Herding the passengers ahead of them, Cragley's men entered a compartment shaped like a long tube, ending in a nose point. When we were buckled into a spiral of seats threading the cylinder, Cragley pulled the release lever. Instantly, the cylinder shot free of the doomed _C-49_. For a moment we dropped at a swifter pace than the abandoned ship. After that, our speed of descent was noticeably decreased. Peering at the proximity detector, Cragley announced that we were quite safe from a collision. The _C-49_ was far below us and dropping fast. "No danger now," he assured the passengers. "We'll come down like a feather. Then all we have to do is radio Deliphon to send out a ship for us." Cragley was equal to the situation. In this year of 2342, when the days of pioneer space flying were commencing to fade into history, it required capable men to cope with interplanetary flight. If Cragley brought his crew and passengers safely through this adversity and also salvaged the valuable cargo of the _C-49_, it was another feather in his cap. Quentin, second to Cragley in command, labored over the sending apparatus. Quentin looked up at his superior officer with an uneasy expression. The captain was quick to sense trouble. "What's wrong?" "I don't like the looks of this," was Quentin's reply. "The sender refuses to function properly. I can do nothing with it." Cragley's face bore a troubled look. He stepped to the side of his subordinate for a hasty inspection of the radio sender. "The receiver plate doesn't light up, either," said Quentin. "Looks to me as though someone has been tampering with this." In their spiral of seats, the passengers looked silently and gravely upon the cylinder base where Cragley and his staff were gathered over the apparatus. A dull glow of cloudy light coming in through the transparent interstices of the descending cylinder softened and counteracted the glow of the radium lights. An intangible feeling of depression hung in the air. "Elevation, five hundred feet!" announced one of the crew from his position at the altitude dial. "Make a landing," ordered Cragley. "We can't be very far from where the _C-49_ fell. If there's enough of the ship left, we may be able to discover the cause of this accident." Down through the lush vegetation, the cylinder felt its way, dropping very slowly. Finally it came to rest on a knoll. "How far are we from the ship?" queried the captain. "About seventeen hundred feet south of it, I'd say." "We'll go outside and get organized. We've got to get that platinum shipment off the _C-49_ and get into communication with headquarters at Deliphon somehow. The proximity detector tells us we're over two hundred miles from there." One of the passengers spoke up with a suggestion. "Can't we go the rest of the way in this? You can send back for what's left of the ship. I've an important reason for arriving in Deliphon quickly. If--"