Dr. Creepen's Dungeon

S4 Ep182: Episode 182: Sci-Fi Horror Stories

‘We are captivated by sci-fi horror because it fuses the familiar with the unknown, stretching our fears into imaginative and disturbing territories. These stories offer a safe space to face our anxieties about technology, the future, and the vastness of the cosmos. The excitement lies in exploring "what if" scenarios where scientific progress spirals into unforeseen horrors, prompting us to rethink our grasp on reality and the boundaries of human control. The blend of speculative science and primal fear taps into our deep curiosity and fascination with the mysterious, making sci-fi horror a genre that both challenges and enthralls us…’

Duration:: 5h 12m
Broadcast on:: 30 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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The excitement lies in exploring what if scenarios where scientific progress spirals into unforeseen horrors, prompting us to rethink our grasp on reality and the boundaries of human control. The blend of speculative science and primal fear taps into our deep curiosity and fascination with the mysterious, making sci-fi horror a genre that both challenges and enthrals us. As we'll see in tonight's collection of stories. As ever before we begin, a word of caution. Night's tales may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. And let's begin. The gate to Zora. He sat in a small half-darken booth, well over in the corner. The man with a strangely glowing blue-green eyes. The booth was one of a score that circled the walls of the Maori hut, a popular nightclub in the sound of Fernando Valley some five miles over the hills from Hollywood. It was nearly midnight. Half a dozen couples danced lazily in the central dancing space. Other couples remained tete-tete in the secluded booths. The entire room only two men were dining alone. One was a slender gray-haired little man with the weirdly glowing eyes. The other was Blair Gordon, a highly successful young attorney of Los Angeles. Both men had the unmistakable error of waiting for someone. Blair Gordon's college days were not so far distant that he'd yet lost any of the splendid physique that had made him an all-American tackle. In any physical combat with a slight gray-haired stranger, Gordon knew that he should be able to break the other into with one hand. Yet, as he studied the stranger from behind the potted palms that screened his own booth, Gordon was amazed to find himself slowly being overcome by an emotion of dread so intense that it verged upon sheer fear. There was something indescribably alien and utterly sinister in that dimly seen figure in the corner booth. The faint eerie light that glowed in the stranger's deep-set eyes was not the lambent flame seen in the chitoyant orbs of some night prowling jungle beast. Rather, it was the blue-green glow with a phosphorescent witch light that flickers and dances in the night mists above steaming tropical swarms. The stranger's face was classically perfect in its rugged outline as I'd have a Roman war god, yet those perfect features seemed utterly lifeless. In the twenty minutes that he'd been intently watching the stranger, Gordon could have sworn that the other's face had not moved by so much as the twist of an eyelash. Then a new couple entered the Maury heart, and Gordon promptly forgot all thought of the puzzlingly alien figure in the corner. The new arrivals were a vibrantly beautiful blonde girl in a plump, cellophaced man in the early forties. The girl was layer-keyed, on his latest screen sensation, and the man was Dave Redding, a director. A waiter seated layer and her escort in a booth directly across the room from that of Gordon. It was a manoeuvre for which Gordon had tipped lavishly when he first came to the heart. A week ago, layer-key's engagement to Blair Gordon had been abruptly ended by a trivial little quarrel that two volatile temperaments had fanned into flames which apparently made reconciliation impossible. A miserably lonely week had finally ended in Gordon's present trip to the Maury heart. He knew that Leia often came here, and he had an overwhelming longing to at least see her again, even though his pride forced him to remain unseen. Now, as he stared glumily at layer through the palms, it effectively screamed his own booth. Gordon heartily regretted that he'd ever come. The sight of Leia's clear, fresh beauty merely made him realise what a fool he'd been to let that ridiculous little quarrel come between them. Then, with a sudden tingling thrill, Gordon realised that he was not the only one in the room who was interested in Leia and her escort. Over in the half-darkened corner booth, the eerie stranger was staring at the girl with an intentness that made his weird eyes glow like miniature pools of shimmering blue-green fire. Again, Gordon felt that vague impression of dread, as though he were in the presence of something utterly alien to all human experience. Gordon turned his gaze back to Leia, then caught his breath sharply into sudden amazement. The necklace about Leia's throat was beginning to glow with the same uncanny blue-green light that shone in the strange's eyes. Faint, he'd unmistakable, the shimmering radiance pulsed from the necklace in an aura of nameless evil. And with the coming of that aura of weird light around her throat, the strange trance was swiftly sweeping over there. She sat there now as rigidly motionless as some exquisite statue of ivory and jet. Gordon stared at her in stark bewilderment. He knew the history of Leia's necklace. It was merely an oddity and nothing more, a free piece of costume jewelry made from fragments of Arizona meteorite. Leia had worn the necklace a dozen times before without any trace of the weird phenomena that was now occurring. Dancers gained throng the floor to the blaring music while Gordon was still trying to force his whirling brain into a decision. He was certain that Leia was in deadly peril of some kind. Hit the nature of that peril was too bizarre for his mind to imagine. Then a stranger with the glowing eyes took matters into his own hands. He left his booth and began threading his way through the dances toward Leia. As he watched the progress of that slight gray-haired figure, Gordon refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. A thing was too utterly absurd, and yet Gordon was positive that the strong oak floor of the dancing space was visibly swaying and creaking beneath the stranger's mincing tread. The stranger paused Leia's booth only long enough to utter a brief, low-voiced command. Then Leia, still in the grip of that strange trance, rose obediently from her seat to accompany him. Dave Redding rose angrily to intercept her. The stranger seemed to barely brush the irate director with his fingertips, and yet Redding real back was so struck by a power driver. Leia and the stranger started for the door. Redding scrambled to his feet again and hurried after them. It was only then that Gordon finally shook off the stupor of utter bewilderment that had held him. Springing from his booth, he rushed after the trio. The dances in his way delayed Gordon momentarily. Leia and the stranger were already gone when he reached the door. The narrow little entrance hallway to the hut was deserted, say, for a figure sprawled there on the floor near the outer door. It was the body of Dave Redding. Gordon shuttered as he glanced briefly down at the huddled figure. A single mighty blow from some unknown weapon had crumpled the director's entire face in, like the shattered shell of a broken egg. Gordon charged on through the outer door just as a heavy sedan came careening out of the parking lot. He had a flashing glimpse of Leia and the stranger in the front seat of that big car. Gordon then raced for his own machine, a powerful, low, slung roadster. A single, vicious jab at the starting button and the big motor leaped into a roaring light. Gordon shot out from the parking lot onto the main boulevard. The hundred yards away the sedan was fleeing toward Hollywood. Gordon trammed hard on the accelerator. His engine snarred with the unleashed fury of a hundred horsepower. The gap between the two cars was swiftly lessening. Leia and the stranger seemed to become aware for the first time that he was being followed. The next second, the big sedan accelerated with the hurtling speed of a flying bullet. Gordon sent his own foot nearly to the floor. A rose to jump to 80 miles an hour, and yet the sedan continued to leave it remorselessly behind. Two cars started up the northern slope of Kahoeinga Pass, with the sedan nearly two hundred yards ahead and gaining all the time. Gordon wondered briefly if they were to flash down the other side of the pass and all into Hollywood at their present mad speed. Then, at the summit of the pass, the sedan swerved abruptly to the right, a fled west along the Mulholland Highway. Gordon's tire screamed as he swerved the roadster in hot pursuit. The dark winding mountain highway was nearly deserted at the hour of the night, save for an occasional automobile that swerved frantically to the side of the road to dodge the roaring onslaught of the racing cars. Gordon and the stranger had the road to themselves. The stranger seemed no longer to be trying to leave his pursuer hopelessly behind. He allowed Gordon to come within a hundred yards of him, but that was as near as Gordon could get, in spite of the roadster's best efforts. Half a dozen times Gordon trod savagely upon his accelerator in a desperate attempt to close the gap, but each time the sedan fled with the swift grace of a scudding phantom. Finally, Gordon had to content himself with merely keeping his distance behind the glowing red taillight of the car ahead. They passed Laurel Canyon and still all the big sedan bored onto the west. Then, finally, half a dozen miles beyond Laurel Canyon, the stranger abruptly left the main highway and started up a narrow private road to the crest of one of the lonely hills. Gordon slowly gained in the next two miles. When the road ended in a winding gravel driveway into the grounds of what was apparently a private estate, the roaster was scarcely a dozen yards behind. The stranger's features as he stood there stiffly in the vivid glare of the roaster's headlights were still as devoid of all expression as ever. The only things that really seemed alive in that mask of a face were the two eyes, glowing eerie blue-green fire like twin entities of an alien evil. Gordon wasted no time in verbal sparring, he motioned briefly to layer Keith's rigid form in the front seat of the sedan. Miss Keith is returning to Hollywood with me, he said curling. Will he let her go peaceably, or shall I? He left that question unfinished, but its threat was obvious. "Or you shall do what?" asked the stranger quietly. There was an ugly metallic ring in his low-even tones. His words were so precisely clipped that they suggested some origin more mechanical than human. "Or I shall take Miss Keith with me by force," Gordon flared angrily. "You can try to take the lady by force, if you wish." There was an unmistakable jeering note in those metallic tones. The taunt was the last thing needed to unleash Gordon's volatile temper. He stepped forward and swung a hard-left hook at that expressionless mask of a face, but the blow never landed. The stranger dodged it with uncanny swiftness. His answering gesture seemed merely the gentlest possible push with an outstretched hand, and yet Gordon was sent reeling back with a full dozen steps by the terrific force of that apparently gentle blood. Recovering himself, Gordon grimly returned to the attempt. The stranger again flung out one hand in the contemptuous gesture which one would brush away a troublesome fly. But this time Gordon was more cautious. He neatly dodged the stranger's blow, then swung a vicious right squarely for his adversaries unprotected jaw. The blow smashed solidly home with all of Gordon's weight behind it. The stranger's jaw buckled and gave beneath that shattering impact. Then abruptly his entire face crumpled into a distorted ruin. Gordon staggered back a step and sheer horror had the gruesome result of his blow. The stranger then flung up a hand to his shattered features. When his hand came away again, his whole face came away with it. Gordon had one horror-stricken glimpse of a featureless blob of rubbery bluish gray flesh in which fiendish eyes of blue-green fire blazed in malignant fury. And then the stranger fumbled at his collar, ripping the linen swiftly away. Something lashed out from beneath his throat, a loathsome snake-like object, slander and fault at the end. For one ghastly moment, there's the writhing tentacle swung into line with him. Gordon saw its foretends glow with strange fire. One a vivid blue, the other a sparkling green. And then the world was abruptly blotted out for Blair Gordon. 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Only the cleverest of facial masks and body padding could have ever enabled this monstrosity to pass unnoticed in the world of normal human beings. And now that disguise was completely stripped away. This slight frame was revealed as a grotesque parody of that of a human being, with arms and legs like pipe stems, a bald oval head that merged with necklace rigidity directly into a heavy, sheltered body that tapered into an almost wasp-like slenderness at the waist. It was naked, save for a loincloth of some metallic fabric. His bluish grey skin had a dull, oily sheen strangely suggestive of fine-grained, flexible metal. The creature's face was hideously unlike anything human. Beneath the glowing eyes was a small circular mouth, orifice, with a cluster of gill-like appendages on either side of it. Patches of lighter-coloured skin on other side of the head seemed to serve as ears. From a point just under the head, where the throat of a human being would have been, dangled the foot-and-a-half-long tentacle whose fault tip had sent Gordon into oblivion. Behind the creature, Gordon was dimly aware of a maze of complicated and utterly unfamiliar apparatus ranged along the opposite wall, giving the room the appearance of being a laboratory of some kind. Gordon's obvious bewilderment seemed to amuse the bluish grey monstrosity. "May I introduce myself?" he asked with a mocking note in his metallic voice. "I am Arlok of Zora. I am an explorer of space, and, well particularly, an opener of gates. My home is upon Zora, which is one of the eleven major planets that circle about the giant blue-white sun that your astronomers call Rygo. I am here to open the gate between your world and mine." Gordon placed a reassuring hand over Lyra. All memory of their quorum was obliterated in the face of their present parent. He felt a slender fingers twine firmly with his. One contact gave both of them new courage. "We of Zora need your planet and intent to take possession of it," Arlok continued. "But the vast distance which separates Rygo from your solar system makes it impractical to transport any considerable number of our people here in spacecars for they allow spacecars travel with practically the speed of light. It requires over 540 years for them to cross that grey void. So I was sent as a lone pioneer to your earth to do the necessary work here in order to open the gate that will enable Zora to cross the barrier in less than a minute of your time. That gate is the one through the fourth dimension. For Zora and your planet, in a four-dimensional universe are almost touching each other in spite of the great distance separating them in a three-dimensional universe. We of Zora and being three-dimensional creatures like you earthlings cannot even exist on a four-dimensional plane. But we can, by the use of apparatus, open a gate, pass through a thin sector of the fourth dimension and emerge in a far distant part of our three-dimensional universe. The situation of our two worlds, Arlok continued, is somewhat like that of two dots on opposite ends of a long strip of paper that's curved almost into a circle. To two-dimensional beings capable of only realizing and traveling along the two dimensions of the paper itself, those dots might be many feet apart. Yet in the third dimension straight across free space, they might be separated by only the thousandth part of an inch. In order to take that shortcut across the third dimension, the two-dimensional creatures of the paper would have only to transform a small strip of the intervening space into a two-dimensional surface like their paper. They could do this, of course, by the use of proper vibration-creating machinery for all things in a material universe, or merely a matter of vibration. We of Zora and planned to cross the barrier of the fourth dimension by creating a narrow strip of vibrations powerful enough to exactly match and nullify those of the fourth dimension itself. The result will be that this narrow strip will temporarily become an area of three dimensions only, an area over which we can safely pass from our world, to yours. Arlok indicated one of the pieces of the apparatus on the opposite wall of the room. It was an intricate arrangement of finely wound coils with wires leading to scores of needle-like points which constantly shimmered and crackled with tiny blue white flames. If it cables round to a bank of concave reflectors of some gleaming grayish metal, there is the apparatus which will supply the enormous power necessary to nullify the vibrations of the fourth dimensional barrier, Arlok explained. It is a condenser and adapter of the cosmic force that you call the Milliken Raids. In Zora, a similar apparatus is already set up and finished, but the gate can only be opened by simultaneous actions from both sides of the barrier. That is why I was sent on my long journey through space to do the necessary work here. I am now nearly finished. A few more hours we'll see the final opening of the gate, and then the fighting hordes of Zoraan can sweep through the barrier and overwhelm your planet. When the gate from Zoraan to a new planet is first opened, Arlok continued. Our scientists always like to have at least one pair of specimens of the new world's inhabitants sent through to them for experimental use. Certain nights, while waiting for one of my final castings to cool, I improved the time by making a brief raid up on the place you call the Maori hut. A lady here seemed an excellent type of your earthling women, and the meteoric iron in her necklace made a perfect focus for electric hypnosis. Her escort was too inferior a specimen to be of value to me, so I killed him when he attempted to interfere. When you gave chase, I lured you on until I could see whether you might be usable. You proved an excellent specimen, so I merely stunned you. Very soon now I shall be ready to send the two of you through the gate to our scientists in Zora. A cold wave of sheer horror swept over Gordon. It was impossible to doubt the stark and deadly menace promised in the plan of this grim visitor from an alien universe. A menace that loomed not only for Gordon and Leia, but for the teeming millions of a doomed and defenseless world. "Let me show you Zora," Arlock offered. Then you may be better able to understand. He turned his back carelessly upon his too captive and strode over to the apparatus along the opposite wall. Gordon longed to hurt himself upon the unprotected back of the retreating Zoraenion, and he knew that any attempt of that kind would be suicidal. Arlock's deadly tentacle would strike him down before he was halfway across the room. He searched his surroundings with desperate eyes for anything that might serve as a weapon, and his pulse quickened with sudden hope. There on a small table near Leia was the familiar bulk of a .45 caliber revolver loaded and ready for use. It was included in a miscellaneous collection of other small earthly tools and objects Arlock had apparently collected for study. There was an excellent chance that Leia might be able to secure the gun unobserved. Gordon pressed her fingers in a swift attempt at signaling, then judged his hand ever so slightly toward the table. A moment later the quick answering pressure of Leia's fingers told him that she'd understood his message. From the corner of his eye Gordon saw Leia's other hand begin cautiously groping behind her for the revolver. Then both Gordon and Leia froze into sudden immobility as Arlock faced them again from beside an apparatus slightly reminiscent of an earthly radio sound. Arlock threw a switch and a small bank of tubes glowed pale green. The yard square plate of bluish gray metal on the wall above the apparatus glowed with milky fluorescence. "It is easy to penetrate the barrier with light waves," Arlock explained. "That is a gate that can readily be opened from either side. It was through it that we first discovered Europe." Arlock then threw a rear stat on to more power. The luminous plate cleared swiftly. "And there, earthlings, is Zora," Arlock proclaimed proudly. Leia and Gordon gasped in sheer amazement as the glowing plate became a veritable window into another world, a world of utter and alien terror. The living light of a giant red sun blazed mercilessly down upon a landscape from which every vestige of animal and plant life had apparently been stripped. Naked rocks and barren soil stretched endlessly to the far horizon in a vast monotony of utter desolation. Arlock twirled a knob at the apparatus and another scene flashed into view. In this scene, great gleaming squares and cones of metal rose in towering clusters from the starkly barren land. Hors of creatures like Arlock swarmed in and around the metal buildings. Giant machines whirled countless wheels in strange tasks. From a thousand great needle-like projections on the buildings, spurted shimmering sheets of crackling flame, bathed in the entire scene in a whirling mist of fiery vapours. Gordon realised dimly that he must be looking into one of the cities of Zora, with every detail of the chaotic world of activities was too utterly unfamiliar to carry any real significance to his bewildered brain. He was as hopelessly overwhelmed as a savage would be if transported suddenly into the heart of Times Square. Arlock again twirled a knob. The scene shifted, apparently, to another planet. This world was still alive, with rich verdure and swarming millions of people strangely like those of her. But it was a doomed world. The dreaded gate to Zoraan had already been opened here. Allegiance of bluish-gray Zoronians were attacking the planet's inhabitants, and the attack of those metallic hosts was irresistible. The slight bodies of the Zoronians seemed as impervious to bullets and missiles as though armour plated. The frantic defence of the beleaguered people of the doomed planet caused hardly a casualty in the Zoranian ranks. The attack of the Zoronians was hideously effective. Clouds of dense yellow fog belched from countless projectors in the hands of these bluish-gray hosts, and beneath that deadly miasma, all animal and plant life on the doomed planet was crumbling, dying and rotting into a liquid slime. Then even the slime was swiftly obliterated, and the Zoranians were left triumphant upon a world starkly desolate. That was one of the minor planets in the swarm that make up the solar system of the sun that your astronomers call "cannapus", I'll explain. Our first task in conquering a world is to rid it of the unclean surface scum of animal and plant life. When this noxious surface mold is eliminated, the planet is then ready to furnish us sustenance, for we as Zoranians live directly upon the metallic elements of the planet itself. Our bodies are of a substance of which your scientists have never even dreamed. Deathless, invincible, living, metal. I'll look again toward the control of the apparatus, and the scene was shifted back to the planet of Zora, this time to the interior of what was apparently a vast laboratory. Here scores of Zoranian scientists were working upon captives who were pathetically like human beings of Earth itself, working with lethal gases and deadly liquidises, human scientists might experiment upon noxious pests. The details of the scene were so utterly revolting, the torches that were being inflicted so starkly horrible that layer and Gordon sank back in their chairs, sick and shaken. Alok snapped off a switch, and the green light in the tubes died. That last scene was the laboratory to which I shall send you to presently, he said callously as he started back across the room toward them. Gordon lurched his feet, his brain a seething whirl of hate in which all thought of caution was gone, as he tensed his muscles to hurt himself upon that grim monstrosity from the bleak and desolate realm of Zora. Then he felt Leia tugging surreptitiously at his right hand. The next moment the bulk of something cold and hard made his fingers. It was the revolver. Leia had secured it while Alok was busy with his inter-dimensional televising. Alok was rapidly approaching him now, and Gordon hoped against hope that the menace of that deadly tentacle might be diverted for the fraction of a second necessary for him to get in a crippling shock. Leia seemed to divine his thoughts. She suddenly screamed hysterically and flung herself on the floor, almost at Alok's feet. Alok stopped in obvious wonder and bent over Leia. Gordon took instant advantage of the Zoranean's diverted attention. He withered the revolver from behind him, a fired point blank at Alok's unprotected head. The bullet struck squarely. But Alok barely even staggered. A tiny spot of bluish grey skin upon his oval skull gleamed faintly for a moment under the bullet's impact. Then the heavy pellet of lead thoroughly flattened as though it had struck the triple armour of a battleship. Grop spent and harmless to the floor. Alok straightened swiftly. For the moment he seemed to have no thought of retaliating with his deadly tentacle. He merely stood there quite still with one thin arm thrown up to guard his glowing eyes. Gordon sent the remainder of the revolver's bullets crashing home as fast as his finger could press the trigger. That murderously short-range the smashing rain of lead should have dropped a charging gorilla. But for all the effects Gordon's shots had upon the Zoranean, his ammunition might as well have been pellets of paper. Alok's glossy hide merely glowed momentarily in tiny patches as the bullet struck and flattened harmlessly. And that was all. His last cartridge fired. Gordon flung the empty weapon squarely at the blue monstrosity's hideous face. Alok made no attempt at dodge. The heavy revolver struck him high on the forehead, then rebounded harmlessly to the floor. Alok paid no more attention to the blow than a man were to the casual touch of a wooden blowing feather. Gordon then desperately flung himself forward upon the Zoranean in one last mad effort to overwhelm him. Alok dodged Gordon's wild blows, then gently swept the earthman into the embrace of his thin arms. For one helpless moment Gordon sensed the incredible strength, then adamanting hardness of the Zoranean slender figure, together with an overwhelming impression of colossal weight in that deceptively slight body. Then Alok contemptuously flung Gordon away from him. As Gordon staggered backwards, Alok's tentacle lashed upward and leveled upon him. His twin tips again glowed bright green and livid blue. Instantly every muscle in Gordon's body was paralyzed. He stood there as rigid at a statue, his body completely deadened from the neck down. Beside him stood layer, also frozen motionless in that same weird power. "Earthling, you are beginning to try my patience," Alok's net. "Can you not realize that I am utterly invincible in any combat with you? The living metal of my body weighs over 1,600 pounds in your measurements. The strength inherent in that metal is sufficient to tear a hundred of your earthman to shreds. But I don't even have to touch you to vanquish you. The electric content of my bodily structure is so infinitely superior to yours that with this tentacle organ of mine, I can instantly short-circuit the feeble currents of your nerve impotities and bring either paralysis or death as I choose. But enough of this. Alok broke off abruptly. My materials are now ready, and it is time that I finish my work. I shall put you out of my way for a few hours until I'm ready to send you through the gate to the laboratories of Zora. The green and blue fire of the tentacle's tips flame to dazzling brightness. The paralysis of Gordon's body swept swiftly over his brain. Black oblivion engulfed him. When Gordon again recovered consciousness, he found he was lying on the floor of what was apparently a narrow hall near the foot of a stairway. His hands were lashed tightly behind him, and his feet and legs were so firmly pinioned together that he could scarcely move. Beside him lay, lay, also tightly bound. A short distance down the hall was the closed door of Alok's workroom, recognizable by the thin line of red light gleaming beneath it. Moonlight through a window at the rear of the hall made objects around Gordon fairly clear. He looked at there and saw tears glistening on her long lashes. "Oh Blair, I was afraid you'd never waken again," the girl sawed. "I thought that the fiend had killed you." The voice was breaking hysterically. "Steady darling," Gordon said soothingly. "You simply can't give up now, you know. That monstrosity ever opens at a cursed gate of his, and her entire world is doomed. There must be some way to stop him. I've got to find that way and try it, even if it seems only one for long chance in a million." Gordon shook his head to clear the numbness, still lingering from the effect of Alok's tentacle. The Uranian seemed unable to produce a paralysis of any great duration with his weird natural weapon. Accordingly, he'd been forced to bind his captives like two trust vowels while he returned to his labour. Lying as close together as they were, it was comparatively easy matter for them to get their bound hands within reach of each other. But after fifty minutes of vain work, Gordon realised that any attempt at untying the robes was useless. Alok's prodigious strength had drawn the knot so tight that no human power could ever loosen them. Then Gordon suddenly thought of one thing in his pockets that might help him. He was a tiny cigarette lighter, of the spring trigger-tight. He was in his vest pocket completely out of reach of his bound hands, but there was a way out of that difficulty. Gordon and Leia twisted and rolled their bodies like two contortionists until they succeeded in getting into such position that Leia was able to get her teeth into the cloth of the vest pocket's edge, a moment of desperate tugging and the fabric gave way. The light had dropped from the torn pocket to the floor where Leia retrieved it. Leia made twisted their bodies back to back. Leia managed to get the light of flaming in her bound hands. Gordon groped in an effort to guide the ropes on his wrists over the tiny flickering flame. Then they came the faint, welcome odor of smoldering rope as the lightest tiny flame bit into the bonds. Gordon bit his lips to suppress a cry of pain as the flame seared into his skin as well. The flame bit deeper into the rope and a single strand snapped. Then another strand gave way. To Gordon the process seemed endless as the flame scorched rope and flesh all eyes. A long minute of dancing agony that seemed ours and Gordon could stand no more. He tensed his muscles in one mighty agonized effort to end the torture of the flame. The weakened rope gave way completely beneath that pain maddening lunch. Gordon's hands were free. It was now an easy matter to use the lighter to finish freeing himself out and later. They made their way swiftly back to the window at the rear of the hall. It slid silently upward. Then a moment later they were out in a brilliant moonlight. Free. They made their way around to the front of the house. Behind the drawn shades of one of the front rooms an eerie glow of red light marked the location of Alok's workroom. They heard the occasional clink of tools inside the room as the zoranean diligently worked to complete his apparatus. They crept stealthily up to where one of the French windows of Alok's workroom swung slightly ajar. Through the narrow crevice they could see Alok's grotesque back as he labored over the complex assembly of the apparatus against the wall. One heavy stone flung through the window would probably wreck that delicate mechanism completely. Yet the two watches knew that such a respite would only be a temporary one. As long as Alok remained alive on this planet to build another gate to Zorane, Earth's eventual doom was certain. Complete destruction of Alok himself was Earth's only hope of salvation. The zoranean seemed to be nearing the end of his labours. He held the apparatus momentarily and more toes or workbench where he picked up a slender rodlight tool. Donning a heavy glove to shield his left hand, he selected a small plate of bluish grey metal and pressed a switch in the handle of the tool in his right hand. A blade of blinding white flame seemingly as solid as a blade of metal spurted the length of a foot from the tool's tip. Alok began cutting the plate with the flame. The blade shearing through the heavy metal as easily as a hot knife shears through butter. The sight brought a sudden surge of exaltant hope to Gordon. He swiftly drew Leia away from the window. Far enough to the side that their low voice conversation could not be heard from inside the workroom. Leia, there's that one chance, he explained excitedly. That blue fiend is vulnerable and that flame tool of his is the weapon to reach his vulnerability. Did you notice how carefully he was to shield his other hand with a glove before he turned the tool on? He can be heard by that blade of flame and probably hurt badly. Leia nodded in quick understanding. "If I could lure him out of the room for just a moment, you could slip in through the window and get that flame tool, Leia," she suggested eagerly. "Ah, that might work," Gordon agreed reluctantly. "But Leia, don't run any more risks than you absolutely have to." He then picked up a small roll. "Here, take this with you. Open the door into the hall and attract Arlok's attention by throwing the rock at his precious apparatus. Then the minute he sees you, try to escape through the hall again. He'll leave his work to follow you. When he returns to his workroom, I'll be in there waiting for him. I'll be waiting with a weapon that can stab through even that armor plated hide of his." They separated then. Leia had to enter the house, Gordon, to return to the window. Arlok was back over in front of the apparatus, fitting into place the piece of metal he'd just cut. The flame tool, his switch now turned off, was still on the workbench. Gordon's heart pounded with excitement as he crouched there with his eyes fixed upon the closed hall door. The minutes seemed to drag in terminally. Then suddenly, Gordon's muscles tensed. The knob of the hall door had turned ever so slightly. Leia was at her post. The next moment the door was flung open with a violence that sent it slamming back against the wall. The slender figure of Leia stood framed in the opening, her dark eyes blazing as she flung one hand up to her on her missile. Arlok whirled around just as Leia threw the rock straight to the intricate gate opening apparatus. With incredible speed, his uranium flung his own body over to shield his fragile instruments. The rock thudded harmlessly against his metallic chest. And then Arlok's tentacle flung out like a striking cobra. Its fork-tip flaming blue and green fire as it focused upon the open door. But Leia was already gone. Gordon heard her flying footsteps as she raced down the hall. Arlok promptly sped after her in swift pursuit. As Arlok passed through the door into the hall, Gordon flung himself into the room and sped straight for the workbench. He snatched the flame tool up then darted over to the wall by the door. He was not a second too soon. The heavy tread of Arlok's return was already audible in the hall just outside. Gordon prepared to stake everything upon his one slim chance of disabling that fearful tentacle before Arlok could bring it into action. He pressed the tiny switch in the flame tool's handle just as Arlok came through the door. Arlok, startled by the glare of the flame tool's blazing blade, whirled to all Gordon, but too late. A thin searing shaft of vivid flame had already struck squarely at the base of the zorranian's tentacle. A seething spray of hising sparks marked the place where the flame bit deeply hung. Arlok screamed, a ghastly metallic note of anguish like nothing human. The zorranian's powerful hands clutched at Gordon, but he leaped lively backward out of their reach. Then Gordon again attacked, the flame tool's shining blade licking in and out like a rapy. The searing flame swept across one of Arlok's arms, and the zorranian winced. Then the blade steps swiftly at Arlok's waist. He half-doubled as he flinched back. Gordon shifted his aim with lightning speed and sent the blade of flame lashing in one accurate, terrible stroke of the caught Arlok squarely in the eyes. Again Arlok screamed in intolerable agony as that tearing flame darkened forever his glowing eyes. In berserker fury, the tortured zorranian charged blindly to war Gordon. Gordon wearily dodged to one side. Arlok, now sightless, and his tentacle crippled, still had enough power in that mighty metallic body of his to tear a hundred earth into pieces. Gordon stung Arlok's shoulder with the flame, then desperately leaped just to one side in time to dodge a flailing blow that would have made pulp of his body had it landed. Arlok went stark wild in his frenzied efforts to come to grips with this unseen adversary. Furniture crashed and splintered the kindling wood beneath his threshing feet. Even the stout walls of the room shivered and cracked the incredible weight of Arlok's body as it crooned against them. Gordon circled lightly around the triple blue monstrosity like a timber wolf circling a wounded moose. He began concentrating his attack upon Arlok's left leg, half a dozen deep slashes with a searing flame, and suddenly the thin leg crumpled and broke. But Arlok crashed helplessly to the floor. Gordon was now able to shift his attack to Arlok's head. Dodging the blindly flailing arms of the zorranian, he stabbed again and again at that oval shaped skull. The searing thrust began to have their effect. Arlok's convulsive movements became slower and weaker. Gordon sent the flame stabbing in a long final thrust in an attempt to pierce through to that alien metal brain. The startling suddenness the flame burned its way home to some unknown center of life force in the oval skull. There was a brief but appalling gush of bright purple flame from Arlok's eye sockets and mouth office, and then his twitching body stiffened. His blueish gray hide darkened with incredible swiftness into a dull black. Arlok was dead. Gordon sickened at the grisly ending to the battle, snapped off the flame tool and turned to search for later. He found her already standing in the hall door, alive and unheard. "I escaped through the window at the end of the hall," she explains. Arlok quit following me as soon as he saw that you two were gone from where he left us time. She shuttered as she looked down at the zorranian's mangle body. "I saw most your fight with him, Blair. It was terrible, awful. But Blair, we've won." "Yeah, now we'll make sure of the fruits of our victory," Gordon said grimly, starting over toward the gate opening apparatus with the flame tool in his hand. Only a few minutes work with the shirring blade of flame, reduce the intricate apparatus to a mere tangle pile of twisted metal. Arlok, gate opener of zorran, was dead, and the gate to that grim planet was now irrevocably closed. 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This was the first hint he received of the fate that was drawing in like night upon him and his beautiful wife. Parker, a young writer of growing reputation who illustrated his own work, was making a series of pencil sketches for a romance partly finished. His story was as joyous and elusive as sunlight. And until today his sketches had held the same quality. Now he couldn't tap the reservoir from which he'd taken the wind-blown hair and smiling eyes of Madeline, his heroine. When he drew or wrote, he seemed to be submerged in the dark waters of a measureless evil pet. The face that mocked him from the paper was stamped with a world old knowledge of forbidden things. Parker dropped his pencil and leaned back, tortured. He and his wife Betty had taken this house in Pine Hills, a small and extremely quiet suburban village, solely for the purpose of concentration on the book which was to be the most important work he'd ever done. He went to the door of the room that he used for a studio and called out. Betty, can you come here a moment, please? There was a patter of running feet on the stairs and a girl of 20 or thereabouts came into the room. Any man would have said she was a blessing. Her hair was yellow like ripe corn and her vivid blue eyes held depth and character and charm. Well, look, exclaimed Parker. Why do you think of this stuff? For a moment there was silence. Then Alan Parker saw something he'd never seen before in his wife's face, for him all for his work. A look of complete disgust. "Well, I don't want to believe you're capable "of doing anything so, so horrid." She said, "Cody, how could she?" I don't know. His arms, which had been ready to take her to him for comfort, dropped. The work has been difficult lately. It's as though something was pulling at my mind, but not like this, and it isn't me. "Well, it must be you since it came out of you." She turned away and moved restlessly to one of the windows. "Look, through me," muttered Parker. "Ideas come through me." "You have to do something." "Yeah, what?" "I don't know what to do." "Why don't you go see that new doctor?" asked Betty over a shoulder. "You know, Dr. Friedrich von Stein." "On Stein," repeated Parker vaguely. "Don't know him. "Anyhow, I don't need a doctor. "What in the world made you think of that?" "Nothing." She said, "I can see his house from here." He'd taken what they called the old Reynolds Place, you know, opposite the church. We looked at it and thought it was too large for us. "Oh, he's, uh, made a lot of alterations." "Oh, uh, yeah." Parker had placed a newcomer, more recent than himself. Yeah, I had an idea that he was a doctor of philosophy, though. Not medicine. "Oh, he has half a dozen degrees," they say. "Certainly he's a stunning-looking man. "I'm sorry I'm on the street." "Maybe he doesn't practice." The artist was gazing, baffled and sick at heart upon what he'd wrought. "What could he do unless it's my liver?" "It might be a psychoanalyst or something like that." She replied slowly. "But, ah, why the wild interest in this particular doctor?" Parker got up and looked at her. He fell irritable and was ashamed of him. "Only for your were," said Betty. A faint pink touched her cheeks. Alan Parker had a sudden feeling of certainty that his wife was lying to him. To one who knew the Parker's, it would have been equally impossible to think of Betty as lying, or if her husband is believing such a thing. And Parker was outraged by his own suspicion. He sprang up and began to pace the floor. "All right then," he exploded. "My work is going to the dogs. There's an appointment with Cartwright tomorrow to show him these sketches, and the last few chapters I've done." "Okay, we'll go now. If this man can't do anything for me, I'll try somebody else." In ten minutes, they were walking up the quiet street toward the present home of Dr. Freidrich von Stein. Despite his self-absorption, Parker could not help noticing that his wife had never looked more attractive than she did at this moment. Her color had deepened. Little wisps of hair curled against her cheeks, and there was a sparkle in her eyes which he knew came only on very particular occasion. Even from the outside, it was apparent that many strange things had been done to the dignified house of Reynolds. A mass of aerials hung above the roof. Some new windows had been cut at the second floor and filled with a glass of a peculiar reddish-purple tinge. A residence had been turned into a laboratory, a sharp contrast to the charming houses up and down the street, and the church of Greystone that stood opposite. Beside the door at the main entrance, a modest plate, while the legend Dr. Freidrich von Stein. Parker pressed the bell, and he squared his broad shoulders and waited. A very miserable, very likable young man, with a finely-shaped head and a good set of muscles under his well-cut clothes. He brought his sketches, but he was uncomfortable with the portfolio under his arm. He seemed, well, he seemed like it was contaminating him, but they were open to reveal a blocky figure of a man in a workman's blouse and overalls. The fellow was pale of eye, tall-headed, and he appeared to be good-natured but of little intelligence. The only remarkable thing about him was a livid wealth that ran across one cheek from nose to ear. Beside him a glossy-coated duxon, wagged furiously, after having barked once as a matter of duty. "We see Dr. von Stein," asked Parker, "or if he's in." "I will ask how Dr. if he is in," replied the man stiffly. "I don't cough," rolled a voice from inside the house. An instant later, the man and the dog shrank back along the hall, and they appeared in their place, one of the most striking personalities Alan Parker had ever seen. Dr. Friday von Stein was inches more than six feet tall, and he stood perfectly upright, with the unmistakable carriage or well-drilled soldier. He was big-boned, but lean, and every movement was made with military precision. More than any other feature, his eyes impressed Parker. They were steady, penetrating, and absolutely black. But through a thread of grey hair here and there, his well-kept beard and hair were black. He might have been any age from forty to sixty, so deceptive was his appearance. "I come in, if you please," he said before Parker could speak. von Stein's voice was rich and deep, but with the metallic quality which somehow corresponded with his mechanical smile. Except for the guttural hours, it was hardly a hint of the foreigner in his speech. "It is, Mr. and Mrs. Parker, I believe. I am Dr. von Stein." He stood aside for them to pass into the hallway, and while they murmured their thanks, he shut a volley of German at the man, whom he called Heinrich. The frightened servant vanished, and the parkers were taken into a living room furnished carelessly, but in good enough taste. But he took her place on a couch, to which the doctor led her with a battle. Parker sank into an overstuffed chair not far from the window. "I learned your names because of the, uh, beauty of the Medard," said von Stein, as he stood looming above the mantle. "Again," he bowed, "or I could not see her without wishing to know how such a charming woman was called. You are my neighbours from down the street, I believe." "Yes," replied Alan, "he wanted to be agreeable but found it difficult." And I, uh, think Mrs. Parker has developed a great admiration of you. And she persuaded me to come here today. "Listen, um, are you by chance a psychoanalyst?" "I don't even know that you are a doctor of medicine, but, sir." "Oh, I know a very great deal about the human mind," interrupted the doctor von Stein, calmly, "I know a great deal about many things. I'm not going to practice medicine here in pine hills because I have research work to do, but I will help you if I can." "Ah, what is your trouble?" The question brought back to Parker the mood of half an hour ago. Almost savagely he snapped the portfolio open and spread out a few of his recent drawings, with some of the earlier ones for comparison. "Look," he cried, "these vicious things are what I'm doing now. I can't help myself. The pencil does not obey me. Apparently, I have no emotional control. It's as though my normal ideas were shoulder to side, like people in a crowd, and my writing today was as bad as these illustrations. I'm doing a book, um, consider these things carefully, doctor. They're not obscene, except by inference. They can't be censored. The book would go through the males, but they are deadly. Look at my heroine in these two pitches, and one she's like violets and then the other she looks capable of any crime. "Ah, what is she, vampire," if there is such a thing, "a witch." I've almost believed in demonology since I made these last drawings. Parker, in spite of his excitement, tried to read the face of Dr Fryder on Stein. He found nothing but the automatic smile upon that mask, yet it seemed to the artist that this time there was a hint of real pleasure in the curve of his lips. Was it possible that anyone could light over drawings? Parker began to think that he was going insane. "Well, this is most unfortunate for you," rumbled the doctor. "I understand, but I trust that the condition can be remedied if it persists. You, Mr Parker, and you, Madame, do you understand something of physics of psychology or metaphysics?" "Oh, I fear that I am rather ignorant," answered Betty, "certainly I am in comparison with a man of your attainment." Dr Von Stein once again bowsed, and he then turned his black eyes upon Parker. "And you, sir, I must adjust my explanation to--what shall I say--to your knowledge of the higher reaches of scientific thought?" "Well, I am majored in philosophy and college," said Parker, hesitatingly. "That was quite a time ago, here, Dr.--of course, I've tried to keep up with the conclusions of science--but, uh, writer or painter, doesn't have too much opportunity. He has his own problems to concern him." "Ah, yes, indeed," Dr Von Stein was thoughtful. "So, and, uh, especially for the benefit of the Madame, I shall speak in terms of the, uh, concrete. Well, please don't consider me stupid," begged Betty, "but I do want to understand. Certainly, except that you are not stupid, Madame. I will proceed--oh, well, both of you, I assume, know something of the radio." "Very good. You know that the ethereal wave transmits the message, and that it is received and amplified so it is within the range of the human ear. These waves were there when Paleolithic man hunted his meat with a stone-tipped clob, but to use them, it was necessary to invent the microphone and, uh, receiving instrument." "Ah, what I have said to you already know. But here is what may startle you. Human thought is an ethereal wave of the same essential nature as the radio wave. They're both electrical currents external to man. Thought sweep across the human mind as sound currents sweep across the ariles of a radio." "Gah, I told you," Alan Parker turned, a tran--faced to his wife. "Pardon me, her doctor, but I've tried to convince Mrs. Parker that my idea came from outside." "Ah, exactly. Dr. Stein took no offense. The difference between the mind and the radio set is that, with the radio, you tune in upon whatever you choose, and when you choose. But the mind is under no such control, although it should be. Receives that which it happens to be open, or that thought which has been, uh, intensified and strengthened by having been received and entertained by other minds. "Ah, in India they say, five thousand died of the plague, and fifty thousand died of fear." "Ah, do you both follow me?" "Well, it was unnecessary to ask. But he sat on the edge of the couch, intent upon every word. Parker, although more restrained, was equally interested. Moreover he was delighted to have what he had felt instinctively confirmed, in a way, by a man of science. An Herbert Spencer said, continue the doctor, that no thought, no feeling, is ever manifested save as a result of the physical force. His principle will before long be a scientific commonplace. And Huxley predicted that we would arrive at a mechanical equivalent of a consciousness. But I will not attempt to bolster my position with authorities. I know, and I can prove what I know. You Mr. Parker, in receiving some particularly annoying thoughts, which have been intensified, it may be by others, or by one other. In willpower can alter the rate of vibration of the line of force, or etheric wave. So-called good thoughts have a high rate of vibration, those which are called bad, or narrowly have a low rate. Have you, perhaps, an enemy? Well, now that I know of, reply Parker, and a low voice, and it would follow that this is accidental." "Good God, do you mean that, well, do you mean to say that someone could have done this to me maliciously?" "Ah, so far my experiments leave for something to be desired," said Dr. von Stein, without answering directly. "No doubt you are peculiarly susceptible to thoughts which bear in any way on your work." "Oh, but isn't there any help for it?" asked Betty. "She's regarding her husband with the eyes of a stranger. I believe I can do something for Mr. Parker." There was a knock on the door, then. The doctor bombed an order to come in. Heinrich, with a dachshund at his heels, entered bearing a tray with a bottle of wine and some slices of heavy fruitcake. He drew out a table and placed a tray on it. "Do not bring that dog in when I have guests," said von Stein. He spoke with a gleam of bright white teeth. "You know what will happen, Heinrich?" "Yeah," had Dr. I take Hans out. The man was clearly terrified. He gathered the dog into his arms and fairly fled from the room. Dr. von Stein turned with a smile. "I have to her discipline him," he explained. "He's a stupid fellow, but faithful. I can't have ordinary servants about. There are scientific men who would be willing to bribe them for a look at my laboratory." "Why didn't no such things were done among scholars?" said Betty slowly. "What I have accomplished means power, madame," exclaimed the doctor. "There are jackals in every walk of life. If an unscrupulous man of science got into my laboratory, a physicist, for instance, he might find out certain things." Dr. von Stein then returned to his duties as host. He filled the glasses and watched with satisfaction, Betty's obvious enjoyment of the cake. A box of mellow Havana's appeared from a cabinet, imported cigarettes from a smoking stand. But Parker, in spite of her liking for good wine and tobacco, was far too much concerned about his work to forget the errand that had brought him there. "So, um, you think," he said, when there's an opportunity, "that you can help me, Dr. von Stein?" "I can," replied von Stein, firmly. "Before attempting anything, I'd like to wait a day or two. The attacking thoughts may become less violent, or your resistance greater. In either of which cases the condition will fade out. You'll either get better or much worse. If you are worse, come to see me again, and I promised that I will do something to help you." "Okay, I'll come back, and thank you." Parker felt better, and more cheerful than he had since the beginning of this disturbance. "Well, few things could make me suffer so much as trouble with my work." "Ah, that's what I thought," agreed Dr. von Stein. Betty got up. Her husband caught the look in her eyes as they met the bright, like gays of Dr. von Stein, and he went cold. That look had always been for him alone. Her feet seem to linger on the way to the door. "Oh, she's wonderful," she breathed as they started down the uneventful street. "Well, scientific things never interested me before, but he kind of makes them vital, alive." "And yet," said Parker thoughtfully, "there's something really strange and uncanny about that man." "Nonsense," exclaimed Betty. "It's because he's a genius. Don't be so small, Alan," Parker gasped and remained silent. He could remember a time when his wife had ever spoken to him in quite that way. They finished the little journey home without speaking again, and Parker went directly to the studio. He sat down with the drooping shoulders and considered the mess he'd made of his book. Well, there was nothing to do, but to see Cartwright tomorrow and to face the music. You know, that night was a mournful affair. The soft footsteps of the servant going in and out of the dining room, the ticking of the clock were almost the only sounds. Betty was deep in her own thoughts. Parker was too miserable to talk. He went to bed early and lay staring into the darkness for what seemed like an eternity of slow moving hours. At all, deep voice clocked in the hallway downstairs and just struck one when suddenly Parker's room was flooded with light. He sat up, blinking, and saw Betty standing near the bed. Her fingers twisted against one another. Her face was drawn and white. "Alan," she whispered, "I'm afraid." Instantly he was on his feet. His arms went around her and the yellow head dropped wearily against his shoulder. "I'm afraid of what?" He cried out. "What is it, sweetheart?" "I don't know." Well, at once her body stiffened and she pulled away from him. Then she laughed. "Oh, nonsense. I must have been having a bad dream. It's nothing. I'm sorry I woke you up, Alan." He was gone before he could stop her. All bewildered he didn't know whether to follow her. "I better not," he thought. She'd sleep now and perhaps he would, too, but he was worried that Betty was becoming less and less like herself. The last Parker did sleep, so awakened shortly after daylight. He got a quick breakfast and took an early train to New York. When John Cartwright, a shrewd and kindly man, one advanced in years, arrived at his office, Alan Parker was right there waiting for him. Cartwright had shown real affection for the younger man, almost a paternal interest. He beamed, as usual, until he sat down with the new drawings. Slowly the smile faded from his face. He went over them twice, three times, and then he looked up. "My boy," he said, "did you do these?" "Yes." "Do you know that you're turning a delicate and beautiful romance into a lascivious libel on the human race?" "It's being done," replied Parker in a low voice, "and I can't help myself." "What do you mean by that?" "I mean, when I start to draw, Madeline, my hand produces that woman of Babylon." "The writing is just as bad," asked full of snare and hints, "double meanings." "I'll destroy this stuff. I've been to see a psychoanalyst." "Ah," he said thoughtfully, "have you tired, Alan? Why not take Betty on a cruise or something? There'll still be time for far publication." "I'm going to try everything possible, and I'd rather be dead than to do work like this." When Parker left his friend, he was somewhat encouraged. After the first shot, Carter had been inclined to make light of the difficulty, and by the time Alan Parker reached Pine Hills, his stride had the usual swing and snare. He ran up the steps of his house and burst into the living room with a smile. Betty was sitting by one of the windows, her hands lying relaxed and her laugh. She turned with a somber face toward her husband, and spoke before he had time to say a word of greeting. "You knew that Cordelia Lyman died a short time ago, didn't you?" "Hey, what's that?" exclaimed Parker, bewildered. "Lyman? Oh, the old lady down the street who left her money to found her home for aged spinsters. What about it?" But she didn't leave her money to found her home for aged spinsters, Alan. She'd said she was going to do it, but no, and everyone thought so. Her will was admitted to probate, so whatever they called it yesterday. She left half a million, all she had, to Dr. Friedrich von Stein, to be used as he thinks best for the advancement of science. "Good God!" Parker stared at her. "Why? Didn't know she knew him. He'd only been here a week or so when she died." "Well, there isn't a flaw in the will, they say." "Well, you can imagine that all the Pine Hills is talking." "Well," said Parker, philosophically, "he's lucky, I hope he does something good with it." "He will," replied Betty with conviction, "he'll do many good things." Parker told her of his interview with Cartwright, but she seemed a little interested. He didn't try to work that day, but after he put the offending drawings and manuscript out of sight, he wandered, read, smoked, and the evening persuaded Betty to take a moonlight walk with him. They passed the house of Dr. von Stein, from which came a faint humming that sounded like a dynamo. Across the street the church was alike for some service. Triumphant from music drifted to them. The moon hung above the spire, with its cross-outline darkly against the brilliant sky. The windows were great duels, and Betty drew a deep breath. "Sometimes, Alan," she said, "I feel like praying." "Well, you are a beautiful prayer," whispered Parker. She walked close to him, holding his arm, and repeated softly, "A not too press, a perfect strength. And shall I feel afraid?" But that was the end of that mood. By the time they arrived home, Betty was again in that strange aloof and cold and slightly hard woman of the past few days. Again, depression settled upon Alan Parker. The next morning he breakfasted alone and went directly to the studio without seeing Betty. Sun streamed into the room, and the pencil moved swiftly. For a brief time Parker thought he was himself again, as Madeline grew upon the block of paper. But by the end it was terrible; the last few strokes made her grotesque. This time the woman he'd drawn was not merely evil; she was a mocking parody of his heroine. He threw the drawing and pencil across the room. But no real artist can be discouraged short of death, so he went to work again and labored until lunchtime. The results were no better, although they varied. Now it seemed that some malevolent pal was playing with him, torturing him to the accompaniment of a devilish laughter. He was haggard and actually stooped of body when he bathed his face and went down to the dining-room. But across the table Betty regarded him curiously. Flaming proctor shut himself last night, gin outsed calmly. This morning they found him dead in his office. Proctor, you don't mean the president of the Pine Hill's national bank? Yes, the expression on Betty's face did not change. There was a note saying that he was sorry; it seems he'd made a large loan without security to an unknown person, and the bank examiner was coming today. Proctor said he couldn't help what he did. And I was confused as though he were trying to tell something and just couldn't. I think his mind must have given way, particularly as they can't trace the loan, although the money is undoubtedly gone. Wait, what? That kind of thing doesn't happen. Parker was stunned. He'd known Flaming proctor and liked him. They met often at the country club. Proctor was honest and a fine businessman. What it did happen, Alan—I'd like to know more about it. That would have been another case for Dr. von Stein to take in hand. "Perhaps," said Betty, in a voice like ice, "but I'm more interested in finding out how soon you're going to return to normal. Frankly, I'm beginning to get bored." Without a word, Parker rose and left the room, and never before it his wife hurt him like this. Dobbly sensitive just now, he was suffering alone in the studio when the telephone ran. "Dr. von Stein speaking, are you better, Mr. Parker?" "Worse. Much worse." "Then come to my house this evening at nine. May I expect you will, and alone?" "Yeah." There was much Parker wanted to say, but he choked the words back. "Yeah, I'll be there, and alone." "And I shall be ready for you. Goodbye." Alan Parker hung up the phone, he didn't leave the studio again until evening. As Parker approached the house of Dr. Friedrich von Stein, he saw that the church was lighted as it had been the night before. In a clear sky the moon rode above the spire. He paused to let his glance sweep up and along the beautiful line that ran from earth to the slender cross. That was how he felt. He wanted to rise as that line rose, from cumbering earth to clarity and beauty. He mounted the steps and ran the bell. Dr. von Stein met him, with eyes and teeth a gleaming the hallway light. Wearily, Parker stepped inside, his mood of the moment before was now fading. "The girl upstairs to my laboratory, if you please," said the doctor. "It is best that I see you there, for it may be that you will need treatment." "I need something," replied Parker as he went up a long flight of stairs. "I'm in a bad way." But as to von Stein, let him down a short corridor and held open a door. Alan Parker stepped into a room that bewildered him with its strange contrast. At a glance he saw that nearly the whole upper floor of the building had been converted into one gigantic room. There were a big stone fireplace where burning drift was sent up its many tinted flames. Heinrich stood rigidly at attention. Once the dachshund crouched at his feet. When the dog started to meet Parker, the guttural command stopped him. Here there were baskins on the floor, huge stuffed chairs, footrests, little tables, humidos, pipe racks, and all that one could desire for absolute comfort. Two German dueling swords were crossed above the mantle. But beyond this corner, everything was different. Parker saw the mass windows of reddish purple glass. He saw apparatus for which he had no name, as well as some of the ordinary paraphernalia of the chemical laboratory. I was wiring everywhere and a multitude of lighting fixtures. Utilitarian tables, desks, and chairs were placed about with mathematical precision. There were plates and strips of metal set into the glass smooth flooring, which was broken by depressions and elevations of unusual form. The most striking thing in the room was a huge copper bowl that hung inverted from the ceiling. In it, an extending down below the rim was what seemed to be a thick and stationary mist. It looked as though the bowl had been filled with a silver-gray mist and then turned bottom side up. But the cloud did not fall or float away. "I can think and speak best from my desk," von Stein was saying. "Please sit down facing me in the chair which Heinrich will place for you, and then we will talk." Heinrich rolled one of the overstuffed chairs noiselessly to a position about six feet from the desk. Parker noticed a long metal strip in the floor between him and the doctor. Just then a harness wriggled forward and the artist scratched his ears to be rewarded by a grateful time. Again, a command from Heinrich brought the dog to heel, but the voice was not so gruff this time. Together they returned to the fireplace. von Stein and his hands rest upon the desk-top. The surface covered with levers, electric switches, push-buttons, and contrivances the nature of which Parker could not guess. The doctor leaned forward. He threw over a switch. The lights in the room became less bright. He pressed a button. The dance macabre of sand songs floated weirdly upon the air, as though the music came from afar on. "Is that part of the treatment?" asked Parker, with a faint smile. "It's not exactly cheering." "Ah, merely an idiosyncrasy of mine," answered von Stein, showing his tea. "Before anything is done I must, in order to aid the receptivity of your mind, go a little further with the explanation of certain things which I mentioned the other day. I promise not to bore you, but more than that Mr. Parker, I promise that you will be more interested than you have ever been in anything else." They seemed to Parker that there was something sinister in the manner and speech of Doctor von Stein. The dance of death. "Do that music have a meaning?" So, impossible. He was only his sick mind that was allowing such thoughts to come to him. "Anything that will help," he murmured. "You have noticed that copper ball?" von Stein did not wait for him to reply. He missed the appearance inside and underneath it, is given by thousands upon thousands of minute platinum wires. When it is in use a slight electrical current is passed through it, varying in power according to the rate of vibration needed. That instrument, my dear sir, is a transmitter of thought. I may call it the microphone of the mind. I can tune in on any mind in the world by experimenting up and down the vibration range to determine the susceptibility of the particular person. The human mind does not need an amplifier, as the radio receiving said does, rather it acts as its own amplifier, but is once after having received the thought. I invented one, just to prove that it could be dark. I equipped Heinrich with it, and in half an hour by suggestion, reduced him to his present state of docile stupidity. I have, Mr. Parker, the means of moving people to do my bidding. Von Stein stopped abruptly, as over emphasis and to allow his astounding statements to take effect. Parker sat stung, struggling to grasp all the implications of what he'd just heard. Suddenly they became clear. He saw events in order, and in relation to each other. So that's how it was with a cordially alignment. He cried hoarsely, leaning forward. And it was you who had that money from Fleming Proctor. No, you are not unintelligent, no doctor von Stein. Better that science should have the alignment money than a few old women of no particular use. As for Proctor, he was a fool, I would have protected him. And my pictures, my book, I can kill you, Mr. Parker. If I choose, and anyone is at the mercy of this man, grown apart. "Not absolutely, I am sorry to say," replied the doctor. The action of thought on the human consciousnesses exactly like that of a sound on the tuneful. When the mind is tuned right, who say for illustration, the lower vibrations are not picked up out of the ether, but as few minds are tuned right, and as all vary from time to time, I am practically omnipotent. "You, you change the nature of my wife." Parker was getting a hold of himself again, and could speak with a degree of calmness. "Well, that's a worse crime than the one you've committed against me directly." "Mr. Parker," said the doctor impressively, "you are in a web. I am the spider, you are the fly. I don't particularly desire to hurt you, but I do want your wife. This is the crux of the matter. She is the woman to share my triumphs, and already I have aroused her interest. Give her up, and you will continue your work as before." Using you will lose her just as certainly as though you give her to me. "For, my dear sir, you will be insane in less than a month from now. I promise you that." Alan Parker was not one to indulge in melodrama. For a long moment he sat looking into the black eyes of Longstein, and then he spoke carefully. "If my wife of her own will loved you, and wanted freedom, I'd let her go. But this is a kind of hypnosis, and it's diabolical. But the devil was the father of magic," asked the doctor, cheerfully. "Hypnosis is unconsciously based on a scientific principle which I have mastered." Repeated advertising of a toothbrush or a box of crackers is a mild mental suggestion. Hypnosis, if you will. How might your fellow be sensible? Longstein laughed. He moved a lever upon a dial in a sheet of blue flame quivered between them. With another movement to the lever, it vanished. "I could destroy you instantly," he said, "and completely, and no one could prove a crime. I shall not do it, though; I have no time to be bothered with investigations. Think of the fate I promised you. Think, and I have no doubt you will give her. Never, I won't. Parker wiped cold drops from his forehead, for the doctor frowned thoughtfully. "I'll intensify her desire to come here tonight," he said. She herself will persuade you. Parker set his fingers into the arms of his chair as longstein rose and walked the copper bolt. He now stood directly under it, and put on goggles with shields fitting close to his feet. At the pressure of his foot a table like a fair rose from the floor in front of him. This, like the desk, was equipped with numerous dials, buttons, and levers. Onestein started to manipulate them. The great cap of copper descended until his head was enveloped by the mist of platinum wires. A faint humming grew in the room, and a tiny bell tinkled. "Ah, the connection is made," murmured Monstein. He lifted a hand for silence, then his fingers leaped him on the gadgets on the table. After that came a brief period, measured by seconds, of immobility. And the table sank from view. The copper bolt lifted, and Dr. Monstein went back to his chair. "Ah, she'll be here shortly," he said. "If that does not change your mind," he then shrugged. Parker knew what that shrug meant. He searched his mind for a plan and found none. Better to die fighting than yield, or risk the vengeance of Friedrich Monstein. If you could get the doctor away from the desk where he controlled the blue-white flame, there might be a chance to do something. Monstein was by far the larger man, but Parker had been an athlete to all of his life. "So if..." So that massive copper and platinum, he said, tentatively, "That'll make you the master of the world." My brain, my intelligence, has made me master of the world, correctly Monstein proudly. He was touched in the right spot now. "You have not seen it all, yeah." He sprang up and went to one of the tables. From his pocket he took a piece of paper and crumbled it into a ball while, with the other hand, he made some electrical connections to a plate of metal set into the surface of the table. Next, he placed the wad of paper on the plate. Then, standing at arm's length from the apparatus, he pressed a button. Instantly the paper disappeared behind a screen of the colours of the spectrum, from red to violet. The banded colours were there for a minute fraction of a second, and then there was nothing where the paper had been on the plate. Monstein smiled as he stepped away from the table. "The electron is formed by the crossing of two lines of force," he said, "and the interaction of positive and negative polarity. The electron is a stress in the ether, nothing more, but it is the stuff of which all matter is made." "Thought is vibration in one dimension, matter in two. You've just seen me untie the knots. Dissociate the electrons, as you will. In plain language I have, of course, matter to vanish utterly. That paper is not burned up. No, it no longer exists in any form. The earth upon which we stand, Parker, can be dissolved like the mist before the sun." A pole as he was at this man who boasted and made good on his terrible boasts, Alan Parker had not forgotten the purpose that was in it. Now was his chance, while von Stein stood smiling triumphantly between the table and the desk, Parker shocked from his chair with a speed of utter desperation. He fainted and drove a vicious uppercut to the jaw of Dr. Frederick von Stein. The Dr. Reel both did not go down, his fists swung, but Parker found him to be no boxer and beat a tattoo upon his midriff. von Stein began to slump, and then two thick muscleed arms closed around the artist from behind, and he was lifted clear of the floor. He kicked, tried to turn, but it was useless. The Dr. recovered himself, and his eyes blazed in a few. "Put him in the chair, Heinrich," he roared. "For this I will show you what I can do, Harry Parker." At that instant, little Hans, who had been yelping on the edge of the battle, suddenly dashed in, and leaped for the throat of von Stein, and the doctor kicked him brutally. A shriek of agony from Hans loosened the arms of Heinrich, though, and Parker got his footing again. He saw the clumsy serving man spring forward and gather his dog up to his chest, so again Parker rushed for his enemy. It was clear now that von Stein was cut off from the controls he wanted, and without Heinrich he could no longer master Parker in her fight. For an instant, he stood baffled. Then he retreated, the length of the room, taking what blows he couldn't beat all. He staggered upon a plate of metal set in the floor, righted himself, and failed in an attempt to catch hold of Parker. Suddenly he bowed in the direction of the distant doorway. Alan turned. It was Betty, she was coming down the room, staring and breathless. "Labency voila," cried von Stein. "Fare well, madam, I should like to take you with me." A great flash of colours from the spectrum sent Parker reeling back. Dr. Friedrich von Stein, who'd gone the way of the crumpled ball of paper. There was a long moment of silence, and Alan Parker found his wife in his arms clinging to him. But not too press, a perfect strength, she murmured, sobbing gently against his heart. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream, collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. 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His little round skull-cap was purged at the regulation angle. "O'Leary, to the Colonel, they're having a little trouble at the blue river station, Mercury. Trouble?" O'Leary said placidly. The Colonel looked him over. He saw a man past his first youth, thirty-five possibly forty. O'Leary was well-knit, and he had not over five feet six inches in height. His hair was closed-cropped, his features flammatic, his eyes a light blue with thick short, light-colored lashes, his teeth excellent. The scar, dead white on a brown cheekbone, was a reminder of an encounter with one of the numerous saurians of Venus. "I am sending you," explained the Colonel, "because you are more experienced and not like some of these kids always spoiling for a fight. There is something strange about this affair. Maronas, a factor of the blue riverpost, reported his assistant has disappeared, vanished, simply gone. But only three months ago the former factor, Ramonas, was his assistant, disappeared too. No hide, no air of him." Maronas reported to the company the "Mercurian trading concession, and they call me. Something, I think, is definitely rotten." "Yes, sir." "I guess I needn't tell you," the Colonel went on, "that you have to, uh, use tact. People don't seem to appreciate the falls. Wild with the lousy politicians begrudging every cent we get, and a bunch of suspicious foreign powers afraid we'll get too good." "Yeah, I know," tacked, "that's my motto. No rough stuff." He saluted, turned on his heel, "Just a minute," the Colonel had arisen, "he was a fine acetic type of man, and he held out his hand. Goodbye, old air, and watch yourself." When a layer had taken his matter of fact departure, the Colonel ran his fingers through his widening hair. In the past several months, he had sent five of his best men on dangerous missions, missions requiring tact, courage, and so it seemed very much luck. And only two of the five had come back. In those days, the interplanetary flying police did not enjoy the tremendous prestige it does now. The mere presence of a member of the force is enough, in these humdrum days of interplanetary law and order, to quell the most serious disturbance anywhere in the soulless system. But it was not always thus. This astounding prestige had to be earned with blood and courage, in many a desperate and lonely battle. It had to be snatched from the dripping jaws of death. O'lier checked over his flying ovoid, got his bearings from the poor astronomer, said his coordinate navigator, and shaved off. Two weeks later, he plunged into the thick, misty atmosphere on the dark side of Mercury. Ancient astronomers have long suspected that Mercury always presented the same side of the sun, though they were ignorant that the little planet had water and air. Its sunward side is a dreary, sterile, hot and hostile desert. Its dark side is warm and humid, and resembles to some extent the better known jungles and swarms of Venus. But it has a favorite belt, some hundreds of miles wide around its equator, where the enormous sun stays perpetually in one spot on the horizon. Sunward is the blinding glare of the desert, on the dark side, enormous banks of lowering clouds. On the dark margin of this belt are the ring storms, violent thunderstorms that never cease. They are the source of the mighty rivers which irrigate the tropical habitable belt and plunge out and boiling far into the desert. O'lea's little ship passed through the ring storms, and he didn't take over the controls until he recognized the familiar mark of the trading company, a blue comet on the aluminum roof of one of the larger buildings. Visibility was good that day, but despite the unusual clarity of the atmosphere, there was a suggestion of the sinister about the lifeless scene, the vast, irresistible river, the riotously colored jungle route, the vastness of nature dwarfed man's puny work. One horizon flashed incessantly with the livid lightning, the other was one blinding blaze of the nearby sun. An almost lost below in the savage landscape was man's symbol of possession, a few metal sheds in a clear, fenced space of a few acres. O'lea cautiously checked speed, skimmed over the turbid surface of the great river, and set her down on the ground within the compound. With his pencil-like ray-tube in his hand, he stepped out of the hatchway. A mercurian native came out of the residence, his hands together in the peace-son. For the benefit of Earthalubbers, whose only knowledge of mercury has derived from the teller view screen, it should be explained that mercurians are not human, even if they do slightly resemble us. When they hatch from eggs, pass one life phase as frog-like creatures in their rivers, and the adult stage turn more human in appearance, where their skin remains green and fish belly-white. There's no hair on their warty heads, and the eyes have no lids, and have a particular dead, staring look when they sleep, and they carry a peculiar, fishy odor with them at all times. Miss mercurian looked at olea seemingly without interest. Whereas moronas, the officer inquired, "Moronas," the native piped in English, "inside, he's busy." "All right, I'm coming in." "He's busy." "Yeah. Move over." Though the native was a good six inches taller than olea, he stepped aside when the officer pushed him. Then hand mercurians had a way of doing that when they looked into those colourless eyes. "They were not as flammatic as the face," moronas was sitting in his office. "Well, I'm here," Olea announced, helping himself to a chair. "Yeah," he said, Sallie, "who invited you?" The chair looked the factor levelly, appraising him, a big fat man, but the fat was well distributed. Saturnine face, dark hair, dark and bristly bears, the kind that thrived where other men became weak and fever-ridden, also too charged by his present appearance, an unpleasant companion and a nasty enemy. "Well, I don't see what difference it makes to you," Olea answered in his own good time, but the company invited me. "Ah, they would," moronas growled, his eyes flicker to the door, and, quick as a cat, Olea leapt to one side, his ray pencil in his hand. When moronas hadn't moved, in the door stood the native, motionless and without expression. Moronas laughed, nastily, "Kind of jumpy, eh? What is it, Nargill?" Nargill burst into a burbling succession of native phrases, which Olea had some difficulty following. "Oh, well, Nargill wants you to move your ship into one of the sheds, but the activator keys gone." "Yeah, I know," Olea resented casually, "I've got it. Leave the ship until I get ready, and I'll put it away. Get out, Nargill." The native hesitated, then, on the lift of moronas' eyebrows, he departed. Olea shifted a chair so that he could watch both moronas in the door. He reopened the conversation easily. "Well, um, we understand each other. You don't want me here, and I'm here, so what are you going to do about it?" Moronas flushed. He struggled to keep his temper down. "What do you want to know?" "What happened to the factor who was here before you?" "I don't know. The translucine wasn't coming in like it should. Samus went out into the jungle for a palava with the chiefs to find out why, and he didn't come back." "You didn't find out where he went." "I just told you," Moronas said impatiently. He went out to see the native chiefs. Alone. Of course alone. There are only two of us earthmen here. Well, I couldn't abandon this post to the wildlies, could we? Not that it'd make much difference. Well, except for Nargill. No, come near. And um, you never heard of him again? "Oh, damn it, no. Say, didn't they have any dumber strappers around than you? I told you once, I'll tell you again, and never saw hide no hair of him after that." "All right, all right." Oley regarded Moronas, classically. And so you took the job of factor and radio for an assistant, and when the assistant came he disappeared, too. Moronas grunted. He went out to get acquainted with the country, and didn't come back. Oley amassed his close scrutiny of the factor under his idle and expressionless gaze. He wasn't ready to jump to the conclusion that Moronas' uneasiness sprang from a sense of guilt. Oh, guilty or not. He had a right to feel uneasy. The man would be dense indeed if he didn't realise he was in line for suspicion, and he didn't look dense. Indeed, he was obviously a shrewd character. "Let me see you're loosing." Moronas rose, and despite his bulk, he stepped nimbly. He had the nimbleness of his Saturnian bow, which is great as some of the earlier explorers learned of that dismay. "That's the first sensible question you've asked," Moronas snorted. "Take a look at our leucine. Have a good look." He rode the way across the compound, waved his hand before the door of a strongly built shedness with definite combination of the door opened, revealing the interior. He waved him in, inviting me. "Well, you go first," Oleya said. With a sneer, Moronas stepped in. "Ah, you're safe, boy, you're safe." Oleya looked at the small pile on the floor in astonishment. Instead of the beautiful semi-transparent ships of translucine, the dried sap of a mercurian tree which is invaluable to the world as the source of an unfailing cancer cure—well, there were only a few dirty, dried-up shavings, hardly worth shipping back to earth for refining. The full significance of the affair began to dawn on the officer. The translucine trees grew only in this favored section of mercury, and the earth company had a monopoly on the entire supply. It was mostly for only earth was cancer-known, and it was on the increase. That small, almost useless pile on the floor connoted a terrible drug famine for the human race. Moronas' smile might have been a grin of satisfaction. At Oleya's question, "Is that all you've brought since the last Friday was here?" "It is," he replied. "The last load went off six months ago, and this here shed should be full to the eaves. Ah, there'll be hell to pay." "Well, it may not be tactful," Oleya remarked, "but if you've got your takings cashed away somewhere to hold up the earth for a big ransom, you'd better come across right now. You can't get away with that, fellow. You should have close to six million dollars worth of it, and you can't get away. You just can't." "This, Moronas' control is anger with some effort." "Ah, like any dumb stripper, you've made your mind up, ain't you?" "Oh, go ahead. Get something on me. Here I was, almost set to give you a lead that might get you somewhere. And you're coming off, well, trying to make out I stole the Lucene and killed those two fellas, eh?" "Go ahead. Get something on me." "But not on company grounds, no. You're leaving now." And with that he made a lunge at the officer, quite beside himself with rage. Oleya could have burnt him down, but he was far too experienced for such an amateurish trick. Instead, he ducked that we've ate, Moronas' blow, but the big man was as agile as a panther. In mid-air, so it seemed, he changed his direction of a tent. The big fists swept downward, striking Oleya's head, glancing blow. But the men of the force have always been fighters. Whatever their shortcomings is diplomats. Oleya countered with a strong right to the body, thudding solidly, for Moronas' softness did not go far below the surface. The fact of the world instantly, but not quite fast enough to bar the door. Oleya was out and inside his ship in a few seconds, slamming the hatch. "Ah, tacked," he grinned to himself, inserting the activator key. "Ah, tacked is what a fellow needs." The little space-flyer shot aloft, until the tiny figure of the factor stopped shaking its fist and entered the residence. The post had a flyer of its own, of course, but Moronas was too wise to use it in pursuit. Oleya considered what was best to do. Of course he could have placed Moronas under arrest. It still could. But that wouldn't solve the mystery of the two deaths and the missing Lucy. If the choleric factor was really guilty of the crimes, it'd be better to let him go his way in the hope that he'd betray himself. Oleya regretted that he'd not kept his tongue under closer curb, but there was no use regretting. Perhaps, after all, he ought to turn back to Pumperonas for some helpful information. His mind made up. He descended again, until he was hovering a few feet from the ground. "Moronas," he called. "Moronas," he held the hatch up. Moronas came to the door of the residence. He had a tube in his hand, a long-range weapon. "Moronas," Oleya had declared pompously, "a place you under arrest." While the effect was instantaneous, Moronas lifted the tube, and a glimmering, iridescent beam sprang out. The ship was hopping away in a second, lurching and shivering uncomfortably every time the beam struck it in its upward flight. A good few seconds continued impingement, but a miss is as good as a lightyear. "Moronas," Oleya looked into his talons. Moronas had laid aside his tube and was working with an instrument like a twin transict, plotting the ship's course naturally. Oleya set his course for the Earth and kept on it for a good twenty-four hours. Moronas, if he was still watching him, would think he'd gone back for reinforcements. Of course, such an assumption would be incredible now, but hours before the IFP had achieved its present tremendous reputation. Beyond observation range, Oleya curved back toward Mercury again, and was almost inside its atmosphere when he made a discovery that caused him to lose for a moment his natural indifference, and to clamp his jaws in anger. The current oxygen tank had become empty, and when he removed it from the rack and put in a new one, he found that someone had let out all of his essential gas. The valve of every one of his spare tanks had been opened. That Oleya actually continued on his way to Earth. He would have perished miserably if suffocation long before he could have returned to the mercurian atmosphere. The officer whistled tunelessly through his teeth, as he considered this fact. The visibility was, by this time, normal; that is, so poor it would not have been possible to land very close to the trading station. Oleya was taking no chances; it came down a good three Earth miles away. The egg-shaped hull sank through the glossy, brilliant treetops, through twisted vines, and was buried in the dank gloom of the jungle. Here it might remain hidden for a hundred years. The twilight of the jungle was almost darkness. There were no landmarks, but Oleya made a few small inconspicuous marks on the trees with his knife, until he came to an outcropping of rot. He'd noticed the scar-like white of its slashing through the jungle from the air, and used it as a guide to direct his stealthy return to the trading post. His belt chronometer told him it would be about time from our ownists to get out from his night sleep. A little discreet observation might tell much. Long before he reached the compound, Oleya heard the rushing of the Great Blue River in his head-long plunge to the corrosive heat of the desert, and then, through the mists, he glimpsed the white metal walls of the company's sheds. He climbed a tree, and for a long time watched patiently, lying prone on a limb. Blood-sucking insects tortured him, and flat tree lice resembling discs with legs crawled over him inquisitively. Oleya tolerated them with stoic indifference, until at last his patience was rewarded. Moreonese was coming out of the compound. He was alone, and obviously did not suspect that he was being watched, but he stepped out briskly. Once in the jungle he walked even faster, watching out wearily for the panther-like carnivora that were the most dangerous to man on Mercury. Oleya shined to the ground and followed cautiously. Moreonese had his rage with him, as any traveler in these jungles should. Oleya could and did draw fast, but a dead trader would be valueless to him in this investigation, so he stalked him with every faculty strained to maintain complete silence. Often in occasional clearings where the brown darkness grew less, he had to grovel on the slimy ground, picking up large bacteria that could be seen with a naked eye, and which left tiny, festering red marks on his skin. The trader seemed to be heading for the higher ground, for the path led ever upward, though not far from the tossing waters of the river. And then, suddenly, he disappeared. Oleya didn't immediately hurry after him. A canny fugitive, catching sight of his pursuer, might suddenly drop to the ground and squirm to the side of the trail, there to wait and catch his pursuer as he passed. So Oleya, sidled into the awe, but impenetrable underbrush and slowly, with infinite caution, wormed his way along. Presently he came to the little rise of ground where Moreonese had disappeared, but a painstaking search did not reveal the fact. There were, however, a number of other trails that joined the very faint trail that he'd been following. Now, there was a well-defined track which continued to lead upward. With a grimace of disgust, Oleya again plunged into the odourist underbrush, and travelled parallel to the trail. That was well he did so, for several mercurians passed swiftly, intent so it seemed, in answering to a shrill call that at times came faintly to the ear. They carried slender spears. Several more mercurians passed. The growth was thinning out, and Oleya did not dare to proceed further. However, from his hiding-place he could discern a number of irregular cave openings, apparently leading downward. They were apparently the entrances to one of the native cavern colonies, or perhaps a meeting-place. No Earthmen had ever entered one, but it was thought that they had underground openings into the river. As the cave openings were obviously natural, Oleya conjectured that there might be others that were not used. After an anxious search he found one, narrow and irregular, well hidden under the broad, glossy leaves of some uncatalogged vegetation. As it showed no evidence of use, Oleya, unhesitatingly slid down into it. It was very narrow and irregular, so that often he was barely able to squeeze through. The roots of trees choked the passage for a dozen feet or so, requiring the vigorous use of a knife. Bathed in sweat, his uniform of filthy mass of rags, Oleya, at last saw light. The passage ended abruptly near the roof of a large natural cavern. Lights glistened on stalactites which cut off Oleya's larger view, and voices came from below. By craning his neck the officer could look between the pendant icicles of rock and see a fire burning on a huge, oblong block of stone. Figures were sitting on the floor around his block, hundreds of mercurions. The leaping flames made their white and green faces and bodies looked frog-like and less human than usual. But the figure that dominated the whole assemblage, both by its own hugeness and the magnetic power that flowed from it, was not of mercury but of Pluto. For the benefit of those who have never seen a stuffed plutonium in our museums, they are very rare. Let me refer you to the pious books still to be found in ancient library collections. The ancients personified their fears and hates, in a being they called, the devil. The resemblance between the devil of their imagination and the plutonium is really a astounding. Horns, hooves, tail, almost to the smallest detail, the resemblance is clearly there. Philosophers have written books on the coincidence in appearance of the ancient devil and the modern decadent plutonium's. The plutonium's were once numerous and far advanced in science, and no doubt they called on the earth many times in prehistoric days, and the so-called devil was a true picture of those vicious invaders, who were somewhat less human than usually portrayed. What was once classed as superstition was therefore a true racial memory. Long before our ancestors came out of their caves to build houses, plutonium's had mastered interplanetary travel. I need to forget the secret until human ingenuity should reveal it once more. The modern plutonium in that dank cave was over ten feet tall, and it's easy to see why he dominated the assemblage. His black visage was set in an evil smile; his ebony body glistened in the firelight. He held a three-pronged spear in one hand and sat on a pile of rocks, sort of rough thrown, so that he towered magnificently above all others. He spoke the mercurian language, although the liquid intonations came harshly from his sneering lips. "Ah, ye assembled frog-folk, that ye may hear the decision of your thinking once," he asked. A respectful, peeping, chorus signified ascent. But in that there was a hint of unrest, even a fear. "Speak, ye thinking one, your commands!" "Hear me first!" An old mercurian, unusually tall, faded and dry-looking, thick-hide wrinkled like crushed leather, rose slowly to his feet and stepped before the oblong stone. His back was to the plutonium, his face to the crescent of chiefs. "Ah, the wise one!" A twittering murmur went around the assemblage. "Hear, the old wise one!" "My people, I like this knot," began the ancient. The lords of the green star have dealt with us fairly. Each phase they have brought us the things we wanted. He touched his spear and a few gaudy ornaments on his otherwise-naked body, in exchange for the worthless white sap of our trees. If we longer offend the lords of the green star, a raucous laugh interrupted the mercurian's feeble voice and echoed eerily from the walls of the chamber. "Valueless," you call the white sap, sneer the plutonium, "you hear me. That sap you call valueless is dearer than life itself, to the lords of the green star. For they are afflicted in great numbers, with a stinking death they call cancer. It destroys their vitals and nothing. Nothing in this broad universe can help save them, save this white sap that you give them. In your hands you have the power to bring the proud lords of the green star to their knees. They would fill this chamber many times with the most priceless treasures for the sap you give them so freely. With all the sap your thinking ones may go to the green star itself to rule over its lords. They are desperate; their emissaries may even now be on the way to beg your pleasure. Make thinking ones, would you not rule that green star?" But the chiefs failed to become enthused. One of them rose and addressed the plutonium, "Oh lord of the outer orbit, for near one full phase have you dwelt among us, and well should you know we have no desire for conquest. We fear to go to the green star to rule, and let me rule for you," exclaimed the plutonium instantly. "My brothers will abide with you as your guests. She'll see that you receive a fair reward for the white sap, and I'll convey your commands to the lords of the green star." To this the old wise one raised is withered hands, so the uncertain twittering of voices which followed the plutonium suggestion subsided. "Hi children," piped the feeble old voice, "the black lord has spoken, cunning words, but they are false. It's plain to see that he desires to rule the green star, and how well fed does not concern him. If so, it be that the white sap is of great value to the lords of the green star, it is still of no value to us, and if the gifts they bring us are of no value to them, then they are dear to us." The plutonium sneered at this, dearer than the paste of strange dreams. The startled hush fell among the assembled macurions. They looked guiltily at one another, avoiding the eyes of the old wise one. "What is this?" he shrilled, turning furiously to the plutonium. "Have you brought the paste of evil to Arab old, knowing well the strict prescription of our tribe—f-f-f-full—your death is now upon you?" By the plutonium only grinned and spread his glistening, black hands in a careless gesture. I overhead, peering through the stalactites, O'lea instantly understood the plutonium's strange power—the paste of strange dreams—fear some narcotic of that far swinging dark planet. More insidious and devastating than any drug ever produced on Earth, it had wrought frightful havoc among many solar races. The Earth-mandered opened the lanes, broken the age or barriers of distance, so that the harpies of evil could traffic their poison from planet to planet, and so the paste of strange dreams was added to the Earthman's burden. "Seize him, any evil one!" shrieked the old chief, but the macurions sat solemn and silent, and the plutonium sneered. Finally one of the chief's arose, with an effort faced the old wise one and said. Strange dreams are dearer to us than all else. Do as he said, the piping voices rose in eager acclamation, but the old wise one held up his claws, waiting until silence returned. "Wait, wait, before you commit this folly, hear the green starman. Many times as he demanded audience, let him come in." "It is not permitted," demurred one of the chiefs. He prevented this being of evil to enter, and let him enter also. "He is in the outer chambers now," one of the guards spoke. His face is like the center of a ring storm. Let him enter. And so Moronis strode into the room angrily, blinded by the fire after the darkness of the anti-chamberts. He didn't at first see the plutonium. He strode up to the ancient chief and glared at him. "Does the old wise one learn wisdom at last?" he asked. The ancient shrank away from him asked of the nearer of the lesser chiefs. The old wise one thinks less of his wisdom. He replied wearily. "Behold," he pointed to the enthroned plutonium. Moronis started. His hand flashed to his side and came away empty. Their fingers had extracted his ratio, but he was a man of courage, and never could it be said to his shame that an earthman cringed in the sight of lesser races. "So, it's you, my friend," he snarled in English. The plutonium, accomplished linguist, replied, "As you see, you don't look very happy, Mr. Moronis." Moronis regarded him impassively. His eyes frosted. "That explains everything," he said at last with cold deliberation. "First, Samus, then boyed." "Gonna finish me next, I suppose." The plutonium twisted the end of an eyebrow and smiled. "Intrusted in them." "What you do with their bodies?" The plutonium jerked his thumb carelessly. "Ah, the river you call, the blue, is swift and deep. But before you follow them, there is certain information I wish to get from you. Where is the soldier who came to visit you?" A crafty light came into Moronis' face. "Oh, he's not far from here, waiting for me." "Oh, Lea, in his cramped hiding place, could not help feeling a warm glow of admiration from Moronis' nerve, because Moronis thought him well on his way to Earth." "Nargill, what did your master do at the visitor?" "Frove him back to the green star," Nagill said promptly. "And the oxygen chanks, did you empty them?" "I let them hiss," Nagill's grin was sharkish. "News to you, hey, Moronis. Your office's corpse has probably dropped into the sun by this time. Tell me, why did you drive him off?" Moronis sowed perceptibly. "To gain a little more time," he said truthfully, "and you, I should be blamed and ruined for life. I didn't know you were here, damn you. I hoped to get this mess with the date of straighten up before he'd come back with reinforcements." "Yes, well, you owe some months of life already. Your presence here has been more or less embarrassing. But I had to let you live or I'd have the whole IFP here to investigate. Now that you've failed in keeping them from getting interested, you may do me one more service. The black giant then grinned. I often wondered that the Earthman's prestige all over the solar system. And tonight, so often helpless as you are, these natives fear you. You will, therefore, be an objectless in the helplessness of Earthman." Moronis was pale but courageous. With contempt in every line of him, he watched some of the less frightened chiefs at the command of the plutonium push aside some of the blazing blocks of fungus on the stone to make room for his body. "At last," he raised his hand. "Frogfolk," he cried, "if you do this thing, the laws of the Green Star will come. They'll come with fires hotter than the sun, and they'll blast your rivers with a power greater than a thunder of the ring-storms. They'll fill your cage with a purple smug that turns your bones to water." Trill cries of fear almost drowned out his words. All the mercurians had seen evidence of the dreadful power of the Earthmen. They began milling around, and then stood rooted by the roar of the plutonium's voice. "Lies, all lies," he bellowed. "See, they are weak as egglets," he stepped down, picked Moronis up by one shoulder and held him dangling high over the heads of all. One is clawed and tore at the brawny arm, but he made a ludicrous picture. Soon the simple natives made a sniffling sound of Murph, and the plutonium satisfied at last set him down again. "He tells the truth," the old wise one climbed the top of the stone block. "The lords of the Green Star have their power, not in their bodies, but it is great. It's greater farther than the frogfolk. It's greater than the lords of the Outer Orbit. They will come, even as the surly one has said, and great shall be our sorrow. It's not too late yet. Release him, release him, and deliver to him the white sap. Seize this evil one." And so the feeble, fickle minds were being swayed again. In a gust of impatience, the plutonium stepped down, seized the aged chief's skinny body in his great black hands and snapped him into. There was a rough tearing of cords and tissue, and the two halves fell into the fire. Off for an instant the mercurians were stunned, then some of them vented hissing sounds of rage while others prostrated themselves on the floor. The black giant watched them narrowly for a moment, then turned his attention back to Murony. He seized him by the arm and drew him slowly, and he resistably to him. The murder of the old wise one had been done so quickly that O'lea was unable to prevent it. Had he been able to use his ray weapon, he could have burned the plutonium down, but it had been bent at one of the narrow turns of the crevice he'd come down. So it was that the need for extreme lightness in weapons was rather overdone in those early times. And just a little rough handling made them useless. So now O'lea, weaponless except for the service knighted his belt, began the hazardous undertaking of climbing among the stalactites to a position approximately above the plutonium's head. This job required judgement. Some of the stone masses were insecurely anchored and would crash down at the slightest touch. Some were spaced so closely together he couldn't get between them, but others were so far apart it was difficult to get from one to another. Yet he made it somehow, and unnoticed, for all eyes were being turned on the tense drama being enacted below. From a most directly overhead, you saw Maronas being drawn upward. "You saw?" The plutonium was saying triumphantly in Macurian, "You saw me unmake your old fool. Now you'll see that a lord of the green star is even softer, even weaker." Maronas, in that pitiless grasp, turned his face to the hateful grinning visage above him. In his last extremity, he was still angry. "You devil," Maronas shouted, "you may murder me, but they'll get you. They will get you." "Who'll get me?" The plutonium purred silkily, deferring the pleasure of the kill for another moment. Maronas was having trouble with his breathing. His face was red, lolling from side to side, his eyes rolled in agony. But suddenly, he saw O'lea, unbelieving, he relaxed, "Oh, I'm seeing things," he breathed. "Oh, get me," persisted the plutonium, applying a little more pleasure. "The IFP," Maronas gasped. "Oh, you little son of a," O'lea thought, and then he jumped. He landed a straddle, the neck of the plutonium, which was almost like forking a horse. One brawny arm seized a horn, the other, with a lightning swift dart, brought the point of the long service knife to the pulsating black throat. Put him down, O'lea spoke in the great pointed ear. Easy now. Back on his feet, Maronas began bellowing at the macurions. Utterly demoralized, they fled, pale now, but Maronas came back and said, "Nothing to time up with?" "That's all right," O'lea replied, studiously keeping the knife pointed at exactly the right place. "I'll ride him in. How you get going and be tactful when you go through the door, or this sticker of mine might slip." With extreme care, the plutonium did exactly as O'lea had ordered him to. It was necessary to radio for one of the larger betrot ships to take O'lea's enormous prisoner back to Earth for his trial. The officer testified, of course, and the plutonium was duly sentenced to death for the murder of the old macurion. Execution by dehydration was decreed, so the body would be uninjured for scientific study, and today it's considered one of the finest specimens extant. In his testimony, however, O'lea so minimized his own connection with the case that he received no public recognition. 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It was a mistake for me to mention that I'd recorded for the Archives of the Council the history of a certain activity of the Special Patrol. A bit of secret history which may not be mentioned here. And now they insist, and by they I refer to the chiefs of the Special Patrol Service, that I write of other achievements of the service. Other adventures worthy of none. Perhaps that's the penalty of becoming old. From Commander of the Booty, one of the greatest of the Special Patrol ships, to the duties of recording ancient history for a younger man to read and dream about. That's a shrew blow to one's bride. But if I can, in some small way, add luster to the record of my service. We'll be a fitting task for a man growing old and grey in that service. Work for hands too weak and posied for standard duties. But I shall tell my stories in my own way, after all they are, my stories, and I shall tell the stories that appeal to me most. The universe has had enough and too much of dry history. He shall be adventurous tales, to make the blood of a young man who reads them. We're on a trifle faster, and perhaps the blood of the old man who writes them. This, the first, shall be the story of the star L472. You know it today is Iberts, port of call for interplanetary ships, and the source of oh-crite for the universe, but to me it'll always be L472, the world of terrible tentacles. My story begins nearly a hundred years ago, reckoned in terms of earth time, which is proper since I am a native of earth, when I was a young man. I was a sub-commander at the time of the Khaled, one of the early ships of the Space Patrol. He'd been caught a zinnier on special orders, and Commander Jameson, after an absence of some two hours, returned to the Khaled with his face shining, one of his rare smiles telling me in advance that he had news and good news. He hurried me up to the deserted navigating room and waved me to a seat. "Hanson," he said, "I'm glad to be the first to congratulate you. You are now Commander John Hanson of the Special Patrol Ship Khaled." "Sir," I gasped, "do you mean it?" His smile broadened, and the breast pocket of the trim blue and silver uniform of our service, he drew a long, crackling paper. "You're a commission," said, "I'm taking over the Burrellas." It was my turn to extend congratulations then. The Burrellas was the newest and greatest ship of the service. We shook hands, that ancient gesture of good fellowship on Earth. But that's how our hands unclasped. Jameson's face grew suddenly great. "I have more than this news for you, though," he said slowly. "You are to have a chance to earn your comet, hardly." The smile broadly at the mention of the comet, the silvering sickening of a war on over the heart, though it marked my future rank as Commander, replacing the four-rate star of a sub-Commander, which I now wore on my tuning. "Tell me more, sir," I said confidently. "You've heard of the Special Patrol Ship Philanas," asked my late Commander, gravely. "Hm, reported lost in space," I replied promptly. "And the, uh, dollar loss?" "Why, yes, she was at base here at our last call," I said. Searching his face anxiously, Peter Wilson was second-office runner, one of my best friends. "Why don't you ask about her, sir?" "Hm, the, uh, dollar loss is missing also," said Commander Jameson, solemnly. While those ships were sent upon a particular mission, neither of them has returned. It's concluded that some common fate has overtaken them. The garlic, under your command, is commissioned to investigate these disappearances. You're not charged with the mission of these other ships; your orders are to investigate their disappearance. The course, together with the official patrol orders, I shall hand you presently, but with them go verbal orders. You ought to lay and keep the course designated, which will take you well out of the beaten path to a small world which has not been explored, but which has been circumnavigated a number of times by various ships remaining just outside the atmospheric envelope. I've found to be without evidence of intelligent habitation. In other words, without cities, roads, canals, or any other evidence of human-handy work or civilization. I believe your instructions give you some of this information, but not all of it. This world, unnamed because of its uninhabited condition, is charted only as L-472. Your larger charts will show it, I'm sure. The atmosphere is reported to be breathable by inhabitants of Earth and other beings having the same general requirements. The vegetation is reported as dense, covering the fire continents of the world, to the edges of the northern and southern polar caps, which are small. On top of graphically, the country is rugged in the extreme, with many peaks, apparently volcanic, but now inactive or extinct, on all of its five large continents. And to land there, sir, ayah, Stegel, your own is very specific upon that point, as I come out of Jameson. You're not to land until you've carefully and thoroughly done a recon from above a low altitude. You'll exercise every possible caution. Your specific purpose is simply this, to determine if possible, the fate of the other two ships, and report your findings at once. The chiefs of the service will then consider the matter, and take whatever action may seem advisable to them. Jameson then rose to his feet and thrust at his hand in Earth's final salute to farewell. "Now I must be going handsome," he said. "I wish this patrol were mine instead of yours. You are a young man for such a responsibility." "But," I replied, with the glowing confidence of youth, "I have the advantage of having served under Commander Jameson." He smiled as we shook again, and shook his hand. "Ah, discretion can be learned only by experience," he said, "but I wish you success handsome, on this undertaking hand on many others." Supplies are on their way now. The crew will return from leave within the hour. A young zenian by the name of Deval, I believe, is detailed to accompany you as a scientific observer. Purely unofficial capacity, of course. He's been ordered to report to you at once. You are to depart as soon as feasible. You know what that means. Oh, I believe that's all. Yeah, I've almost forgotten. Here in this envelope are your orders and your course, as well as all available data on L472. And this little casket is your comet, Hanson. I know you're worried with honor. "Thank you, sir," I said, a bit huskyly. I saluted then, and Commander Jameson acknowledged the gesture with stiff precision. Commander Jameson always had the reputation of being something of a martinet. When he'd left, I picked up the thin blue envelope he'd left me. Across the face of the envelope in the, to my mind, jagged and an unbeautiful universal script was my name, followed by the proud title, "Commander Special Patrolship Carlet." My first order. There was a small oval box of blue leather with a silver crest of the service in base relief on the lid. I opened the case and gazed with shining eyes at the gleaming silver comet that nestled in there. And slowly, I unfastened the four-eight star on my left breast and placed in, instead, the insignia of my commander ship. One smooth and shiny now, and still my most precious possession. Kincaid, my second officer, turned and smiled as I entered the navigating room. Al 472, now registers maximum attraction, sir, he reported, dead ahead and coming up nicely. My last figures, and pleaded about five minutes ago, indicate that we should reach the gaseous envelope in about ten hours. Kincaid was also a native of Earth, and we commonly used Earth-time measurements in our conversation. As is still the case, ships of the Special Patrol Service were commanded without exception by natives of Earth, and the entire office of personnel held largely from the same planet, although I have had several zenian officers of rarerability and courage. I nodded, thanked him for the report. Maximum attraction, eh? All that, considering the small size of our objective, meant we were much closer to L472 than to any other regular body. Mechanically I studied the various dials about the route. The attraction meter, as Kincaid had said, registered several degrees of attraction, and the red slide on the rim of the dial was squarely at the top, showing that the attraction was coming from the world at which our nose was pointed. The surface temperature gauge was normal. Internal pressure, normal. Internal moisture content, a little high. Kincaid, watching me, spoke up. "I've already given orders to dry out, sir," he said. "Very good, Mr. Kincaid. Well, it's a long trip, and I want the crew in good condition." I studied the two charts, one showing our surroundings, laterally, the other vertically. All bodies about us represented as glowing spots of green light, of varying sizes, and the ship itself is a tiny, scarlet spot. Having a ship-shape, perhaps a degree or two of elevation when we were a little closer. "May I come in, sir?" broke in a gentle, high-pitched voice. "Certainly, Mr. Deval," I replied, answering in the universal language in which the request to be made. You know, always very welcome. Deval was a typical zenian of the finest type, slim, very dark, and with the amazingly intelligent eyes of his kind. His voice was very soft and gentle, and like the voice of all his people, clear and high pitched. "Thank you," he said. "I guess I'm over-eager, but there's something about this mission of ours that worries me." I seemed to feel. He broke off abruptly and began pacing back and forth across the room. I studied him frowning. The zenians have a strange way of being right about such things. Their high-strung, sensitive natures incapable of responding to these delicate, vagrant forces which even now are only incompletely understood and classified. "You're, er, not used to, work of this sort," I replied, as bluffly and heartily as possible. "There's nothing to worry about." "The commanders of the two ships that disappear probably felt the same way, sir," said Deval. "I should have thought the chiefs of the special patrol surface would have sent several ships on a mission such as this." "Easy to say," I laughed bitterly. "And if the council would pass the appropriations we need, we might have ships enough so that we could send a fleet of ships when we wished. And instead of that, the council, and its infinite wisdom, builds greater laboratories and schools of higher learning, unless the patrol get along as best it can." "It was from the laboratories and the schools of higher learning that all these things sprang," replied Deval quietly, "glossing around at the array of instruments which made navigation in space possible." "Eh, true," I admitted rather shortly, "we must work together, and as for what we shall find upon the little world ahead, we should be there in nine or ten hours. You may wish to make some preparations." "Nine or ten hours? That's earth time, isn't it? Let's see. It's about two and a half an hour." "Correct," I smiled. The universal methods of reckoning and time had never appealed to me. For those of my readers who may only be familiar with earth time measurements, an E-NAR is about eighteen earth days, an E-NAR in a little less than two earth days, and an E-NAR-O in four and a half hours. The universal system has the advantage, I admit, of a decimal division, and I found it clumsy always. I may be stubborn and old-fashioned, but a clock faced with only ten numerals and one hand still strikes me as being unbeautiful and inefficient. Two and a half in A-R-O's, repeated Deval thoughtfully. I believe I shall see if I can get a little sleep now. I should not have brought my books with me, I'm afraid. I read when I should sleep. Will you call me? Should there be any developments of interest?" I assured him that he would be called as he requested, and he laughed. "A decent sort of chap, sir," observed King Cade, glancing at the door through which Deval had just departed. A student, why not it, with the contempt of violent youth for the man of gentler pursuits of mine, and turned my attentions to some calculations for entry in the law. Visited with the intricate details of my task, time passed rapidly. The watch changed, and I joined my officers in the tiny, arch-diling sum off. During the meal that I noticed for the first time a sort of tenseness. Every member of the mess was unusually quiet, and though I would not have admitted it then, I was not without a good deal of nervous restraint myself. "Gentlemen," I remarked, when the meal was finished, "I believe you understand our present mission. Primarily our purpose is to ascertain, if possible, the fate of two ships that were sent here and who have not returned. We're now close enough for reasonable observation by means of the television disk, and I shall take over its operation myself." There's no gain saying the fact that whatever fate overtook the two other patrol ships might also lay in way for us, my orders that to observe every possible precaution, and to return with a report. I'm going to ask that each of you proceed immediately to his post, and make ready, so far as possible, for any eventuality. Worn the watch, which has just gone off to be ready for instant duty. The disintegrator ray-generators should be started and be available for instant emergency use, maximum power, and have the bombing crews ready for standby. "What do you anticipate, sir?" asked Corey, my new sub-commander. The other officers waited intensely for my reply. "I don't know, Mr. Corey. I admit it reluctantly. We have no information upon which to base an assumption. We do know the two ships have been sent there, and neither of them have returned. Something prevented that return, and we must endeavor to prevent that same fate from overtaking the college and ourself." Part 2. Hurrying back to the navigating room, I posted myself beside the cumbersome old-fashioned television instrument. Now 4.72 was near enough now to occupy the entire field, with a range hand at maximum. One whole continent and parts of two others were visible. Not many details could be made out though. I waited grimly while an hour, and two hours went by. I filled narrow down to one continent, and to a part of one continent. I glanced up at the surface temperature gauge and noted that the hand was registering a few degrees above normal. Corey, who had relieved Kincaid, was navigating over sir, followed my gaze. "Shall we reduce speed, sir?" he asked, crisply. To twice atmospheric speed, I nodded. When we entered the envelope proper, reduced to normal atmospheric speed, audio-cores upon entering the atmosphere proper, and worked back and forth along the emerging twilight zone, from the north polar cap to the southern cap, and so on. "Yes, sir," he replied, and repeated the orders to the control room forward. I pressed the attention signal of Devile's cubicle, and informed him that we were entering the outer atmospheric replenish. "Thank you, sir," he said eagerly, "I shall be with you immediately." In rapid succession I called various officers and gave terse orders. All crews on duty in the generator compartment. The ray projectors, the atomic bomb magazines, and the release tubes, observers at all observation posts, operators of the two smaller television instruments to comb the terrain and report instantly of, not any object of interest. With the three of us searching, it seemed incredible that anything could escape us. At atmospheric altitudes, even the two smaller television instruments would be able to pick up a body the size of one of the missing ships. Devile entered the room as I finished giving my order. "Strange world, Devile," I commented, glancing towards the television instrument, covered with trees, even the mountains, and what I presume to be volcanic peaks. They crowd right down to the edge of the water. He adjusted the focusing lever slightly, his face lighting up with the interest of a scientist gazing at a strange specimen, whether it be a microwave or a new world. "Strange, strange," he muttered, "a universal vegetation, not a variation of type from equated to polica, apparently. And the water--did you know it is colour, sir?" "Purple," I nodded. "It varies on the different worlds, you know. I've seen pink, red, white, and black seas, as well as the green and blue of earth." "Hmm, and no small islands," he went on, as though he'd not even hurt me, and I'm the visible portion at any rate. I was about to reply when I felt the peculiar surge of the carlid as she reduced speed. A glassed at the indicator, watching the hand drop slowly to atmospheric speed. "Keep a close watch, Devile," I ordered. "You should change our course now to comb the country for traces of two ships we're seeking. If you see the least suspicious sign, let me know immediately." He nodded, and for a time there was only a tense silence in the room, broken at intervals by Corey as he spoke briefly into his microphone, giving orders to the operating room. "Perhaps an hour went by, I'm not sure; it seemed like a longer time than that, though." Then Devile called out in sudden excitement, his high, thin voice stabbing the silence. "Here, sir, look, a little clearing, artificial, I judge, and the ships, both of them." "Stop the ship, Mr. Corey," I snapped as I hurried to the instrument. Devile took those reports. I gestured towards the two attention signals that were glowing and softly humming and thrust my head into the shelter of the television instrument's big hood. And all Devile had made no mistake, directly beneath me, as I looked, was a clearing, a perfect square with rounded corners, obviously blasted out of the solid forest by the delicate manipulation of sharply focused disintegrate arrays, and upon the naked, pitted surface, thus exposed, side by side in orderly array, were the missing ships. I studied the strange scene with a heart that thumped excitedly against my ribs. "What should I do?" Return a report, to send and investigate. There was no sign of life around the ships, and no evidence of damage. I wonder if I brought the car lid down, will she make a fur to remain there, to also be marked, lost in space, on the records of the service, and reluctantly I drew my head from beneath the shielding hood. "What were the two reports, Devile?" I asked, and my voice was thin. The other two television observers. "Yes, sir, they report that they cannot positively identify the ships with their instruments, but feel certain that they are the two that we seek." Very good. Tell them pleased to remain on watch, searching space in every direction, and to report instantly anything suspicious. "Mr. Curry, we'll descend until this small clearing becomes visible through the ports to the unaided eye. I'll give you the corrections to bring us directly over the clearing." I read the finer scales of the television instrument to him. He rattled off the figures, calculated an instant, and gave his orders to the control room, while I kept the television instrument bearing upon the odd clearing on the two motion-deserted ships. As resettled, I can make out the insignia of the ships, could see the pitted, stained earth of the clearing, brown with the dust of disintegration. I could see the surrounding trees very distinctly now. They seem really similar to our weeping willows on earth, which I, perhaps, should explain since it's impossible for the average individual to have a comprehensive knowledge of the flora and fauna of the entire known universe. It is a tree of considerable size, having long, hanging branches arching from its crown and reaching nearly to the ground. These leaves, like typical willow leaves, were long and slender, and a rusty green colour. The trunks and branches seem to be black or dark brown, and the trees grew so thickly that nowhere between their branches was the ground visible. "I have a thousand feet, sir," said Kari. Directly above the clearing, "should we descend further?" "A thousand feet at a time," Mr. Kari, I replied, after a moment's hesitation. My orders are to exercise the utmost caution. Mr. Deval, please make a complete analysis of the atmosphere. I believe you are familiar with the traps provided for the purpose. "Yes, you proposed a lancer?" I proposed to determine the fate of those two ships and the man who brought them here. I said with sudden determination. Deval did not reply, but as he turned to abey orders, I saw that his presentiment of trouble had not left him. "Four thousand feet now, sir," said Kari. I nodded, studying the scene below us. A great hooded instrument brought it within, apparently, fifty feet of my eyes, but the great detail revealed nothing of interest. The two ships lay motionless, huddled close together. The great circular door of each was open, as though open that same day, or maybe a century before. "Three thousand feet, sir," said Kari, proceeded the same speed, I replied. "Whatever fate had overtaken the man of the other ships had caused them to disappear entirely, and without sign of his struggle. But what conceivable fate could that be?" "Two thousand feet, sir," said Kari. "Good," I said grimly. "Continue with the descent, Mr. Kari." While hurried into the room, as I spoke, his face was still clouded with foreboding. "I have tested the atmosphere, sir," he reported, "it is suitable for breathing by either man of earth or zenia. No trace of noxious gases of any kind. It is probably rather rarefied, such as one might find on earth or zenia at high altitudes." "One thousand feet, sir," said Kari. "I hesitated, for instance, undoubtedly the atmosphere had been tested by the other ships before they landed. In the case of the second ship, but to any rate, those in command must have been on the alert against danger, and yet both of those ships lay their motionless, vacant, deserted. I could feel the eyes of the man only. My decision must be delayed no further." "We will land, Mr. Kari," I said grimly. "Near the two ships, please." "Very well, sir," nodded Kari, and spoke briefly into the microphone. "I might warn you, sir," said Deval quietly. "To govern your activities once outside, free from the gravity pads of the ship, on a body of such small size, an ordinary step will probably cause a leap of considerable distance." "Yeah, thank you, Mr. Deval. There is a consideration I'd overlooked. I shall warn the man. We must--" "At that instant I felt the slight jar of landing." I glanced up, and at Kari's grave glanced squarely. "Round it, sir," he said quietly. "Very good, Mr. Kari. Keep the ship ready for instant action, please, and call the landing crew to the forward exit." "Will you accompany us, Mr. Deval?" "Certainly, sir." "Good." "You understand your orders, Mr. Kari?" "Yes, sir." I then returned his salute, and led the way out of the room, Deval, close on my heels. The landing crew was composed of all men, not at regular stations. Nearly half of the Khaled's entire crew. They were equipped with the small atomic power pistols as sidearms, and there were two three men disintegrate at race squads. The old war menors, which were unnecessary in the ship, but decidedly useful outside. I might add that the menorah of those days was not the delicate, beautiful thing that it is today. It was comparatively crude, and clumsy band of metal in which were embedded the vital units in the tiny atomic energy generator, and was worn upon their head like a crown. But for all its clumsiness, it conveyed and received thought, and, after all, that was all we demanded of it. I caught a confused jumble of questioning thoughts as I came up, and took command of the situation promptly. It will be understood, of course, that in those days men had not learned to blank their minds against the menorah, as they do today, and took generations of training to perfect that ability. Up in the exit, I ordered Kincaid, who was standing by the switch, key in the lock. "Yes, sir," he thought promptly. And unlocking the switch, released the lever. The great circular door revolved, backing slowly on its fine threads, gripped by the massive gimbals, which, at last, the ponderous plug of metal-freeded softener its threads, swung the circular door aside, or the door of a vault. Fresh clean air swept in, and we breathed it gravely. Science can revitalize air; take out impurities and replace used up constituents. But it cannot give the freshness of pure natural air, even the science of today. Mr. Kincaid, you'll stand by with five men, and to no circumstances are you to leave your post until ordered to do so. No rescue parties under any circumstances are to be sent out unless you have those orders directly from me. Should any untoward thing happen to this party, you will instantly reseal this exit, reporting at the same time to Mr. Corey, who has his orders. You will not attempt to rescue us, but we'll return to the base and report in full with Mr. Corey in command. Is that clear? Certainly. Came back his response instantly, but I could sense the rebellion in his mind. Kincaid and I were old friend as one of his fellow officers. I smiled at him reassuringly and directly my orders to the waiting man. They were aware of the fate of the two ships of the patrol that have already landed here. I thought slowly, to be sure they understood perfectly. What fate overtook them, I did not know. That's what we're here to determine. Now, it's obvious that this is a dangerous mission. I'm not ordering any of you to go. Any man who wishes to be relieved from landing duty may remain inside the ship, and without reproach. Those who do a go should be constantly on the alert and keep information, the usual column of tools. Be very careful when stepping out of the ship to adjust your stride to the lesson gravity of this small world. Watch this point. And then turn to devow, motioned him to fall in at my side. With a backward glance we marched out of the ship, treading very carefully to keep from leaping into the air with each step. Twenty feet away, I glanced back. They were fourteen men behind me, and a single man of the landing crew would remain in the ship. "I am proud of you, man," I thought heartily, and no emanation from any manor was ever more sincere. Cautiously, eyes roving ceaselessly, made our way towards the two silent ships, seemed a quiet peaceful world, an unlikely place for tragedy. The air was fresh and clean, although, as Deval had predicted, rarefied like the air at an altitude. The willow light trees that hemmed us in rustled gently, along front-like branches with their rusty green leaves swaying. Do you notice, sir, came a gentle thought from Deval, an emanation that could hardly have been perceptible to the men behind us. There is no wind, and if the trees swaying and rustling, I glanced around, startled. I hadn't noticed the absence of a breeze. I tried to make my response reassuring. There's probably a breeze higher up. It doesn't dip down into this little clearing, I venture it. At any rate, it's not important. These ships are what interest me. What will we find there? We shall soon know, replied Deval. Here's the door-loss, the second of the two, was it not? Yes. I came to a halt beside the gaping door. There was no sound from within, no evidence of life there, no sign that man had ever crossed that threshold, save that the whole fabric was the work of man's hands. Mr. Deval and I will investigate the ship, with two of you men, I direct it. The rest of the detail will remain on guard, and give the alarm at the least sign of any danger. You first, you men, follow us. The indicated man nodded and stepped forward. There, yes sirs, came surging through my menore like a single thought. Cautiously, with Deval at my side and the two men at our backs, we stepped over the high threshold into the interior of the door-loss. Part Three. The ethon tubes overhead made everything as light as day, and since the door-loss was a sister ship of my own charlotte, it had not the slightest difficulty in finding my way about. There was no sign of a disturbance, anyway. Everything was in perfect order, from the evidence it would seem that the officers and men of the door-loss had deserted the ship of their own accord, and failed to return. "Ah, nothing of value here," I commented to Deval. We might as well. There was a sunken motion from outside the ship. Startled shouts rang through the hollow hole, and a confused medley of excited thoughts came pouring in. With one accord, the four of us dashed to the exit, Deval and I in the lead. The door we paused, following the stricken gaze of the men, grouped in a rigid knot just outside. "Ah, some forty feet away was the edge of the forest that hemmed us in. A forest that was now lashing and writhing as though in the grip of some terrible hurricane, trunks bending and whipping, long branches writhing, curling, lashing out." "True the mancer," shouted a non-commissioned officer of the landing crew, "as we appeared in the doorway." In his excitement, he forgot his menorah, and resulted to the infinitely slower but more natural speech. Some sort of insect came buzzing down, like an earth-beeb at my larger. One of the men slapped it, and jumped aside, forgetting the low gravity here. While he shot into the air, and another of the men made a grave for him. They both went sailing into the tree's look that I had already spotted the two men. The trees had them in their grip. Long tentacles curled around them, a dozen of the great willow-like growths apparently fighting for possession of the prizes. And all around, far out of reach, the trees of the forest were swaying restlessly. Their long, pendulous branches, like tentacles, lashing out, hungrily. "The racer," snapped the thought from Duval, like a flash of lightning, "concentrate the beams, strike at the trunks." Right. My orders emanated on the heels of the thought more quickly than one word could have been uttered. The six men who operated the disintegrator's rays were stung out of their startled immobility, and a soft hum of the automatic power generator is deep. Strike at the trunks of the trees, beams narrow to a minimum, action at will. The invisible rays swept long gashes into the forest, as the trainers squatted behind their sights, directing their long, gleaming tubes. Branchy as crash to the ground, suddenly motionless, thick brown dust dropped heavily. A trunk, shortened by six inches or so, dropped into its starband foul with a prolonged sound of rending wood. The trees against Richard had fallen and tugged angrily at their trapped tentacles. One of the men rolled free, staggered to his feet and came lurching toward us. The trunk after trunk dropped onto its severed stub, and fell among the lashing branches of its fellow. The other man was caught for a moment in a mass of dead and motionless wood, but cunningly directed ray dissolved the entangling branches around him, and he lay there free but unable to arise. The rays played on ruthlessly. The brown, heavy powder was falling like greasy soot. The trunk after trunk crashed to the ground, slashed into fragments. "All right, c-section!" I ordered, and instantly the eager wine of the generators softened to a barely discernible hum. Two of the men, under orders, raced out to the injured man, while the rest of us clustered around the first of the two to be freed from the terrible tentacles of the trees. His menon was gone, his tight-fitting uniform was in shreds and blocked with blood. There was a huge crimson world across its face, and blood dripped slowly from the tips of his fingers. "God!" he muttered unsteadily, and his kindly arms lifted him with eager tenderness. "They're alive, like snakes, and they're hungry." "Take him to the ship," I ordered, used to receive treatment immediately. I turned to the detail that was bringing in the other bit. The man was unconscious, and moaning, but suffering more from shock than anything else. A few minutes under the helio emanations and he be fit for light duty. As the men hurried him to the ship, I turned to Deval, who was standing beside me, rigid, his face very pale, and his eyes fixed on space. "Why do you make of it, Mr. Deval?" I questioned him. The trees? He seemed startled, as though I'd aroused him from deepest thought. "They're not difficult to comprehend, sir. They're a numerous growths that are primarily carnivorous. We have the fental vine on zenia, which coils instantly when touched, and must trap many small animals which it wraps about with its folds and digests through suckle-like growths. On your own earth there are, we learn hundreds of varieties of insectivorous plants. Green is flytrapper, and otherwise is dionia muscupula, which has a leaf hinged in the median line with teeth-like bristles. The two sections of the leaf snap together with considerable force when an insect alights upon the surface, and the soft portions of the catch are digested by the plant before the leaf's open again. The pitcher plant is another native of earth, and several varieties of it are found on zenia, and at least two other planets. He traps his game without movement, but is nevertheless insectivorous. You have another species on earth it is, or was very common. The mimosa pudica. Perhaps you know it as the sensitive plant. Doesn't trap insects, but it has a very distinct power of movement, and is extremely irritable. So it's not at all difficult to understand a carnivorous tree, capable of violent and powerful motion. This is undoubtedly what we have here, a decidedly interesting phenomena, but not difficult to comprehend. Well, it seems like a long explanation as I recorded here, but emanated as it was, it took but an instant to complete it. Mr. Deval went on without a pause. I believe, however, that I have discovered something far more important. How is your manure adjusted, sir, with minimum? Turn it to maximum, sir, and glassed it in curiously, but obeyed, a new stream of thought poured in upon me, concade, the guard at the exit, and, well, something else, a blacked out concade and the man, feeling Deval's eyes searching my face. There was something else, something I focused on the dim vague emanations that came to me from the circulate of my manure, and gradually, like an object seen through heavy mist, I perceived the message. Wait, wait, we're coming through the ground, the trees disintegrate them, all of them, or you can reach. But not the ground, not the ground. Peter, I shouted, turning to Deval. That's Peter Wilson, second officer of the Darlos. Of our knotted, his dark face aligns. "Let's see if we can answer him," he suggested, and we concentrated all of our energy on a single thought. We understand. We understand. Well, the answer came back instantly. Oh, good, thank God, sweep them down, handsome, every tree, kill them, kill all of them, or kill them. The emanation fairly shook with hate. We're coming up to the clearing. Wait, while you wait, use your rays upon those accursed, hungry trees. Grimly and silently, we hurried back to the ship. Deval, the Savant, snatching up specimens of earth and rock here and there as he went. The disintegrate arrays of the portable projectors were no more than toys compared with the mighty beams that Khaled was capable of projecting, with her great generators to supply power. Even with the beams narrowed to the minimum, they cut a swath a yard or more in diameter, and their range was tremendous. Although working rather less rapidly as the distance and power decreased, they were effective over a range of many miles. From their blasting beams, the forest shriveled and sank into tumbled chaos. The haze of brownish dust hung low over the scene, and I watched with a sort of awe. It was the first time I'd ever seen the rays at work on such wholesale destruction. The startling thing became evident soon after we began our work. This world, which we had thought to be void of animal life, proved to be teeming with it. From out of the tangle of broken and harmless branches, thousands of animals appeared. The majority of them were quite large, perhaps the size of full-grown hogs, which earth animal they seemed to resemble, save that they were a dirty yellow colour and had strong, heavily-glored feet. These were the largest of the animals. There were myriad of smaller ones, all of them pale or neutral in colour, and apparently unused to such strong light, for they ran blindly, while they seeking shelter from the universal confusion. Still, the destructive beams kept about their work, until the scene had changed utterly. Instead of resting in the clearing, the collage was now in the midst of a tangle of fallen, wilting branches that stretched like a great steel sea as far as the eye could see. "Whew! She's action!" I ordered suddenly. I'd seen all, thought I'd seen, a human figure moving in the tangle not far from the edge of the clearing. Where he relayed the order, and instantly the rays were cut off. My menorah, free from the interference of the great atomic generators of the collage, emanated the moment the generators ceased functioning. "You know, for answer, cut the rays, we're coming." "We've ceased action, come on, now." I hurried to the still-open exit. King Cade and his guards were staring at what had been the forest. They were so intent that they didn't notice I had joined them, and no wonder. A file of man was scrambling over the debris, gaunt man with disheveled hair, practically naked, covered with dirt and the greasy brown dust of the disintegrate array. In the lead, hardly recognizable, his menorah awry upon his tangled locks was Peter Wilson. Wilson, I shouted, and in a single great leap I was at his side, shaking his hand, one arm about his guard's shoulders, laughing and talking excitedly, all in the same breath. Wilson, tell me, in God's name, what has happened? He looked up at me with shining, happy eyes, deep in black sockets of hunger and suffering. "Ah, they're part the counts," he said hoarsely, "that you're here, and we're here with you. My men need rest and food, not too much food at first, but we are starving. I'll give you the story of, as much of it as I know, while we eat. I sent my orders ahead. For every man of that pitiful crew of survivors, there were two eager men of the Carlives crew to minister to them. In the little dining salon of the office's mess, Wilson gave us a story while he ate slowly and carefully, keeping his ravenous hunger in check. "That's a weird sort of story," he said, "I'll cut it as short as I can, too weary for details." Now, the door-loss, as I suppose you know, was ordered to L472 to determine the fate of the Philanus, which had been sent here to determine the feasibility of establishing a supply-place here for a new interplanetary ship-line. It took us nearly three days, worth time, to locate this clearing and the Philanus, and we grounded the door-loss immediately. Our commander, you probably know him, Hanson, David McClellan, a big red-faced chap. By not it, and Wilson continued, while Commander McClellan was a "calaric person," as courageous a man as ever wore the blue and silver of the service, and a very thoughtful of his man. When he had a bad trip, two swarms of meteorites had worn our nerves thin, and a faulty part in the air-purifying apparatus had nearly done us in. While the exit was being unsealed, he gave the interior crew permission to go off duty, to get some fresh air, with orders, however, to remain close to the ship, under my command. Then, with the usual landing crew, he started for the Philanus. He had forgotten, under the stress of the moment, that the force of gravity would be very small on a body no larger than this. The result was that, as soon as they hurried out of the ship away from the influence of our own gravity pads, they hurled into the air in all directions. Wilson paused, and several seconds passed before he could go on. "Well, the trees I suppose you know something about them, reached out and swept up three of them. The McClellan and the rest of the landing crew rushed to their rescue; they were caught out, man. Oh, God, I can see them, I can hear them even now. I couldn't stand there and see that happens to them. With the rest of the crew behind me, we rushed out, armed with only our atomic pistols. We didn't dare use the rays. There were a dozen men caught up everywhere, and those hellish tentacles. I don't know what I thought we could do; I knew only that I must do something. Our leaps carried us over the tops of the trees that were fighting for the bodies of McClellan and the rest of the landing crew. I saw then, when it was too late, there was nothing we could do. The trees had done their work; they were feeding. Oh, perhaps that's why we escaped. We came down in a tangle of whipping branches; several of my men were snatched up. The rest of us saw how helpless our position was, and there was nothing we could do. We saw too that the ground was literally honey-conned, so we dove down these burrows, out of the reach of the trees. Although in nineteen of us that escaped, I can't tell you how we lived, and I wouldn't if I could. The burrows had been dug by the pig-like animals that the trees live upon, and they led eventually to the shore where there was water, a horrible bit of stuff, but not salty, and apparently not poisonous. We lived on these pig-like animals, and we learned something of their way of life. The trees seemed to sleep, or at least become inactive at night, unless they're touched till they lash out with their tentacles. But night the animals feed, largely upon the large, soft fruit of these trees. Of course, large numbers of them make a fatal step each night, but they are prolific, and their ranks don't suffer. Well, of course, we try to get back to the clearing and the door-loss, first by tunneling. Well, that was impossible, we found, because the rays, used by the filliness, in clearing a landing-place, had acted somewhat upon the earth beneath, and it turned a powder. Our burrows fell in upon us fast, and then we could dig them out, or two of the man lost their lives that way. Then we tried creeping back by night, but we couldn't see as can the other animals here, and we quickly found out it was suicide to attempt such tactics. Two more of the man were lost in that fashion, and that left fourteen of us. We decided then to wait, and knew there'd be another ship along sooner or later. Luckily, one of the man had somehow retained his manure, and we treasured that as we treasured our lives. Today, when deep in our runways beneath the surface, we felt, or heard, the crashing of the trees, we knew the service had not forgotten us, so I put on the manure. Well, I think you know the rest now, gentlemen. There were eleven of us left, and here we are, on this left, at the door-loss group. We found no trace of any survivor of the villainous, unaware of the possibility of danger. They were undoubtedly all victims of the trees. Wilson's head dropped forward on his chest. He straightened up with a start and an apologetic smile. "I believe, Hanson," he said slowly, "I'd better get a little rest." They slumped forward on the table, and the death-like sleep of utter exhaustion. There, the interesting part of the story ends. The rest is history, and there's too much dry history in the universe already. Devar wrote three great volumes on Alt 472, or Ibit, as it's called now. One of them tells in detail how the presence of constantly increasing quantities of volcanic ash robbed the soil of that little world of its vitality, so that all forms of vegetation except the one became extinct, and how, through a process of development and evolution, those trees became carnivorous. The second volume is a learned discussion of the tree itself. It seems that a few specimens were spared for study, isolated on a peninsula on one of the continents, and turned over to devolve for observation and disaction. All I can say for the book is that it's probably accurate. Certainly, it's neither interesting nor comprehensible. And then, of course, there is his treatise on Ocrat. How we happen to find it all, the probable amount available on L472 or Ibit, if you prefer, and an explanation of his new method of refining it. I saw him frantically gathering specimens while we were getting ready to leave. It wasn't until after we departed that he mentioned what he'd found. When I ever said of these volumes somewhere, devile autographed them and presented me with them. They established his position, I understand, in this world of science, and, of course, the discovery of this new source of Ocrat was a tremendous find for the whole universe. Into planetary transportation wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't this inexhaustible source of power. And yes, devile became famous and very rich. I received the handshakes and the gratitude of the eleven men we rescued, and exactly nine words of commendation from the chief of my squadron. "You are a credit to the service," come out of Hanson. 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If the thieves came in through the windows, why was their object in cutting that hole through the roof? The marks are very plain, and they indicate that the hole was cutting some manner from the inside." "Dr. Burt smiled enigmatically." "That is too evident for discussion," he replied. "I grant you that the thieves entered from the roof, through that hole. After they'd secured their booty, they left by the same roof. I presume that you've noticed the marks in the roof were an aircraft of some sort, probably a helicopter, landed, and then took off." A much greater question is that of what they did before they landed and cut the hole. "Don't follow your reasoning, Doctor," Barnes, that hole was cut through the roof with a heavy saw. "In cutting it, the workers dislodged quite a little plaster which fell to the floor and must have made a great deal of noise." "Why wasn't that noise heard?" "It was heard. The watchmen heard it, but knew that Lieutenant Breslau was working here, and he thought he'd made the noise." "Oh, surely, but why didn't Breslau hear it?" "How do we know that he didn't? He was taken to Walter Reed Hospital this morning with his mind in absolute blank and his tongue paralyzed. He must have seen the thieves, and they treated him in some way to ensure his silence. When he's able to talk, if he ever is, he'll probably give us a good description of it. Dr. Bird shook his head." "Ah, too thin, Carney, oh dear," he says. Breslau is a very intelligent young man. He was perfectly normal when I left him shortly after midnight last night. He was working alone in here on a device of the utmost military importance. On the desk is a push button which sets ringing a dozen gongs in the building. Surely a man of that type would have had sense enough when he saw or heard intruders cutting a hole through the roof to sound an alarm which would have brought every watchman on the grounds to his assistance. He must have been knocked out before the halt was started, probably before the helicopters landing. "Well, how?" "Guess of some sort?" "Well, the windows were all closed and locked, and I've already ascertained that the gas and water lines have not been tampered with. The gas won't penetrate through a side roof and sufficient concentration to knock out a man like that. It was something more subtle than gas. What was it?" "I don't know yet," the clue to what it was lies as I told you in those windows. Gons moved over and surveyed the windows closely. "Well, I see, um, nothing unusual about them except that they need washing rather badly." Well, they were washed last Friday, but they do look rather dirty, don't they? Suppose you take a rag and some scaring soap and clean up a pain. The detective took the preferred articles and started his task. He wept a pane of glass, rubbed up a figure leather of scaring soap and applied it and rubbed vigorously. With clear water he washed the glass and then gave an exclamation of astonishment and examined it more closely. "This isn't dirt, doctor," he cried. "The glass seems to be fogged." "No to bird chuckled." "Hmm, so it seems," he admitted. "Now look at the rest of the glass around the laboratory." Gons looked around and then walked to a table littered with apparatus and examined a dozen pieces carefully. "It's all fogged in exactly the same way, doctor," he said. "The only piece of clear glass in the room is that piece of plate glass on your desk." Dr. Berg picked up a hammer and struck the plate on his desk a sharp blow. Gons ducked instinctively, but the hammer rebounded harmlessly from the plate. "This isn't glass, Gons," said the doctor. "That plate is made of vitreline, a new product which I have developed. It looks like glass, but it has entirely different properties. It's of enormous strength and is quite insensitive to shock. There's one most peculiar property, while ultraviolet and long arrays will penetrate it quite readily. It's a perfect screen for x-rays and other rays of shorter wavelength. It appears to be the only piece of transparent substance in my laboratory which has not been fogged, as you call it. "The shot waves fogged last, doctor?" "Ah, not as far as I know, at present, but you must remember that very little work has been done with the short wavelengths. In the vast range of waves whose lengths lie between zero and that of the x-ray, only a few points have been investigated and definitely plotted. There may be in that range a wavelength which will fog glass. Well then your theory is that some sort of rain machine was put in operation before the helicopter landed. It's too early to attempt any theorizing kinds, but let's confine ourselves to the known facts. Lieutenant Breslau was normal at midnight and was working in this room. Sometime between then and seven this morning he underwent certain mental and physical changes which prevented him from telling us what he observed. During the same period a hole was cut in the roof and things of great importance stolen. At the same time all the glass in the laboratory became semi-opaque. The problem is to determine what connection there is between the three events. I'll handle the scientific again here, but there is some outside work to be done and that'll be your share." "Give your orders, doctor," said the detective briefly. "Well, to understand what I'm driving at, I'll have to tell you what's been stolen. Naturally, this is highly confidential. Some rumours have leaked out has to my experience with Raydite, as I've named the new radium containing disintegrating explosive on which I've been working, but no one has shot at the Secretary of War, the Chief of Ordnance, and certain of their selective subordinates knows that my experiments have been successful, and that the United States is in a position to manufacture Raydite in almost unlimited quantities, from the pitch-blend or deposits of Wyoming and Nevada. The effects of Raydite will be catastrophic on the unfortunate victim on whom it is first used. The only thing left to do is to develop a gun from which Raydite shells could be fired with safety and precision. Ordinary propellant powders are too variable for this purpose, but I've found that Raydite B, one form of my new explosive, can be used for propelling the shells from a gun. The Ordinary gun will last only two or three rounds due to the erosive action of the Raydite charge on the battle, and Ordinary Ordnance is heavier and more cumbersome than is necessary. When this was found to be the case, the Chief of Ordnance Detailed Lieutenant Breslau, the Army's greatest expert on gun design, to work with me in an attempt to develop a suitable weapon. Breslau is a wizard at that sort of work, and has made a miniature working model of a gun with a vitreline-lined barrel which is capable of being fired with a miniature shell. The gun will stand up under the repeated firing of Raydite charges, and is very light and compact, and gives an accuracy of fire control here too fall deemed impossible. From this he planned to construct a larger weapon, which would fire a shell containing an explosive charge of two and one-half ounces of Raydite at a rate of fire of 200 shots per minute. The destructive effect of each shell will be greater than that of the Ordinary high explosive shell fired from a 16-inch mortar, and all of the shells can be landed inside a 200-inch circle at a range of 15 miles. The way to the completed gun will be less than half a ton, exclusive of the firing platform. Breslau's working model, which is being stolen, will Carn's whistle softly between his teeth. "The matter will have to be handled pretty delicately to avoid international complications," he said. "It's hard to tell just where to look. There are a great many nations who will give any amount for a model of such a weapon." "Well, the matter must be handled delicately and also in absolute secrecy cards. We're not yet ready to announce that the world, the fact that we have such a weapon in our armory. It's a plan of the President to have a half-dozen of these weapons manufactured and given a demonstration of their terrible effectiveness to representatives of the powers of the world. Think what an argument the existence of such a weapon will be for the furtherance of his plans for disarmament and universal peace. Big sentiment will force disarmament on the world, for even the worst jingwis could no longer defend armaments in the face of America's offer discreetly super engines of destruction and to destroy the plans from which they were made. If the model has fallen into the hands of any civilized power, the damage is not irreparable. The public opinion would force its surrender or return. Oh, it is among the uncivilized powers that our search must first be made. Well, that makes the problem of where to start more complicated. Oh, on the contrary, it simplifies it immensely. At the head of the uncivilized powers stands one which has the brains, the scientific knowledge, and the manufacturing facilities to make terrible use of such a weapon. In addition, the aim of that power is to owe it for all world governments and set up in their stead its own tyrannical disorder. Need I name it? You refer to Russian. Oh, not to Russia, the great slumbering giant who will someday take a place in the sun in fellowship with the other nations, but rather to Bolsheviki, that empire within an empire, that horrible power which is holding sleeping Russia in chains of steel and blood, is there that our search must first be made. Of course they have no official representative in America. No, but the young labor party is as much their accreditive representative as the British ambassador is of Imperial Britain. The first task will be to trail down and locate every leader of that group and to investigate his present activities. Well, I can tell you where most of them are without investigation. Demberg, Cemensky, and Karuska are in Atlanta, Fedorovich, and Kaspar are in Leavenworth. Serenov is dead. Presumably. I docked I saw with my own eyes the destruction of the submarine in which he was riding. Did you see his dead body? No. Neither did I, and I will never be sure until I do. Once before we were certain of his death, and he bobbed up with a new fiendish device. We cannot eliminate Serenov. I'll include him in my plans. Do so. Besides, a hypothetical Serenov, there are half a dozen or more of the old leaders of the gang alive and at liberty, so far as we know. They fled the country after the Coast Guard broke up their alien smuggling scheme, but some of them may have returned. There are also 30 or 40 underlings who should be located and checked upon, and in addition, we must not lose sight of the fact that the new heads of the organization may have been smuggled into the United States. It's no simple task that I am setting you, Karus, but I know that you and Bolton will see it through if anyone can. Well, thanks, Doctor. We'll do our best. Now, if I'm not speaking out of turn, what are you planning on doing in the meantime? I am going to start Taylor off on an ultra-shortwave generator and try a few experiments along that line, whereas Laura is at Walter Reed, and they're doing all they can for him, but well, until I can get some definite information as to the underlying cause of his condition, they are more or less shooting in the dark. Are they treating it? By electric stimulations and vibratory treatments, and by keeping him in a darkened room. By the way, Kans, if I am correct in my line of thought, it will be well to have an extra guard put over Karuska. He is the only real expert in ordnance that the young Labor Party had, and if they have Breslau's model, they will need him to supervise the construction of a gun. I'll attend to that at once, Doctor. Is there anything else? No, not that I know of. I'm going out to Tacoma Park this afternoon and have another look at Breslau, but it's too soon to hover any change in his condition. Aside from the time I'll be out there, you can find me either here or at my home, in case anything develops. I'll get on that job at once, Doctor. Thanks, man. Remember that speed must be the keynote of your work. The telephone bell at the head of Dr. Bird's bed woke into noisy activity. The doctor roused himself and took down the instrument sleepily. A glance at the clock showed him that it was four in the morning, and he muttered a maladdiction on the one who had called him. "Hello," he said into the receiver. "Dr. Bird speaking." "Doctor," came a crisp voice over the wire, "wake up, this is Kans talking. Something is broken loose." An old trace of sleep vanished from Dr. Bird's face, and his eyes glowed momentarily with a particular glitter which Kans would at once have recognized his indicative of the keenest interest. "What's happened, Kans?" he demanded. A telephoned Atlanta this morning in a range to have an extra guard put over Carusca, as you suggested. The matter was simplified by the fact that he and nine others were confined in the prison infirmary. The warden agreed to do as a told him, and, in addition to the other guards, a special man was placed in the ward near Carusca's bed. But two a.m., the lights and the ward went out. Accidentally, what were they put out? Well, they haven't found that out yet. At any rate, they're all out right now, but Carusca and all the other inmates and all the guards at that particular ward have gone crazy. "The hell you say?" or not only that, also partially paralyzed. The description I got over the telephoned corresponds exactly with the condition of Lieutenant Bresloor, as you described it to me. There has the most interest in part of the whole affair. The special guard over Carusca was only lightly affected, and has already recovered and is in a position to tell you exactly what happened. I got a garbled account of the affair from the warden, something about a goldfish bowl or something like that. The other warden wouldn't take it seriously enough to give me details. "I didn't press for the mush, or I knew that you'd rather get them at first hand." "I certainly would. I'll be ready to leave for Atlanta in less than ten minutes." "I expected that, Doctor. The car's already on its way to pick you up. I'll meet you at Langley Field where a plane has already been tuned up and will be ready to take off by the time we get them." Good work, Hans. "I'll see you at the field." A car was waiting for cars and Dr. Bird when the Langley Field Plane slid down to a landing at Atlanta. At the penitentiary, Dr. Bird went direct to the infirmary where Carusca had been confined. As he entered, he shut a king glance around and gave an exclamation of satisfaction. "Hm. Look at the windows, Hans," he cried. Cars went over to the nearest window and motioned his fingertip and applied it experimentally to the glass. The moisture produced no effect, for the glass of the windows was permanently clouded as was that of the Doctor's laboratory. "Whatever happened to my laboratory the night before last was repeated here last night with a similar object," said the Doctor. The object there was to steal a gun model. Here it was to steal a man who could construct a full-sized gun from the model and understand that one of the guards escaped the fate which overtook the rest of the persons in the infirmary. "Ah, not altogether, Doctor," replied the warden. "I think that his mind is somewhat affected, for he tells a wild yarn and insists on trying to wear a goldfish ball on his head. I have him under observation in the psychopathic wall." Dr. Bird shot a scornful glance at the warden. "There are none so blind as those who will not see," he mallered. "Yeah, by all means, I wish to see him," he went on aloud. "Will you have him brought here at once, please?" The warden nodded and spoke to one of the attendants. In a few moments the tall, fair-haired young giant stood before the Doctor. Dr. Bird pushed back his unruly shock of black hair with his fingers, those long-slim mobile fingers which alone betrayed the artist in his makeup. I shot a piercing glance from his black eyes into the blue ones, which returned the gaze on a bash. "What's your name?" he asked. "Baley, sir." "You were on guard here last night?" "Yes, sir. I was detailed as a special guard over number 9764." "Tell me your own words won't happen. Don't be afraid to speak out. I'm not going to disbelieve you, and above all, tell me everything, no matter how unimportant it may seem to you. I'll judge the importance of things for myself. I'm Dr. Bird of the Bureau of Standards." God's face lit up of the Doctor's words. "I've heard of you, Doctor," he said, in a relieved tone, "and I'll be glad to tell you everything. 10 o'clock last night I received Caga, a special guard over number 9764. Caga reported that the prisoner was somewhat restless and hadn't been asleep as of yet. I sat down about fifteen-three from his bed and prepared to keep an eye on him until I was relieved at six o'clock this morning. Well, nothing happened until about two o'clock. Number 9764 was restless, as Caga had said, but to what midnight he quieted down and apparently went to sleep. When I was sleeping myself, I got up and took a turn around the room every five minutes to be sure that I kept awake. And that's how I'm so sure of the time, sir. Dr. Bird nodded. At five minutes or two, just as I got up, I heard a noise outside like a big electric fan. So I had it like it came from directly overhead, and I went to the window and looked out. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear it pretty plainly, and then I heard a noise like someone had fallen on the roof. Almost at the same time they came a sort of high-pitched wine. Good deal like the noise an electric motor makes when it's running at high speed. I thought of giving an alarm. I didn't want to stir things up unless I was sure that there was some necessity for it. So I started for the daughter to ask one of the outside gods if he'd heard anything. As I turned toward number 9764, I saw that he'd been sitting up in bed while my back was turned. As soon as he saw that I had noticed him, he lay back real quick and pulled the covers over his head. Now he moved pretty quick, but not so quick that I couldn't see that he'd had something that glittered like glass before his face. I started over toward his bed to see what he was doing, and then it was that the life started to get dim. "Go on," said the doctor, as Bailey paused. His eyes were glittering brightly now. "Well sir, doctor, I don't hardly know how to describe what happened next." The lights were getting dim, but as they ordinarily do when the current starts to go off, the filaments were shining as bright as they ever did, but the light didn't seem to be able to penetrate the air. Whole rooms seemed to be filled with a blackness that stopped the light. No sir, it wasn't light fog. It was more like something more powerful than the lights was in the room and was killing them. I wasn't only the lights which were affected, it was me as well. Blackness, whatever it was, was getting into me as well as into the room. I couldn't seem to make myself think like I wanted to. Tried to yell to give an alarm. I found that I could hardly whisper. I went toward the bed and I saw a number nine seven six four sit up again. He had like a gold fish bowl pulled down over his head. It was evident that it was keeping the blackness away, for I could see him plainly in his eyes for as bright as ever. The nearer I got to him the funnier I felt, I began to be afraid that I'd go out. The nine seven six four got up out of bed, I could see him grinning at me through the bowl. He reached up and adjusted that bowl and all of a sudden I realized that whatever was knocking me out was not affecting him because he had that thing on him. I jumped for him with the idea of taking the bowl off and putting it on my own head. He saw what I was up to and fought like a cornered rat, but the blackness hadn't affected my muscles. I'm a pretty big man sir, number nine seven six four is a little runt. It didn't take me long to get the bowl off his head and pull on over mine. Soon as I did that, it seemed to be able to think clearer. When I was sitting on number nine seven six four, I was ready to tap him with a persuader if he started anything, but well I didn't have to. In a few minutes he stopped struggling and laid perfectly quiet. The lights kept getting dimmer and dimmer until they went out altogether, the room became pitched dark. It wasn't exactly as if the lights had gone out, so I seemed to know that they were still there and what burning as bright as ever, but they couldn't penetrate the blackness in the room if you understand what I mean. I think I do, said Dr. Bird slowly. It was a good deal as if you'd seen a glass fill of the pale red liquid and somewhere dumped black ink into the fluid and hid the red color. You'd know that the red was still there, but you wouldn't be able to see it through the black. Yeah, that's exactly what it was like Dr. You described it better than I can. Well, at any rate, after it got real dark, I had a low whistle from the roof. Number nine seven six four made a struggle to get out for a moment and then lay quiet again. The whistle sounded again and I heard someone call Caruso. Everything was quiet for a while, and the same voice called again, said some stuff enough for a foreign language I couldn't understand. I kept perfectly quiet to see what would happen. About ten minutes the whole room remained perfectly dark, as I've said, and all the while I could hear that whining noise. All of a sudden it began to sound in a lower note and then I could see the lights again. Very dimly, like the black ink you spoke of, was fading out. The note got lower until it stopped altogether, the lights came on brighter until they were normal again. And I heard a scraping noise on the roof, and the noise I heard first, like a big electric fan will. I looked to the clock and it was too twenty. For a few minutes I wasn't able to collect my wits. When I got up off of number nine seven six four at last, he stared at me as we didn't know a thing, and I heaved him back into his bed and ran to the door to summon an outside guard. I could still talk in a husky whisper, but not loud. I wasn't surprised when no one heard me, on my orders were not to let number nine seven six four out of my sight, and this was an emergency, so I left the warden and found a guard. It was mad again, he was standing on his beat, staring at nothing. When I touched him he looked at me, and I was the same vacant I'm looking at his eyes, I'd seen in the prisoners. I talked to him in a whisper, but he didn't seem to understand, so I left him and went to a telephone and called for help. Mr. Larson, the warden, got here with guards in a couple of minutes, and I tried to tell him what had happened, but I couldn't talk loud, and I was afraid to take the fishbowl off my head. Hmm, what happened next? Mr. Larson took me to his office, and on the way we passed under an arclight. As soon as I got under it I began to feel better. My voice became stronger. I saw that it was doing me some good, and I stopped under it for an hour before my voice got back to normal. I seemed to clear the fog from my brain, too, when I was able, about four o'clock, to tell everything that had happened. Mr. Lawson seemed to think that my brain was affected as well as the others, and he sent me to the hospital. And as well, that's all, Dr. Do you feel perfectly normal now? Yes, sir. Well, there's no need for confining this man longer, Mr. Lawson. He's as well as he ever was. Barnes, get the Walter Reed Hospital on the telephone, tell him I said to treat Lieutenant Bresla with light rays, rich in ultraviolet. Tell them to give him an overdose of them, not to put goggles on him. Keep him in the sun all day, and under sunray arcs at night until further orders. Mr. Lawson, give the same treatment to the man who was disabled last night. If you haven't enough sunray arcs in your hospital, put them under an ordinary arclight in the yard. Bailey. You've still got that fishbowl? "It's in my office, Doctor," said the warden. "Good enough," sent for it at once. "By the way, you have two more Communists here, Denmark and Samansky, haven't you?" "I think so. Oh, I'll have to consult the records before I can be positive." "Well, I'm sure that you have. Look the matter up and let me know." The warden hurried away to carry out the doctor's orders, and an orderly appeared in a few moments with a hollow glow made of some crystalline transparent substance. Despite its presence in the infirmary the evening before, there was no trace of clouding apparent. The doctor bird took it and examined it critically. He wrapped it with his knuckles and then stepped to the door and hurled it down violently to the concrete floor of the yard. The globe rebounded without injury, and he caught it. "Oh, vitraline, or a good imitation of it," he remarked to Collins. After you get through talking to the hospital, get Taylor on the wire. There's plenty of loose vitraline in the bureau, and I want him to sand about fifty square feet of it by a special plane at once. As Collins left the room, the warden reappeared. "The man are all lying in the sun now, Doctor," he said. "I find that we have the two men you mentioned confined here. They're both in Tier A, building six." "Is that an isolated building?" "No, it's one wing of the old main building." "On which floor?" "Second floor. It's a six-story building." "Have they been moved there recently?" "They've been there for nearly a year." "In that case, there'll be little chance of another attack of this sort tonight. At the same time, I would advise you to station extra guards that tonight, in every night until I notify you otherwise." Caution them to wash the lights carefully, and to give an alarm at once if they appear to get dim. In that case, cement the roof of the rifles with orders to shoot to kill anyone they find there. I'm going back to Washington, and I'm going to take Carusco, your number 9764 with me. You'd better have one of the guards in the corridor where Denberg and Cemensky are. Where this goldfish bowl, as you call it. A lot of plate glass, at least it will look like it, will come from Washington by plane. Cut it into sheets a foot square, and use surgeons plaster to make some temporary glass helmets for your man. I want all your guards to wear them until I either settle this matter, or I'll send you some better helmets. You understand? I understand all right, but I'm afraid I can't do it. The weariness such appliances would interfere with the efficiency of my man as guards. Brain and tongue paralysis would interfere rather more seriously, it seems to me. In any event, I have sufficient authority to enforce my request. If you are a dull doubtful, call up the Attorney General and ask him. Of a warden hesitated. "If you don't mind, I think I will call Washington, Doctor," he said. "I'll have to get authority to turn number 9764 over to you in any event." "Call all you wish, Mr. Lawson. Mr. Gardens is talking to Washington now, and we'll have a clear line for you in a few minutes." Meanwhile, get a set of shackles on Carusca and get him ready to travel by plane. He appears to be suffering from mental paralysis, but I don't know how his case will develop. He may go violently insane at any moment, and I don't care to be left in a plane with an on-ballomania. Major Martin looked up from the prone figure of Carusca. "His condition duplicates that of Lieutenant Breslau, Dr. Burd," he said. "Mercy, if you have a telephone message this afternoon and we can't Breslau in a flood of sunlight until dusk, then put him under sun-ray-lamps. I don't know how you got onto that treatment, but it's having a very beneficial effect. You can already make inarticulate sounds, and his eyes are not quite as vacant as they were. If he keeps on improving as he has, he should be able to talk intelligently in a few days. If you ask to question this man, why not give him the same treatment? "I have in time, Major. I must make him talk tonight, if it's humanly possible. I called you in because you're the most eminent authority on the brain in the government service. Is there any way of artificially stimulating this man's brain so that we can force the secrets of his subconscious mind from him? The Major sat for a moment, in profound thought. "Oh, there is a way, Doctor," he said at length, "but it is a method which I would not dare to use. By applying high-frequency electrical stimulations to the medulla hoblegata, at the same time bathing the cerebellum with ultraviolet's, it may be done, but, well, the chances are that either death or insanity would result. I would not do it." Major Martin, this man is a reckless and dangerous international criminal. If his gang carries out the plan in which I fear they have formed, the lives of thousands of millions may pay for your hesitation. I will assume full responsibility for the test if you'll make it, and I have the authority of the President of the United States behind me. "Well, in that case, Doctor, I have no choice. President is the commander-in-chief of the Army, and if those are his orders, the experiment will be carried out. As a matter of form, I will ask that your orders be reduced to writing. I will write them gladly, Major. Please proceed with the experiment without delay." Major Martin bowed and spoke, so were waiting orderly. The prostrate figure of Carusca was wheeled down a corridor into the electrical laboratory, and with the aid of the laboratory technician, the surgeon made his preparations. The Moss lamp was arranged for the flood of ultraviolet over the Russian's cranium, while the lead from a deep, therapy x-ray tube was connected, one to the front of Carusca's throat and the other to the base of his brain. Had a signal from the Major, a nurse began to administer ether. "I guarantee nothing, Doctor Bird," said the Major. The paralysis of the vocal cause may be physical, in which case a victim will still be unable to speak, regardless of the brain stimulation. If however the evident paralysis is due to some obscure influence on the brain, it may work. "In any event, I'll hold you blameless and thank you for your help," replied the Doctor. "Please start the stimulation." Major Martin closed a switch, and the harm of a high-tension alternator filled the laboratory. The Russian quivered for a moment, then lay still. Major Martin nodded, and Doctor Bird stepped to the side of the operating table. "I have an Carusca," he said slowly and distinctly. "Do you hear me?" The Russian's lips quiffered, and an unintelligible mama came from them. "I have an Carusca," repeated Doctor Bird. "Do you hear me?" There was a momentary struggle on the part of the Russian, and then a surprisingly clear voice came from his lips. "I do." "Who is the present head of the Young Labour Party?" Again, there was a pause before the name, Saranov, came from the lips of the insensible figure. Carnes gave a sharp exclamation, but a gesture from the Doctor silenced him. "Is Saranov alive?" "Yes." "Is he in the United States?" "No, he is in London." "Is he coming to the United States?" "Yes." "Where?" "I do not know, soon, as soon as we are ready for him." "Where is he living in London?" "I don't know." "How did you get word that you were to be rescued from Atlanta?" A message was smuggled into me by O'Grady, a guard in our pain. "What was the vitreling helmet for?" "To protect me from the effects of the black lamp." "What's the black lamp?" "I do not know exactly. Saranov invented it. It gives a black light and it kills all other light except sunlight, and it paralyzes the brain." "Did you know that the model of the Breslau gun had been stolen?" "Yes." "What were you going to do after you were rescued from jail?" "I was going to make a full-sized gun. We have a disappearing gun platform built in the swamps at the juncture of the Potomac and Piscatouae Creek. The gun was to be mounted there and we would shell Washington and institute a ring of terror. There will be a signal for uprisings all over a country." "Is there a black lamp at that gun platform?" "Yes, the black lamp will kill both the flash and the report." "Why did you get the formula for radar?" We got it from one of Dr. Bird's assistants. His name? As he spoke the last few sentences, Carusca's voice had steadily risen almost to a shriek. As he endeavored to give the name of the doctor's treacherous helper, his voice changed to an unintelligible screech and then died away into silence. Major Martin stepped forward and bent over the Bronfigot, hurriedly tore away the electrical connections and placed a stethoscope over the Russian's heart. He listened for a moment, and then straightened up his face, pale. "I hope that the information you obtained is worth a life, Dr. Bird," he said, his voice trembling slightly, "because it is a cast one." "Me, easily save thousands of lives. I thank you, Major, and I will see that no blame attaches to you for your actions. I only wish that he'd live long enough to tell me the name of my assistant, who sought me out to sire enough. However, we'll get that information in other ways. Garns, telephone lost in the Atlanta to slam our gradient to a cell pending investigation, while I get camped meat on the wire and order up a couple of tanks. We're going to attack that gun emplacement at debris." The telephone bell in the laboratory jangled sharply. Major Martin answered it and turned to Carnes. "You're wandered on the telephone, Mr. Carnes." The detective stepped forward and took the transmitter. "Carned speaking," he said. "Yeah, oh, hello, Bolden. Yeah, we have Carusker here, or rather his body. Yes, Dr. Bird is here right now." "You want...great scott, wait a minute. Dr. Bird," he cried eagerly, turning from the telephone. Bolden is located at the Washington headquarters of the Young Labour Party. "Dr. Bird sprang to the instrument." "Bird speaking, Bolden," he cried. "You've located there, headquarters, who's running it. Stransky, huh?" "Oh, you're on the right track. You used to be sire enough's right hand, man. Where's the place located?" "Hm, don't seem to recollect the spot. You have it well surrounded. Where are you speaking from?" "All right, we'll join you as quickly as we can. Now, keep your patrols out and don't let anyone get away." He then hung up the receiver and turned to Carnes. "Did you have the car weight?" "Yes." "Good enough. We'll jump for the bureau and pick up all the vitrally and laying around loose and join Bolden." He thinks he has the whole outfit bottled up. Bolden was waiting as the car rolled up and Dr. Bird leaked out. "Where are they?" demanded the doctor eagerly. In an abandoned factory building, about 300 yards from here, replied the chief for the secret service. I traced them through New York. We've been watching the place ever since yesterday noon, and I know that Stransky is in there with half a dozen others. No one has tried to leave since we set our watch. Funny things happened. One funny thing. About an hour ago, a peculiar red glow suffused the whole building. It's died down a good deal since, but we can still see it through the windows. "You tell us what that means?" "Ah, no, I couldn't, Bolden, but we'll find out. How many men have you?" "Well, I have sixteen stationed around." "That's more than we'll need. I have only vitrally and shields and helmets enough to equip six men. Pick out your three best men, to go with us, and we'll make a triad entering." Bolden strode off into the darkness and returned in a few moments with three men at his heels. Dr. Berg spoke briefly to the operatives, all of them men who had been his companions on other adventures. He explained the need for the vitrally and helmets and shields, and without comment the six donned their armour and followed Bolden as he strode toward the building. As they approached, a dull red glow could be plainly seen through the windows, and Dr. Berg paused and studied the phenomenon for a moment. "I don't know what that means, Bolden," he said softly, "but I don't like the looks of it." Straneschi is up to some devilman or other, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that he knows all about your pickets and is ready for a raid. "We'd better rush the place then," muttered Bolden. Dr. Berg nodded agreement, and with a sharp command to his man, Bolden broke into a run. Not a shot was fired as they approached, and the front door gave redly to Bolden's touch. As it opened, there came a grating sound from the roof, followed by the whirr of a propeller. Dr. Berg ran out of the building and glanced up. "The helicopter," he cried, "they were expecting us and have escaped," he drew his pistol and fired ineffectually at the great birdlike ship which was rising almost noiselessly into the air. He cursed and turned again to the building. Bolden still stood in the room which they'd first entered. This flashlight showed it to be empty, but from under a door on the opposite side a line of dull, red light glowed evilly. With his pistol ready in his hand, Bolden approached the door on hands and knees. When he reached it, he threw his shoulder against it and dropped flat to the floor as the door swung open. No shot greeted him, and he stared for a moment and then rose to his feet. "Nothing in here but some glass statues," he announced. The bird followed him into the room. As he looked at what Bolden had called glass statues, he gasped and shielded his eyes. "God in heaven," he said, "those were living men." Before them were three men or what a being three men. All stood in strained attitudes with a look of horror frozen on their faces. A thing that made the spectators shudder was that their bodies had by some diabolical method been rendered semi-transparent. The dull red light which suffused the room emanated from the three bodies. Dr. Bird examined them closely, being careful not to touch them. "The identity of my treacherous assistant is now," he said grimly as he pointed at the middle figure. "It was Jerome." "What's this?" He took an envelope from the hand of the middle figure and opened it, as she the paper fell out and he picked it up and read it. "My dear Mr. Bolton," read the note, "the methods of tracing and picketing my headquarters are so crude as to be almost laughable. His base has served his purpose and we were ready to abandon it at any event, but I couldn't resist the temptation to let you almost nab us. The three men whom you will find here are agents who failed in their duty. If you're interested in learning the method of their execution, you might take to heart the words of your colleague Dr. Bird. The glue lies in those windows. Carnes glanced at the windows and gave out a cry of surprise. The glass was opaque, as had been the glass in the doctor's laboratory and the glass in the infirmary at Atlanta. The fogging however was much more pronounced, and the opaque glass gave faintly the same red effulgence which came from the three bodies. "Why does it mean, Doctor?" he asked. "I don't know, Carnes," said Dr. Bird slowly. "I foresee that I am going to have to do a great deal of work on short wavelength soon. It is doubtless the effect of some modification of the black lamp which has done it." "Oh, look out!" He leapt to one side, as he spoke, drawing Bolton and Carnes with him. A panel in the side of the wall opposite the doorway had slid open, silently and, through the opening, poured out a beam of fiery red. Full on the three bodies it fell, and then spread out to fill the room. Dr. Bird had drawn the two nearest men out of the direct beam, but one of the secret service men stood full in its power. In the excitement of entering, he had dropped his vitrally in shield, and the livid ray fell full on his defenceless body. As they watched, an expression of horror spread over his face, and he strove to move to one side, but he was held helpless. Slowly, he stiffened, and as the ray bored through him his body became semi-transparent, and the same dull red glow which emanated from the three bodies they'd found began to shine forth from him, too. Bolton strove to break from the doctor's grasp and rush to the rescue, but Dr. Bird held him with a grip of iron. Too late, he said grimly, chalk up another murder to the arch fiend who was committed to the others. I don't know the nature of that ray, and vitrally, and may not be an adequate defence against his full vase; we'd better get out of here, and attack the place from the rear. Carefully edging their way around the sides of the room, the five men made their way out through the door. Dr. Bird slammed the door shut behind him, and led the way out of the building around the rear. A door loom before them, and he cautiously tried it. He gave to his touch as he emptied, and as he set foot on the threshold a terrific explosion came from the interior of the building. "Run," he shouted as he led the way in retreat. That is a ray-died explosion he will act for several seconds. From a safe distance they watched. One corner of the building had been torn off by the force of the explosion, and as they watched the rest of the building gradually collapsed and sank into a pile of ruins. "They planned on a visit from us all right," said Dr. Bolton grimly. "They had a surprise for us any way we jumped. We went in the front door, that devil's ray was to finish us, and if we went in the back door the whole place was arranged to blow up as we entered. I only hope that Sterensky thinks he's got us all and doesn't expect an attack on his next base in the morning. If he doesn't, I think we may give him a rather unpleasant surprise. Of course that lamp is smashed into atoms and buried under the debris, but I don't know what other devil's contraption is that ruin holds. Bolton, have your man pick at it and allow no one near it until I get back. I've got to get to a telephone and get a couple of tanks from me, and a plane or two from Langley Fields. Two tanks made their way slowly across country. The front of each tank was protected by a heavy sheet of vitreling, while the turrets of the tanks projected the wicked-looking muzzles of thirty-seven millimeter guns. Overhead two airplanes from Langley Fields soared, scouting the country. Dr. Burton Carn's rode in the leading tank. "Daughter be somewhere near here, unless Carusco lied," said Carn's as he swept the country with a pair of binoculars. "He didn't lie," returned Dr. Bird. It was his subconscious mind that spoke, and it never lies. He spoke of the gun emplacement as being in a swamp, and I have a strong idea that it's a submersible. Of course, it's bound to be well camouflaged, both from land and from air observation. The plane circled around again and again, quartering the air like a pair of well-trained bird dogs would quarter a hunting field. They'd tie and then low they swooped back and forth. The tanks lumbering slowly along in the same direction. Presently the occupants of the leading tanks saw one of the planes bank sharply and swing around. It dropped to an altitude of only a few hundred feet and turned and went back over the ground it had just crossed. "I believe that fellow sees something," exclaimed Carn's. As he spoke, three green, very lights came from the cockpit of the plane. The tank driver gave a grunt of satisfaction and turned the nose of his vehicle in that direction. The second tank followed. Hardly they turned in the new direction before the ground began to get soft under their tracks and the heavy vehicles began to sink. The driver of the doctor's tank forced it ahead, but the tank sank deeper in the mire until water flowed in around the feet of the occupants. "I reckon we'll have to get out and wall-prease our own doctor," said the driver. Dr. Berg grunted in acquiescence. The tank made its way forward a few yards before the engine sputtered and died. The second tank stopped when the first one did, fifty yards behind it. Donning vitrillion helmets and taking vitrillion shields in their hands. The crews of both tanks climbed out into the waist deep water and gathered around the doctor for orders. Form a skirmish line at 10 pace intervals and cross the swamp, he directed. We may meet with no opposition, but, if there is, the more scattered we are, the safer we will be. You all have hand grenades as well as your rifles." A murmur of ascent answered him, and the line formed and started across the swamp. They'd gone perhaps a hundred yards when three red lights came from one of the planes circling overhead. "Get down!" cried the doctor, dropping to his knees into the muck. Four hundred yards ahead of him, a concrete platform emerged in the marsh and rose slowly into the air. It was roofed with a dome of what looked like plate glass, but which the doctor shrewdly suspected was vitrally. On the base of the platform was two feet above the level of the water. The dome slid silently aside, disclosing two men bending over a tiny gun. Dr. Bird levelled his binoculars. "That's the Breslow gun model that was stolen as sure as I am a foot high," he cried. "They must have made some miniature shells and be planning to fire it." Slowly a pull of intense blackness rose from the marsh enveloped the platform and hid it from view. A whiting noise came from overhead, then a crash like a thunderbolt. The blast of the explosion threw the attackers face down into the swamp, and when they arose and looked back, it was merely a gaping hole with the leading tank at being. The second tank suddenly seemed to rise into the air and fly into millions of tiny fragments, and a second thunderous blast sent them again to their knees. "Oh, radite," bellowed Dr. Bird to come, "matching the effect that if that had been a full charge fired from a completed Breslow gun, watch the planes now. I think they are going to drop a few eggs on them." The blackness cleared as if by magic, and the platform was now in playing with you. The big glass dome roll back into place as the two planes swept over at an elevation of 2,000 feet. From each one, a small black cigar-shaped object was released and fell in a long parabola toward the earth. The glass dome, which had been closing over the gun platform rolled quickly back, and a long beam of intense blackness pierced the heavens. First one and then the other of the falling bombs disappeared from view into it, and then the black column faded from view. The two bombs fell with increasing speed, but the dome closed over the platform before they struck. The two hit the dome at almost the same instant, and instead of the blinding crash they had expected, the watchers saw the bombs rebound from the dome and fall harmlessly into the water. "Stimate," went to the doctor, "I wonder what other properties that confounded lamp has?" He resumed his advance, "Gones and the soldiers keeping abreast of him." When they were within two hundred yards of the platform, it rose again and the transparent dome rolled back, a beam of black shot forth over the swamp, searching them out and hiding them from view. First one and then another felt the effects of the black beam, but the vitrioline which the doctor had provided stood them in good stead, and, aside from a slight shortening of their breath, none of the attackers felt any of the works. "Come on, men!" cried the doctor, as his athletic figure plowed forward through the breast-deep water. That's their worst weapon, and its harmless against us, cheering they fought their way to what the platform. It sunk for a moment and then rose again, as the dome swung back, a sharp crackle of machine-gun fire sounded, and the water before them was whipped into foam by the plunging bullets. One of the soldiers gave a sharp cry and slumped forward into the water. "Fire at will!" shouted the lieutenant in command. A crackle of rifle-fire answered the tattoo of the machine-gun, and the sharp ping of bullets striking on the dome could be plainly heard. An occasional shock kicked up a spurt of white dust from the concrete, but the machine-gun kept up a steady rattle of fire, and the soldiers kept their heads almost at the level of the water. They came the roar of an airplane motor, and one of the planes swept over the platform, a hundred yards in the air, with two machine-gun spraying streams of bullets onto the platform. Two men abandoned their machine-gun, and crouched under the partially folded back dome as a second plane swept over, and Dr. Berg took advantage of the lull to advance his party a few yards near him. Again, the defenders of the platform rushed to their gun, but the first plane had turned and swooped down with both guns going, and again, they were forced to take shelter while the doctor and his force made another advance. The second plane had turned and followed the first, but the defenders had had enough. The transparent dome closed over them, and the platform sank back into the marsh. With the shout Dr. Berg led the way forward again. The attackers were within a hundred yards of the platform, when it again rose above the surface of the water. The guns had disappeared, but in their place stood an airship. It was a small affair with stubby wings, above which were two helicopter blades revolving at high speed. No sound of a motor could be heard. The transparent dome rolled back, like a bullet, the little craft shoved into the air, followed by a futile volley from the soldiers. Hardly had it appeared, then the two airplanes bore down on it with machine guns going. The helicopter paid no attention to them for a moment, and then came a puff of smoke from its side. The leading plane swerved sharply, and the helicopter fired again. The leading plane maneuvered about, trying to get a machine gun to bear, while the second plane climbed swiftly to get above the helicopter and poured a deadly stream of fire down into it. A game position and swooped down to the attack, but another puff of smoke came from the side of the helicopter, and there was a thunderous report and a blinding flash in the sky. As the smoke cleared away, no trace of the ill-fated plane could be seen. The helicopter hung motionless in the air, as though daring the remaining plane to attack. Well, the plane accepted the challenge and bore down at full speed on the stranger. A game came a puff of smoke, but the plane swerved and an answering shock came from its side. It was above the helicopter, and the shell which missed its mark plunged to the ground. When it struck they came a roar and a flash and the whole earth seemed to shake. The helicopter shot upward into the air and, hand forward, both its elevating fans and its propellers whirling blurs of light. The airplane followed at its sharpest climbing angle, but was helpless to compete with its swift, at climbing arrival. "He's got away," groaned Carnes. "Not yet, my friend," cried the doctor, hopping with excitement, "he isn't safe yet. I never told you, but one Breslow gun had been made, and it's on that plane. It has deadly accuracy and is good for fifteen miles." That's Lieutenant Dreen at the control, so Mason at the gun. As he spoke the plane swung around and made a half loop. For a few yards it flew upside down, and then whirled swiftly. As it turned they came a sharp report and a puff of smoke from its rear cockpit. High above the helicopter had ceased climbing and hovered motionless. As the plane fired the helicopter shot forward like an arrow from a bow, and thereby spelled its do. Not for nothing did Captain Mason bear the title of the best aerial gunner in the air court. He'd foreseen what the action of his opponent would be, and it allowed for just such a move. Fire up in the sky came a blinding flash in a cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared the sky was empty, except for a little scatter debris falling slowly to the ground. "And that's that," exclaimed Dr. Bird as he finished his examination of the underground laboratory with which the gun and platform connected. The lamp has gone to glory with Breslow's gun model and two of the best brains of the young Labour Party. "I'm sure that Stoneski was one of those two men, and I wish the whole gang had been on board." "Don't you think that this is the end of it, Doctor?" "Oh, no, Collins, I don't. We know that the real brains of this outfit is Serenov, and Serenov is still alive. He probably won't try to use his black lamp again because I'll have a defence against it in a short time, now that I've seen it in action, but he will try something else. The whole object of life to a loyal citizen of Bolshevigia is to reduce the whole world to the barbarous levelling which they hold Russia, and they will span no pains or effort to accomplish it. The greatest obstacle to that success of President is the President of the United States. He's loved and respected by the whole world, and if he is spared he will forge the world into a great machine for the preservation of peace and universal goodwill. That would be fatal to Bolshevigia's plans, and they will span no effort to remove him. By the grace of God we have saved him from harm so far, but until we remove Serenov permanently from the scene, I will never feel safer. Why do you suppose they'll try next, Doctor?" "Well that, Collins. Time alone, Willtown." Owning a rental property sounds like a dream, collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price, then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. 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I asked Stewart from accounting about his weekend, even though I don't care. I updated my operating system without having to call tech support. Collect your free daily bonus at Chumbah Casino.com now. And live the Chumbah life. The most dangerous game by Richard Kanell. Off there, to the right, somewhere is a large island. Said Whitney. "It's a rather mysterious." "What island is it?" Rainesford asked. "Oh, the old charts call it ship trap island." Whitney replied. " Suggestive name, isn't it?" Sailors have a curious dread of the place. "I don't know why. Some superstition." "I can't see it," remarked Rainesford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick, warm blackness in upon the yacht. "Oh, you've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh. "I've seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown, full bush at 400 yards, but even you can't see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean night." "Nawful yards," admitted Rainesford. "It's like moist black velvet." "There will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "They should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdy's. They should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting." "The best sport in the world," agreed Rainesford. "For the hunter," amended Whitney, "not for the jaguar." "Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainesford. "You're a big game hunter, not a philosopher." "Who cares how a jaguar feels?" "Perhaps the jaguar dogs," observed Whitney. "They have no understanding." "Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear, the fear of pain and the fear of death." "Nonsense," laughed Rainesford. "This hot weather is making you soft Whitney. I'll be a realist. The world's made up of two classes--the hunters and the hunties. Luckily, you and I are hunters." "Do you think we pass that island yet?" "I can't tell in the dark--I hope so." "Why?" asked Rainesford. "Well, the place has a reputation--bad one." "Cannibals?" suggested Rainesford. "Well, hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a gothic second place, but it's gotten into sailor lore somehow." "Do you notice that the crew's nerves seem to be jumpy today?" "Yeah, they were a bit strange now that you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen." "Yeah, even that tough-minded old Swede could go up to the devil himself and ask for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. Oh, I could get out of him--this place has an evil name among sea-faring men, sir. And he said to me very gravely, "Don't you feel anything?" "As if the air about us was actually poisonous--now, you mustn't laugh when I tell you this. I did feel something like a sudden chill." "Ah, there was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then, and what I felt was a--a mental chiller, a sort of sudden drag." "Yeah, pure imagination," said Rainesford. "One superstitious sailor can't take the whole ship's company with his fare." "Oh, maybe, but sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they're in danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing, with wavelengths just to sound and light have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. And now I'm glad we're getting out of this zone. Well, I think I'll turn in now, Rainesford." "Ah, I'm not sleepy," said Rainesford. "I want to smoke another pipe on the afterdeck." "Well, good night, Dan, Rainesford. See you at breakfast." "Right. Good night, Whitney." "There was no sound in the night as Rainesford sat there, but the muffled throbber the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller." Rainesford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite breath. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him. "Oh, it's so dark," he thought. "But I could sleep without closing my eyes. The night would be my eyes." An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again, somewhere off in the blackness, somewhere had fired a gun three times. Rainesford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was light trying to see through a blanket. He leapt upon the rail and balanced himself there to get greater elevation. His pipe, striking a rope, was not from his mouth. And he lunged for it. A short horse cry then came from his lips as he realized he'd reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean see dosed over his head. He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash and the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the retreating lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he swum fifty feet. A certain cool-headedness had come to him, as not the first time he'd been in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of the yacht became faint and ever vanishing fireflies, and then they were blotted out entirely by the night. Rainesford remembered the shots. They come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes. He could do possibly a hundred more and then, Rashford, heard a sound. He came out of the darkness, a screaming sound, a sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror. He did not recognize the animal that made the sounds. He didn't try to. With fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again, and then it was cut short by another noise. Crisp, staccato, pistol shot, muttered Rainesford, swimming on. Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears. The most welcome he had ever heard. The muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them. On a nightless calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up in the opaintness. He forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping his hands raw he reached a flat place at the top. Dent's jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. Ah, what perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not concern Rainesford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life. When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. A sleeper given him a new vigor, a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully. "Hmm, where there are pistol shots, there are men, where there are men, there is food," he thought. "But what kind of man?" he wondered, in so forbidding a place. A unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringe the shore. He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees. It was easier to go along the shore, and Rainesford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he'd landed, he stopped. Some wounded thing by the evidence of a large animal had thrashed about in the underbrush. The jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated. Some patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainesford's eye, and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge. "A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's old. It must have been a fairly large animal." The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it. He examined the ground closely and found what he'd hoped to find. The print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he'd been going. Eagally he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway, night was beginning to settle down on the island. The darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainesford sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coastline, and his first thought was that he'd come upon a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along he sought his great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building, a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau, that was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs, dive down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the chanels. "Mirage!" thought Rainesford. "But it was no mirage," he found, when he opened the tall spite iron gate. The stone steps were really enough, the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was really enough, yet above it all hung an air of unreality. Rainesford lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. Let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within. The door remained closed. Again Rainesford lifted the heavy knocker and let it fall. The door opened then, opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring, and Rainesford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainesford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainesford had ever seen, a gigantic creature solely made and black beaded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long, barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainesford's heart. Out of the snarl of beard, two small eyes regarded Rainesford. "Don't be alarmed," said Rainesford, with the smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber; I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainesford of New York City." The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainesford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in uniform, a black uniform trimmed with a grey astrocar. "I am Sanger Rainesford of New York," Rainesford began again. "I fell off a yacht; I am hungry." The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainesford saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at attention. The man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainesford and held at his hand. In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it an added precision and deliberateness, he said. "It's a very great pleasure and honour to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainesford, the celebrated hunter to my home." Automatically Rainesford shook the man's hand. "I've read your book about hunting snow lepers into bets, you see," explained the man. "I am General Zaro." Rainesford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome. His second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about that general's face. It was a tall man, past middle age, for his hair was a vivid white, but his thick eyebrows and pointed military moustache was black as the night from which Rainesford had come. His eyes too were black and very bright. Yet high cheekbones, a sharp cut nose, a spare, dark face, the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, and withdrew. "Ivern is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the General, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow but I'm afraid I call his race a bit of a savage." "Is he, Russian?" "He's a cosser," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "Well, so am I." "Come," he said. "We shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later." "Now you want clothes, food, rest, and you shall have them. This is a most restful spot." "Ivern had reappeared, and the General spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound." "Well, follow Ivern if you please, Mr. Rainesford," said the General. "I was about to have my dinner when you came. I'll wait for you, and find that my clothes will fit you, I think." It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopyed bed big enough for six men that Rainesford followed the silent giant. Ivern laid out an evening suit, and Rainesford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of juke. The dining-room to which Ivern conducted him was, in many ways, remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence about it. It suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its ogan panels, its high-ceiling, its vast refectory tables, where two-score men could sit down and eat. About the hall were mounted heads of many animals, lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears, larger or more perfect specimens Rainesford had never seen. At the great table, the General was sitting alone. "Oh, you'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainesford," he suggested. The cocktail was surprisingly good, and Rainesford noted the table appointments were of the finest, the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china. They were eating borsch, a rich red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian pallets. Half apologetically, General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip? Not in the least," declared Rainesford, who was finding the General the most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolitan. There was one small trait of the Generals that made Rainesford uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate, he found the General studying him, appraising him narrowly. "Yes," said General Zaroff, "you are surprised that I recognize your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian now. I have put one passion in my life, Mr. Rainesford, and that is the hunt. "No, you have some wonderful hands here," said Rainesford as he ate, a particularly well-cooked filimino. "That Cape Buffalo is the largest I've ever seen." "That fellow, yes, he was a monster." "Did he charge you?" "Oh, hell, me against a tree," said the General, "fractured my skull, but I got the brute." "I've always thought," said Rainesford, "that the Cape Buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game." From the moment the General did not reply, he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, "No, you are wrong, sir. The Cape Buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He then sipped his wine, "Here in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow-tone, "I hunt more dangerous game." Rainesford expressed his surprise, "Is that big game on this island?" The General nodded, "The biggest, really." "Oh, it isn't here, naturally, of course. I have to stalk the island." "What have you imported, General?" Rainesford asked, "Tigus?" The General smiled, "No," he said, "Hunting Tiger ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in Tiger's, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainesford." The General took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black cigarette with a silver tin. It was perfumed and gave us smell like incense. "You will have some capital hunting you and I," said the General, "I shall be most glad to have your society." "But what game?" began Rainesford, "I'll tell you," said the General, "You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. Well, may I pour you another glass of port?" "Thank you, General." The General filled both glasses and said, "God makes some inputs. And he makes kings some beggars. Me he made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years old he gave me a little gun, especially made in Moscow for me, to shoot spouts with. When I shot some of his prized turkeys with it, he did not punish me. He complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army. It was expected of nobleman sons, and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry. But my real interest was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. Here will be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I have killed." The general then puffed at his cigarette. After the debacle in Russia, I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the czar to stay there. Many noble Russians lost everything. I luckily had invested heavily in American securities, so I shall never have to open a tea room in Monte Carlo, or drive a taxi in Paris. Or naturally I continue to hunt. "Grisleys and your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges or an ossuuses in East Africa. Ah, it was in Africa that Cape Buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I was recovered, I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning. They weren't. The Cossack sighed. They were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and with a high powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night, when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind. Hunting, I was beginning to bore me. And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in America, businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life." "Yes, that's so," said Rainsford. The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I asked you something. Now, mine is an analytical mind," Mr. Rainsford. "Doubtless, that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase." "No doubt," the general said. "So," continued a general, "I ask myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. Now, you are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but perhaps you can guess the answer." "Why was it?" "Ah, simply this. Hunting it ceased to be what you call a sporting proposition. It had become too easy. I always got my quarry home always. There is no greater bore than perfection." The general lit a fresh cigarette. "No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast, it's a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match or reason. When I thought of this, it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you." Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying. "And it came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on. And that was. The general smiled, the quiet smile of one, who was faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said. "A new animal, you're joking. Ah, not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one." "So I bought this island, build this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes. There are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills, swamps. But the animal, generals are off." "Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits." "Rainsford's bewilderment showed on his face." "I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, 'What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course. You must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason." "But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford. "Why, dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can." "But you can't mean," gasped Rainsford, "and why not?" "I can't believe your serious generals are off. This is a grisly joke." "Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting." "The hunting. Great guns, generals are off. What you speak of is murder." The general then laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. "I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be, harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life. Surely your experience is in the war?" "Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly. "Well, after shook the general, I extraordinarily trolled you up," he said. "One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive and, if I may say so, mere Victorian point of view. Was I finding a snuff-box in a limousine?" "Ah, well, doubtless you had puret in ancestors. So many Americans appeared to have had." "Oh, wager, you'll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford." "Oh, thank you. I'm a hunter, not a murderer." "Damn me," said the general, quite unruffled, again that unpleasant word. "But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill-founded." "Yes." "Life is for the strong to be lived by the strong and, if needs, be taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift?" "If I wish to hunt, why should I not?" "I hunt the scum of the earth, sailors from tramships, all kinds. A thoroughbred horse, or hound, is worth more than a score of men." "But they are men," said Rainsford hotly. "Precisely," said the general, "that's why I use them, it gives me pleasure. They can reason after a fashion so they are dangerous." "But where do you get them?" The general's left eyelids fluttered down in a wink. "This island is called Shiptrap," he answered. "Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes when Providence is not so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me." Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea. "Ouch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to see Rainsford saw the flash of light. The general chuckled. "They integrate a channel," said, "where there's none. Just giant rocks with razor edges, crouching like a sea monster with wide open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." Then dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on it. "Ah, yes," he said, casually as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We try to be civilized here." "Civilized, and you shoot down men." The trace of anger was now in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second, and he said, in his most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young man you have. I assure you I do not do the thing you suggest. That would be barbarous." I treat these visitors with every consideration. They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition, and you shall see that for yourself tomorrow. "What do you mean?" "Well, visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. There from the Spanish bark San Lucar, and had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there. A very inferior art, I regret to say, poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." He raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick, Turkish coffee. "Rainsford, with an effort, held his tongue in check." "It's a game, you see," pursued the general blindly. "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting-life. I give him three hours' start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry aloos me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him, the general smiled. He loses." "Well, suppose he refuses to be hunted." "Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not play the game if he does not wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honour of serving as official now to those of the great white sour, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably Mr. Rainsford, invariably they do choose the hunt. And if they win, the smile on the general's face widens. To date I have not lost," he said. Then he added, hastily, "I do not wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I even had to use the dogs. The dogs. Now this way please, I'll show you." The general steered Rainsford to the window. The lights from the window sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes. As they turned toward him, their eyes glittered green. "Oh, a rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at seven every night. If anyone should try to get into my house or out of it, something extremely regrettable would occur to him. You then hummed a snatch of song from the Folly Begere. "And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of hats. Would you come with me to the library?" "Oh, I hope," said Rainsford, "that you'll excuse me tonight, generals, or off. I'm not feeling really well." "Oh, indeed," the general inquired solicitous sleep, "well, I suppose that's only natural after your long swim. You need a good, restful night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, our wager, and then we'll hunt, eh? I've one rather promising prospect." Rainsford was hurrying from the room. "Oh, sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect rather fast port, a big, strong man. Oh, he looks resourceful. Well, good night, Mr. Rainsford, I hope you have a good night's rest." The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fibre of his being. But nevertheless, Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay eyes wide open. Once he thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought to throw open the door, but it would not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent. But there was a fragment of shallow moon, and by its one light he could see dimly the courtyard. There, weaving in and out, in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms. The hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and laid out. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a dose when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, a faint report of a pistol. Enors are often not appear until lunch, and he was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health. "Ah, as for me," said the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried," Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint. To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Anui, boredom," then taking a second helping of cribs who's at, the general explained. The hunting was not good last night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. "Ah, that's the trouble with these sailors. They have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It's most annoying." "Will you have another glass of shubbly, Mr. Rainsford?" "General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once." The general raised his thickets of eyebrows. He seemed hurt. "My dear fellow," the general protested, "you've only just come. You've had no hunting." "But I wish to go to-day," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. Those are of his face suddenly brightened. He filled Rainsford's glass with a venerable shubbly from a dusty bottle. "All right," said the general, "we will hunt, you and I." Rainsford shook his head. "No, General," he said, "I will not hunt." The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hot house great. "As you wish, my friend," he said. The choice rests entirely with you, but may an adventure to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more than averting than Ivan. He nodded toward the corner, for where the giant stood, scouting. His thick arms crossed on his hogs head of chest. "Ah, you don't mean," cried Rainsford. "My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you, I always mean what I say about hunting. This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foam and worthy of my steel, at last." The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat, staring at him. "You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically. "Your brain against mine, your woodcraft against mine, your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess, and the steak is not without value, eh?" "And if I win," began Rainsford, huskily. "I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself, defeat, if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said General Zarof. "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was thinking. "Oh, you can't trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here." "Well, I'll agree to nothing of the guy," said Rainsford. "Oh," said the general. "In that case, but, oh, why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of verfklikol, unless—" The general sipped his wine. Then a business like air animated him. "I, then," he said to Rainsford, "we'll supply you with hunting clothes, food, her hair. I suggest you wear moccasins. I leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it death swamp. That's quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. "Well, you can imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus. He was the finest hound in my pack." "Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always take a siesta after lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk, hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think?" "O Rivoir," Mr. Rainsford said, "O Rivoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, curtly bow, then strolled from a room. From another door came Ivan, and one army carried khaki hunting clothes, a have-a-sack of food, another sheath containing a long-bladed hunting-knife. His right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist. Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must keep my nerve, I must keep my nerve," he said, through tight tea. He had not been entirely clear-headed when the Shattergate snapped shut behind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff, and to this end he had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that straight flight was futile, inevitably it would bring him face-to-face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations clearly must take place within that frame. "I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the root path he'd been following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops. He doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the Fox Hunt and all the dodges of the Fox. It found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative, and he thought, "I've played the Fox, now I must play the Cat of the Fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was nearby, and, taking care not to leave a slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, stretching out on one of the broad limbs after a fashion rested. Rest brought him new confidence, and almost a feeling of security. He even so zealous a hunter as General Zarov couldn't trace him there, he told himself. I neither devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the General was a devil. An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake, and sleep did not visit Rainesford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning, when a dingy grey was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainesford's attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainesford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb end, through a screen of leaves, almost as thick as tapestry. He watched, that which was approaching, was a man. It was General Zarov. He made his way along with eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainesford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the General's right hand held something metallic, a small automatic pistol. The hunter shook his head several times as if he were puzzled, and he straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes. His pungent incense-like smoke floated up to Rainesford's nostrils. Rainesford held his breath. The General's eyes had left the ground and were travelling inch by inch up the tree. Rainesford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring, but the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainesford lay. A smile spread over his brown face, and very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air. Then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away. Back along the trail he'd come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots growing fainter and fainter. The pent-up I hadn't burst hotly from Rainesford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The General could follow a trail through the woods at night. He could follow an extremely difficult trail. He must have uncanny powers, only by the mirror's chance that the cossack fell to see his quarry. Rainesford's second thought was even more terrible. He sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole being. Why had the General smiled? Why had he turned back? Rainesford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that by now pushed through the morning mists. The General was playing with him. The General was saving him for another day's sport. The cossack was the cat, and he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainesford knew the full meaning of terror. "I will not lose my nerve. I will not." He slid down from the tree and struck off again into the woods. His face was set, and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped, where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller living one. Frying off his sack of food, Rainesford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy. The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He didn't have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse. Following the trail, the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zar. Having escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent wig, no mark, no matter how faint in the mouse. So intent was the cossack, on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainesford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bow that was the trigger, and even as he touched it the General sensed his danger and let back with the agility of an ape. But he wasn't quite quick enough. The dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the General a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell. But for his alertness he would surely have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall, nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainesford, with fear again gripping his hearts, heard the General's mocking laugh ring through the jungle. "Reignesford," called the General, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a melee man-catcher. Luckily for me I too have hunted in my locker. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainesford. I'm going to have my wound dressed, it's only a slight one, but I shall be back. I shall be back." When the General, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainesford took up his flight again. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dust came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins. The vegetation grew rancher, denser, and insect bit him savagely. Then as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sunk viciously as his foot, as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort he tore his feet loose. Yes, he knew where he was now. Death swamp and its quicksand. His hands were tight-closed, as if his nerve was something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea, though. When he stepped back from the quicksand, a dozen feet or so, and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig. Rainesford had dug himself in, back in France, when a second's delay meant down. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper, and when it was above his shoulders he climbed out, and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. He stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit, with a point sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches, and withered he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning charred tree. He knew his pursuer was coming. He heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the general cigarette. On to Rainesford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness, and he was not feeling his way along foot by foot. Rainesford, crouching there, could not see the general nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute, and he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way. He heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leapt off from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand. "Ah, you've done well, Rainesford," the voice of the general called. "Obermy's tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again, you score." "Well, I think, Mr. Rainesford, I'll see what you can do against my whole pack. I am going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening." Daybreak, Rainesford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. There was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the bang of a pack of hell. Rainesford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait, and that was suicide. He could flee, and that was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there thinking, and I did a hell of a wild chance came to him, and tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp. The bang of the house drew nearer, and still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge, Rainesford climbed a tree. Down a water course, not a quarter of a mile away, you could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zara. Just ahead of him, Rainesford made out another figure, whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds. It was a giant, Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force. Rainesford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leech. They were beyond him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he'd learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree, he caught hold of a springy young sapling, and he fastened it to his hunting-knife, with a blade pointing down the trail. With a bit of wild grapevine, he tied back the sapling, and then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainesford knew now how any animal at bay feels. He had to stop and get his breath, and the baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainesford heart stopped too. They must have reached the night. He shined excitedly up a tree and looked back, his pursuers had stopped, but the hope that was in Rainesford's brain when he climbed died. Rainesford saw in the shallow valley that General Zarov was still on his feet, but Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed. Rainesford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry once more. "Nove, nove, nove," he panted as he dashed along. A blue gap show between the trees, dead ahead, have a nearer drew the hounds. Rainesford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy grey stone of the shadow. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainesford hesitated. He heard the hounds, and then he leapt far out into the sea. From the general in his pack reached the place by the sea, the cossack stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders, and then he sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bitch from Madame Butterfly. General Zarov had an exceedingly good dinner in his great panel dining hall that evening. A bit he had a bottle of pole roger, and half a bottle of chambertown. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was a thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan. The other was that his quarry had escaped him. Of course the American hadn't played the game, so I thought the general, as he tasted his after dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so before turning on his light he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. You could see the great hounds he called. "Ah, better luck next time," said them, and they switched on the light. A man who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed was standing there. "Rainswood," screamed the general, "how in God's name did you get here?" "I swam," said Rainswood. "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle." The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said, "you have won the game." Rainswood did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low horse voice. "Get ready, General Zano." The general made one of his deepest bowels. "I see," he said, splendid. One of us is to furnish a repass for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard Rainswood, and he had never slept in a better bed. Rainswood decided. So once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast, where thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories, and to you for taking the time to listen. Now, I'd ask one small favor of you, wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words, and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. 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