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We had no more than reached the other room when the same two trap doors, looking much like large portholes in the wall of the ship, opened to receive each returning small disk. They settled into place as though quietly set down by some unseen hand. | was given no time in which to react to the latest wonders now taking place, for Zuhl said quietly, ?7Keep watching! Another disk on each side is being sent out? this time for a different purpose. We arc still in your atmosphere and when these have left, we shall return to the laboratory, where you will he shown how they operate. ? As | watched, the trap doors adjoining the first two disks quickly closed behind them. Farther down the line two other doors opened, one on each side of the room. ?All the while, the women continued playing a nimble, silent scherzo above the instrument panels. As the second pair of disks left the ship, we three returned to the large laboratory room. For the first time, | now noticed two other screens in operation. These were divided into sections. Zuhl explained, ?These are showing the many atmospheric conditions.? In one section | could watch the movement of air, while its speed and consistency were being registered by other instruments as the signals moved across the face of this screen. The electric charge or magnetic force of the atmosphere seemed to be moving in an opposite direction, and could be seen on another section of this screen, while its composition (a light or heavy load, as | understood) was measured and registered. On still a third section, many of the gases of which the atmosphere is composed were separated, and here | could see rapid changes of combinations constantly taking place. The different intensities of atmospheric pressure and many other conditions of which our scientists are totally unaware were remarkably interesting to watch. While this was being reproduced on the screens it was simultaneously registered by other instruments for permanent records and future study by the inhabitants of other worlds. After what seemed only a few minutes the disks were attracted back into the carrier, and | was told that they contained within them samples of our atmosphere. These would be extracted and studied later. ?It was by means of disks like these,? Zulu told me, ?that we first became alerted to the abnormal condition building up on the fringe of your atmosphere?a condition constantly increasing with every atomic or hydrogen bomb that is exploded on Earth. And since these instruments are in operation at all times, they tell us what we can expect as we move through space.? As we stood talking in the laboratory, my attention was drawn to a particular screen by the pilot. ?You see there,? he said, ?visual images of the dust which you call ?space debris.? These are now being flashed back by two of the disks.? It was fascinating to watch the behavior of these tiny particles of matter on the screen. There was a constant swirling activity. Sometimes the fine matter would seem to condense into the semblance of a solid body, only to disappear and revert to practical invisibility. Occasionally, these formations became so rarefied and fine that they seemed almost to have been transmuted into pure gases. Ina