Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet per second." "Maybe he can." "You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as Terrestrians." "And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?" "Washington, did you ever see a Martian?" "Yeah." "Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?" "I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other facts could explain it." Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run. Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly. The space drive was out of commission. They were adrift in the void. CHAPTER IV The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one man _couldn't_ have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once. And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a lighted cigar.... "Maybe it's the space giants?" "Shut up!" bawled Pinkham. The officers turned toward him, brows lifting, mouths still open. "Now," he said quietly, "Circe--Miss Smith--what did you say?" "Space giants," she repeated "I don't think they exist, but I certainly saw something." "Give it to us slow," said Daley. "Well, a couple of times while I was anchored to the asteroid, watching tri-di movies, I had the impression that something enormous was floating just beyond my face plate, watching me. Of course I was slowed down so far that it must have taken me an hour to register the fact, and another hour or two to flick my eyes up away from the movies. What was a second to me was at least that long. But just once I got a clear view of something incredible. It vanished almost at once." "What was it?" "A very big man, naked, bald, with eyes like fires. That's the only way I can describe him. He looked humanoid, except he was so big." "How big?" "I can't tell and hate to make a guess--but at least a thousand feet. Of course I hadn't anything to compare him with." "Wait a minute," said Randy Kinkare, the assistant pilot, voice reeking with unbelief. "How could you see through an opaque face plate?" "It's not opaque," said Joe Silver officiously. "It's translucent from without and transparent from within. I took a look at it this afternoon."