Behind him, the rest of the spacemen were frozen into position, writhing and twisting in vain efforts to free themselves! Grant struggled to draw his gun from its holster, but his hands, while free to move sideways, could not be raised or lowered a fraction of an inch. As Kennerly and Miller had been trapped in the vertical, so they were caught in the horizontal!
"Good evening, gentlemen!" The voice in their earphones was mocking. "I've been expecting you! I hoped that the wire would lead you here, into my little snare!" The space-suited figure glanced at the struggling men. "All present except Harris and the girl! And they'll open the airlock to admit an old friend miraculously returned from the dead!"
Grant, catching a glimpse of the face behind the unknown's helmet, gave a quick gasp.
"Allers!" he cried. "Then ... then Kennerly's message was a lie."
"I wrote it myself." A grin spread over Allers' coarse red countenance. "Just to keep suspicion from me. You see, Grant, I was with old Conway when he stumbled on the pitchblend pocket, and I knew the fortune it contained. But when Conway died, I didn't have enough money to finance an expedition here. So as soon as I heard his daughter was going to outfit a ship on his life insurance, I joined up." He laughed harshly. "You've been such fools! Night after night, during these six months, I've been bringing necessary equipment from the ship to this hide-out. Oxygen, food, metal, this little auxiliary motor, and fuel to run it. When you had done all the work of cleaning out the pocket, I cracked the main intake valve, volunteered to get word through to Bowman's Crater. And while you were waiting, I set my traps along the trail."
Allers nodded complacently, drew a small, complicated piece of machinery from his pocket.
"Here's the spare intake valve," he said. "Harris and the girl will be overjoyed to see dear old Allers return. They won't be suspecting anything and should be easy." He patted the heat gun at his side. "The ship and the million in radium ore will be mine with no trouble at all. And there're places on Venus or Mars where no questions are asked, so long as you've the money to spend."
"But what's holding us here?" Grant exclaimed.
Allers smiled thinly. "Think it over," he suggested. "You'll have three hours before your heating units give out, as Kennerly's did. And even if you do find out the cause, you won't be able to do anything about it." He strode easily past the helpless figures, unaffected by the mysterious force. "Good-bye, gentlemen! Enjoy yourselves!" A moment later he had disappeared in the gloom.