We were evidently just beneath the Zero-level; the abyss was a dark void some ten or twelve thousand feet down to an undulating rocky floor. I gazed up at the cabin ceiling. Through the transparent pane there I could see the plane with its white banner. Slowly circling, evidently making ready to put out its helicopter. Nereid whispered: “Did you see the newscasters’ aëro, as they call it?” “Yes.” I had seen it, indeed. The plane carrying Polly. It could still be seen--a tiny dark speck up in the distant silver sky. Nereid said aloud to Rhana: “There is the aërocar watching us.” Her voice was earnest, tense, vibrating with her emotion. “You see it off there? This world watching us, great Rhana--to see your friendly greeting--to welcome you--” Rhana moved toward us in the shadows with her soundless, catlike tread. “So? Yes, I see it. You say they have instruments to see us clearly from such a distance? That is very good.” Her tone was emotionless. She moved away like a gray shadow. For a moment I did not notice her. My attention was fixed on the ghostly outlines of the plane over us. It bore now a small light; in the glow I saw the helicopter in its bracket; the figure of the kindly gray-haired foreign director--I recalled him well--showed in the helicopter seat. My heart stopped, and then wildly plunged. Incredible, this that I was seeing! From our cabin a light sprang upward. It glowed, narrowed to a beam. It caught the plane up there. The fluttering white banner of truce shriveled and burned. The plane rocked. It tilted; rocked and swayed in the grip of the light. Incredible! I was on my feet with Nereid clinging to me in stupefied horror. The Gian man sprang, a gray menacing shadow in the gloom of the cabin--sprang and crouched between me and Rhana. His weapon was leveled upon me. Rhana was bending tense over the projector mechanism. It hissed, snapped and hummed with its current. The plane up there was rocking, struggling in the grip of the beam like a wounded bird. Coming down. It only lasted an instant. Then Rhana snapped off the light. I stared, transfixed with horror. The silver shape of the plane swayed crazily. It was on fire; red tongues of flame licked at it. The light sprang again; caught it; tilted it over--left it. The plane flopped in an arc, righted, and flopped again. At our level now. Then below us. With its crazy swoops the red-yellow flames streamed from it. Down--then I saw it whirl in a dive. A red-flaming torch, dropping, spinning downward with a line of flame and smoke like a tail streaming above it. Down--dwindling as it fell into the abyss. A tiny red spot down in the darkness--a flaming falling torch. A soundless impact down there, with a faint red glow where it lay. * * * * * In the dark tenseness of our cabin Rhana’s voice rang out. Triumphant now. “You see, Jeff Grant, how Rhana rules this world?”