Comfortable living chambers were here, furnished in excellent taste. And through the doorways leading to adjacent rooms Chip glimpsed white-tiled compartments wherein were visible rows upon rows of beakers and flasks, retorts, motor-units, experimental apparatus. Laboratories, beautifully arranged and maintained! He stared at his host in astonishment. "How--?" he stammered. "Who--?" "Will you be seated, gentlemen?" suggested the older man. "There! Now, let us get to the root of this frightful affair. You accused my daughter of implication--?" Chip said, "We--we had ample reason to, sir. First let me introduce myself and my friends. I am Chip Warren ... this is my friend and shipmate, Syd Palmer ... and this is Salvation Smith...." "Salvation Smith! Not really? I've heard of you, Padre," said the old man. "You were engaged in bringing spiritual light to the Martian outlanders at about the time I was supplying Mars with a more--er--mechanical type--" Salvation lifted his head suddenly. "Grayland Blaine! Dr. Grayland Blaine. The greatest astrophysicist in the System!" "Thank you, Padre. You flatter me. And this is my daughter, Alison. But now--to business. You were saying--?" "Tell him, Chip," bade Salvation. "I don't know how Dr. Blaine and his daughter got involved with Blacky Jordan. But I know one thing--that they're as innocent of any wrongdoing as any pair alive." Chip needed no second invitation. A great gladness was upon him that the girl now listening to his words was not what he had feared and believed. Eagerly he embarked on his story, told them everything from the moment of his meeting Haldane to the moment Alison Blaine had so fortuitously appeared in time to save Salvation. But if his spirits were high, those of his listeners seemed to sink lower with each word. When he had finished, a gloom hung heavily upon Dr. Blaine's brow. He looked at his daughter and sighed. "It is worse than we feared and suspected, my dear. They _are_ using my inventions, but not for the benefit to mankind I intended. Instead, they have distorted them to their own foul purposes. And we are helpless to stop them!" "Your--your inventions?" repeated Syd Palmer. * * * * * Dr. Blaine nodded somberly. "Yes. You say you saw Alison's face in your _perilens_? And heard her voice calling for help?" "On every cycle! That was the amazing part. Every wavelength carried her image, and her voice came through in spite of the fact that the audio was not turned on." "But naturally," assented the old man. "That is the principle on which it operates. I call it the 'omniwave.' It is a new method of superimposing sound and light waves on receptors in such a way that they can be transmitted through any medium over a series of overlapping wavelengths ranging from 30 kilocycles down to 4,000 Angstrom units. It requires only a supersensitive iconoscope of my own devising, coupled with radiant-projectors--"