"Remember, Jan," Lents reminded him, "as soon as we cut the shadow, you give the order." They were all in the ship save the Earthmen and Jan, lying on the floor like a great spider, with his tremendous chest laboring painfully. "In a moment now," Jan said. "The sun is nearing the limb." "Open! Open, you aberrated spores!" The command came but faintly through the inside valve of the emergency airlock. "They've found out!" Kass gasped. "Quick, never mind the shadow!" Jan had already leaped to the long cylindrical hull, the product of endless labor and sacrifice. "Inside!" Sine shouted. Kass and Sine made for the ship's manports. "I'll take care of the thermite." In his hand he carried a small heat pistol that had long ago been stolen and hidden by a Mug. Quickly he made a circuit of the room, which was like an enormous sheet-metal blister on the inside of the metal satellite. After the thermite had cut out the ship free, that blister would prevent the escape of air, saving the lives of thousands of the First Race and also preventing discovery of their escape for a time. The thermite was piled generously in a ridge all the way around. Sine leaped inside the first valve of the manport, colliding with a soft body. "Get inside, kid!" He leveled his pistol at the thermite ridge where it was nearest to him. High time too. The walls of the blister were radiating heat. The fools were turning their infra-red beams on it! "Lock!" Sine shouted, pressing the trigger and jumping back. Instantly the ship was surrounded by an oval of brilliant orange and white fire. The valve clicked shut in Sine's face, and he dived through the second one into the interior, tripping the lock of that one also. Through the ports nothing was to be seen now save fire. They were in an inferno of brilliant light and heat. But through the glare and smoke Sine saw a white-hot spot suddenly appear on the blister wall. The Jovians were melting their way through! The metal plates sagged like wet paper, dropped limply. Back of the hole, luridly illuminated, stood the foremost of a detachment of fighting men, eager to leap to the fray, waiting only for the metal to cool a little. But the thermite had been burning steadily, biting through the tough skin of the metal moon. Just as the fugitives were beginning to wonder whether they would be incinerated in their self-made prison there was a lurch. Through the hull of their own vessel they could hear the tearing of metal as the weakened plates were sheared away. They found themselves in space, with the great ball of the Pleasure Bubble floating away from them. Just outside of the gaping hole in the sphere floated the bodies of twenty or thirty men, blown out by the escaping air.