"What's this?  A prisoner?"  he barked. "We have no need for prisoners. Dispatch him at once."

"But he's their leader!" argued my captor.  "Can you not see his value to us?"  My very life  hung in the balance!

As I regained consciousness, my captor had won his point.

"All right, then," the commander agreed, gruffly, "but if these earthlings attack---disintegrate him."

Securely bound, the Asternoids took me back to their camp.  They took me to the foot of an old dead wimba tree.

"Now I wonder what they're swarming up there for?" I asked myself.  In a few minutes they hauled me to the top and bound me securely to the topmost limbs.

"That's so Alda can see they've really got me," I thought.  "The desintegrador below is aimed right at me---ready to blast me if Alda attacks."

Shortly afterward, an Asternoid messenger appeared at Alda's camp with a flag of truce.

The Asternoid soon delivered a message.  Alda was dismayed.

"What?  Nick captured?" she cried.  ""Eu não acredito!"

​​​​​​​"Well, you can fly up and see for yourself," was the Asternoid's reply.  

When Alda had assured herself of my plight, she lost no time.

She had them join with two blocks of lespaecium-----the marvelous element that falls upward---with a chain.

They flew at impressive speed.  "I see," said the officer. "We fly straight at the tree."

"And when I give the word, let go---and zoom!" called Alda.

A moment later, they released the device.  "There it goes, straight as shot!" yelled Alda.

Straight toward me flashed the blocks and chain.  The chain broke the tree off at the roots.  The enormously heavy balls were released and, by sheer luck, one of them crashed squarely into the disintegrator of the Asternoids.  The chain wrapped itself around the tree, and, in a moment, was carried, tree and all, high into the air.