Dishevelled and horror-stricken was the way Scotty and Dallas found him, when on hearing the hatch clang shut, they rushed in to investigate. "What happened, an attack? Koerber's men?" Scotty queried. "Speak up, Randall!" Dallas shook him briefly. "What was it? You look as if you'd seen a ghost!" "There's something out there.... I don't know what it is, but it's alive. It almost got me!" He shuddered. "Something alive on this barren world? Unless it was one of Koerber's men, you've been seeing ghosts again, kid!" Scotty said not unkindly. He was well aware of spacemen's mirage, the affliction that sometimes drove newcomers mad. "It was real," Randall persisted. "And it was alive ... a glowing globe of energy that hung just above me, a few feet away. I blasted at it with my gun, and it just spun, then came forward." * * * * * He rose from the floor and moved over to the starboard port to look outside. Scotty and Dallas stood beside him. They gazed curiously in every direction, as far as they could see. "Don't see a thing," Dallas said stolidly. "Come on, son! I'll fix you a sedative," he said contemptuously. "Wait a minute Dallas," Scotty interrupted. "Randall's right. Take a look at that big pile of rocks over there ... to the left, Dallas!" "By the red-tailed Picaroons on Jupiter's satellites!" Dallas swore swiftly. "I've seen a lot of queer sights, but nothing like this!" he exclaimed. Suddenly he turned to Randall. "How do you know it's alive? For all we know it's just a globe of radio-active energy native to this hell-spot." Randall colored, hesitated and finally blurted out. "I ... I just felt it was alive. I sensed it trying to contact my mind.... Oh, I know it sounds crazy, I know you'll laugh, but the thing was trying to probe my brain, Dallas!" Scotty suddenly thought of Captain Brooke and Tom Jeffery who had gone on an exploratory trip. "I wonder about the Captain and Tom," he said in alarm. "If there's one of these whirling demons on this rock there's sure to be others." He raced to the communications set and turned it on. But it was silent. Dallas gazed at Randall for a second with a faint, scornful smile. "Alive, eh? We'll see." He patted the atom-blast at his hip. "Never saw nothin' dangerous yet that this couldn't put a hole through!" He exclaimed inelegantly. "Hold on, Dallas!" The more prudent Scotty tried to dissuade him. "If that thing's radio-active, it may be deadly! We're not afraid of it, man ... but we don't know what it is." "You boys stay and play the radio!" Dallas turned lightly on his feet for all his tremendous bulk and soon the airlock had hissed open and he was gone.