By twisting, turning, and somersaulting Tom managed to change his course and get near the Comet Catcher. Desperately he flailed upward with his pole. The curved hood at the end whipped into the netting and caught fast.
       "I'd better not lose my grip!" Tom clenched his teeth as the net swept him up.
       A wide Tomasite panel in the hull of the space station rolled back noiselessly. Both Tom and the strange rocket ship were carried into the catch-hatch and deposited in the receiving hangar. The panel slipped automatically into place again.
       "Tom, are you hurt?" Bud asked fearfully as his friend climbed out of his heavy suit.
       I'm okay," he told Bud, who had watched the drama from the interior of the hangar. "But I'll tell you one thing. I'm not eager to give a repeat performance of Tom Swift's death-defying trapeze act in outer space!"
       "We were just about to send the Spider-Crab out after you," said Bud, "when you managed to hook the net."
       At that moment a hatch in the visitor's spaceship swung open and a crew of rough-looking men emerged. Throwing curious glances around the hangar, they descended the steps and gathered at the bottom.
       Their captain came forward, clicked his heels, and saluted smartly. He was a stocky individual with a heavy black beard. His piercing eyes reminded Bud of a lynx on the prowl.
       "My name is Igor Svornin," said the spaceship commander in English tinged with a slight accent.
       "What do you want?" Tom asked.
       "Your hospitality! We have suffered a malfunction in our rocket control system. This space station was nearby when the unfortunate accident occurred, so I ordered my navigator to head here. We will leave as soon as we have made the necessary repairs."
       Something in the man's demeanor made Bud suspicious. He challenged the captain with a single word.
       "Nationality?"
       "Brungarian!"
       Tom was thunderstruck. Brungaria was a hostile nation that had tried many times to foil his plans and steal his inventions.
       "Still," he thought, "we can't turn stranded astronauts away, not even Brungarians!"
       He courteously offered Svornin and the Brungarian crew the hospitality of the space station's bunks and mess hal long enough to repair their rocket.
       Bud frowned and whispered, "Aren't you taking a chance letting those Brungarian birds fly loose in our coop?"
       Tom shook his head. "We'll have them under close surveillance while they're here."
       "I'll keep an eye on this crew by helping them repair the ship's rocket control system," Bud offered. "Assuming," he added, "that it needs repairing."
       "Good idea, fly-boy," Tom answered. "You'll soon find out whether they had a legitimate excuse for almost pulverizing us. I'll join Dad in the observatory and see if we can get a rise out of our space friends."
       As Tom entered, Mr. Swift remarked, "Nothing on the oscilloscope yet. While we're waiting let's check these meteor fragments the Spider-Crab brought in."
       He put several pieces of rock under an atomic spectroscope. It revealed some odd radiation patterns that stirred Tom's interest.
       "I wonder if it has something to do with the P-E. That's my shorthand for Photo-Essence––the ghosts," he explained.
       It could be that the ghosts of Saturn's moon emit subatomic beams we haven't discovered yet," Mr. Swift agreed. "Don't stay up too late. I'll say good night now."
       Alone in the observatory, Tom turned the megascope space prober on the P-E. The pulsating colored spots had moved outward from Mimas!
       "They've reached Phoebe, the outermost Saturnian moon!" Tom muttered. "Those are faint radio waves they're emitting. What are the ghosts? And what do they want?"
       Seizing a large notebook, he marked the title page Ghost Log and started making notes. Suddenly the oscilloscope sprang to life with a succession of green symbols. The space friends were sending him a message!
       A small circle appeared on the screen, followed by a large one. Then came a series of interlocking triangles and a complex set of mathematical equations.
       Tom had mastered most of their combinations, but a few were unfamiliar. He flipped open his father's space dictionary and looked them up. Finally he decoded the message:

BEWARE GHOSTS!
       Startled by the message, Tom used the intercom to summon his father and Bud. The three gathered around the oscilloscope while more symbols flashed on the screen.
       The space friends reported that the ghosts were a super-powerful force. Two earth weeks ago near Uranus ghosts ambushed our space expedition. Everyone killed.
       "Interplanetary aggressors!" Bud gasped. "Maybe they consider Uranus their territory!"
       "But why should they have moved to Saturn?" Tom was puzzled. "Wait a minute. Here are more messages."
       Green signals flashed again with the message: No further contact with ghosts. They come from another galaxy. Plan to invade your solar system.
       Again there was silence. Tom sent a return message by special high-ower transmitter, asking what his space friends intended to do.
       Nothing now, came the reply. Must build up forces after ambush near Uranus.
       "Wow!" Bud exclaimed. "If the space people don't know who the ghosts are, how are we going to find out?"
       "Sounds very sinister," Mr. Swift commented. "Evidently these creatures have the ability to move at will between galaxies. Who knows where they will stop?"
       Tom stood up. "I'm going to try for a fix on the P-E from here," he announced. "We have our telesampler and the X-raser for long-distance contact."
       The telesampler could beam back specimens for analysis by a Swift mass spectrometer. The X-raser combined both operations. This time, to Tom's disappointment, these two inventions failed to reveal anything.
       "The ghosts are elusive little critters," he said. "I'd better perfect my new Transmittaton as soon as possible."
       "Your what?" Bud queried.
       Tom explained, "It's a method for transporting objects from wherever they are to wherever we are. The Lektromag beam director and ranger on it homes in on target, atomizes it, and returns the atoms along a radio beam."
       Mr. Swift added, "It's a new form of electro-magnetic conduction."
       Bud scratched his head. "What happens when the stream of matter gets here? Any chance of us getting conked on the head?"
       Tom chuckled. "No. The receiving tank where the atoms are put together again will be made of Tomasite. That's strong enough to hold anything we capture.
       The Transmittaton will solve some of our old transportation problems," Tom pointed out. "For instance, we set up on our space station, point it at a cargo on earth, and presto! here comes the cargo in a stream of particles ready for reassembly in our receiving tank."
       "Not for me," But remarked.
       "What's the matter?" Tom kidded his pal. "Afraid the gadget will put you hot pilots out of business?"
       "Not a chance," Bud retorted. "I just can't see people letting themselves be atomized so they can ride an electromagnetic beam! We'll always have passengers who prefer a rocket ride intact."
       "By the way, Bud, how are the Brungarian visitors doing?" Tom asked.
       "I've a hunch they're up to something. They won't let me get within a foot of their rocket, and yet they're banging so loudly you'd think they were tearing their ship to pieces. Fake repair work, if you ask me!"
       "You mean they pretended to be out of control so they could get into our space station?"
       Bud nodded. "Captain Svornin knows a space station has to help a rocket ship that's in trouble. He was sure we wouldn't refuse him."
       Tom looked doubtful. "Think of the chance Svornin took. He almost plowed his ship into our hull! We might be picking up the pieces with a magnet!"
       "I don't think he was worried about that," bud replied. "Your Comet Catcher has received a lot of publicity, Tom. Svornin took a calculated risk that it would snare his rocket like a left fielder going after a fly ball. He could count on a free ride into the Swift space station, courtesy of Tom Swift!"
       "You're probably right, Bud. The Brungarians couldn't have realized we were wrestling with a defective repelatron. They'll never know how lucky they were!"
       As bud nodded in agreement, hoarse shouts broke out in the corridor. The Brungarians were yelling, "Fire! Fire!" Someone screamed, "Our rocket ship is going up in flames!"
       The Swifts and Bud dashed out of the observatory. A cloud of acrid smoke filled the corridor. The three joined the station's fire-fighting unit running toward the hangar.
       Black smoke was seeping from the Brungarian spaceship. Members of the crew were hastily shutting portholes and doors, and squirting atomized liquid foam through the hatches. The men of the space station sprang into action in an effort to control the blaze.
       "Where's Captain Svornin?" Mr. Swift called out as he reached the scene.
       "I haven't seen him," one of the Swifts' fire fighters responded.
       "Is he in the spaceship?" Bud demanded of a Brungarian crewman.
       The man shrugged as if he did not understand English. bud felt sure he was merely pretending.
       Tom had a hunch. The Brungarian skipper should have been the first to rush up at the cry that his ship was on fire. Yet Svornin was not in sight.
       "Was the fire a ruse to get me away from the observatory?" Tom asked himself. "Suppose my ghost log should get into enemy hands?"
       The young inventor hastily left the hangar and raced to the observatory. As he dashed through the open door, a hulking body leaped from behind it, knocking him over. He and his assailant went down in a tangle of arms and legs!