashed forward; and then stopped transfixed, amazed. The paralyzed figure, stricken upright here on the rocks wasn't young Carson! Above the folded helmet there was a head of bobbed blonde hair! Brenda! Brenda, not dead! Not that ghastly thing that was a gruesome little satellite of the _Seven Stars_! I saw her rigid face, with goggling mouth and staring eyes. Brenda mute, stricken by my ray. I snapped it off frantically; called to her as I dashed up. And as the ray released her, I saw her waver; then, with her knees buckling, she sank into a little heap on the ground. If only I had some water to dash into her face! Frantically I knelt, holding her head, brushing her curls from her damp forehead. The ray, I knew, upon her for so short a time, should not quite do this to her. It was her emotion, her terror which had caused her to faint. My mind went back to that hooded figure, cloaked, which I had chased in the ship's corridor. I had had a vague indecision, then had decided it was Brenda--and the ship's lookout at the bow-peak had confirmed my fears. But that had been Philip, and it was Brenda whom I had chased that second time, following her out the porte, hurtling into space after her. "Brenda--" She opened her eyes presently, bewildered, but she was unharmed. "Oh--you--I was so frightened." * * * * * I held her as she recovered, and presently she was filling in all the grim details of her tragic little story. Whatever her brother Philip's propensities for gambling and bad companions, he had been no criminal. They had lost their father; had been truthful when they said they did not know what Professor Carson had been building in his lonely little laboratory. But they knew enough so that when the Phantom bandit began his mysterious raids, they suspected it was their father's ship; the laboratory explosion merely a blind. He had often mentioned, when they were children, that the dream of his life was to discover and perfect electronic invisibility. "Albert Einstein of two hundred years ago," she was telling me now. "Father studied his writings and his theories very closely. He said that the secret of practical mechanical invisibility was clearly forecast by Einstein's discoveries." "And you think now," I murmured, "your father is this mysterious Phantom raider?" Her little face clouded. Her blue eyes, misty with Earthlight which was striking down upon us now through the clouds, gazed at me with a pathetic appeal. "We did not know. We--we were afraid so. And then Philip got a message one night--"