"Good boy, Carr! All right?" smiled the Martian.
"Little dizzy. But I'm okay." Carr sprang to his feet where he wabbled uncertainly for a moment. "But the Nomad?" he asked. "Is she—are we safe?"
"Never safer. What in the name of Saturn did you do?"
Carr passed his hand across his eyes, trying to remember. "The D-ray," he said. "I turned it on and dived into the thing with full attraction. Then—I forget. Where is it—the thing, I mean?"
"Look!" Mado drew him to the stern compartment.
Far behind them there shone a misty wreath, a ring of drifting matter that writhed and twisted as if in mortal agony.
"Is that it?"
"What's left of it. You shot your way through it; through and out of its influence. D-ray must have devitalized the thing as it bored through. Killed its energies—for the time, at least."
Already, the thing was closing in. Soon there would be a solid mass as before. But the Nomad was saved.
"How about yourself?" asked Carr anxiously. "Last time I saw you you were flat on the floor."