THE paper held the merest fragments of messages that the operator had deciphered. Blake examined them curiously while he listened at the silent receiver.
"Maricopa"—the message, whatever it was, was meant for them, but there were only parts of words and disjointed phrases that the man had written down—"Venus attacking Earth ... Captain Blake ... Sykes and...."
At the name of Sykes, Blake dropped the paper.
"What does this mean?" he demanded. "Sykes!—why Sykes was the astronomer who was captured with McGuire!"
"Listen! Listen!" The colonel's voice was almost shrill with excitement.
The night was whispering faintly the merest echo of a signal from a station far away, but it resolved itself into broken fragments of sound that were long and short in duration, and the fragments joined to form letters in the Morse code.
"See Winslow," it told them, and repeated the message: "See Winslow at Sierra...." Some distant storm crashed and rattled for breathless minutes. "Blake see Winslow. This is McGuire, Blake. Winslow can help—"
The message ended abruptly. One long, wailing note; then again the night was voiceless ... and in the radio room at Maricopa Flying Field two men stood speechless, unbreathing, to stare at each other with incredulous eyes, as might men who had seen a phantom—a ghost that spoke to them and called them by name.
"McGuire—is—alive!" stammered Blake. "They've taken him—there!"
COLONEL BOYNTON was considering, weighing all the possibilities, and his voice, when he answered, had the ring of conviction.
"That was no hoax," he agreed; "that quavering tone could never be faked. That message was sent from the same station we heard before. Yes, McGuire is alive—or was up to the end of that sending.... But, who the devil is Winslow?"
Blake shook his head despairingly. "I don't know," he said. "And it seems as if I should—"
It was hours later, far into the night, when he sprang from out of a half-conscious doze to find himself in the middle of the floor with the voice of McGuire ringing clearly in his ears. A buried memory had returned to the level of his conscious mind. He rushed over to the colonel's quarters.
"I've got it," he shouted to that officer whose head was projecting from an upper window. "I remember! McGuire told me about this Winslow—some hermit that he ran across. He has some invention—some machine—said he had been to the moon. I always thought Mac half believed him. We'll go over Mac's things and find the address."
"Do you think—do you suppose—?" began Colonel Boynton doubtfully.
"I don't dare to think," Blake responded. "God only knows if we dare hope; but Mac—Mac's got a level head; he wouldn't send us unless he knew! Good Lord, man!" he exclaimed, "Mac radioed us from Venus; is there anything impossible after that?"
"Wait there," said Colonel Boynton; "I'll be right down—"
CHAPTER XII
LIEUTENANT McGUIRE awoke, as he had on other occasions, to the smell of sickly-sweet fumes and the stifling pressure of a mask held over his nose and mouth. He struggled to free himself, and the mask was removed. Another of the man-creatures whom McGuire had not seen before helped him to sit up.
A group of the attenuated figures, with their blood-and-ashes faces, regarded him curiously. The one who had helped him arise forced the others to stand back, and he gave McGuire a drink of yellow fluid from a crystal
