"You'll want bars like mine," Krell continued, "for they're damned handy when you get jammed between wreckage masses. Exploring this wreck-pack is no soft job: I can tell you from experience." Liggett and the rest had their suits adjusted, and with bars in their grasp, followed Krell into the airlock. Kent hung back for a last word with Crain, who, with his half-dozen remaining men, was watching. "Marta just told me that Krell and Jandron have been plotting something," he told the captain; "so I'd keep a close watch outside." "Don't worry, Kent. We'll let no one inside the _Pallas_ until you and Liggett and the men get back." * * * * * In a few minutes they were out of the ship, with Krell and Kent and Liggett leading, and the twelve members of the _Pallas'_ crew following closely. The three leaders climbed up on the Uranus-Jupiter passenger-ship that lay beside the _Pallas_, the others moving on and exploring the neighboring wrecks in parties of two and three. From the top of the passenger-ship, when they gained it, Kent and his two companions could look far out over the wreck-pack. It was an extraordinary spectacle, this stupendous mass of dead ships floating motionless in the depths of space, with the burning stars above and below them. His companions and the other men clambering over the neighboring wrecks seemed weird figures in their bulky suits and transparent helmets. Kent looked back at the _Pallas_, and then along the wreck-pack's edge to where he could glimpse the silvery side of the _Martian Queen_. But now Krell and Liggett were descending into the ship's interior through the great opening smashed in its bows, and Kent followed. They found themselves in the liner's upper navigation-rooms. Officers and men lay about, frozen to death at the instant the meteor-struck vessel's air had rushed out, and the cold of space had entered. Krell led the way on, down into the ship's lower decks, where they found the bodies of the crew and passengers lying in the same silent death. The salons held beautifully-dressed women, distinguished-looking men, lying about as the meteor's shock had hurled them. One group lay around a card-table, their game interrupted. A woman still held a small child, both seemingly asleep. Kent tried to shake off the oppression he felt as he and Krell and Liggett continued down to the tank-rooms. They found their quest there useless, for the tanks had been strained by the meteor's shock, and were empty. Kent felt Liggett grasp his hand and heard him speak, the sound-vibrations coming through their contacting suits. "Nothing here; and we'll find it much the same through all these wrecks, if I'm not wrong. Tanks always give at a shock." "There must be some ships with fuel still in them among all these," Kent answered. * * * * *