Oddly enough, I was remembering how, when she had been caught up by the magnetic current that had brought us here, she had cried out to me, calling me by my given name.... The recollection filled me with a queer emotion, partly rebellion and partly--something else. In the crisis we were facing now, I somehow lacked my wonted power to shun femininity. * * * * * Side by side we struggled against our enemies, tearing at them with our whole strength, yet always we were driven closer to the wall which would finally stop us. "Oh," she finally gasped, "I--didn't want--to die!" "No," I answered through set teeth as I hurled down an Orconite only to be confronted by two more; "but I'm afraid--we must. Well, we've done away with Leider, anyway." "Yes," she choked. "That's--something." Koto and LeConte were as hard pressed as we. Then, as we fell steadily back into a passage between two of the vast generators, back toward the solid wall of the cavern, a queer thing happened. Despite the fact that LeConte was embroiled with a dozen winged men, his face became crinkled with a broad grin! "Watch!" he yelled suddenly, and I _did_ watch. We were within a few feet of the driving gear of one of the generators. Quick as a bolt of lightning, LeConte caught a deadly firm hold on one of the ugly, squawking orange-skinned creatures, raised him into the air, and there held him poised while he swung around to face the generator. Genius! There was a shriek, then a thousand shrieks. Impelled by the Frenchman's tremendous heave, the winged man shot forward and struck full, with a splashing sound, against the terrifically revolving armature. A thunderbolt seemed to explode in our faces. All in that room, we as well as the Orconites, reeled dazedly back. A stench of seared flesh and short circuited wires smote our nostrils. Darkness--smothering, thick, absolute darkness--settled over us. * * * * * "Come on!" LeConte shouted amidst the blessed inkiness of it, and I felt him tug at my hand. Captain Crane's hand slipped into my other, Koto caught hold of her, and we started forward. Genius indeed, this stroke of LeConte's. Clinging stoutly to each other, we pushed through the meager, floundering opposition which was all that was offered in the intense darkness, and began to forge swiftly ahead. Ten yards ... a hundred. A slight decrease of the sounds of crying and panting and of confused flopping wings told us we had passed through the arch which separated the wrecked power room from the hangar. "Captain," I whispered as we battered against some confused and helpless Orconites and flung them aside, "could you make anything of the control system on the cruiser before Leider got us?" Virginia Crane said vigorously that she had. "The light switches are all on a board to the right of the entrance door. The other controls are as readily accessible."