A minute later I was clawing in the wreckage of tubes and wires, there in the radio room. The apparatus was completely beyond repair. For the time being we were helpless, stranded on our asteroid. For a moment I felt little shouts of madness shrieking in my brain. But Geedeh's stabbing glance warned me that this was not the way. I fought back, out of that flash of mania. "We'd better break out all of our weapons, Geedeh," I said. "Haynes has gone too deep to back out now. He's in danger of the Patrol if we talk, so he'll have to strike at us soon." Thus we prepared ourselves as well as we could, for attack. Geedeh, Pa Mavrocordatus, and I. We equipped ourselves with our best armament--atomic rifles. Pa Mavrocordatus had gotten over most of his confusion. He was still sick with grief, but necessity seemed to have steadied him. He clutched his rifle grimly as we took up positions behind rock masses at the edge of the landing field. III We waited silently. The asteroid turned on its axis. The brief night came. Then we saw the rockets approaching--flaming in on shreds of blue-white rocket fire. As the two ships slowed for a landing, the three of us discharged a volley. Our atomic bullets burst on impact, dazzling in the dark. The concussion was terrific. "Got one!" I heard Pa Mavrocordatus shout after a moment, his voice thin through the ringing in my ears. My dazzled eyes saw one ship lying on its side on the landing field, its meteor armor unpunctured by our small missiles, but with its landing rockets damaged. The other ship had grounded itself perfectly. We were ready to fire again, when the paralytic waves swept over us. I saw Geedeh half rise, doubling backward in a rigid spasm, his rifle flying wide. Then I knew no more, until I heard Norman Haynes speaking to us. We were bound firmly, and it was daylight again, and our captor and his score of henchmen were smirking. "I'm just trying to figure out how to make your deaths seem as accidental as possible," Haynes said, looking at me. "A couple of men of mine seem to have bungled a little business of bacteria. Maybe they blabbed before you fellows killed them. Now, of course, I can't take any chances. Too bad your reconditioned asteroid has to appear a failure for a while. But I can't let my taking over seem too obvious. Have to wait a while. I may be able to start up something here later, when people sort of forget." "What have you done with Irene?" I stormed blackly. Haynes' look was quizzical. "Why ask me?" he answered. "She probably ran off with one of your roustabouts. Or else they decided that she'd be nice company to have around, and made her go along." He laughed cynically. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing where Irene was. But if this was true, it didn't make me feel much better. If some of his gang, who'd been working with us, had kidnapped her, there was no telling how badly she'd fare.