"I don't know exactly what to do--we'd better hold a little council of war. They may have gone..." Stevens broke off as the structure began to move, and they settled down upon what had been one of the side-walls. Greater and greater became the acceleration, until their apparent weight was almost as much as it would have been upon the Earth, at which point it became constant. "... but they haven't," he continued the interrupted sentence. "This seems to be a capture and seizure, as well as an attack, so we'll have to take the risk of looking at them. Besides, it's getting cold in here. One or two of the adjoining cells have apparently been ruptured and we're radiating our heat out into space, so we'll have to get into a life-boat or freeze. I'll go pick out the best one. Wonder if I'd better take you with me, or hide you and come back after you?" "Don't worry about that--I'm coming with you," Nadia declared, positively. "Just as well, probably," he assented, and they set out. A thorough exploration of all the tight connecting cells revealed that not a lifeboat within their reach remained intact, but that habitable and navigable portions of three such craft were available. Selecting the most completely equipped of these, they took up their residence therein by entering it and closing the massive insulating door. Stevens disconnected all the lights save one, and so shielded that one before turning it on that it merely lightened the utter darkness into a semi-permeable gloom. He then stepped up to the lookout plate, and with his hand upon the control, pondered long the possible consequences of what he wished to do. "What harm would it do to take just a little peek?" "I don't know--that's the dickens of it. Maybe none, and then again, maybe a lot. You see, we don't know who or what we are up against. The only thing we know is that they've got us beat a hundred ways, and we've got to act accordingly. We've got to chance it sometime, though, if we can ever get away, so we might as well do it now. I'll put it on very short range first, and see what we can see. By the small number of cells we've got here I'm afraid they've split us up lengthwise, too--so that instead of having a whole slice of the old watermelon to live in, we've got only about a sixth of one--shaped about like a piece of restaurant pie. One thing I can do, though. I'll turn on the communicator receiver and put it on full coverage--maybe we can hear something useful." Putting a little power upon the visiray plate, he moved the point of projection a short distance from their hiding-place, so that the plate showed a view of the wreckage. The upper half of the vessel was still intact, the lower half a jumble of sharply-cut fragments. From each of the larger pieces a brilliant ray of tangible force stretched outward. Suddenly their receiver sounded behind them, as the high-powered transmitter in the telegraph room tried to notify headquarters of their plight.