"I want you to have it, Jim Landor."
III
They were away early the next morning, speeding ahead of a graying dawn. Wessel was wrong, the ice no longer shifted beneath them; but the biting sun had not yet risen. Now Jim noticed that Wessel constantly consulted the device at his waist, which registered the proximity of any radite. Apparently, however, he was satisfied with the route Kaarji was taking.
It was about noon when the terrain began to surge gently again as though with a life of its own, and the mosaic pattern of cracks re-appeared. But this was not enough, as yet, to stop them. What did stop them was Wessel, who called a halt a few hours later.
"Must be some Floaters near here," he told Conley. "I can tell by the way this thing's acting." He tapped the radite-finder, whose needle was gyrating erratically.
"Floaters?" Jim asked. "What are they?"
"Trouble," Conley groaned. "More denizens for you to get acquainted with. You'll see before long."
"There they come now," Wessel pointed. "We may as well wait here, and get rid of them once and for all."
A long line of tiny dots had appeared low on the horizon. They came rapidly nearer and proved to be perfect spheres about a foot in diameter, apparently with an uncanny power of levitation! There were several dozens of them. Hovering in the air, they circled around the men. A few of them darted in close, experimentally.