* * * * * "Well," said Wallace. "We thought you were dead. What did they do to you? There's no wound; apparently no injury. But you were as close to death as a man can get, and still come back. What happened?" Cargyle choked and coughed. His brain and chest were burning agony. Dimly he struggled, and the flow of raw oxygen that was making him gasp ceased. The pain in his head was going. As the space-helmet was pulled off, he found himself regarding Captain Wallace and the astrophysicist, Markoe. They helped him to his feet, held him while he wavered back and forth unsteadily. "The light--the light from the flame-thing," stammered Cargyle. "It attacked you?" Markoe caught his arm. "How?" "A light--a ray of some kind. Shot it into me. I was coming through the starboard passage ... heard firing ... the mutineers ... where are they? Where's the crew?" "They've gone mad completely," said Wallace. "We held them off at the pilot cabin--all the officers and a few loyal men are with me--and after an hour or so they went away. Half hour later we saw them through a port. They deserted in the two scouting rockets. What's left of the crew must have crowded into the two small ships; we didn't find a living man when we explored the ship. Except you. Where they expect to go, God knows. With a normal crew of four the air in a scout rocket is good for only about five days. Crowded they won't last two, and Mars is it least a week away." "How did you know that oxygen would bring me back?" asked Cargyle. They had started back toward the pilot room. "Didn't," replied Wallace. "Markoe and I were inspecting the ship--we had to wear space-suits aft of the main air renewer. The whole stern of the ship's riddled. These flame-things doing it, Markoe says. We've got all the compartments closed off, but if he's right, the _Denebola's_ through. We found you on our way back. Looked as though you were dead. But we tried the oxygen from one of the helmets on you, and it eventually brought you around. "What are they?" Cargyle asked. "These flames? Are they alive?" "If they are," said Markoe, "they're like no kind of life ever known before. They set up a powerful field of some kind. I've been studying them back there in the stern. Trying to find out what they are." He held up some equipment--coils, and a detector. "I turned a blastor pistol on one," said Cargyle. "It was only ten feet away--I couldn't have missed. And the thing never moved!" A thunder of running feet brought the three men to a sudden halt. The next instant a man charged out of a side passage. At sight of them he halted and one glance at his face told them he was hopelessly insane. His eyes blazed with madness, and a line of foam ringed his mouth. In one hand he held a gun.