The Floating Robot and other novelettes
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: science fiction; novelettes; collection
Description: David Wright O'Brien (1918-1944) published the first of many sf and fantasy short stories and novelettes in 1940 at the age of 22. He was so prolific he used several pseudonyms: Duncan Farnsworth, John York Cabot, Richard Vardon and Clee Garson. He enlisted in the USAAF in WW2 and died during a bombing raid over Berlin in 1944. This ebook contains five of his novelettes. He is not known to have written any full-length novels. 1: The Floating Robot 2: Secret Of The Lost Planet 3: Squadron Of The Damned 4: Lord Of The Crystal Bow 5: The Living Manikins

THE FLOATING ROBOT
and other novelettes

David Wright O'Brien

This original collection was compiled in December 2018 from the texts of individual stories prepared by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan for Roy Glashan's Library, a publisher of free ebooks in the Australian Public Domain.

David Wright O'Brien (1918-1944) published the first of many short stories and novelettes in 1940 at the age of 22. He was so prolific he used several pseudonyms: Duncan Farnsworth,  John York Cabot, Richard Vardon and Clee Garson. He enlisted in the USAAF in WW2 and died during a bombing raid over Berlin in 1944.

Contents

1: The Floating Robot

2: Secret Of The Lost Planet

3: Squadron Of The Damned

4: Lord Of The Crystal Bow

5: The Living Manikins

(In the second and fifth stories above, the opening chapters as originally published  lacked titles. The editor of this 2018 collection has added his own.)

_________________

1: The Floating Robot

Fantastic Adventures, Jan 1941

1:  The Coming Of The Robot

THE name O'Neill and red hair and temper go naturally together, and Sally had 'em all. Right now Sally O'Neill was a red-headed fury on wheels, which was something, because even when she wasn't mad, Sally was beautiful.

"Danny Marshall!" she literally flung both body and voice at the dazed young man standing before her, "how did this get out?"

"How did what get out?" asked Dan Marshall, devouring the flame of her with his eyes.

"This!" snapped Sally, thrusting an opened magazine under his nose.

"Oh, Radio News, hey," he blinked and drew his eyes into focus by the simple expedient of taking a backward step. Then they widened. "Honey, you mean we got some publicity—" He snatched the magazine from her.

"Publicity!" she screamed. "Oh— Dan Marshall, I could kill you— !" He ignored her fury for the moment. "'Small town girl blows fuse...'" he began reading, then stopped, swallowed hard, and crimsoned to his ears. "How'd this get out?" he bellowed. Sally's lips tightened. "I'm asking that question, Dan Marshall, and you'd better begin answering it."

Marshall's brow began to furrow in an annoyed frown and he gripped the magazine tighter as he read on. " 'Station KABL, Sharon Springs, Kansas, recently went off the air for over an hour on two separate occasions, when Miss Sally O'Neill, soprano, kicked the daylights out of the power tubes with (you can take it or leave it) her "high A over high C!" It seems technician Daniel Marshall didn't account for the dynamite in this lovely (we hear) little lady's voice. Might we suggest a little back-pedaling on the volume rheostat next time, Danny?'"

There was a strained silence that grew more strained as his voice ceased.

"Well?" said Sally dangerously.

Marshall expelled his breath in a long whoosh, and looked at her. "I'm sorry, Sally," he said simply. "I don't know how the story got out. I didn't do it. And you know as well as I do, that our mutual contract to get you into the big-time means as much to me as it does to you. More, maybe, because after all, a guy wants the girl who's going to be his wife to get every break..."

"And I suppose you'll let the tubes blow out next Friday night when we go on the network," she told him. "Is that what you mean by 'breaks'?"

"Now, Sally..." he began pleadingly. "How about giving me a break? After all, has an engineer ever had to contend with the kind of a voice you've got? I tell you, when you go out over the airwaves from coast to coast Friday night on the National Talent Roundup, you're going to hit Star Lane with a bang. And how can I put you over if I don't experiment first and make sure nothing will go wrong?"

"You've tried twice now," she pointed out. "It seems to me a little thing like turning a rheostat oughtn't be so hard."

HE tossed the magazine onto the desk and taking her slim shoulders in his hands, kissed her on the lips.

"Anything's hard, when it means taking my eyes off you," he grinned. "But seriously, honey, I'm sorry this all got out, and I'll promise that in the future that pesky little rheostat behaves. In fact, I'm putting you on the dinner concert this evening with the same number you'll sing Friday night—"

"Oh!" her eyes widened. "Your— aria!"

"— yeah— and make sure we have the volume under control," he finished with a rush. "That'll give us a chance to let you hit all those high notes in my composition, and—"

"But, Danny," she protested, "you weren't going to use it until Friday. You haven't even had it copyrighted. Do you think you should?"

"Silly," he bantered. "Who's going to steal it. After all, you're the only one in the world, so far as I know, who can actually sing it, and anyway, without warning, who could get it down on paper?"

He backed away and looked her up and down critically. "Let's see—" he mumbled, "You've never seen beauty until you've seen Sally. Hair the color of all the shades of red in a tropic sunset; eyes filled with the green of calm, deep water, but eyes that sometimes flash with the angry flame of a meteor from space; an ivory-white throat with a delicious indentation where the leaping pulse of fiery youth beats visibly; high, gleaming forehead; a form so exquisite that—"

"Danny Marshall," she interrupted abruptly, "are you drunk?"

He grinned at her impudently. "No. Just going over your good points for the publicity releases I'll be giving out after Friday..."

He halted as she turned and tripped lightly to a desk and a typewriter. Inserting a sheet of paper, she began typing. As she typed, she read aloud.

"Tall as a Greek god, and with wavy blond hair; eyes as blue as any seagoing Viking of old; a devil with the women; clumsy, especially with a rheostat; and oh so easy to forgive—"

The keys jammed as he leaned over the desk and kissed her again.

"Sally," he breathed, "you're a jewel!"

"WHAT a jewel!" chuckled Martin Ryker, leaning back in his leather-cushioned desk chair, and shifting his big feet to a more comfortable position on the glass-topped desk of his New York office. "Small town girl blows tubes! That's rich. This guy Kinchell is a riot. Wonder where he gets all his gags?"

Martin Ryker read on. Suddenly his feet thudded to the floor and he sat up straight, his eyes widening.

"Saaay!" he muttered, the grin wiped from his face. "It takes a pretty steady jolt of juice to blow a main power tube. And it says here she's good looking. Maybe this ain't so funny after all..."

He jabbed a fat finger down on the buzzer button on his desk. Instantly a dapper secretary, whose ferret eyes belied any look of inoffensiveness his general appearance gave, came in.

Ryker threw the magazine at him. "Page 36," he barked. "Read the gag about the girl blowing the tubes at KABL. Then get out there by plane. Get a recording of her voice, and if it's any good, in your crooked opinion, slap a contract at her. Ham, grand opera, Chesterfield cigarettes, what's the difference. She's got power. This is the age of power. I don't miss no bets. And I got lots of contract blanks. Get going!"

Martin Ryker settled back in his seat, a thoughtful look on his face as the secretary scurried out. Then, after a moment, he grinned. "Rich!" he chortled. "That guy Kinchell knows his onions. He's got a swell grapevine. Swell!"

"SHE'S swell, boss, swell! I got some of the sweetest glitter-stuff ever put in cans. And she ain't ham, boss. She's even too good for grand opera. She's good for a coffee program any day in the week.

"Where'm I callin' from? Right here in— what'sa name of this stinkin-little burg now?— oh yeah, Sharon Springs—

"Now wait a minute, boss, and let me finish tellin' yuh. That's why I'm calling from here. I didn't get no contract— yet. Y'see, it's a funny set-up, and I gotta work it out a little devious. It seems the gal is in love with the station director, this Dan Marshall guy, and they got it all stowed away in the frigidaire. Yeah, he's gonna manage her, and get her on the top rung of the ladder of success, and then he's gonna marry her.

"Sure, boss, I talked to him. Not big money, you understand, because he's a smart boy and he has plans. I found out around town about him— plenty. The kind of a kid who has ideas of his own chain, and cleaning up on and in the big time. In fact, boss, he has been quoted as saying you are a stinking crook.

"No, boss, I didn't say that. Hold on, will you? Maybe you are, but I never say it. But he won't have nothing to do with us. And neither will she. His word is law with her, and he's the little tin god. She's plenty soft on him.

"Well, anyways, I didn't get to first base with offering her a contract. She says Danny boy is right smart, and
he'll have her up there in no time.

"Sure you got time, boss. Here's the set-up. She goes on the air Friday night over the National Talent Roundup—

"Cripes, boss, I know it's a rival chain. But lemme finish. She ain't gonna make no hit over the Roundup. When she gets to that first high A over high C, the volume control won't cut down for her. Blooey! Get it? She blows another tube, and the local station goes off the air for a couple hours. Sally's sore at the boy friend right now for the plug Kinchell gave her. And if Danny-boy botches it up again, making her sound like an air raid warning just before the blackout, she's going to be hopping mad, and I wouldn't be surprised if she could be easily persuaded to tear up her contract with him, if she has one.

"But that ain't all. She sang a composition of the boy friend's, written especially for that voice of hers, and it sure is a sweet one. The boy has talent. She's got the voice. Well, I found out he ain't had it copyrighted yet— in fact, it's still in the rough draft. The song, I mean. So I took the precaution to record the song as she sang it last night on the dinner concert.

"Yeah, I knew you'd know what to do in a case like this. That's why I rushed the waxy to you this ayem by airmail.

"You're coming down yourself to handle the girl? Okay with me. I'll see that the station goes off the air. That volume rheostat won't work at the proper time.

"Sure, boss, you can count on me for the dirty work..."

DAN MARSHALL glanced nervously at the minute hand of his watch, then fixed the control phones more firmly over his ears. It was time for Sally to go on the National Talent Roundup.

He caught the applause for the last section of the cross country pickup, and the announcer began his smooth, dramatically uttered introduction to the next section.

"...Miss Sally O'Neill, soprano!" he finished.

Marshall gave his meters a critical scrutiny, threw a switch that began a recording, then settled back to listen as the clear soprano voice of Sally O'Neill drifted into his ears. Her voice floated on, clear as a bell, tinkling in rising bars, ever higher.

Marshall leaned forward. "Now—" he breathed.

Sally's voice soared upward, upward, then surged out in full volume. Marshall turned the rheostat down deftly. Suddenly his earphones began to blare, rattled deafeningly, then with an abrupt finality, went dead.

Marshall tore the phones from his head, his ears ringing. Then he became conscious that the ringing wasn't all in his ears. There was a high-pitched tone that still echoed through the locked control room, almost reverberating from the walls, as though some giant clock had just tolled the hour of one.

There was a sharp crackling sound, as of an electric arc sputtering somewhere. Then abruptly the lights dimmed. As though being muffled out by an invisible blanket of darkness, they faded away, to be replaced at last by intense blackness. Marshall sat paralyzed by the phenomenon, then he blinked. There was something before him in the darkness— something hanging in mid-air in that Stygian gloom!

The hair prickled erect on his scalp and his spine crawled. For there, before his aching eyes, a glow came up; a brilliant crimson glow, shot with silver flashes of incandescence. And its light revealed the most fantastic being Marshall had ever seen in any nightmare.

It was a nameless thing of gleaming red metal, perhaps five feet in height. It had a formless head, with odd projections that might have been eyes, but there were no eyes in them. It had metallic arms, terminating in almost human hands. It had no legs, but a round bottom almost ludicrously like an untippable salt cellar, ringed by a band of what seemed to be radio-active gold.

And it floated effortlessly perhaps a foot above the floor.

Almost blinded by the angry flashings from its electrically alive body, Marshall shrank back in his chair.

"My God!" he gasped. "What is this...thing!"

And then, to his utter horror, he felt his whole body possessed, his brain invaded, by a nameless vibration that somehow took the form of words. He was powerless to move, and listened in growing incredulity as a voice rang out soundlessly in his mind.

"I am Yolan! Is it you who have done this to me? Twice before you invaded my world in the ether; twice before you have tried to despoil me of my freedom. Now you have succeeded. I do not like it. What is this horrible world into which you have called me?. Why have you sought me out with your vibration that commands?"

Marshall was dazed, fought to regain his possession of his faculties. But he was helpless to answer. Instead, he felt his mind being probed into, the answers being dug unmercifully from him. Replies that were meaningless, because not even he knew the answers.

He felt that the incredible thing before him was sifting out the things it drew from his brain, trying to catalogue them, understand them. And suddenly he knew that the thing was failing utterly.

"I am Yolan," repeated the monster, rather querulously. "What is this world? Why have I been trapped in this dark place? I am Yolan. I am Yolan."

Suddenly Marshall felt his brain released. He sensed in the doubting, shifting motions of the metal creature as it swayed in the air before him, that it was caught in the web of doubt, of indecision, of bewilderment perhaps even greater than his own.

Then the creature seemed to stiffen, become motionless, as though listening, or sensing something beyond Marshall's earthly perceptions.

There began a high pitched droning, a squeal that sounded oddly like the clashing heterodying of an old-fashioned receiver. Then there came brilliant flashes of light, and a roar of awful sound.

Marshall sensed rather than saw, that the creature was going to rush toward him, hurtle at him with metallic devastation.

Instinctively he threw himself prone, and for an instant, was bathed in an eerie electrical glow as the nameless bulk hurled over his prostrate form. Something struck his breast painfully. Then, with a terrific crash, a shower of plaster, wood, and bricks, it was gone. And in its place was a huge gap in the wall of the building through which a street light shone.

Down below, in the street, as Marshall picked himself dazedly up, a crowd was collecting.

"An explosion!" someone yelled. "The radio station has exploded!"

And then, inexplicably, the lights went on. Marshall stared around dazedly. They came on exactly as they had gone, as though a muffling blanket had been lifted from them.

On the stairway the thudding of feet came. Marshall staggered to the door and unlocked it, and a blue-coated policeman burst into view.

"Begorry," he gasped. "What's goin' on in here, me lad?"

"I don't know, Flanagan!" said Marshall with tight lips. Something...went past me, and burst through that wall as though it wasn't there

"Something big, red, made of metal— and it floated in the air, with nothing to hold it up..."

Marshall stared appealingly at the frowning Flanagan.

"It was all lit up, like a weird ghost. It didn't have a face, and no legs. But it had arms, and hands, with metal fingers—" Marshall indicated his shirt, which was torn over his breast. And underneath were bloody scratches that looked like— the clawmarks of a giant cat.

Flanagan frowned. He looked at Marshall. "Have you been drinking—" he began.

Dan Marshall shook his head. "No," he said hoarsely. "I saw it, Flanagan. And I'm sure I never want to see it again. Because there just can't be anything like that!"

Marshall staggered to the door and stepped out.

And stood face to face with a blazing-eyed, tight-lipped girl.

"DAN MARSHALL," she said, voice trembling, tiny fists clenching and unclenching stiffly at her sides. "An hour ago I would have drawn and quartered the man who called you a fool. But right now, I'd shake his hand. You, utter, complete, bungler. Do you know what you've done, Dan Marshall? You've made me the laughing stock of the country. Business manager! You couldn't manage to hold your breath long enough to embarrass the insurance company!"

Her eyes widened a moment as she saw the wreckage of the control room.

"My," she added acidly. "You've managed to blow up more than the tubes with my high notes, this time. The publicity on this will be simply wonderful! I'll be blowing up buildings and bridges next!"

"Sally," Marshall grabbed her arms. "Please! I didn't do all this. A strange metal robot did it. He came into the control room and spoke to me. He said his name was Yolan. He hypnotized me, read my mind..." Abruptly Marshall stopped speaking, realizing how insane his hurried words were sounding. He saw the expression of utter disbelief and disgust that was sweeping over Sally's lovely features.

"Dan Marshall!" she said in utter amazed anger. "Dan Marshall— you're drunk!"

The cold fury in her tones rose in crescendo until she almost screamed. Suddenly with a furious motion, she wrenched her ring from her finger and threw it at him. Then, sobbing, she whirled and ran from the studio into the night.

"Sally!" he called, sprinting after her, but at the door he stopped. There was no halting Sally now, he knew, and the sting where the ring had hit against his face made his heart sink to his shoes.

"Golly," he muttered. "She means that. Now I am in a jam."

Despondently he turned back to the studio and then halted as the dapper little man sauntered past, a slightly amazed expression apparent, even yet, on his rat-like face.

"What are you doing here," asked Marshall in sudden suspicion.

"Nothing at all. For a time I still had hopes. But now—" The little man shrugged.

"She had a nice voice," he said regretfully. "But I don't think anybody could do anything with it now. Unless you could use it for a factory whistle—"

"Why you little rat!" Marshall blazed, clenching his fist.

The dapper little man ducked hurriedly past him into the night.

2:  The Robot Runs Amok

"THERE just can't be anything like that, Miss Latour!" the frantic, perspiring, red-faced Insurance Adjuster rasped despairingly. "We're willing to settle any reasonable claims. Especially when they involve a well-known movie actress like yourself. But when you tell us that some floating, red-metal thing-a-muh-bob comes into your, uh...ah...boudoir and shocks you into a faint—" He paused, almost hysterical, and mopped his brow. "Well, good heavens, Miss Latour, how can I tell my company that that's what they have to pay claim on?"

The raven-haired cinema star rose, pulling her dressing robe closer about her, eyes blazing.

"Do you mean to say that you think I'm lying?" she shouted.

Her agent, a fat, bald little man with a thick accent rose quickly, putting his fat hand on her arm in an effort to calm her down. "Now, now, Lettie," he said quickly, "don't get hysterical!"

She shook his hand from her arm, continuing to stare at the Insurance Adjuster. Her voice, as she spoke, was cold, low, and seething with indignation.

"For the last time," she said, "I'll tell you just what happened. And then your company better pay my claims, or I'll— ."

"Please don't get hysterical, Lettie!" her Agent implored.

"Shuddup!" the actress shouted. "This thing came into my room! I was telephoning long distance, New York. The operator had given us the connection, and I'd talked for almost two minutes when the hook-in seemed to grow fainter. Then there was a confusion of static. The phone began to crackle like...like...something alive. Then this horrible thing came floating into the room!"

The very recollection of the incident seemed to flood her with horror, for she pulled her dressing robe closer, shuddering, face pale.

"If you don't settle for my shock, and settle plenty—" she repeated ominously. Her voice rose shrilly. "It was terrible, I tell you, terrible!"

The Insurance Adjuster was at the door. "Okay, Miss Latour. I swear I'll do all I can. We settle! But don't let this thing get into the newspapers. If some of the other hams— uh, actresses, around Hollywood got wind that my company was paying for claims like that—" He paused to shudder. "It would break us!"

When the Adjuster was gone, the Agent turned to the actress. He rubbed his chubby paws, beaming.

"Wonderful, Lettie, colossal! What a news story! What publicity, little girl! How did you ever think of it? A metal monster visits film cutie— wow, I can see the headlines!"

The actress was gazing stonily at the little Agent, her eyes once more kindling sparks. "You imbecile!" she grated. "There was such a monster. I tell you I saw it!"

The Agent's face whitened. He backed toward the door. "But Lettie," he wailed. "There just can't be anything like that!"

He slipped out of the door just in time to avoid a flying paper weight.

IT was after midnight as the rotund, middle-aged radio "ham" closed the door behind him in his attic and, with the dazed and loving expression of an addict, walked over to his apparatus in the corner of his room. His gait was a trifle unsteady, for the party he had just returned from had been quite generously flooded with Cheering Nectar.

But a "ham" being a "ham"— drunk or sober— he was sitting at his set five minutes later, earphones on his head, intoning blearily into the small mike before him.

"C-Q, calling C-Q," the mellow and middle-aged gentleman said.

"Hello, C-Q, hello C-Q, hie," he repeated.

For a while he sat there, waiting for response. Then, slightly annoyed, he made an adjustment on the control board in front of him. Static seemed to be bad tonight, terrible.

"Hie, hello C-Q," the inebriated gentleman mumbled. "Damn, hello C-Q!"

Suddenly he sat bolt upright, an expression of extreme confusion wreathing his face. He made another adjustment, then another. In the silence of the room, the crackling response in his earphones seemed unnecessarily loud. A third adjustment, and the crackling became still louder.

The tubes on the control apparatus were glowing redly, more and more brilliantly. The "ham" tried to rise from his seat, tried to get the earphones off of his head. He failed in both attempts, and sat there, mouth agape, while the control board itself began to crackle.

There was a terrific explosion, followed by a series of wild, lightning-like flashes! The entire attic seemed bathed in a brilliant, static light. The "ham" had been thrown from his seat by the concussion, the earphones jarred from his head!

A crash of glass— and the attic window was shattered. Something red, something metal, glowing, weaving, floated into the room!

The "ham" tried to scream, tried to shout. The din and the flashing continued. Blackness closed around him.

PRECISELY ten minutes later, his wife was helping him to his feet. She was little, gray-haired, and angry. The confusion in the room was silenced. The attic was once more peaceful. But the window was broken, and his radio apparatus was a charred, twisted thing in the corner.

"You'll have to make up your mind," his wife was saying. "Either confine yourself to radio as a hobby, or drinking. But you can't mix them both. I knew something like this would happen sooner or later!"

Sobered and shaken, the "ham" stood there, looking doubtfully around the attic. He opened his mouth, was going to tell his wife about the floating thing, the red metal thing. Then he clamped his jaws shut. Hell. It hadn't happened. There just couldn't be anything like that!

From The Morning Edition of the Newhaven Times:

Last night the entire community was thrown into utter darkness when a breakdown occurred in the city power plant. For twenty hours New-haven was without electric lights or electric power.

In a sworn statement, the night shift at the power plant declared that the breakdown was caused by forces beyond their control— that some tremendous electrical force, a floating, inhuman thing, invaded the plant, blowing out the turbines completely!

From The Evening Edition of the Chicago Record-Herald

AIRLINER CRASHES, TWELVE DIE

SENATOR NORDERHOFF KILLED

(USP) The mysterious crash of the gigantic, Chicago-bound Midwestern Airliner, in the Michigan Dunes early this morning has already had nationwide results in its implications. An immediate investigation by the Interstate Air Commission has been demanded by local authorities who investigated the scene of the crash.

The disaster, which resulted in the death of Senator James L. Norderhoff (Dem. Ia.), and eleven others, occurred at approximately five-thirty this morning.

Co-pilot, Jess Weems, is still lingering between life and death at the State Hospital.

The condition of the plane, which didn't burn when it crashed, leads authorities to suspect that the cause of the crash might have been something other than a mechanical one. The motor was still in almost perfect condition upon inspection. The rear of the fuselage, however, was practically completely torn away.

Co-pilot Weems, although delirious, has made several strange statements which lead authorities to believe that some human agency engineered the accident. These statements indicate that someone, perhaps one of the passengers forced a way into the pilot's compartment to deliberately wreck the ship, which was following a radio beam into Chicago.

Excerpt from news story in the Miami Times:

CRUISE LINER ON REEF

RADIO BEAM BLAMED

A strange radio static condition, which last night held the Key West area in a state of electrical confusion, was blamed for the miscalculations made through radio beam by the officers of the cruise liner Floridan, and is said to have resulted in the reef shoaling of the vessel.

Passengers aboard the Floridan gave strangely conflicting opinions as to the cause of the grounding. Some of them swear that they could see weird lightning flashes that occasionally pierced the fog. Others, undoubtedly influenced by the well-known Loch Ness Sea Monster myth, swear to having seen an odd, red, glowing creature floating in and out between the electrical storm bursts. These statements however, have been discounted by Captain Rolf Peterson.

THE telephone lineman climbed out of the truck, pausing to strap his pole-climbing apparatus on his legs. The broad, straight stretch of Highway Eighteen was like a shimmering ribbon of mirror as the fine mist of rain sprayed relentlessly down from the darkened skies.

The lineman turned to his partner, a stocky barrel-chested little fellow wearing a black cap pulled low over his eyes. The lineman was tall, and he had to bend over to shout into the little man's ear, for it was difficult to be heard above the rumbling thunder overhead.

"This is a helluva night, Shorty," the Lineman bellowed. "1 wish I was home and in bed."

Shorty grinned, and pulled his cap lower over his eyes, fishing for a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his pocket. "Don't worry me none," he shouted in response. "You gotta do the climbing!"

The Lineman grinned, then, and Shorty went to the back of the truck to get his apparatus. When he returned, the Lineman was standing beside the tall telephone pole some four yards off the edge of the highway.

"Hurry up," the Lineman shouted. "Wanta get up and get done with it. Then we can catch some Java and sinkers down the road."

Shorty nodded, handing him his equipment, then stepped back, watching as the Lineman began his ascent of the pole. The Lineman's spikes dug deep in the wood, and in a few moments he neared the top. From his perch, he could look down on the stocky, small figure of his helper. The rain was heavier, now, beating into the Lineman's face.

The thunder rolled louder, ominously, and then was followed by a smashing detonation. The pole seemed to sway. The Lineman looked down the road, along the tops of the other poles, squinting through the rain. Then his eyes widened incredulously.

Far down the line, perhaps a mile and a half away, he saw a rapidly growing orange-and-red ball of flame!

He watched, fascinated. The thing crackled along the telephone lines, flashes of electrical sparks shooting off in its wake. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. The pole was literally trembling from some strange vibration!

The wires next to his elbow were buzzing, and he felt the heat of them even through his thick jacket. Frantically, he moved back, his spikes digging into wood. There was one thought, now that he'd been galvanized into action— get down!

From the ground, he heard a shout, hoarse, terrified; Shorty's voice. Then, looking up again, he screamed wildly. The terrifically rushing ball of crackling sparks and orange flame was less than forty yards from him, moving with incredible speed!

But he was too late. The thing was upon him!

Blazing, crashing, numbing flashes seared his mind and stunned his body. He felt himself falling, falling—

SHORTY met the nurse outside the door of the Lineman's hospital ward room.

"How is he?" he asked shakily.

"He'll be all right," she answered. And Shorty knew from the tone of her voice that she meant it. "You won't be able to see him until tomorrow," she concluded.

Shorty turned away. Electrical shock was what he'd told them. But God, that thing hadn't been an electrical shock! It was...it was...Shorty shuddered, seeking a word. There just couldn't be anything like it!

3: Key To A Monster

DAN MARSHALL snapped on the radio in his hotel room, adjusted the volume rheostat and then listened intently as the voice of the announcer suddenly swelled into being.

"Attention ladies and gentlemen! A special late bulletin from Florida. During an electrical storm in that region, witnesses reported the appearance of a strange comet-like object that appeared suddenly and flashed away out of sight before its exact nature could be ascertained. The witnesses state further that numerous bolts of lightning struck the object as if attracted to it by some strange magnetic force. The city officials are checking into the matter. Keep tuned to this—"

Dan Marshall cut off the voice with a vicious twist of his wrist and ran an impatient hand through his rumpled hair.

"That's the fourth report today," he muttered to himself, "What the hell's back of these electrical disturbances? Power plants, radio stations, wireless units, all turned upside down. And with every one of these freakish disturbances the witnesses have mentioned a floating, flaming object, or something like that. It can't just be a coincidence."

He paced the floor of his room nervously. At the back of his brain an insistent fear was plucking. What was the thing that had accosted him, then blasted out of the radio station?

He frowned thoughtfully. Was the thing that had been "born," so to speak, at the radio station, the same thing that was responsible for the freakish occurrences throughout the country?

As wild as that might sound it was as logical a guess as any other until someone unearthed more definite facts about the queer creature of the ether.

What kind of a thing was it? What furnished its energy; the terrible blasting energy that could shatter without effort a wall of concrete and steel ? Did it have any directional intelligence or was it just a physical projection of strange radio waves?

These questions, Marshall knew, would have to be answered before anyone could do any more than guess about the weird being.

And in the meantime he had problems of his own and his main problem concerned a green eyed bundle of feminine dynamite— Sally O'Neill!

Furious over the blow-out at the station, she was ready to sign a contract with the man, Ryker, who had flown in. She had agreed to fly to New York with him for an audition.

Marshall pounded his big fist into the palm of his hand viciously. He was convinced the grinning, smirking fellow was rotten to the core. He didn't give a hang about himself but he didn't want Sally to be taken for a ride.

He had just made up his mind to make another attempt to change Sally's mind when there came a knock on the door. He crossed to it, opened it. Sally was standing there. Under her arm was a bundle of newspapers.

"May I come in?" she asked, in a tone of voice that would have bored through chrome steel.

MARSHALL knew the storm signals.

The flashing green eyes, the gorgeous mass of red hair tossed back that way from her proudly held head spelled trouble. He grinned and stepped aside.

"Welcome, your gracious Majesty," he bowed low as she swept past him. "This humble domain is yours forever and I am yours to command."

He forced a mask of impassive gravity over his face and took her by the arm and led her to an overstuffed chair.

"The throne is just a bit dusty but ever since we went off the Gold Standard we can't afford maid service. However," he turned her around, put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently into the chair, "if it were brocaded satin on solid gold it would still be unworthy—"

"Dan Marshall," she interrupted ominously, "will you stop that nonsense and listen to me?"

He looked at her closely. "You sound very grim, my dear. Outside sparrows are twittering—"

"They're not sparrows," she corrected him automatically. "They're robins."

"Robins they are, then," he agreed, "but anyway they're twittering happily, the sun is shining, God's in his heaven, everything's cheerful and bright— and look at you. You should be laughing, smiling—"

"Smiling!" she cried. "What have I got to smile about? I've got nothing to laugh at, but thanks to you, the whole country is laughing at me. Have you seen the morning papers?" she demanded suddenly.

"Well, as a matter of fact," he admitted, "I haven't. But," he peered at the bundle of papers in her arm, "I have a very definite feeling that I'm going to before I'm much older."

"You're right for once," she snapped. She thrust the papers at him. "Read them. You'll get a big kick out of them. They're positively hilarious. All about the— the— vocal freak; I believe that's the expression one brilliant reporter coined."

Marshall shuffled rapidly through the papers, turning to the entertainment columns and glancing at the articles relating to the broadcast of the night before. He read a few chapters from each story and winced.

They hadn't pulled any punches. All of the papers had gone to town on the story, treating Sally as if she were some fantastic freak, who shouldn't be allowed on the air waves. But some of the stories, Marshall was forced to admit were really funny. For instance the radio critic of the Memphis Gazette had written:

"It is our opinion that Miss O'Neill's peculiar vocal qualities would be admirably suited to Lights Out program. Think of it! The announcer would introduce the program with— Light's Out! Miss O'Neill would hit her high note— and they would be!"

Marshall chuckled. An instant later he realized what a mistake that was.

"Oh," Sally's voice was outraged, "so you think it's funny too!" She sprang to her feet and looked eagerly about for something to throw. Fortunately for Dan Marshall there wasn't anything movable within reach. With a helpless moan she sank back into the chair.

"THAT'S the last straw," she said bitterly. "After getting me into this trouble, making me the laughing stock of the country, ruining my chances of a radio career, you still have the nerve to think there's something funny about it."

"Now wait a minute, honey," Marshall sank to his knees beside her and tried to capture one of her hands, but she kept them firmly locked in her lap. "I didn't mean to laugh. You've gotta believe me when I tell you that I feel worse than you do about the whole thing. I feel like thirty-three varieties of rat and I'm not just being dramatic. I wanted you to go over. That's all I've been working for, dreaming of, for all these years. Together with my aria and your voice I didn't think anything could ever stop us. And nothing will. This mechanical trouble we can straighten out and then we'll be on our way up."

"All this has a familiar ring to it," Sally commented frostily.

"I know it," Marshall snapped. "I've said it over and over again because I mean it. Another thing: I don't believe your voice threw us off the air the last time. I think that rheostat was tampered with in some way."

Marshall snapped his fingers excitedly. What a stupid blundering fool he was. Why hadn't he thought of that before?

"Of course," he cried excitedly, "that's it."

He thought swiftly, the whole jumbled assortments of fact falling into a clear picture in his mind. Ryker wanted Sally's contract. What more logical than to make Sally look bad, make her look like a useless vocal freak, then make her an offer. Sure that she was a flop Sally would snap at it as a last hope. Which was just what she had done. That's what Ryker's agent had been doing near the control room. He'd tampered with the mechanism so that it wouldn't respond to the rheostat.

"Don't you see, honey," he spoke swiftly, excitedly. "Ryker wanted you to think you were no good so he contrived to mess up the broadcast. Don't you see by signing a contract and going to New York with him you're playing right into his hands?"

"You haven't any proof of that," Sally challenged doubtfully, "and I don't think you could prove it. Mr. Ryker is taking me now when no one else wants me. He is willing to take a chance on my voice and give me a break. That's more than the other networks would do."

"Who said nobody wants you?" Marshall snapped belligerently. "You're going to be the hottest thing in radio and nothing's going to stop you. You've got the most glorious set of pipes that the ether has ever heard and you're feeling grateful because some two-bit chiseler like Ryker is going to audition you, because some big combine is trying to buy up talent at about one-tenth of what it's worth."

"Combine?" she snapped. "That sounds very encouraging to me. At least they'll have money. They'll be able to provide decent equipment that won't get temperamental every time someone turns on a little extra volume. It won't be a small, half-dozen watt station that spends as much time off the air as it does on. At least they'll be able to give me the opportunity of singing without fear of blowing up the control room!

"That's all I want. An opportunity to be heard. They'll give me that, and I'll be able to stand or fall on the merits of my voice alone. I'll be able to concentrate on my vocal production without worrying about inefficient engineers, cheap equipment, shortage of power— and you, Dan Marshall!"

She tossed her head defiantly.

MARSHALL put his hands on his hips and stared down at her. For a moment he said nothing, then he whistled softly.

"If I hadn't heard it," he said quietly, "I wouldn't have believed it."

Sally twisted uncomfortably under his gaze and averted her eyes.

"Well," she said, after a painful silence, "I have to think of myself don't I? I have to take advantage of an opportunity that will give me the things I want."

She looked up anxiously at his silent figure. "Well," she cried defensively, "don't I?"

Marshall's features were strained and white. "Sure," he said wearily, "you've got to look out for yourself, baby, and I don't think there's any question about your being able to do it. We're small time down here and you belong in the big time. The boys down here have helped you a bit but that's all right. Don't worry about that! You're going up. You've got the right technique. Don't take along any excess baggage. Use people, sure that's okay, but when they become a nuisance just dust 'em off like a fly speck."

He turned without glancing at her and crossed the room to the window. Without looking back he said, "Good luck, Sally."

Sally looked at his stiff, proud back and suddenly she was out of the chair, running to him, sobbing.

"Oh Dan, I didn't mean it," she cried, "I didn't mean it. I couldn't leave you, you know that. It was hateful of me to say the things I did."

He turned to her, his face lighting suddenly, and she buried hers against his chest. "I was angry, foolish, Dan, please forgive me," she murmured against his shoulder. "I'm not going to New York. We'll go together or not at all. I'll tell them to— to jump in the lake. There'll be other chances and we'll take them together. I don't care about anything except being with you. Everything's all right again, isn't it, Dan? Please say everything's all right again."

Dan Marshall didn't answer.

Instead he did some fast thinking. He was realizing, perhaps for the first time in his life, how much Sally meant to him, and he was also realizing that he was standing in the way of her career. There was no doubt of it. What she said in the heat of anger and wounded pride had been the bitter truth. Sally needed good equipment to handle her glorious voice, expert publicity men, all the things that the others could give her and he could not. Her loyalty to him prevented her from accepting another offer, the offer that would lead her to stardom and fame. If she stuck with him she might never get there. He couldn't allow her to sacrifice herself for him. He had to make her take that offer, go to New York and there was only one way that he could do that. He hated to do it, but it was the only way he could drive her away from him.

"Stop snivelling," he snapped. "That won't make any impression on me."

She stepped back from him and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but please don't be angry, Dan. I forgot myself for a minute because I was so disappointed and hurt that I wanted to hurt someone else. Please forgive me."

"Bravo, bravo," he jeered, "very good acting my dear. You really should be in Hollywood. Radio neglects your histrionic ability completely. But in spite of your cleverness it's no go. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not as simple as I look."

"Dan," she cried sharply, "what do you mean?"

"Aha," he smiled, "more acting. As if you didn't know. But if you really want me to draw a diagram I shall. Although I feel it's really unnecessary. In the first place you know that you're going to have a hell of a job cracking the eastern networks. Your voice isn't the greatest in the world, y'know, and on top of that you're liable to knock the station off the air before you get through. Knowing all this you realize that your chances are slim indeed unless you can get something different and sensational and inspiring to sing."

"Oh, Dan," Sally cried, "that's—"

"Let me finish," Marshall tried to keep his voice hard and brittle. "You knew this and you knew that if you could twist me around your finger I'd let you take my aria to New York with you. Well it was a good try, but it didn't work. You go to New York— without the aria. You were always just an investment to me and you turned out to be a darned poor investment. Why I even pretented to be nuts about you." He turned abruptly at the sight of her face and stared unseeingly out the window.

"Yeah, I— I even was that silly. Just to get you to put a little more oomph into your singing, but even that didn't help. Anyway you look at it, you were a complete bust to me. But I draw the line when you try to steal my aria!"

Sally backed away a step, her hand crawling to her throat. "No— no Dan," she said weakly, "you don't mean it. You're joking. Please say you're just joking."

Marshall felt something like a cold hand closing over his heart, but he forced his voice to carry a note of nonchalant derision.

"The answer is still no, baby. Get it through that pretty head of yours that I mean it. You're a smooth article, but you're just not smooth enough. I've got work to do so I'll have to ask you to stop annoying Uncle Danny. Drop me a line when you hit the city, kid."

Marshall waited for an instant and then looked over his shoulder. The door to the corridor was open and the room was empty. Sally had gone.

MARSHALL sank into a chair and buried his head in his arms. For a long time he remained motionless and when he raised his head, his face was white and haggard with suffering.

"I did it," he muttered to himself, "I'd rather have stuck my hand into a furnace than hurt that kid, but it's for her own good. Some day she'll thank me."

So Dan Marshall sat there numbly, the anguish at what he'd been forced to do driving all other thoughts from his mind. Sally, gone this time for good. But it was better. It had to be better this way. Quick, and final.

Hours passed, while Marshall remained there in his room, quite alone with his grief. But the nostalgic recollections of Sally were becoming more than he could bear. Enough was enough. At last he rose, conscious that he must do something, anything, to drive this hellish torture from his mind.

Now he felt a sudden burst of rage, a futile, maddening sort of rage, at the thing that had been responsible for this.

Dan Marshall tightened his fists as a vivid light flashed in his brain. There was a way— crossing to his bureau drawer, he fished into a pile of odds and ends, bringing forth a stub nosed automatic pistol. It might be handy, for a plan that was already forming in his mind; a plan that had to do with a certain recording.

Marshall strode out of his room. Twenty minutes later, in the growing darkness, he was at the radio station.

LOCKING the doors, he went to the control room. There he secured the recording of that fatal Friday night Talent broadcast. The record that had been impressing in its waxen self the clear tones of Sally's voice, singing his aria.

Marshall had a theory concerning that record, that voice, that aria. A theory that tied in now, with growing clarity in his mind, with the weird red metal menace that had first appeared in this very same control room.

As he thought of the incident, Marshall stared at the temporarily closed wall of the room; the one that had been wrecked by the impetuous and powerful plunge of the metal horror toward some unknown destination.

It had been through that wall that the monster had gone, to create all the havoc the newspapers had been bewilderedly telling of in the past twenty-four hours. Through the radio that thing had come, and through radio and electrical waves it seemed to travel. Take, for instance, the case of the ship wrecked because its radio beam signals were awry. Or the telephone lineman who had been so weirdly jolted from his perch atop a power pole. Or the powerhouse that had gone dead in the middle of the night, completely wrecked by a weird red phantom creature that literally sucked the energy from whirling dynamos, and shorted expensive machinery. Or the crash of the air liner, causing the death of Senator Norderhoff.

Marshall thought he knew the answer now. The strange radio waves generated by Sally's unusual voice had been the real key to the red menace. Those waves had brought it blindly into being in this very room, torn from a strange world of its own, perhaps even in another dimension. It had accused him of exactly that. But then Marshall hadn't understood.

Then, bewildered by its presence in an utterly strange place, it had sensed something, gone plunging to seek it. Had that something been the radio beam that guided the Senator's plane? Had the uncanny robot flung itself along that beam, seeking a way to return to the world it called its own, and thus crashed blindly, with the same force it had used to smash through the wall, into the plane, sending it hurtling in flames to the Michigan Sand Dunes?

The implications were stunning to Marshall, and now, with the record that he instinctively felt held the key to the floating demon in his hand, he felt his rage subside; the rage that had made him want to do something dangerous, anything, just so he could forget Sally. Did he really want to broadcast Sally's voice once again, using the record, and recall that flaming horror to this station?

Marshall grinned, suddenly, recklessly. What the hell. What did he care what happened? He'd faced the thing before— talked with it. He'd do it again, and maybe this time send it back to the place it sought; the place from which it came. He'd talk to it again. He knew it had intelligence. It would understand now, what he could tell it. He would send it back forever to its own world. He would prevent the tragedies that were taking place, perhaps more of them even now, as the robot-creature plunged madly about the country, seeking a way out of its strange dilemma.

He made his way purposefully to the broadcast room. If his hunch was right, the flaming, floating robot would be forced to return to the studio when he played those key notes that obviously impelled the creature irresistibly to their source.

IN a matter of fifteen minutes he was ready. Then, his hand on the switch that would put Station KABL on the air, he stopped, his face a mask of chagrin. But he grinned shortly after a moment. This was going to be expensive, because when he played that record, it meant more blown-out tubes.

Abruptly he pulled the switch down, then started the recording. Hastily he barked the required announcement and call-letters into the ether, then stepped across the room, back against the wall, waiting tensely. He could hear nothing, except the faint scratching of the needle on the recording. He hadn't turned on the speaker. A moment, then suddenly the meters on the control panel leaped, flickered back and forth, then slammed back against the zero-post with finality.

"There she goes!" said Marshall grimly, aloud.

And with the words, there came the now familiar shrill heterodyning noise, the crackle of a vast kind of static, and brilliant flashes of red and white light. And abruptly, there in the deserted radio station, blackness descended, like a mantle, and the lights blanked out. For a moment Marshall stood in darkness lit by alternately flaming bursts of red and white. Then a brilliant crimson glare filled the room, making it seem like a scene out of Dante's Inferno and there, in the center of the room, floating motionless, except for a slight bewildered swaying was— the Radio Robot!

Marshall stood stiffly, hardly aware that in the tenseness of the moment he had drawn his automatic and held it leveled in his hand. His breath seemed frozen in his lungs, and his hair prickled on his scalp. This time, unlike the first appearance of the terror, he could see all the details of it plainly. And an unnamed, unreasoning fear gripped him. This was nothing earthly. It was nothing remotely human. It was— alien! Utterly and impossibly alien.

The robot floated quietly a moment, seeming to regard him with its eyeless eyes. Marshall felt some queer, unhuman sense observing him, groping to understand him. And he waited.

But then, abruptly, realization of danger flooded over him. He felt invisible fingers plucking at his brain, felt his body begin to go numb under the devilish spell of the monster. Once again, as it had that first time, the creature was taking possession of his body and his will. But not completely, yet. Marshall knew that he could still command himself to a limited extent, could still force his body to obey, although sluggishly, under tremendous mental effort, the commands of his enmeshed will.

He tightened his fingers about the butt of the gun.

4:  The Secret Of The Robot

THE automatic was kicking against his rigid grip and blasting deafeningly in the silence of the room, while vivid flashes shot through the crimson darkness. But the horrible vision remained swaying there before him, even though he triggered again and again.

A last empty click told Marshall that his ammunition was exhausted. And he stood there, frozen, while the stench of gunsmoke burned his nostrils and the room rang from the shots. His useless weapon slipped from nerveless fingers, and even as it did— the thing talked! Calmly, coldly, as though his shots had gone unnoticed.

There were no sounds, but there was a voice. There was no language— but words stamped themselves on his mind! And dazedly, horrified, Marshall watched the creature floating redly before his eyes, while thought-communications burned into his brain.

"It is no good. You are not able to harm me. I, Yolan, am not of your world. The weapons of your world are useless against me. I seek a way back. I have been hurled into your sphere through no wishes of mine. I seek a way back. I am Yolan. I come from—"

And as the words broke off, Marshall had another form of impressions registered upon him, weird, odd, eerie mental photographic visions. Familiar vision— like newsreels of incredible number jumbled on a gigantic screen; of songs, music, speeches, dramas; of garbled commercial announcements. An utterly fantastic montage of half-human things, of unhuman things.

And somehow, too, Marshall got the impression of this world in relation to his own— another dimension was its border, another plane of existence marked the span that divided it from his own. But it had the same sun, the same moon, the same stars and stratosphere. And then the visions blurred, the montage fading out of focus until it was but a gray blot.

The words resumed, once again hammering against Marshall's consciousness. "That is my world. The world from which I was taken. The world to which I seek return. I am Yolan. It was here that I was snapped into your world through some strange gateway. It is here that the gateway must still exist. I seek that door back from your world to mine. I must return. I am Yolan."

Somehow, Marshall was speaking. He hadn't been conscious of anything but the incredible apparition, its fantastic powers.[*]

__________

[* Incredible as it may seem, the meaning of the uncanny things that Marshall sensed may be quite significant. The law of conservation of energy would seem to dictate that no energy is ever lost, only changed. And it can be changed to but one thing— matter! What then, happens to all the radio waves that are being broadcast in their millions every day? Are they not energy? The answer, of course, is yes. Where do they go? Do they travel ever onward into the depths of space? Here again, we must say something definite. We must say no. The Heaviside layer does not permit radio waves to escape the earth. They have been proven to bounce back from a height of some two hundred miles. They bounce from earth to stratosphere, and back again, hopping and skipping around the earth. This accounts for the phenomenon known as the "skip-area" which has long hampered long range radio broadcasting. Short wave stations still encounter this "skip-area" and signals tend to fade altogether at certain points, these points never stationary, but moving around the earth in a definite cycle— the cycle caused by the pattern of the reflections from the Heaviside layer.With all these points in mind, it means that all broadcasts are retained, in some infinitesimal, and greatly scattered manner, by the earth, perhaps in a very different dimension from our own three, the three of which our senses are cognizant. Certainly radio waves are not part of our three-dimensional perception. We need artificial senses— receivers— to pick up radio waves. Then, admitting the possibility of energy becoming matter, perhaps by sheer saturation, could not Yolan, the floating robot, who rides such things as radio beams, electrical flashes, telephone current, etc., be the materialization of those energies being constantly broadcast? Could he not be those energies, transformed into matter, crystallized into an intelligent being, made so by all the intelligence-patterns of those broadcasted radio waves ? Science and logic lend much support to such a theory, and none against.— Ed.]

But now the words were tumbling from his lips and he was powerless to stop them. It was once more as though he were being drained of all his thoughts, as though the robot were forcing him, in some strange manner, to speak.

And even as he talked, Marshall was aware that the words he spoke were the results of the conscious thoughts in his mind. He heard himself, as if from a distance, narrating a wild mixture of fear, anxiety, rage and all the emotions he had felt upon his entrance to the studio, in addition to a recounting of the panoramic emotions that had registered upon him when the radio robot had first appeared.

The odd monstrosity seemed to be digesting all this, sorting it. But, too, Marshall realized that while this was going on he had insight into the thought processes of the creature. Evidently the radio robot was forced to leave itself vulnerable when seeking radio-mental information from others. Like an open connection on either end of an actual radio wave transmission— both able to send and receive communications.

STRANGELY, Marshall's sensations of fear had left him. His wonder and astonishment remained, but his mind had regained its ability to estimate the situation coolly. The danger, obviously, remained. But Marshall was now oblivious to it. And now his voice had ceased.

The creature still swayed before him, the heterodyning shrilling audible once more. The glow to its body was strong enough to produce illumination in the room, strong enough to bring into sharp relief the trailing arms and metallic fingered hands of it.

Slowly, Marshall could feel its mind processes digesting the information which it had sucked from his conscious thoughts. Methodically, the thing was sorting, and as it arrived at conclusions, those same conclusions were instantly apparent to Marshall.

The robot was recognizing, dimly, the reasons for Marshall's visit to the studio. Then this information was pushed aside, as the creature groped onward toward what it was seeking— information by which it could find its way out of this strange world into which it had been thrust; groping, determinedly toward that solution. Dan Marshall could feel the robot's brain searching for that information.

It was evident that the creature had at first suspected Marshall was among those responsible for its transmigration from its own world into this. But now, as the thoughts it had sucked from Marshall's brain failed to lead it to the pattern it sought, the thing seemed to be filled with a frantic bewilderment. An instant later, and thought-words stamped themselves on Marshall's mind once more. The robot-like creature was again speaking to him.

"It was here that the door existed. You must know of the door."

And at the question, panic once more struck into Marshall's heart. Too late he realized the situation. The gateway! The robot wanted to know the gateway. And that gateway was— Sally!

Instantly Marshall knew he must keep the secret from the robot. The evil that he sensed in the creature's disregard, or was it lack of knowledge, of living things of this strange world, would be vented upon her helpless head, if the robot discovered she was his only hope of returning to his own world. And Marshall knew, too, now, that this was true. Sally O'Neill, singing his aria, with her once-in-a-thousand-years voice, was the key to the door to the other world, just as the high note was the summoning command that tore him from it. If the robot discovered what it was that had brought him, he would seek the means to reverse the action. He would seek out Sally, and try to use her to return to his own weird domain of ether waves.

He, Dan Marshall, must lie, and successfully, to a creature that could command his mind, overpower his will by sheer overbearing intelligence and mental force. As though from a distance he heard his voice saying: "I don't. I know nothing of how you came here."

"There was a door," the creature insisted, "through which I was brought here. A door that must still be here. I, Yolan, must find that door. I must return." Suddenly he seemed to glow more redly, and jerked right and left as though blown by sharp gusts. Marshall had a sudden sensation that the creature's reactions were turning from bewilderment to frustrated rage.

And then Dan Marshall knew— realized he was being driven, against his will, to think logically toward the solution the robot sought, to seek some explanation of how this had come about, how this strange creature had been hurled from his own dimension into this! And he was unable to prevent himself from answering.

"RADIO," Dan was saying unable to stop the words that tumbled from his unwilling lips. "You're from a world of another dimension, a world living side by side with ours, an other-dimensional radio world. Your entrance into our world occurred at a radio station, this station. Your entrance from the radio world must have come through radio." As Marshall spoke these halting, elementary sentences, he realized that the radio robot was using his mind, blindly probing his knowledge of the natural world, to gain information which the robot itself was unable to comprehend!

"You entered our world through this station," Marshall continued, "at a time when—" and then Marshall tried to halt the words he knew were coming.

But his struggle was short-lived. His mind, battling desperately against the will forces of the robot, seemed to bend back in against itself until he could stand it no longer. Marshall gave in— and the words tumbled from his lips.

"At a time when," Marshall continued, "Sally had just blown the station hook-up with the high note she took. The high note that wasn't controlled by the engineer." And suddenly Marshall's voice stopped. It was as though the force which had been impelling him had unexpectedly ceased— because the robot had gotten its desired information.

There was an ominous silence in the darkness of the room. A silence in which the weird, suspended monstrosity glowed strangely, while Marshall felt the creature digesting the information.

"I understand. It is clear to Yolan now," the robot's words again burned into Marshall's brain. "It is this Sally creature. She holds the key to the door. The power by which I was torn from my world."

Marshall felt his scalp tingling at the menace of the words, cursing himself wildly for not having had the strength to resist the will of the radio robot. Sally— he'd betrayed her. This monstrosity would— Marshall choked off the thought. He had to get away, quickly, before he was again drained of more information by the monstrous floating thing!

He tried to turn, but he seemed to be literally frozen, unable to move his legs or twist his body. Then the voice of the radio creature was sending words to his brain once more.

"This Sally creature. I must find her. I know now, given time, how to open the door and return to my own world. But it will do me no good to return, if she lives. For she has the key— the power, to call me, against my will, back here. That must not happen again, after I return. So I must kill her. You shall tell me where to find her. You must! You will!"

The words burned with a command that defied all resistance, and again Marshall found himself speaking.

"A plane," he said, "such as you smashed down when you rode the radio beam. It will carry her to New York. She will be on that plane. You will find her on that plane. Even now she should be on her way."

Again the pressure seemed to be released. Again he was free of the monster's will. But it was too late. The radio robot now knew all he needed to know!

And suddenly, too, Marshall found he was once again able to move, once again able to breathe free of the strange radio-active shackles this creature had forged about his being. The heterodyning shrill rose in tempo, and the red metal body of the floating thing seemed to crackle with electrical vibrations— just as though gathering together power for momentum.

Marshall stood, frozen, then gasped as the robot reached out, took the record that was the key to his existence, the force that could call him from where he roved the ether, and smashed it, deliberately. It was as if the thing had said: "Now try to call me back!"

A sudden, blasting, raw-edged whine— and the thing was gone, with incredible speed! And once again the monster had moved in the line of quickest direction— straight through the concrete and steel of the station walls!

And again, the blanket of darkness that had enveloped the station was lifted. It was as if a fuse had been blown somewhere, and was now repaired. Lights flooded the room again!

MARSHALL paid scant attention to the ragged gap in the side of the wall, the gap through which the radio robot had hurtled, for the one thought in his mind was that of Sally. The robot was headed for Sally, seeking her, and knowing that she was on a plane bound for New York!

In three swift strides he was across the room and out into the hallway. Deserted, but an office door was ajar at the end of the hall. Marshall had some wild idea of calling the airport, chartering a plane immediately to overtake Sally's, as he headed for the open office door. And then, the sight of an electric clock above the door stopped him dead in his tracks.

The thing had been stopped, of course, during the time that the radio robot had been in the building. But the time to which the hands pointed gave Marshall a start. When he'd entered the building, there had been still an hour and a half before Sally's plane was to leave. An hour and a half.

Instantly, Marshall realized this, and realized, too that he had lost all track or sense of time during his encounter with the metal monster. But it couldn't have been an hour and a half. It couldn't have been that long.

Marshall cursed himself and looked at his wrist watch. In his haste and fear he had forgotten it completely. It wouldn't have been affected by the robot's presence— even though the electric clocks in the building had. By comparing the time of the stopped clock on the wall to his own watch, Marshall was able to approximate the length of his stay in the building. It had only been an hour. There was still half an hour left, a half an hour in which he might be able to stop Sally from boarding the plane. The plane which, somehow in his confusion, he had figured Sally already aboard.

There was a chance, although a scant one, that he might be able to reach Sally at the hotel. Marshall had moved into the office with the open door, even as he mentally considered this. An instant later and he was at the phone.

The desk clerk hesitated, while Marshall's heart hammered wildly in his chest, asking someone if Miss O'Neill had checked out yet. Then he came back on the wire.

"Think she's still in her room. I'll connect you," the clerk said over the phone. Marshall closed his eyes, praying silently that Sally was still there, while the receiver in his ear buzzed softly as the desk clerk tried to get her room on the switchboard.

SWEAT stood out in little beads on Marshall's forehead, and he ran a trembling hand nervously through his blonde hair as he waited. The very seconds seemed like separate eternities. Then— at last— he heard the click of the receiver in Sally's room being lifted.

"Sally!" Marshall was unable to keep the relief and overjoyed emotion from his voice.

The girl had instantly recognized Marshall's voice. For immediately she murmured something glacierally, and her voice was fading away as though she intended to hang up.

"Sally!" Marshall's tones were those of desperate urgency, and they must have communicated themselves to the girl, for she said stonily:

"Yes, what do you want? Please make it brief. I'm in a rush."

"Just that!" Marshall blurted, realizing that his haste would give him scant chance to put across what he had to say. "It's about your leaving, Sally. You can't do it. You mustn't. Please, I beg you!"

"Is that all you called for— a dramatic, amateurish, last-minute sob act?" Sally's voice was frigidity itself.

"But listen, Sally," Marshall was cursing himself desperately for the botch he was making of this. How could he tell her that some damned, grotesque monster was threatening her life— and make her believe it? The only thing he'd be able to do would be to stall her off. Try to make her stay in the hotel until he got there. Then it would be too late to take the plane. The plane for which the radio-robot was now more than likely searching the radio beams!

"Sally," he continued desperately. "Your life is in danger if you take that plane. I haven't time to tell you now. You must wait at the hotel until I get there! For the love of heaven, Sally, please listen to me!"

"As cheap gags go," he heard Sally's voice replying acidly, "that was rather good. Considering it came from someone so cheap himself!"

"Sally," Marshall was straining every effort of will to get his message to her, to make her believe him. But even as he spoke he knew it was useless to try to crack the shell she'd built to cover the hurt he'd inflicted on her. "Sally," he pleaded. "Listen to me, for the sake of what we used to feel, for the sake of what we once meant to one another— listen to me!"

"How touching. Really, you should try radio theatricals sometime," Sally's voice replied. "There's a lot of money in it for anyone who can make animal sounds— of the snake variety!"

"Sally," Marshall's voice was one last pleading effort. "You have to wait. Please! I can explain!"

"Sorry," Sally answered, and it seemed that the coating of ice to her tones had thickened with each reply. "Sorry. I'm in a hurry. I have a plane to catch. To New York. If what you have to say is really important, you might send it air mail— to your congressman!" The click of the receiver was quite final in its sound.

Marshall slammed the telephone down, gritting his teeth. She was starting for the airport. It was almost half an hour from the radio station to the airport, and less than that from the hotel to there.

There was one last chance— try to get to the airport before the plane left. He knew, as he rushed from the office, that Sally would arrive at the airport before him. He hoped that she wouldn't be gone— also— before him!

Dashing out of the station building, Marshall found a taxicab waiting on the corner. He clambered inside, stuffing a ten dollar bill into the startled driver's paw.

"The airport," he gasped, still breathing hard, "as fast as you can make it!"

The Cabbie did his best— within the law. But there were stoplights, and no amount of persuasion on the part of Dan Marshall could induce him to break the law. They pulled into the airport just as a huge, tri-motored transport plane took off, rising eastward. Marshall was out of the cab, looking after the rising ship until it was lost in the darkness of the sky. Lost in the sky in which the robot waited for Sally!

5:  Killer In The Sky

FOR several stunned minutes, Dan Marshall stood there, gazing up at the vast black sky— fighting off the horrible realization that his chance of saving Sally had disappeared even as the tiny gray silhouette of the huge airliner had vanished in the gloom.

Gone— and there was no way to stop her. Even now the robot might— Marshall couldn't finish the thought. It was too ghastly. Not Sally. Sally couldn't die. He had to stop that plane— somehow!

And then Marshall wheeled, seized by a sudden daring idea— inspiration born of his frantic urgency. There was a way, a possibility, and anything was worth a gamble!

A message. A message along the radio beam would do it, might reach the plane in time to avert the certain disaster that lay ahead.

Marshall's long legs carried him swiftly across the landing field, past the depot waiting rooms, and up to the Airport Radio Room. Through the lighted window, Marshall could see two operators sitting over wireless keys inside the place. There was also a man in the uniform of an Army Lieutenant standing before a desk. Marshall barged through the door.

The Lieutenant, a tall, dark young fellow, turned quizzically at his hasty entrance. One of the operators looked up from the wireless key before him.

"I must get in touch with the airliner that just left for New York!" Dan said swiftly, loudly. "It's extremely urgent!"

The Lieutenant smiled curiously. "What's the trouble?"

Marshall started to speak, then cut off the words he had almost uttered. It would do no good to tell them the truth. They'd send no messages for madmen. And they would certainly think him mad if he babbled about robots and plane crashes. Desperately, he searched his brain for a logical excuse, something that would enable him to talk them into putting the message through.

"There's a girl aboard," Dan said, forming his idea as he spoke, "whose mother has taken ill, seriously! I must get in touch with her. I tell you, it's urgent. I must get a message to the ship." As he finished, Marshall was thinking swiftly. A message to the airliner might result in an emergency landing— he hoped. If he could get them to make such a landing, could put across his message, he might avert the robot's head-on crash with the airliner.

The Lieutenant nodded sympathetically. "We can send a message to the next airport— but that's all. As soon as she arrives there she'll receive it."

"But I've got to reach her in the plane, immediately!" Marshall's voice was frantic.

The Lieutenant shook his head. "Sorry. Against communication orders. Airship wave lengths are to be used strictly for navigation communications between the ships and the ground stations. Besides, it wouldn't hasten matters any if the girl were to get the message in the plane. She'd have to wait until it landed at the next stop, anyway."

Marshall was already cursing himself inwardly for a blundering fool. His hastily constructed lie had been much too hasty, much too stupid, to aid his plans. He stood there, hesitating for an instant, then his hand, which had been groping about in his pocket, touched his automatic. The weapon was empty, and quite useless. But it might serve. In a swift motion, he drew, leveling the gun on the three startled occupants of the wireless room.

HE tried to keep both hand and voice steady as he held the gun on the three. "You'll send the message I tell you," Marshall snapped. He lifted the gun slightly, ominously.

The Lieutenant's tone was suddenly soft, deadly, as he said:

"Listen, fellow, I don't know what in hell this is all about, but you'd better put that thing down before it goes off. There'll be no messages sent from here. Don't be a fool!"

The wireless operators sat at their keys, faces turned in astonishment toward Dan, but there was no fear in their expressions. Marshall groaned inwardly. His threat was— like his gun— quite empty. His bluff had been called. These men, even though they must think him mad, were displaying cool courage.

And at that instant, even while he hesitated, the door behind Marshall was opened. Quickly, Marshall stepped to the side, gun still leveled on the three in the room, eyes flicking to the person who had just entered. The intruder was a man in greasy overalls, obviously an aviation mechanic. He didn't see Marshall, and spoke directly to the Lieutenant.

"Your ship is ready, Lieutenant," the mechanic said. "We've rolled her up on the ramp, and she's all set to go."

And then, noticing the fixed expression on the Lieutenant's face, the mechanic wheeled, saw Dan Marshall and the gun he held in his hand.

"Okay," Marshall snapped, waving the gun to include the mechanic, "step over beside the Lieutenant, and no tricks!"

A new idea— a daring scheme— had suddenly come to Marshall. It was born with the entering speech of the mechanic, and by the sight of the Lieutenant's overcoat and visored cap lying on a table less than five feet from where Dan stood. A ship, evidently an army plane, Dan was thinking. It would have a radio. It would—

He didn't need to reason any further. His own past in the air-mail service would come in handy now. He stepped to the table, still holding the gun on the others, and picked up the overcoat and visored cap. Clumsily, he kept the gun steady, and somehow managed to don the coat and cap.

This had consumed less than sixty seconds— one breathless minute while the four watched him in silent amazement. Now Marshall was at the door, still keeping them covered with the automatic.

"Okay, gentlemen," Marshall snapped. "I'm leaving, but I'll be looking over my shoulder for three or four minutes as I go. It won't be smart for any one of you to stick your nose out the door of this shack until after that time!" Marshall had backed to the door, still open as the mechanic had left it. Now he stepped out onto the stoop. Then, quickly, he slammed the door shut on the men inside, wheeled, and dashed down the steps.

There was only one plane on the take-off ramp, and the ramp was less than a hundred yards from the shack. Marshall, burdered by the heavy army overcoat, made the ramp in a little over ten seconds. The mechanics who were around the U. S. Army fighting plane, were startled as Marshall drew up beside it.

"Okay," Dan snapped. "In a hurry. Let's get under way!"

To all appearances, Dan was an Army Officer, and the grease monkeys, though startled, helped him willingly into the cockpit. Then, as Marshall throttled the ship to greater life, he saw the blocks snapped away, and he gunned the plane down the runway.

Marshall took one quick look over his shoulder, before the tail lifted. One quick look that showed him four angry men dashing from the Airport Radio Room toward the now deserted take-off ramp!

And then Marshall was easing back on the stick, and the swift little combat ship climbed skyward as the black ground blotted off in darkness beneath him. Above, the starless sky waited tauntingly— as though challenging him to overtake the airliner, to get his message to the great ship before tragedy, stark calamity, struck at Sally O'Neill.

IN the pilot's compartment of the Transcontinental Airliner Hawk, the co-pilot at the radio board looked quizzically at his partner.

"I can't understand it, Clem," he said. "This damned static is increasing with every mile we make. "I'm having a helluva time trying to get the ground stations ahead. They just don't seem to come through, even though we're on the beam."

The pilot, a wide-shouldered, freckled, young blond, shook his head worriedly. "Try again," was all he said.

THE attractive young stewardess moved down the aisle of the Hawk's cabin smiling at the passengers, arranging pillows and pausing occasionally to answer questions.

She was passing along the aisle when a short, fat man caught her by the arm. The passenger list gave his name as "Ryker." He sat on the outside of the aisle, next to a lovely red-headed girl whom the list identified as "Miss Sally O'Neill."

"Listen, Stewardess," Ryker said, "aren't we traveling rather rough on this hop? Seems as if something might be haywire with our course."

The stewardess smiled reassuringly. "Not at all," she answered. "The weather's rough tonight, yes. But there isn't anything to worry about. We'll be into better conditions shortly." Ryker nodded doubtfully. "I see," he said. "I guess so. I was just curious. Don't want anything to happen. This little lady here," he pointed to the redheaded girl beside him, "has to get to New York without delay. Got an important broadcast to make, and she can't afford to miss the only rehearsal she'll have."

The stewardess smiled again. "Miss O'Neill will arrive on schedule, never fear." Then she moved down the aisle as Ryker turned and began to speak to the girl.

THE freckle-faced pilot of the Hawk moved his wide shoulders restlessly and turned to the co-pilot. His voice was slightly uneasy as he spoke.

"Try to get that beam-call in a little clearer," he said. "It seems to me that we're not riding smoothly. There's no reason for static, unless there's an electrical storm ahead of us. Get in touch with the ground shack a hundred miles ahead. See if they've noticed anything."

The co-pilot moved his hands expressively. "Hell, Clem, I'm trying to do that. I've been trying for almost fifteen minutes. But this static condition is getting worse and worse."

The pilot shook his head bewilderedly. "For a radio beam, the points we're riding are about as smooth as a roller coaster. Keep trying."

Muttering inaudibly, the co-pilot went back to his radio.

DAN MARSHALL was giving the little combat ship a dose of hell. For fifteen minutes now, he'd torn the guts out of the motor in an effort to narrow down the distance between himself and the Hawk.

His mind was torn in an agony of anxiety and terrifying apprehension. Every single mile he'd put behind him had been this way. And he still had no sight of the Hawk ahead. Marshall had used the radio again and again, sending our frantic messages in the hope that the pilots of the huge transport plane might somehow receive them.

But there were indications which might mean a foreboding of disaster. For, from his radio, Dan Marshall was able to realize that the static conditions in the sky around him were growing steadily worse and worse. This meant but one thing— that he was getting closer and closer to Yolan. Obviously, the radio robot's prowling of the beam was responsible for these static conditions. Soon, perhaps, he might be close enough to get a message to the airliner.

He'd need to be close to pierce the static!

But sooner than that, perhaps, the monster might find the Hawk— and Marshall dreaded to think of the results that would follow. He knew, now, that the situation had narrowed down to one premise. He would get to the transport ship before the robot did— or Yolan would find the plane before Marshall's message could reach it.

So there in the blackness of the night, two thousand feet above a mountain range, Marshall throttled his ship ahead, hoping, ever hoping, peering ahead in the darkness, until suddenly his eyes narrowed and his hope crystallized to an emotion approaching almost hysterical relief. Ahead of him, perhaps a mile and a half in the gray-black night, he saw the flickering sheen of silvered wings!

Frantically, almost sobbing, Marshall reached for his radio hook-up on the control board. Reached for it, then stopped midway, his hand clenching in sudden, awful horror. For far off in the distance, so far as to be but a tiny dancing spark, something was moving to meet the Hawk. And that something, beyond all shadow of doubt, was the Floating Robot!

It was growing— that dancing, meteor-like spark. Growing as Marshall watched in frozen terror. Growing as it hurtled at incredible speed along the beam; hurtled toward the big plane!

SOMEHOW, Marshall had the radio apparatus in his hand, was shouting into the ship's transmitter mike.

"Calling Airliner Hawk... Calling pilot on Hawk...Veer Off!...Veer, for God's sake!"

But the spark was growing until it was a monstrous ball of crackling electrical flame, hurtling blindly toward the airliner. Marshall was shouting into the transmitter mike, again and again, almost insanely. The silver winged transport ship suddenly was bobbing cork-like, this way and that, as the pilot apparently saw the swift menace approaching. He was descending now, trying to land.

Marshall's lungs were torn and hoarse, but he shouted again and again, as though he could, by the very volume of his voice, avert the terror of the impending catastrophe.

And then the hurtling ball of electrical hell was upon the great airliner— and suddenly, at the last instant, the Hawk was veering!

But it veered too late, for Marshall, even as his breath tore in his lungs, saw both ship and robot bob in the same direction! Even as the air became thick with crackling static, above it came the sickening sound of the great metal wing of the transport plane shearing!

Yolan had hit the wing— and the great ship was twisting earthward, swiftly falling, falling. Marshall groaned with the torment of a man in hell, and threw his hand across his face. He couldn't bear to watch it, couldn't, couldn't. His mind was lanced with agony— Sally...Sally!...going down to her death!

Beneath, the cruel peaks of the mountain ranges waited, ready to embrace the falling plane, ready to gnash their fanged teeth into the twisted wreckage that would crumple there.

Marshall kicked his plane into a steep, twisting climb, blotting out the horror of the sight for a merciful instant. Numbing the agony that gripped his brain for an instant at least. And finally, leveling the ship out, Marshall forced himself to look over the side.

The wreck was down there on the snow-peaked crags— but incredibly, was not burning, was not torn asunder by the rock ridges! The wing was gone, but that had happened in midair, and now the ship lay on its belly, otherwise intact. By a miracle of skill the pilot had landed the ship! Dancing around it, though, was the crackling flaming ball that meant Yolan! And then Yolan shot away, into the forest!

And in that startled instant, Marshall dared to believe that the astonishing miracle had really happened— that Sally, pray God, was still alive. For from the position of the ship, from the very appearance of it— there was a good chance that she was— A chance!

One glance was enough to show Marshall that there wasn't the slightest chance of his being able to land his ship on those mountain ridges. The attempt would mean instant death. The transport plane had settled there through miracle, but miracles didn't happen twice. There was, therefore, but one thing for Marshall to do. Get back to the airport. Get back as swiftly as wings could carry him, and report the crash, rescue the survivors from the crags, if they— she still lived.

But suddenly Marshall realized that he couldn't return to the airport. He couldn't risk it— for at this very moment the hue and cry over his theft of the Army plane was probably under way. By now every field within flying range of the place was probably on the lookout for him. And soon— if it were not already a fact— there would be other ships searching the skyways for his pirated plane.

But he had to get back to the Hawk, had to get there before Sally— if she were still alive— fell victim to the floating robot! With every thought, Marshall tried desperately to make himself believe Sally still lived.

Marshall ruddered the fighting ship hard, pointed the nose back in the direction from which he'd come. Two things were now clear to him. He couldn't return to any legitimate landing field, and, should he manage to get to the Hawk, there would be only one way to defeat the robot. One way born around an inspiration that had occurred subconsciously to him less than a minute ago.

It was a wild scheme, perhaps an impossible one, but there was a chance of its working. And too, it would fit in perfectly with the fact that there was no legitimate field where he could land. For Marshall had remembered a field, a deserted, barren, bumpy long-undeveloped realty tract near the radio station. He would be able to land there— maybe. And from there it was less than ten minutes to the studios, where, he could organize the rest of his plan before he set out for the Hawk.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, Marshall— with the aid of God and good air sense— set the ship down on the deserted realty stretch. And in less than half that time, he was racing up the steps and into the radio station.

6:  Death In The Mountains

THE ground was rushing at her. Saber-sharp crags reached up at her like the open jaws of some hungry beast.

Sally O'Neill jerked the crash belt tighter about her slim waist and breathed a silent prayer. It was only a matter of seconds before the Hawk would dash itself into splintered wreckage on those razor keen rocks.

"Ready." It was the Stewardess moving down the aisle. "Two hundred feet. Prepare for crash!"

"Damn it," Ryker screamed, "do something, do y'hear, do something! I don't want to die."

There was no answer from her but Sally looked scornfully at the small, trembling figure of the radio executive.

"Why don't you jump?" she snapped.

The next instant the plane brushed a high rock and a rending, splintering noise crashed into her eardrums.

"This is it!" someone shouted.

The ship nosed over sharply and then with sickening abruptness, its forward motion was checked. It was as if a giant hand had stretched out to catch the crashing ship.

Sally cried out as her entire weight strained against the narrow strap that circled her waist— then a mantle of blackness settled over her.

When she opened her eyes the plane was still, evidently resting in the ravine. Sally crawled to her feet, trying to pull her confused, bewildered wits together.

Her eardrums rang with shock and dizziness and she moved awkwardly to the door. One of the pilots was climbing from his seat shaking his head.

"It's crazy, impossible," he muttered.

Sally's hand was on the knob of the door when a heavy hand fell on her shoulder, spun her around and away from the door.

It was Ryker, his face twisted with hysterical fear.

"Out of my way," he screamed, "Let me out of here!"

HE jerked open the door and sprang to the ground, sobbing wildly. Sally started to follow him and then she stopped— her mouth opening in horror.

Something was floating toward the ship! A red and gold ball of metal, surrounded by white, crackling sparks and flame. Ominously, silently, it floated toward the ship as if directed by some evil, malignant intelligence.

Sally heard her own terror stricken scream ringing in her ears before she was aware that she had opened her mouth.

Ryker heard her and wheeled, his face going a pasty white as his eyes focused on the horrible apparition floating toward him.

"Keep away," he screamed. "For God's sake keep away." His voice broke into an hysterical, mouthing babble as he backed away from the silently advancing creature. Then he turned and fled, his hoarse bleating screams trailing over his shoulder.

For an instant the fiery monster seemed to hesitate, then it flashed after him, the huge metallic ball of energy whistling through the air like a meteor.

Sally screamed again. And then the creature of flame was on top of Ryker. A terrible bleating scream ripped through the air and Ryker was on the ground threshing horribly under the attack of the weird monster.

Sally covered her face with her hands. It was too awful! Her thoughts broke off suddenly and her heart seemed to swell in her chest until it would choke her. And even at that instant— she knew!

This creature, this weird, incredible apparition must be the thing that Dan had tried to warn her about. And it was looking for her! She stifled the scream of panic that welled in her throat and looked desperately about for some place to hide.

About a hundred yards from the plane a slope led to a ridge and beyond that the dark opening of a mining shaft was visible.

In an instant she was on the rough uneven ground, running, stumbling toward the shaft, toward safety. A frantic glance over her shoulder showed her the incredible figure of the radio robot still hovering over the now still body of Ryker.

Within fifty yards her breath was searing her lungs and throat like a hot blast from a furnace. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs, but she couldn't stop. If she did— A sob wrenched itself from her throat as she pictured her fate at the mercies of the hideous fury of the radio robot!

HER high heels twisted and turned on the rocky, treacherous ground but somehow she managed to keep her feet, and stumble onward. The wind whipped her auburn-red hair over her face, blinding her but she struggled on, desperately, frantically, knowing that her only slim chance was to keep running, to reach the comparative security of the mining shaft before the robot caught her.

Twenty feet from the entrance of the shaft she heard a hissing, roaring noise behind her. Twisting, she saw over her shoulder a huge, flaming ball of red and black fire, flashing about the ship, seemingly confused and baffled.

Sally sobbed a prayer of thankfulness and hurried up the few remaining feet that led to the sanctuary of the shaft. At the dark entrance she paused and looked back at the plane. The flaming robot was still circling the plane but suddenly his course veered. He was flashing away from the plane, hurtling over the ground toward the entrance of the shaft!

Sally fought back a scream. Somehow the creature had discovered her trail, and was flashing with incredible speed toward her. For the briefest nicker of a second, she remained paralyzed with fright, then she wheeled and ran into the shaft.

Stygian blackness enveloped her immediately. She fled through the shaft, her feet finding footing by a miracle. She knew she was running downhill, toward the center of the mountain; and she was also aware that she was running on rail tracks, for her heels caught and twisted on the ties. And suddenly her heel caught and held, her ankle twisted sharply, throwing her to the ground. For a second she couldn't move, and then she crawled to her feet, looked fearfully back up the shaft. There was a queer flickering illumination at the mouth of the tunnel and then the radio robot was in sight, its hissing, crackling, red and gold body silhouetted in terrible clarity against the blackness of the night.

Sally whimpered in terror, but she did not quit. Wheeling, she ran again, her breath escaping her throat in great sobs. Behind her she could hear a terrible noise that sounded like the crackling of a mighty blaze. Then by the flickering eerie light that was illuminating the tunnel she saw a tunnel siding branching off to her left. Without thinking, she hurled herself to the ground, crawled into the siding. Quivering with terror she crouched helplessly against the rough wall of rock and waited!

THE noise at the mouth of the shaft was growing in volume and then the tunnel itself was filled with the roaring ominous noise. The entire shaft trembled slightly and then with the speed of a meteor and the noise of an express train, the floating robot flashed past her, and disappeared into the bowels of the earth.

It was hunting, Sally knew, for her!

Trembling, she crawled to her feet and bumped into a hard, heavy object. She saw that it was a small car loaded with ore, set on the siding track. Moving around it, the idea came to her. It was wild but—

She ran to the front of the ore car and jerked out the wooden blocks from under the wheels. Then she hurried to the rear of the car, her pulses throbbing madly. Bending low she braced her shoulder against the grab-iron of the car and shoved with all of her weight and strength. For a terrible second the car remained motionless, then it was rolling slowly, the rails creaking protestingly under its weight.

Sally panted exultantly as the car gathered momentum and speed. With a final shove she sent it rolling onto the tracks of the main shaft. It gathered speed swiftly and with a rattling, metallic roar, sped down the rails— after the floating robot.

Sally watched as it rocked and rattled down the rails. And then it happened.

The car was off the trail, plowing along the track and ripping into the soft shale shoulder that flanked the tunnel. Sparks flew, a steady roar filled the tunnel, then tons of dirt and ore were collapsing from the walls and ceilings, burying the car under their weight.

Sally watched, held in horrified fascination as boulders and rocks piled together in a jarring, shattering tangle, completely sealing the tunnel. Sally sobbed in relief. The thing, the weird apparition that had menaced her, was down there buried under tons of rock and dirt. Blocked off!

The noise of the crash slowly trembled away into silence, but she was aware then of another noise. A steady, burring noise that filled the darkness with an angry crackling sound. It seemed to come from deep under the debris and to be heading with irresistible power toward her.

Sally trembled. It was the creature, she knew, burrowing relentlessly forward. He hadn't been destroyed by the cave-in, merely enraged, momentarily blocked off.

She wheeled then and ran for the mouth of the shaft. In the darkness she didn't see the beam. It was slipping from its place and she darted under it. A hard, unyielding weight crashed into her shoulder, and Sally O'Neill felt nothing more but blackness.

THE tiny truck thundered around a sharp, banked turn on the white ribbon of highway, but Dan Marshall, at the wheel, didn't lessen his pressure on the accelerator the slightest. From the instant he'd entered the station, he had worked swiftly, desperately. And now he was driving wildly, torn by an anxiety of impatience, as the burning, tires of the truck ate up mile after mile, racing against time.

The speedometer needle wavered at eighty, while the tiny truck two-wheeled, then righted itself. Now Dan straightened out around the turn, and the speedometer needle crawled slowly, surely, to ninety-five— the maximum speed which the little vehicle could reach.

Hearing the equipment in the back of the truck slide perilously to one side, Marshall breathed a swift prayer that none of it should be damaged. And then he cursed inwardly, for he still was uncertain that he'd ever have the opportunity to use it. If Sally had been harmed, if Sally weren't alive when he reached the wreck: Marshall shuddered at the thought, his foot mashing the accelerator until it seemed as though he were pushing it through the floorboards.

The roads were growing steeper and with every twisting turn the tiny truck creaked protestingly against the ruthless treatment it was receiving. Marshall, if he noticed this, was not concerned. His face, twisted in anxiety, was fixed rigidly on the road ahead of him. Somewhere along here there should be a highway siding— a siding leading to a bumpy gravel off-road. That gravel route would take him to the scene of the airliner's crash.

And then, rushing up at him, and caught for an instant in the white glare of his headlights, Marshall saw the signboard that told him the gravel road was less than a quarter of a mile away. Ten seconds later, Marshall had slowed the truck enough to throw it into a sliding, crunching, sickening turn that brought him around facing the road siding. Then, throwing the truck into second, he was thundering ahead toward the gravel off-road.

Minutes later, Marshall's truck was bumping perilously, recklessly, along the gravel road. It was as steep and winding as it was bumpy, bleak trees hemming it in along the sides. Marshall knew, now, that he had to run the risk of damaging the equipment, had to sacrifice everything, risk all, in his efforts to beat Time.

Four miles ahead, four miles in which the truck had climbed better than a thousand feet, Marshall heard a sound which made him instantly kill the motor and leap from the truck— a hoarse shout, coming from deep back in the roadside, behind the thick maze of forest!

And as he stood there, beside the truck, looking uncertainly right and left through the darkness, the shout was repeated.

"Halllloooooo, there! Helllllllllp, halllooooo!"

Marshall had placed the sound, and was barging off the road and into the underbrush of forest, heading for the voice, shouting himself, "Coming! Coming!"

Three hundred feet later, Marshall emerged from the forest underbrush and stood at the edge of a clearing that marked a narrow mountain ravine. He gasped a sobbing cry of relief— for there in the clearing was the wreck of the Hawk, and surrounding it were the survivors of the disaster!

MARSHALL was running across the clearing, ''and one of the group huddled beside the plane was coming to meet him. From the fellow's dress, Marshall knew him for one of the pilots.

And then, while Marshall stood beside him, the fellow was babbling incoherently, clutching frantically to his arm, his face white and torn with strain.

"Thank God, you've come! Where are the rest? We're going crazy...all of us. Terrible! One of the passengers, a man, gruesomely torn apart by some hideous thing ... Girl... ran like hell toward the forest edge, up a grade leading to that old mine there," the pilot pointed. "Don't know how we were cushioned into our landing ... shouldda been killed ... all of us ... a monster ... a crackling thing from hell I tell you...followed the girl after killing that guy ... we all saw it...can't be crazy! God, it's been a nightmare. Been next to the plane ever since. Didn't dare separate."

Then the rest of them had gotten courage enough to come beside Marshall, were surrounding him, all of them babbling in wild hysteria, their faces white with ghastly fear. And Marshall, piecing the story together as swiftly as he could, got the entire picture. Primarily, the robot was still in the vicinity, Sally was still alive— and both had disappeared toward that mine on the side of the mountain ridge!

Dan Marshall didn't hesitate, he took instant command of the situation. His words lashed the frightened group into a dull, completely bewildered subservience.

Three male passengers and the pilot carried the co-pilot, who had a broken leg, back to the truck, while the stewardess shepherded the others— a little girl and four women— along also. They left them in the truck, while the three men, with Marshall's aid and direction, unloaded the mobile equipment from the back of the tiny vehicle. They were dazed, all of them, and uncomprehending.

"We'll have to carry it back to the clearing, up the side of that mountain ridge to the deserted mine shaft!" Marshall snapped.

"But, wha—" the pilot began.

"The girl, you fool," Marshall's voice was harsh with the anxiety that tore at him. "She's up there, and that 'thing' you saw is up there too. We're going after. And I'm going to need this equipment badly!"

The pilot seemed about to protest no further, but one of the three male passengers, a bald, fat little man, squealed indignation. And suddenly the pilot had him by the lapels, shaking him violently. "You heard him," he grated. "We're all pitching in. Let's get going!"

Dan Marshall had time for one brief, humorless grin of thanks, then, as swiftly as they could move under their burdens, the little group started through the forest underbrush and back to the clearing and the wreckage. Marshall led the way, now, with the pilot directly behind him.

They were across the clearing, past the crumpled hulk of the airliner, and starting up the mountain ridge that led to the deserted mine. Somewhere up there, Dan Marshall knew, the metal robot monster sought Sally O'Neill.

AND then they stood on the ridge, all of them breathing heavily from their exertions, looking right and left in apprehension. But Marshall hadn't hesitated. The gaping opening that marked the entrance to the mine seemed to beckon, and even as he approached it he heard a faint, distant crackling coming from its darkened recesses. The radio robot was in there, and so, therefore, was Sally!

Marshall turned to shout to the others, but his mouth had half-opened when there came another, louder and more ominous sound from the shaft. A distant rumbling, increasing in volume as it swept along to the throat of the tunnel— a CAVE IN!

Face white with sudden, terrible apprehension, Marshall shouted to the pilot.

"For God's sake, get over here with the stuff! They're in there!"

The rumble had grown fainter, but Marshall thought he could still hear rock falling inside the tunnel. He caught the choking breath of ore dust that rushed out at him. While the others brought the equipment to the mouth of the mine tunnel, Marshall worked swiftly, desperately, reeling out foot after foot of portable microphone wire— fighting off the terrible premonitions that seared his mind.

Then, flashlight in hand, microphone strapped to his chest, Dan Marshall turned to the others. "Whatever happens, wait here," he ordered. "If I don't come out— you'll know what to do!"

And with that, Marshall stepped into the inky tunnel, snapping his flashlight, throwing its rays down the long slope. For his first ten strides, the searching white finger revealed nothing. Revealed nothing as a sudden pounding reverberated from back in the tunnel. Then, as Marshall cried aloud in a hysteria of relief, the flashlight's ray caught Sally!

The girl was on the floor of the shaft, lying perhaps a hundred feet ahead, pinned back against the water-soaked walls by a thick, heavy prop beam!

For an awful moment this scene stamped itself on Marshall's brain like some nightmarish panorama. Then he saw more. The girl was unconscious, and lay limply twisted beneath the
weight of the huge wooden beam. But behind her, less than two hundred feet, was the place where the cave-in had occurred— the place from which even now the thunderous pounding was coming!

And through the debris of stone and buckled timber proppings, on the other side of that cave-in— was the floating radio robot! Marshall saw faint sparks and heard angry crackling as the creature hurled itself again and again in prodigious efforts to break through the slag slide to where they were!

Now Marshall was beside the girl, while the monster continued to rain great blows on the debris which blocked him off. Marshall had Sally's head cradled in his arms, and was sobbing half-hysterically in relief as he realized she was still alive. The shock, the fright, perhaps a blow from the falling beam, had stunned her into unconsciousness. But she was still alive!

The hammering of the monster grew louder, and looking up wildly, Marshall saw that the timbers blocking the creature's path were slowly giving way before the terrific assault! The radio monstrosity was breaking through!

The crackling static-like flashes were increasing in a sort of frenzied fury as the thing gained progress, inch-by-inch, through the block-off!

Frantically, Marshall bent over the girl. But in an instant he saw that it would take the efforts of three men to move the beam from her. And then, suddenly, he remembered the microphone strapped to his chest. His scheme— But, even as he thought of it, even as the momentarily forgotten plan returned to him, he knew it was now useless!

Useless, because it had depended on the voice of Sally O'Neill— and now Sally lay inertly in his arms, unable to utter a word, let alone the note that was their one weapon against the monster!

MARSHALL bit savagely into his lower lip, cursing the Gods of Fate that had done this to him, the terrible mocking Fate that grinned evilly down on them in challenge to avert the menace that would destroy them both before another minute had passed.

"Sally, Sally," he sobbed desperately. "Oh God, girl, I can't get you out of this—" his voice broke off, and he drew her head to his chest.

At that instant, even as Marshall's horrified gaze saw the crackling monster shatter the last of the debris that had been holding it off, Sally O'Neill stirred. Stirred, and moved her head back to look dazedly up into the face of Dan Marshall— and in the next instant to look toward the hammering, crackling monster.

As the thing smashed through the last of the barrier, and hung suspended like some glowing, horrible picture of Death— Sally O'Neill screamed shrilly!

The next scene would be stamped on Dan Marshall's memory through eternity. There was a vast, roaring, ear-splitting, tremendous detonation. Splashes of static flame shot everywhere along the shaft, blinding in the lightning-like vividness of them. The floating monster, engulfed in the vortex of this holocaust disintegrated into a myriad shower of blazing sparks. And then— all was black...

SALLY was sobbing against Dan Marshall's chest. "Don't worry, darling," he said gently, "it's all over now. He's gone, forever destroyed. There'll be no more radio robot— ever."

Sally shuddered. "But my scream, you said my scream was responsible—" she began.

Marshall broke in: "That scream hit precisely the same pitch as the high note in the aria. And it was through that high note that I'd intended to hurl the monster back into the ether. The telephone voice-scrambling device I brought in the truck from the station took care of the rest. It hurled the pieces of the creature into a thousand different aerial waves."

But Sally O'Neill, ever the woman, was losing interest in the explanation. Obviously, she was far more concerned with the man who held her in his arms— the man who stopped talking now to kiss her again.

__________________________

2: Secret Of The Lost Planet

Amazing Stories, May 1941

1: Three Years

"THREE years," Wade Baron told himself happily as he stuffed the last of his space gear into the supply crates, "three long and lonely years on this God-forsaken rock in space. But I'm going back today!"

Wade whistled cheerfully and inspected his strong, clean- shaven jaw in the mirror above his bed. The three years he had lived alone on Planetoid Jaytwo, three years of solitude spent compiling charts for the Asteroid Survey Department had enabled him to grow a beard as long as a fur coat.

But now the beard was gone, for he'd shaved this morning. Shaved in honor of his start back to Earth.

He had even combed his lank black hair carefully, after doing a sketchy job of trimming it with his chart scissors. Combed his hair carefully while thinking of the girl who waited for him on Earth. The girl whom he would marry immediately upon his return— Nada Warren.

"Whoopee!" he chortled. "Damn, but it'll be fine to see Nada once more!"

Now that the three lonely years were at an end, Wade was able to see that they had been worth it. Not only from the asteroid research he had been able to compile here on Jaytwo, but from the fact that his service here would be rewarded with a splendid post on Earth— at a fine salary that would enable Wade and Nada to live in luxury.

"Nada, an Earth position in the Survey Bureau, and plenty of dough on which to be happy! Wow, it's going to be great!" Wade told the silent crates.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, after the last of the gear had been packed into the crates, and tried to picture his return. Nada would be at the Space Base, of course. She'd probably been marking the days to his return just as eagerly as he had. Nada would be there, of course.

Matt Markham, good old Matt, one of his closest pals, would more than likely be waiting there for him also. Matt was a grand guy. He'd been fine about seeing to it that Nada wouldn't be lonely during Wade's absence. The sort you could trust with the girl you were going to marry, that was Matt Markham.

Wade ground out his cigarette impatiently and rose to peer into the radio-receptor which had been installed in the corner of his tiny quarters. He saw nothing but the bleak expanse of little Jaytwo. It was hard to hold back his impatience. The Space Patrol ship, which was to pick him up and take him back to Earth, should be due pretty soon.

He lighted another cigarette and grinned.

"I'll probably go crazy at the sight of that patrol ship," he told himself. "More than likely want to kiss the pilot."

Even as he inhaled deeply from his cigarette, a faint humming started from the sound vibrator in the radio-receptor. In a single bound Wade was across the room, his hands trembling slightly as he tuned in the receptor to a higher volume. The humming grew into a louder and louder snarl. Peering into the view-sights, Wade felt his heart pound excitedly against his ribs, for there, approaching Jaytwo from the northerly end, was a Space Patrol Ship!

Then and there, in the solitary silence of the little room which had been his only home for three years, Wade Baron went into a dance reminiscent of the ancient movements of the redmen who had inhabited Earth centuries before.

"Wow!" Wade repeated over and over again. "I'm acting like a fool, but I can't help it. Oh, Lord, I can't help it!" His eyes, glowing happily, were also a little moist around the crinkled corners.

LESS than fifteen minutes later, Wade was racing across the barren plain outside his cabin, rushing to greet the members of the Space Patrol Ship which had just slipped to a graceful landing on Jaytwo. His long legs ate up the distance between his tiny shack and the space ship, and even in the cumbersome, clinging thickness of his space suit, he made speed.

Wade could see the percussion doors of the ship swinging open, could see the glass-helmeted heads of the crew peering forth, and he wanted to shout with joy at the sight of the lettering on the side of the craft. Huge, red, block letters that said, "Government Space Patrol." He wondered for a swift instant whether or not there would be anyone he knew in the crew. Any of his pals from the patrol service. He hoped so. But even if there weren't, just the sight of human beings was enough to send his heart leaping joyously.

He was almost able to make out the faces of the glass-helmeted patrolmen, but as yet he couldn't tell if he knew any of them. One of the crew— evidently the Flight Patrol Leader, for he was clad in a rich purple space suit— had already clambered to the rock terrain of Jaytwo. Wade could discern his features now, sharp and space-burned, like those of countless space pilots. This chap had a short pointed moustache and a deep scar across his brow.

Wade frowned. He couldn't remember any such person in the ranks of Patrol Pilots. But then, three years had passed, and the roster had undoubtedly changed a bit since the last time Wade had had contact with Earth.

The receptor mechanism on Wade's space suit hummed, an indication that the Flight Patrol Leader was speaking to him. Wade threw the reception switch wide, and the visitor's voice flooded into his helmet.

"Hello, there," said the Flight Patrol Leader, "you're Wade Baron, I imagine."

"Well," Wade grinned in answer, "I'm not Doctor Livingstone, old chap."

The Flight Patrol Leader, members of his crew following behind him, drew closer, so that Wade saw the answering grin flashing across his face.

"You sound glad to see us, Baron. My name is Jenkins, Carse Jenkins, Flight Patrol Leader for this ship. Have you your gear and equipment packed?"

Wade was finally alongside of him, taking the Flight Leader's outstretched gauntlet in a firm grip of greeting.

"Lord, Jenkins, I've had that gear packed and ready to go for the last three years!"

There was laughter from the lean Jenkins and a like response from the members of his crew. Good bunch, Wade thought, seem like fine chaps, all of them. The six or seven crew members passed Wade on their way to his tiny quarters to get his crates. Jenkins, still grinning, said:

"They'll bring all your gear along, Baron. Come on into the ship with me, fellow, and we'll have a drink on your return."

"A swell idea," Wade answered. "The first swell idea I've heard in three years!"

2:  Arrested For— What?

IN the Flight Leader's cabin in the Space Patrol ship, Wade faced Carse Jenkins. Minus his space suit, the lean Jenkins looked slightly older than he had seemed to Wade at first sight. There was a gray tinge at his temples. But he was jovial, entertaining, Wade thought as he sipped his drink.

"And tell me," asked Wade, "how Matt Markham is getting along? Is he still with the Survey Bureau?"

Carse Jenkins looked at the glass he held in his thin strong fingers.

"No," he said after a moment. "Markham has been promoted."

Wade's enthusiasm was sincere.

"Great," he said, "that's swell to hear, Mark deserves all he gets. He's a smart chap. Always was. Knew what he wanted all along."

"Yes," Jenkins answered dryly. "Markham always knew what he wanted. But what's more important, he knew how to go about getting it."

Suddenly, and with no explanation as far as Wade could see, there was an embarrassed silence between himself and the Flight Patrol Leader, Perhaps it had been due to Jenkin's slightly peculiar response to the mention of Matt Markham. Wade couldn't tell. But he decided to get on to other subjects.

"It'll be great to get back," Wade said quickly, feeling slightly foolish at repeating a phrase he must have used at least two dozen times so far.

"You don't seem like a bad sort at all," Jenkins said quite unexpectedly. At the words, and the tone in which they were uttered, Wade looked up sharply at the moustached Flight Patrol Leader.

"What made you say that?" Wade asked bewilderedly.

Jenkins suddenly looked hard at the glass in his hands.

"You've been completely out of touch with things for three years, Baron. Changes can occur in three years, y'know."

Wade was frowning now. He didn't know what was responsible for the odd manner of Jenkins. Didn't know, but he was going to try to find out.

"I don't get it," he said sharply. "What are you driving at, Jenkins."

Jenkins looked up from his glass, Unexpectedly he smiled, once again the affable host.

"Not a thing, fellow. Forget it."

Wade could see that any chance of getting to the bottom of the scarred, moustached Flight Patrol Leader's strange attitude was closed. So he gave it up, gratefully gulping the cooling liquid of his drink. What the hell, just getting back to Earth once more, Earth and Nada, was enough to think of for the moment. Earth, and Nada.

"EARTH and Nada," Wade told himself two days later as he gazed out the front vision plates of the Space Patrol ship. In another half hour they would be at Space Base, in New York.

Just the thought of Nada, Nada, who was probably waiting down there at Space Base at this very moment, was enough to send the tingling of eagerness rushing once more through Wade Baron. He fished into his pockets and found a cigarette, lighting it with hands that trembled in excitement.

Five times already, this morning, Wade had been back and forth between the baggage compartments and the control room, checking his baggage and gear. He had dressed himself carefully, even had one of the crew trim his hair more carefully, and smoothed his garments every so often. No sense in returning to Nada looking like a space bum.

"Lord," Wade muttered to himself, "I wish this crate would get some speed on. Here I've gone three years without a sight of Nada, and now a mere half hour looks like a century!" He grinned to himself. "It seems like the time will never pass."

But the half hour finally passed for Wade Baron. And he found himself waiting for the landing gangway to be dropped as the Space Patrol Ship nosed into berth at Space Base.

"Little old New York!" Wade marveled, as the towering city revealed itself to him on every side. Down below the ship, he could see the crowds forming beneath the spot where they would moor. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, threatening to leap to his mouth, and peering down, he tried to imagine which of the tiny dots representing people, was Nada.

It seemed like ten glacier periods later that Wade stepped out onto the landing gangway to take his first deep breath of Earth air in three years— and to search the crowd eagerly for sight of Nada. He looked, too, for some sign of big, blond Matt Markham, who would probably be there with Nada to meet him. It was going to be grand to see them!

Wade took three steps downward, then he heard his first greeting.

"Wade Baron?"

He looked up at the speaker, surprised to see that it was a huge fellow in the uniform of a government guard. Behind the towering government guard, Wade saw at least a dozen others waiting at the bottom of the gang-landing, all of them wearing the crimson tunics of guards.

"Yes," said Wade bewilderedly, eyes still scanning the crowd in an effort to find Nada and Matt. "Yes, I'm Wade Baron. What do you want?"

The towering government guard reached forth his hand. Perplexedly, Wade extended his own hand, wondering at this strange greeting. A moment later, and Wade Baron's wonder had turned to icy horror, for the officer deftly snapped steel wristbands around Wade's outstretched hand!

"You're under arrest," said the huge guard, "by order of Government!"

TURNING swiftly, the big guard beckoned to the others at the bottom of the landing. In an instant, Wade was surrounded by a crimson-uniformed cordon.

"Search him!" the officer directed one of his platoon.

Before he could move, before his bewildered brain could find an answer to this ghastly mistake, hands held Wade helpless, while other hands ran through his clothing.

"Here," said one of the guards, pulling forth a sheaf of papers from the lining of Wade's tunic. "He had these hidden in there!"

Wade's eyes went wide at the sight of the papers. What they were, he had no idea. How they got there, he was equally unable to explain. Terror clutched at his heart with icy fingers, closing down until Wade felt he could scarcely breathe.

"What is this!" Wade cried wildly. "What in the hell is this all about? I demand to know!"

The large government guard had taken the papers, was scanning them swiftly.

"Our information was correct," he said grimly. "These papers are all the proof we need." He turned again to Wade. "Baron," he rasped, "the charge against you is treason against the government!"

"Treason?" Horror was closing in on Wade. "Good God! What is this all about? I've done nothing, I tell you! Nothing!"

Suddenly a red haze swept his mind, and he lashed out with his free hand, catching one of the guards in the mouth. In a split- second, bodies closed in on him, and he was buried beneath the bludgeoning blows of his captors.

In the short, unequal struggle which followed, Wade thought he saw the grim, unsmiling face of Flight Patrol Leader Carse Jenkins looking down on the scene from the cabin of the ship. Then he was being dragged down the landing gangway, still surrounded by the crimson cordon of police.

Despairingly, Wade called out wildly.

"Matt, Matt Markham! Damn you swine! Let me find Matt Markham. He'll rectify this outrage!"

The huge government guard laughed shortly, unpleasantly.

"I suppose Markham is a friend of yours?"

"You're damn right he is. He's somewhere in this crowd. Ask him about me, you fool! He'll identify me!" Wade was near hysteria, the hysteria of red, burning rage.

"You'll see Commissioner Markham soon enough," the guard said harshly. "You're being picked up on his orders!"

3: Matt Markham— True Friend

IT was a confused, badly beaten, and terribly bewildered Wade Baron who sat hunched dejectedly on a cell cot in Government Prison Ten, several hours later.

In his mind, Wade was desperately turning over the events of the past hours, trying to put them together, trying to link them to an answer to his ghastly nightmare. The huge guard's remark, calling Matt Markham Commissioner, had been the most bewildering of all. And yet it fitted in perfectly with Carse Jenkins' statement that Matt had been promoted. But Commissioner— ! Why, next to the supreme post of Unifyer, the Commissioner's position was the most important on Earth!

Even so, even if Matt had risen to a position of such importance in three years, what could explain the fact that all this was the result— if the guard could be believed— of Matt's orders?

"It must be a joke, a stunt on Matt's part," Wade mumbled in confusion. But the bitter futility of the remark was evident in the cuts and bruises about his body. That was no part of a joke. And Nada— where had Nada been?

Where was Nada now? Had she been in the crowd? Had she been waiting for him? She knew that he was to return today. If she had been in the crowd she would most certainly have seen what happened. Most certainly she would have followed him to the prison, straightened the mess out. Especially since Matt was now Commissioner. She would have gotten in touch with Matt immediately, had him take care of the ghastly error.

Error! The word flashed neon-like into Wade's mind. Error? Of course it was an error. But what about those papers, those papers which had been found on his person. Wade was certain that he had never seen them before, had no knowledge, even, of their existence. They must have been planted on him without his being aware of it.

"It must be a joke!" Wade insisted desperately. "Probably Matt didn't tell those stupid thug guards that it was a joke. They probably took the thing seriously. He probably didn't know they'd push me around like they did. It'll all be straightened out. Of course it will. Of course it will!"

But Wade Baron argued against himself without conviction. The facts, as they stood, pointed inevitably to one conclusion. A conclusion that he tried desperately to push to the back of his mind. He wouldn't accept it, he couldn't accept it, until he had seen Matt Markham.

WADE'S thoughts were interrupted by the sound of heavy heels ringing down the corridor leading to his cell. He sat up sharply, just in time to see a platoon of four guards, crimson- tunicked, halt before the door of his cell. A fifth guard, their leader, inserted a key into the lock of the door, and it swung inward.

Standing, Wade spoke.

"What now?" There was bitterness in his voice. "Where to?"

The guard leader, a cold, impassive little man, answered unconcernedly.

"To the Planet Chambers. You're to be heard by the Commissioner and the Board."

A chill swept over Wade. Matt Markham was going to see him. What would the outcome be? Jest? Or— he still hated to face the idea— an incredible doublecross?

Then, guarded on all sides, Wade was led through the bleak gray corridors. Silent, damp, monotonous cell blocks on every side. The place sent a chill of apprehension shuddering along Wade's back. They came, at length, to a great steel door which Wade remembered passing when he was led into the prison.

There were other crimson-tunicked guards outside the door, armed only with the small but very deadly light-lugers, pistols that could turn a human being to a cinder from the distance of five hundred yards. These other guards looked at Wade curiously, but without a trace of compassion on their faces.

The guard leader who had taken Wade from his cell spoke to the men before the great steel door.

"Tell them," he said, "that we have the prisoner awaiting their pleasure."

Moments later, after disappearing through the door, the guard who had entered the chamber reappeared.

"You are to enter," he announced. "The Commissioner is waiting."

Noiselessly, the huge steel door swung open. Surrounded once again by the cordon of guards, Wade was led inside, into one of the most enormous and richly-colored rooms he had ever beheld. Vast and high-ceilinged, the place was a cross between a mighty cathedral and an inordinately large court room.

Towering pillars of marble reached to the ceiling, and the rich red rugs beneath Wade's feet were as soft as thick velvet. Drapes of golden mesh formed a covering to the coldness of the marble walls. At the far end of the room was a huge dais, constructed of black oak and draped in red.

It was in the center of this dias, surrounded on either side by lower dignitaries, that Matt Markham, Commissioner Matt Markham, sat watching the approach of the prisoner.

TO Wade, who had never had occasion to enter the Justice Chambers before, the place was bewildering, awe-inspring, in its utter splendor. Seeing Markham, Wade tried to catch his eye, but his friend was gazing abstractedly at a sheaf of papers, and it wasn't until Wade was led directly before him, at the center of the dais, that he looked up.

"Matt!" Wade blurted. "Matt, I'm glad to see you, fellow. Get this mess straightened out immediately, won't you? A joke is a joke, and all that, but these chaps don't seem to know it!" He was grinning embarrassedly at Markham, but the glance that his friend returned was cold, thoughtful.

"Wade Baron?" Matt Markham asked icily, his bushy blond eyebrows knitting in a frown.

Wade gulped. He looked wildly from one to the other of the lesser officials seated around Markham, hoping to find some sign of levity in their eyes. This had to be a joke. It had to!

Wade's eyes flashed back to Markham, swiftly appraising his friend, noting the slight changes that three years had brought about in him. He was heavier, Markham was, and his face was lined with a sternness which Wade had never seen before. His blond hair was closely cropped, and his wide mouth was set in a rigid uncompromising line. His eyes, as they bored down on Wade, were gray and flinty in their hardness. Something inside of Wade, something akin to instinct, told him that there was no levity here. Markham was playing no joke. There would be no mercy, no friendship.

"Wade Baron?" Markham repeated again, impatiently.

Red creeped up from Wade's collar, sweeping hotly to his lean features, to the crown of his lank black hair. His hands were moist and shaking as rage took possession of him.

"Markham," he said as evenly as he could. "I don't know what in the hell this is all about. You'd know that. But something pretty rancid is going on here. I've done nothing. If this is your idea of humor—"

"You are charged with treason," Markham broke in coldly, and Wade sensed a hidden mockery behind those flinty eyes. "Treason against Government is a crime punishable by death. We," he waved his hand slightly to indicate the other dignitaries, "have debated on your case for the past three hours. The papers found in your possession were enough to damn you. Definite evidences of your alliance with the enemies of Government have been proven. What have you to say in your defense?"

"Defense?" Wade exploded. "Defense? Defense against what? Defense against something about which I know nothing? I've never seen those papers you speak of, except for that moment at the Space Base when they were supposed to have been found in my pockets. I haven't even the slightest idea of what they contain. If they indicate treason, I can't even tell you how, or in what fashion they do so. This thing is a ghastly fraud, a horrible frame-up, Markham. I don't know what it's all about. But I know my rights. I demand public trial, an Open Chamber hearing on this thing!"

Markham shook his head slowly, and his voice softened as he spoke.

"We were friends at one time, Wade Baron. Everyone in this Chamber knows as much. But my duty has always been my sacred bond. I cannot go back on it. There have been many changes in the past three years— three years during which you were under constant observation on Jaytwo. You thought you were alone, isolated on a deserted little planet. You thought that your dealings with the enemies of Government could be carried on in perfect secrecy from such an isolated base. But that is where you made your error. Your movements were constantly watched by us. Intelligence had you under constant surveillance."

Wade's interrupting laugh was bitter. "Watched, watched was I? Watched while I charted my asteroid surveys? Watched while I worked night and day in the service of Government?"

Markham shook his head.

"The evidence has been compiled and presented to the court. The most damning piece we have against you is contained in the documents found on your person when you returned to Earth. We have reached our verdict, Wade Baron."

THE rage had drained from Wade, leaving his throat dry and choked, his eyes blurred with tears of futility and bewilderment. Was the cold official sitting upon the huge dias Matt Markham? Matt Markham the friend he had eagerly waited to see? Matt Markham, who had taken care of Nada for him during those three years? What had happened? And Nada, where was she at this moment?

"As I said," Markham continued, "the punishment for treason is death."

A chill swept Wade's spine at the words. He tried to open his mouth, tried to find words to protest. But the very coldness around him told him that resistance would be futile, laughably futile. He was framed, solidly, definitely, and there wasn't a thing in the world he could do about it. He ran his hand across his face, trying to wipe away the nightmare surrounding him.

"However," Markham went on, "we have decided that, inasmuch as your previous service to Goverment has been more than exemplary, we will commute your sentence to life imprisonment. Life imprisonment in the government penal institution on the planet Cardo!"

Wade raised his eyes hopelessly to Markham. Cardo! Death, he knew, would have been far better than Cardo. Markham knew it, too, Wade was certain. A frame-up, not a chance to demand trial, resulting in the living hell of Cardo penal institution!

Softly, as if from a great distance, Wade heard his own voice speaking.

"Markham," he was saying, "Markham, I don't know the why or wherefor of this. But I do know one thing, I'll get you, Markham. I'll get you if it's the last thing in the universe I ever do!"

There was a caustic relish in Matt Markham's voice as he replied.

"And, of course, as far as the world is concerned, Wade Baron, you are dead. Your relatives and ah, er, friends ..." Wade knew he meant Nada Warren, will be informed of your death. It will save them the knowledge of the shame and disgrace you have brought upon them."

The world at that moment, collapsed utterly around Wade Baron. Numbly, helplessly, he stood there, gazing dry-eyed at the man who had conspired this ruin for him. The man who would, in another hour, inform Nada Warren that her fiancé, Wade Baron, was dead!

To all appearances, as Wade stood there powerless against the forces that had crushed him, he was beaten, impotent, drained of all emotion. But deep inside his chest a spark had ignited a glowing coal. A fiercely burning resolve that was deeper than hate, stronger than any anger.

"Markham," Wade repeated dully, "you'll pay for this. Pay for it with every last bit of searing agony I can bring your soul!"

"The prisoner is committed to Cardo for the remainder of his natural life!" Commissioner Markham declared, and a gavel fell heavily on the thick oak of the dias.

4: Cardo, World Of Living Hell

FROM the porthole of the prison spaceship, Wade Baron, shackled hand and leg to twenty other prisoners, watched the planet Cardo grow in the distance. The past twenty-four hours had been burning torment to his soul. Hustled back to the cell from which he'd been taken, Wade was given a change of tunic to the gray prison garb, then speedily and secretly taken to Space Base where the prison spaceship was waiting to carry its cargo of condemned humanity to the penal planet.

When the guards had fixed the shackles on him, Wade had had to force himself to hold back the rage that swept him. It would have been futile to struggle. He knew that much. Others among the twenty-one convicts had tried it and were even now whimpering over the ghastly burns inflicted on them by the merciless guards. Burns that would remain open sores for many months to come.

Wade forced himself to endure the indignities heaped on him by the guards, and spent his time in observation of his fellow convicts. He noted, with growing surprise, that there were only four of them, at the most, who looked or acted like men of criminal nature. The rest, like himself, were clear-eyed, upstanding, with an air of decency about them. They looked like professional, medical, or business men.

Wade was puzzled. What had been the crimes of these men? Had they, like himself, been railroaded, framed? But Cardo— at least as recently as three years previously— had not been a political prison. It had been a quarantine planet for the scum and riff-raff of the criminal world.

As for the names of the other prisoners, there was no way in which Wade could ascertain who they were, or had been. The huge block numbers on the front of the prison gray tunics were all there was to identify them. Wade's was 397. The white-headed old man beside him was 408. He was of special interest to Wade. There was an air of aristocracy, dignity, about him that commanded respect. He was short, with an inquisitive way of holding his head, and had a white moustache and goatee.

As soon as he could do so without the knowledge of the guards, Wade spoke to him. The old man was gazing forth at the approaching penal planet, his expression inscrutable, through a porthole near Wade.

"That's going to be some home, eh?" Wade remarked dryly.

The old man turned wordlessly, looking at Wade as though in appraisal. At length he spoke.

"Yes," he said, "a lovely home, indeed. Constructed to shield the universe from swine, it is now going to conceal the universe from you and me."

"My name..." Wade began. The old man interrupted, holding up his hand,

"What difference does a name mean to either of us now?" he observed dryly. "We are numbered, like cattle. But if you must stand on formality, my young friend, my name is Hannes Jardon."

Wade about to reply with his own identification, stopped short and gasped.

"Jardon?" Then, reddening, he blurted, "Not Professor Jardon?"

The old man smiled, nodded.

"Yes, Professor Jardon." Then, before Wade could speak again, "What is your name?"

Wade told him hurriedly, then went on to express his utter astonishment at the professor's identity.

"But you, Professor, one of the greatest minds in modern science, what, how, that is, why are you here? Why are you a prisoner shackled aboard this ship?"

The old man shrugged.

"Does it make any difference now? You might ask Commissioner Markham. I believe he mentioned something about treason."

Wade was about to voice his amazement when a guard approached.

"Break it up," the crimson-tunicked captor snarled. Wade moved clumsily away, hampered by his shackles, and the old man did likewise nodding his head to indicate that they would talk later.

IT was much later before Wade saw old Professor Jardon again. Three months later to be exact. Three months spent in the damp dungeons of Cardo. Three months living in comparative solitude broken only by the twice daily sloppy rations pushed into his stinking little cell by a guard.

The prison on Cardo was an immense affair. Countless winding corridors, endless lines of stinking dungeons. Dungeons in which a man had only to extend his hands to either side to touch both walls at once. Dungeons the blackness of which was never broken, save on the twice daily ration visits of the guards. Men were not meant to serve out their sentences on Cardo. It hadn't been designed for that. It was a place where men vanished. No one returned from there— alive.

All this Wade Baron had heard. And all this he now knew to be true. There were cells adjoining his, cells above him, cells beneath him. And from these, through the long endless hours, Wade could hear the ceaseless sobbing of his fellow unfortunates.

The sobbing invariably followed the visits of the guards, and the sickening sound of their heavy blows on defenseless flesh. Wade wondered more than once why he was left unmolested. But solitude, to Wade Baron, was not enough to break him. He had lived alone for three years. On Jaytwo there had been no voices save his own, no thoughts save those he conjured. Even hell can be bearable if a man can listen to his own thoughts.

And Wade Baron had learned to do just that. For he had much to think about. After his first several days of solitude in his cell on Cardo, Wade had managed to push remorse to the back of his mind, knowing that it is remorse and remorse alone that licks a man. Wade wasn't licked. Didn't intend to be licked. For there was his score, his score with Matt Markham and the others who had done this to him.

Revenge, carefully planned, diabolically matured, was the one factor that kept Wade Baron living on. And bit by bit, Wade was arriving at a scheme, a possible way to freedom and the fulfillment of that revenge.

A scheme that grew still more plausible after those first three months had passed, that took definite shape on his meeting with Professor Jardon.

For some unaccountable reasons of generosity, Wade and ten of the prisoners who had arrived on Cardo with him, were permitted a brief glimpse of light, a brief breath of air, in the exercise yards of the prison.

Jardon was among those ten. And, seeing him for the first time in three months, Wade paled, clenching his fists and biting his lip to hold back the exclamation of horror he felt rising to voice. The professor, wretchedly pale, terribly emaciated, was barely able to struggle along in the line of shuffling prisoners.

Twice he fell, and twice the brutal kicks of the guards brought him staggering once more to his feet. The men were unfettered, but shackles would have been unnecessary, such was their physical condition. Even Wade found walking difficult after the cramped confinement that had been his for the past three months. Looking at the ghastly pallor of his fellow prisoners, Wade realized that he, too, must look much the same.

"Move on there!" The command barked by one of the crimson-clad guards jerked Wade's attention from his fellow sufferers. He looked at the burly guard who had barked the order, and thought mentally of what he would give to have a light-luger in his hand for only a moment.

Then Professor Jardon fell for the third time.

"Get him up! Make that damned old goat stay erect!" Two of the guards crossed the exercise yard to where Jardon lay inertly on the ground. There was a series of sickening blows as their heavy boots thudded mercilessly into the old man's ribs.

Wade Baron could stand it no longer. Some how he was running, staggering, across the exercise yard to where the Professor lay.

"Blast your stinking hides!" he shouted. "Stand away from that poor devil!"

Wildly his hands tore at the guard closest to the inert old man, spun the fellow around. The blow which Wade smashed into the surprised fellow's face was feeble, but the unexpectedness of it caught the guard off balance, and he sprawled backwards.

In another instant, as Wade was dropping to his knees beside Professor Jardon's beaten body, three guards hurled themselves on his back, flattening him to the ground beside the old man. Wade didn't have time to shield himself from the blows that rained on him a moment later, didn't have time to roll out of range of those punishing kicks. The merciful curtain of unconsciousness slipped over him as his tortured body could bear the pain no longer.

"Throw them in the same cell together," one of the crimson tuniced guards snapped, "and get those others back to their cells. We'll take care of them later!"

5:  Professor Jardon's Secret

WADE BARON rose dazedly to one elbow, blinking back the pain that seared his aching head, and trying to focus his eyes in the stygian darkness that enveloped him. The damp musky smell that assailed his nostrils told him instantly that he was once again in one of the dungeons, possibly his own.

The sharp pain subsided to a dull throbbing above his eyes. Wade was able to see faintly through the aid of a murky beam filtering into the cell from a narrow window close to the ceiling.

With the chill of the slimy cobble-stoned floor forcing him to shiver involuntarily, Wade managed to rise painfully to his feet. For a moment he stood there, swaying slightly, fighting to keep from toppling forward again. Then, the nausea in his stomach settling somewhat, Wade looked about.

Someone else was in the cell with him. Someone lying in a queerly twisted heap less than a yard from his feet. And as recollection came to him, Wade recognized Professor Jardon. Cursing softly between swollen lips, he stepped swiftly forward and bent over the old man. In a moment he was cradling the scientist's bloody head in his lap, shaking him gently, trying to bring the old man back to consciousness.

"Professor," Wade whispered, "Professor, come around old fellow. They've gone!"

His only answer was a tremulous sigh, a soft moan.

Suddenly Wade gasped. His arms, in which the old man's head rested, were warm and moist. He didn't have to see the color of the substance to know it was blood that slowly oozed from a deep wound in the side of Professor Jardon's head. And as he tenderly touched his hand to the wound, Wade shuddered. The old fellow's skull had been crushed, just beneath the ear, by one of those brutal kicks!

Jardon's eyes flickered faintly. Then they opened, and he looked weakly, blankly, up at Wade.

"They, they shan't have them," he murmured.

Tears rolled down Wade Baron's cheeks, and he answered the old man softly.

"It's all right, Professor, no one will harm you."

The scientist opened his mouth to form words again, then his eyes lighted slightly in recognition.

"Oh, it is you, my young friend. You— you—" he was speaking with much difficulty, "shouldn't have endangered yourself for me."

Wild rage was flooding Wade Baron's mind. Rage at the beasts who had done this. Rage at the beast who had been responsible for this living hell. He bit his lip, choking back his emotion.

"Young man," the Professor was murmuring, "listen to me, young man." He coughed hackingly, red saliva running from the corners of his mouth. "Listen to me," he repeated, his voice growing faint for a moment. "I'm dying, I fear."

Wade said nothing, merely biting deeper into his underlip until the blood ran salty in his mouth. Tears blurred his vision until he was barely able to see the face of the kindly old man.

"Someone must know," the scientist was saying. "I must pass my knowledge on to someone. Planet Twenty, they want Planet Twenty." His voice faltered once more, and he fought for breath, his frail chest heaving spasmodically.

Wade still held his tongue. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to help. The old man was dying. Wade suspected that he was delirious. He tried to ease the scientist's head gently to a more comfortable position.

"Young man," the scientist resumed in a voice a little more even, "you probably think me raving, delirious. Hear me, please. I am quite in possession of my faculties. There is not much time, hear me."

Voice choked, Wade managed to answer him.

"Go ahead, Professor. I'm listening. Go ahead with what you have to tell me,"

"They want Twenty, Planet Twenty. Markham wanted it. I wouldn't reveal its location. That's why I'm here." He broke off once more, his breath coming fainter. "Bend closer, young man," he faltered, "I've not long. Minutes precious."

Wade bent his head to the old man's lips, brushing back the tears from his face as he did so.

"You will find the papers, papers giving the location of Twenty, in my tunic. Take them from my body. There is knowledge there, young man, and wealth and power which I would never allow to fall into the hands of Markham. My secret laboratories, no one else knows their location, others are dead long since." The old fellow's breath was beginning to rattle in his throat.

"Yes," Wade answered, "I'll take them, Professor."

"Use them, boy. You look clean, decent. Don't let them fall into other hands. Markham, Markham wants that knowledge to destroy the Unifyer, take control of Government." The old man's voice was barely audible now. "I pass the information on to you, use it boy. Destroy Markham. But if you fail, destroy the papers. Destroy them bef—"

Professor Jardon ended the sentence abruptly. As abruptly as Death took him from the arms of Wade Baron. Gently, Wade lowered the old man to the damp cobblestones of the dungeon floor.

"Another item, Markham," Wade muttered softly, "another item for which you'll roast!"

Respectfully, then, Wade removed the shirt of his tunic. For an instant he hesitated as he held it above the old scientist. He bit his lip in indecision. The scientist might not have been raving. Gently, then, he placed his hands inside the tunic of Professor Jardon. Placed his hand beneath the tunic and stopped sharply at what it encountered, a sheaf of papers!

He withdrew the papers, placing them at his side, then gently placed his tunic shirt over the scientist's face. He remained kneeling there for a moment in silent tribute to the old man. Then, picking up the papers, Wade rose and walked over to where the murky beam of light filtered faintly in from the window near the ceiling.

There Wade, straining his eyes in the gloom, scrutinized the papers left by Professor Jardon. There were seven or eight electratyped sheets, and one large parchment-like paper folded several times to the size of the others. Wade unfolded the parchment first.

It was a planetoid chart, a cosmic map. His eyes narrowed, then he gasped involuntarily. The charted planet sector was that in which his former habitat, Jaytwo was located!

Running his thumb rapidly across the map, Wade located Jaytwo, located, also, the other planets in its vicinity which he had spent three years in charting. Then his thumb stopped at the far corner of the map. There was a planet charted there— a planet which, as far as Wade had previously known, was non- existent!

Beneath the marking of this planet was scrawled, "Twenty."

Wade frowned. This, evidently, was the Planet Twenty which the old man had mentioned again and again in his last moments. But there couldn't be any such planet. He himself had charted that interspacial area for three years, charted it minutely and in infinite detail. It was impossible. But Jardon had mentioned a Planet Twenty, and this map showed it.

FOLDING the map, Wade stuffed it beneath his arm and turned his attention to the electratyped sheets. The first of them, bearing Professor Jardon's signature, was titled, "Concerning Twenty."

Brows knitted, eyes straining in the faint illumination coming from the tiny window, Wade read the page. Then he re-read it, excitedly. When he finally had done with it, he had scanned it a total of eight times.

The next sheet was titled, "Record of Twenty and Its Equipment. Details Leading to Markham's Discovery of Its Existence." This information, Wade saw at a glance, was contained in the remaining seven pages.

He slumped down to the floor, leaning his back against the damp wall, and gave himself over to the perusal of Jardon's manuscript.

It was a half hour later before Wade put aside the papers and rose once more. There was a burning restlessness in his movements as he paced rapidly back and forth in the narrow confines of the tiny cell. His mind was wrestling excitedly with the information set down in Professor Jardon's manuscript. Excitedly and incredulously, for the statements that were set carefully down in electratype were the most astonishing revelations Wade had ever encountered.

"If I could be certain," Wade muttered, "that the old man was quite sane when he compiled that information. If I could be sure—" The implications left in his mind by those seven pages were staggering to the imagination.

Twenty, a planet previously unheard of, a planet containing untold treasure in scientific knowledge, containing incredible power. The story of that planet, Jardon's secret, of the old scientist's laboratories hidden there from the universe, all this had been contained on those electratyped pages, the parchment map.

Wade looked at the silent figure lying on the floor, at the old man who had created this fabulous secret scientific hoard, created it and kept the secret sealed until now.

In the pages, too, was information which filled the gaps of Wade's knowledge of what had happened in the universe during his three years isolation on Jaytwo. Tersely, the old scientist had told of Matt Markham's rise to power in Government. Had told, too, of the Professor's realization that Markham had to be thwarted before it became too late.

Planet Twenty— that had been Jardon's solution to the rising menace of Matt Markham. With the aid of a few trusted fellow scientists, Professor Jardon had constructed his secret laboratories on the uncharted, unknown planet. Matt Markham, the pages stated, had suspected the plan of Jardon, had gotten some inkling of it. Jardon's aids had been mercilessly tortured to death in Markham's attempts to wring the secret from them. But they had died rather than turn the tremendous power of Twenty into the power-mad young politician's hands.

Until there was only Professor Jardon left with the knowledge of the secret.

Wade could see it all clearly now, and what he didn't know was supplied by the information contained in the documents the old man had passed on to him. The old scientist had been sent to Cardo to break him, to reduce him to a state wherein he would willing turn over his information to Markham. But the job had been done too well. And now Jardon was dead.

And the terse electratyped pages supplied more information. They stated that Markham knew, had somehow found out, that the secret planet of Professor Jardon was somewhere within the cosmic area of Jaytwo. He had discovered that much, but had still been unable to get the exact location of the place.

Which, Wade realized, was where he entered into the scheme of his former friend. Markham, knowing that Wade had spent three years in exhaustive research of that interplanetary range, and knowing that Wade was returning with extensive information about that cosmic range, figured that the surveys might lead him to Professor Jardon's secret Planet Twenty.

"I can see," Wade whispered bitterly to himself, "why Markham wanted me out of the way, why he wanted my asteroid survey reports." Even as he spoke, he knew also that Markham had another reason for wanting him out of the way. That reason was Nada Warren.

Markham's lust, Markham's greed for power, had been his reasons for framing Wade Baron. Even though Wade had once been his closest friend. The picture of that scene in the Justice Chambers flashed back to Wade Baron, then. He saw himself facing Markham. He heard his own voice saying huskily, "I'll get you Markham."

There in the darkness and stench of the tiny cell, standing above the body of the brutally murdered Jardon, Wade Baron reasserted his vow.

"It's still a bet," he told the silence. "I'm going to get you, Markham. I'll get you if it's the last thing I do!"

6: A Break For Liberty

FOR three hours Wade kept silent vigil beside the body of Professor Jardon, and during those hours his mind explored the possibilities of escape.

The murky half-light which seeped into the cell from the high barred window near the ceiling had almost vanished, making the gloom of the tiny cell deeper. Frantically, Wade searched for some idea, some method by which he could escape.

The guards, he knew, were due to arrive at any moment. It was imperative, consequently, that he prepare himself to strike for freedom then. His opportunity would never be better. They would be thrown into confusion when they found Jardon dead. It might give Wade a chance to make his break.

For the knowledge from those documents would never be of aid unless he could gain freedom. He had stuffed the papers deep into the side of his space boots, which he still wore.

Once he was free, once he had gained Planet Twenty— Wade had plans after that.

Wade panthered furiously back and forth in the narrow confines of the tiny cell, accepting ideas only to reject them again as implausible, unworkable. Time was an essential. At any moment he might hear the tramp of guards marching down the silent cell corridors.

His lean features twisted in desperate concentration, Wade ran his hand through his lank black hair, across the short beard which three months had grown, and looked up toward the ceiling.

The tiny aperture, barred and high from the floor, which served as the only window, provided no chance for escape. It was much too narrow to permit Wade to wriggle through, even to slide half a shoulder into. He discarded the thought. Discarded the thought, and then returned to it.

Brow wrinkled in contemplation, Wade studied the window. He looked, then, at the still body of Professor Jardon. Restlessly his eyes scanned the barred opening once again.

"It might," he muttered softly. "It might work."

Rapidly, then, he tore long strips from the tunic shirt which he had placed over Jardon's face. Working swiftly, lest the guards approach before he was ready, Wade twisted the strips into a long cord. He jerked it several times to test its strength, was satisfied that it would hold. Long enough anyway.

Then, improvised rope in his hands, Wade sat down on the damp cobble-stoned floor of his cell to wait for the sounds of approaching guards. Silently, desperately, he was praying that it would work.

Later, perhaps a half hour, perhaps an hour, the faint sound of heels clacking down the corridor outside the cell came to Wade's ears. He leaped to his feet, straining his ears. He had to make certain. Couldn't take a chance.

"The guards," he grunted in satisfaction a moment later. Then, swiftly, Wade Baron went to work. A lot hinged on the reaction of the guards when they'd find Jardon dead by the door.

His makeshift rope was through the bars of the tiny window. Through the bars while Wade, finding foothold in the irregular surface of the damp wall, clambered toward the opening until he could hang from it by one hand.

The sounds of the approaching footsteps were growing much louder, and sweat broke out on Wade's forehead as he worked desperately with his free hand— fastening a noose.

It was ready, and Wade managed to swing his head through it, after tying the other end of the improvised rope to one of the bars. He still clung, with his remaining strength, to the bar by means of his free hand. A lot was going to depend on timing. He couldn't wait too long, couldn't be too hasty, in letting himself drop into the strangling bonds of the noose.

For Wade Baron intended to hang himself.

THE sound of the footsteps was less than twenty feet from the cell door now. Twenty feet, coming closer. Wade prayed that the guards would cut him down in time. The strangulation would black-out consciousness— it would be better than feigning it— and seem similar to death. But it couldn't kill him, if the guards acted in time. Wade had to chance that.

The death of the scientist, and the consternation of the guards at it, would make Wade's pseudo-suicide seem real enough when they saw him dangling from the bars.

Keys were clicking around the lock of the cell door. Voices muffled by the intervening door, were grumbling. Wade released his grip on the bars. Released his grip and felt the strangling cord cutting in on his throat, cutting off his breath.

Spots were dancing before his eyes, and he could feel the veins bulging out on his forehead. The keys were still clicking tantalizingly in the door. Through the wave of horrible darkness that was pressing in on him, Wade had time to pray that they would enter the cell in time, would cut him down before his trick turned into horrible reality.

The spots were bigger and blacker, flashing sparks mingling with them. Voices swam dizzily in Wade's brain. As if in a nightmare, he could feel his hands reaching up to his neck, clawingly, desperately. Then Wade Baron knew no more.

The noose had closed out consciousness....

"Throw 'em in the corner. Dead ones. Stiff cremation tomorrow morning." The voices buzzed fuzzily in Wade Baron's mind, and he felt hands lifting his apparently lifeless body high, a few steps, then a sickening drop as he struck stone pavement.

Some instinct enabled Wade to keep from moving, keep from crying out, although his mind was still hazy, still dazed. He lay there, scarcely breathing, hearing the voices, hearing footsteps sounding by his body.

"Going to catch hell," he heard the voices clearer now. "The old man wasn't supposed to have been liquidated, just pushed around a bit. Doesn't make any difference about the other, though. Just as good dead." Recollection of what had happened was returning to Wade. "I'd hate to have been the one who kicked the old man's skull in."

It had worked. The air on his cheek told Wade that he was in some sort of a clearing. He'd been cut down in time, taken for dead, and dragged outside with old Professor Jardon's body!

He held his breath, certain that the excited hammering of his heart could be heard by anyone within a yard of him.

The voices were moving away.

"Pick 'em up in the morning. There are other stiffs to bring up. Six more passed off in their cells today. Cremation for the bunch tomorrow."

Eyes shut fast, Wade waited until the last echo of the foot- steps died away on the pavement. He didn't move then, however, for he couldn't be certain that all had gone. He wondered if it were dark enough to risk opening his eyes, then remembered that twilight was descending into the gloomy cell when the guards were approaching. It must be dark, he reasoned, for his eyes would have sensed any light, even though shut.

Nevertheless, Wade waited for what seemed to be an endless century until he was certain that there were no more sounds. Then he opened his eyes a hair-breadth of an inch. Darkness surrounded him.

Moving his head slowly to one side, accustoming his eyes to the darkness as he did so, Wade could see that he was in a large court, open to the sky. A large pavemented court in which at least fifteen or twenty bodies lay lifelessly together. Lifelessly with the exception of one— Wade.

Still Wade acted with infinite caution, moving laboriously, slowly, inch by inch, until he was in a better position to view the court. It was deserted save for the corpses.

CAUTIOUSLY, Wade rose to his feet. Looking at the bodies lying around him, he was forced to shudder. Some of them had obviously been here at least a week. Evidently the cremation spoken of by the guard took place at spaced intervals, possibly every two weeks.

The freshness of the air did not entirely drive off the stench of dead flesh. Wade's jaw shut grimly. So far so good. But this was a momentary sort of freedom. He couldn't stay here.

He was free of the cell. But now he had to find some manner of escaping Cardo itself. Slipping into the even inkier blackness along a wall beside him, Wade proceeded cautiously toward a gate which was visible at the far end of the court.

Now and again he would pause, listening, craning his neck to peer through the darkness ahead. Then, assured that the way was safe, he would move forward several yards more. In this fashion he finally reached the gate to the courtyard.

There was no one at the gate. Dead men need no guards. With a soft sigh of relief, Wade slipped through the portal. He forced back an exclamation of joyous surprise, as his eyes swept the terrain ahead of him.

Off in the distance was the towering black bulk of Cardo prison— which meant that the guards had taken him outside of its confinement completely! Evidently the convicts who died inside its walls were removed to this court where they were left until cremation.

Wade judged the prison to be more than a mile away, and lying on the far side of it, he knew, was the landing base for the prison space ships.

The government guards and wardens who served on Cardo Planet were quartered less than a quarter of a mile from the space landing platforms, Wade recalled, remembering a descriptive map of the planet which he had studied in connection with a survey some years before.

Between Wade and the space platforms lay the prison, with guards stationed in watchtowers, and the Resident Service quarters. If he could slip past these— His jaw hardened. He had to!

Wade Baron started toward the prison, across the open terrain. Suddenly he stopped short. The chance of his being seen by a guard was too great. He dropped to the ground instantly on this realization. His fingers, as he pushed himself slowly across the barren stretch, kept slipping in the peculiar clay substance from which Cardo was formed. He paused, breathing heavily, the confinement of months in the cramped cell telling heavily on his strength.

He wondered if his gray tunic could be discerned from the watchtowers, and as he wondered was seized with an idea. Five minutes later, Wade had smeared himself from head to foot with the black slime clay— perfect camouflage.

Inching once more along the open terrain, Wade stopped suddenly, his veins turning to ice.

"Watch!" The word came from somewhere behind him, accompanied by the sluck-sluck sound of boots moving toward the place where he lay. His heart began a furious tattoo of terror in his chest, and he buried his face deep in the slime clay.

"All well, Watch!" another voice answered through the darkness. But the boots moved closer, closer. Wade thought he could hear other steps retreating, fading away.

There was an almost imperceptible knoll to Wade's left, and he prayed that it might conceal him from the approaching sentry. From the sound of the sentry's steps, Wade judged him to be less than ten yards away by now.

Five yards. Wade held his breath.

There was a startled gasp, and simultaneously Wade knew that he had been observed and the guard was investigating. He cursed inwardly, body tensing, as the steps slucked directly toward him. He knew that he would never be hidden, once the sentry drew within a few feet of him. So he did the only thing left to him under the circumstances. He waited until he heard the tread of the boots almost directly beside him.

Then Wade Baron rose from the slime, black, terrifying, gaunt. Rose from the slime and launched himself in a swift dive at the guard who stood frozen in open-mouthed horror less than three feet away!

7: A Way To Escape?

TO Wade's advantage were the surprise and confusion of the guard. Whatever he had expected to find, when his attention was drawn to the object in the black slime, he certainly wasn't prepared for an incredibly wild attack by an escaped convict.

A hoarse cry catching in his throat, the guard went down beneath the weight of Wade's body. Wade's fingers had found the jugular vein, worked along the neck to the wind-pipe, and he squeezed without compassion, without mercy— savagely.

The cry choked off into a weak gurgle, and minutes later, Wade felt the helpless struggling of the fellow cease, felt the body go limp beneath him.

Wade's hand flashed to the side of the guard's body, found the holster and pulled forth a light-lugger. He rolled off the inert, unresisting form of his victim, lying silent on his stomach for an instant, looking wildly about to see if the struggle had been noticed.

It hadn't.

Light-luger clutched in his hand, Wade started to inch ahead once more. Started, then stopped. Quickly, he inched back to the body of the guard, an idea born. Stripping off his tunic trousers, Wade used the inside of the garment to partially scrape the slime from his body. Then he went swiftly to work on the guard.

Five minutes later, still slightly dirtied by the remnants of the black slime, Wade Baron rose. He was clad in the crimson tunic of a Government guard. In the darkness, from a distance, he looked like any patrolling sentry.

Wade walked rapidly, now, and with confidence. From the watchtower he would never be taken for anything but a sentry. That was all he needed, to get past the prison. Past the prison and onto the space landing platforms.

He passed beneath the first watchtower some three minutes later. Passed beneath unchallenged. The same held true of the other three watchtowers. Five more minutes, and Cardo Prison was behind him.

Down a gently sloping hill lay the Resident Service quarters, a series of alumno-chrome structures as modern as the prison was medieval. From the glowing fluero-domes on the tops of the buildings, Wade knew that many of the guards and wardens were resting for the night.

He hoped, with a brief fervor, that they were resting soundly. For going through that small village was going to be his most difficult task by far. The streets, through which he would be forced to pass, were all illuminated. Not brilliantly, but enough to give him away should he be seen by any restless guards.

Wade steeled himself. The streets were deserted, but he couldn't be certain that they were going to remain that way. His hand slipped to his side, and he patted his holstered light-luger for reassurance.

"This should help," he muttered, "if anything goes wrong!"

On the other side of the little village were the space landing platforms. In gaining those platforms lay his only chance of gaining freedom. Wade stepped into the first of the streets, walking swiftly, but not at a pace that would cause undue suspicion. He was conscious of the appearance he presented under light.

Clay slime still matted his beard and hands and face, and although he was clad in the Guard crimson, he knew that one look at his face would betray him.

WADE made the first block unmolested, unnoticed, and breathed a short sigh of relief. There were two blocks left to cover. Two blocks left to the landing platforms. Already Wade could make out the platforms in the distance. Huge space hangars, squatting frog-like along the edges of the platform, seemed empty-jawed in the darkness.

On the landing runways were at least a dozen space craft, set in mooring for immediate take-off. Wade could see this by the outlines of shadow on the platforms, even though the platforms themselves were cloaked in darkness.

He was in the middle of the second block when it happened.

The sound of a door swinging open made him turn. Turn to face a man emerging from a building less than five feet off the street beacon he was passing. The fellow, Wade saw instantly from his flashing tunic, was a sentry, a guard!

The fellow, a burly man with massive shoulders, had just strapped on his holster when he sighted Wade. His mouth opened, as if to voice a greeting, at the sight of Wade's crimson tunic. Then his startled glance shot to Wade's face, took in the matted beard.

Wade's light-luger was in his hand at the same moment that the guard drew his. Simultaneously, white flashes spat from both guns, the peculiarly loud whine of the shots breaking the silence.

Wade had thrown himself forward even as he squeezed the trigger, taking his fall into consideration as he aimed. The guard hadn't thought as speedily. An expression of horrified pain split his wide features, and his light-luger clattered to the pavement as he crumpled face forward after it. The acrid stench of burning flesh filled the air immediately, but Wade didn't need it to know he'd scored a hit.

Scored a hit and roused the other houses with the sounds of the shots. Wade didn't wait. He set out at a dead run for the landing platforms. Somehow they seemed miles away, and Wade, zigzagging wildly down the center of the street to destroy the aim of the guards whom he knew would be in pursuit, knew that luck and luck alone would enable him to reach the platforms alive.

Flashing light-lugers were already whining behind him, and Wade knew that luck wouldn't play partner long enough for him to reach the platform. Shouts from the street from which he had just fled, told him that the guards were pouring out after him. Soon, he knew, he'd be brought down by a searing light blast.

One block remained. One block between Wade and comparative safety. But even as he turned down its lighted pavements, he knew it would be too much. His light-luger was still in his hand, and he resisted a crazy impulse to turn and fight it out with his pursuers. His breath was tearing in his throat, rasping, choking him.

Flashing spurts from the light-lugers of his pursuers whined around his ears, and Wade knew that he'd be lucky to make fifteen steps more before one of those shots brought him down.

An then, to his right, he saw the glimmer of a neon conductor pole, a thin, column-like tube placed back three or four feet from the street edge. Wade aimed as accurately as his stumbling run would permit, his mind subconsciously registering the fact that the street lighting depended upon the power from this tube. Aimed and squeezed hard on the trigger of his light-luger. It was a direct hit.

The neon conductor tube shattered explosively, and the streets were thrown into utter darkness in the next instant.

Breathing a choked prayer of thanks, Wade darted sharply to the right, lurching onward to the space landing platforms. He gained the first platform two minutes later. He could hear the confused shouting of his pursuers ringing in the darkness behind him.

Wade clambered onto the second landing platform, heading for a row of small space fighter ships. If there was one ready—

There was, and Wade climbed inside its cabin just as he heard the footsteps of his pursuers clattering onto the first platform. Wade made his way to the control board and struggled into the pilot's seat. An instant later, and he threw the rocket throttle wide. His heart caught somewhere in his throat as he listened for the answering response. If the ship weren't charged— it was!

The deafening detonations of the rocket explosions belched sweet music in Wade Baron's ears, and orange streaks of flame splashed across the platform from the rear and side rockets of the tiny space fighter.

Wade released the gravity brake. Released the brake and felt the angry power of the rockets hurl him back against his seat as the ship hurtled upward toward space— and freedom!

8: Planet Twenty

PROFESSOR JARDON'S cosmic map in his chart panel, Wade Baron sat at the controls of the tiny space fighter more than thirty hours later.

There had been no pursuit from the guards on Cardo. The darkness, the confusion, had evidently made them give up the idea of following Wade. A radiograph, Wade knew, had more than likely been issued to the Space Patrols, warning them of his escape. But Wade, taking an obtuse course, stayed away from the space lanes.

And now, according to the interplanetary range chart of Professor Jardon, Wade knew that he was less than three hours away from the old scientist's fabulous planet, Twenty.

The strain was telling on Wade Baron, and his eyes were red and puffed from fatigue, his muscles screaming their demand for rest. But he clamped his jaw tighter, shaking the veil of weariness from his mind. He had to carry on. Once he reached Planet Twenty, there would be a chance for badly needed rest. But not until then.

"Not until then. Not until then. Not until then." The voice was a drone in Wade's ears, buzzing, humming, sleep-provoking. With a start, he sat bolt upright. He realized that the voice was his own, that he had almost fallen asleep at the controls. Looking at his panel he gasped. The time register told him that two hours had passed! His gaze shot swiftly forward to the visascope, and he threw back on his space brake violently, slackening speed.

He was rushing down on Planet Twenty!

It was less than a quarter of an hour later that Wade eased the space fighter gently along the smooth terrain of Twenty, slipping to a landing, less than three minutes after that when he clambered out of the space ship.

Wade had donned space-gear over his crimson Guard tunic, for he knew the atmospheric conditions of such a small planet would make such protection necessary.

Standing there, Wade gazed open-mouthed at the gleaming silver domes of a village-like cluster of buildings a quarter of a mile in the distance.

"Jardon's science structures," Wade breathed. His mind was still grappling with the realization that here was a planet about which no one— save himself— had any knowledge.

He moved forward then, toward the science structure village, a hundred questions in his mind. Questions concerning the power that lay within those silver-domed buildings. The power at which Jardon had only hinted.

Wade found himself on the streets of the strange, silent village five minutes later. On all sides of him were the silver- domed structures which, on closer inspection, resembled great dynamo turbines.

There was a tall, box-like building of chromealloy directly in the center of the village, and Wade made his way toward this. It was, he was fairly certain, the central laboratory about which Jardon had spoken in the electratyped documents.

The documents had stated that there, in the central laboratory, would be contained the information key to Planet Twenty and its treasures of scientific power.

The deserted streets seemed ghost-like, ominous, to Wade. And he recalled again that men had died, that Jardon had given his life, rather than reveal the secrets of these silent avenues.

WADE had taken forth the electratyped documents as he climbed the steps leading to the door of the central laboratory. There were directions on these pages, directions which would lead him to the power he sought. Halting momentarily before the chromealloy door, Wade flipped swiftly through these papers until he found the page concerning the laboratories.

"In the fourth room in the center of the laboratory, a room marked ZR2, will be found the necessary information," Wade read.

He marched through the door, his space boots ringing hollowly along the aluminum floored corridors of the vast hall in which he found himself. A hall that was lined on either side by a series of doors numbered in the fashion of the one he sought.

Wade pushed back his curiosity concerning these other rooms. He knew that the scientific wonders of Planet Twenty were not confined merely to the power he was after, but the rest could wait. His mission was clear. First of all, to satisfy Jardon's dying wish and his own revenge, Matt Markham would have to be taken care of.

"Ah, there it is." Wade paused before a door on his right. "ZR2!"

He pushed in through the door, and found himself in a small room, utterly barren save for an oblong chest of a peculiar metal which stood in the center of the place.

Wade frowned as he walked over to the chest. He bent over, inspecting its odd construction. He tried the lid, and it swung open, revealing a small, blued-metal box resting on a sheaf of papers.

Lifting the box from the chest, Wade saw that it was equipped with a double set of leather thongs, running along on either side of it. They looked as though they might be meant for a man to slip his arms through, like the straps of a knapsack.

Wade placed the metal box on the floor and pulled the papers from the chest. His brows creased bewilderedly at the title on the first of the papers.

Slowly, then, he began to read, now and again bending to inspect the small metal box and the series of dials on its flat surface. When he had finished the papers, Wade picked up the metallic box, slipping his arms through it, so that it hung suspended from his shoulders, dialed side facing outward. He had only to reach his hand to his chest to adjust the mechanism.

For a moment Wade stood there, continuing to study the papers which he had taken from the chest. Then he crossed the tiny room to the door, stepping once more into the corridor. He still held the papers in his hands, as he moved down the long hall toward the door by which he had entered the central laboratories.

Moments later, and Wade Baron found himself again in the silent streets of the science structure village. He moved along slowly, stopping every so often to inspect the turbine-like domed buildings.

"No wonder Markham wanted this information," he muttered in awe. "Good God, the havoc that could be wrought through it is more than incredible!"

Utter exhaustion was claiming the mind and body of Wade Baron, and he knew that he must rest before he collapsed there in the deserted ominous streets of Planet Twenty.

But after he was rested enough, once the fatigue was conquered, Wade had plans. Plans that involved Earth, and Matt Markham, and the reclaiming of Nada Warren— before it became too late to act. Before Markham had time to act.

Wade's red-rimmed eyes were utterly lack-lustre from his weariness. But a fierce determination blazed in his soul.

He would need rest, he knew that. But it was a selfless rest he sought as he retraced his steps to the tiny space fighter on the outskirts of the science structure village. A selfless rest that would strengthen him enough to carry on from where Professor Jardon had left off, to settle a long-awaited score with Matt Markham, and to rid Earth of the menace of Markham's greed.

Even as he unstrapped Jardon's precious secret from his shoulders, placing it carefully in a compartment near the instrument panel of the space fighter, Wade knew that he would have to force himself to sleep. For the burning eagerness to get on with his mission, to get back to Earth, was a ceaseless throb in his temples.

Wade stretched out on the cushions of the control seats in the tiny space craft, deliberately closing his eyes, letting the blissful blanket of coma slip about his mind. Minutes later, Baron slept....

IT was a refreshed, refurbished, newly resolved Wade Baron who sat behind the controls of the space fighter some twelve hours later. Planet Twenty— its secrets and strength symbolized by the small metallic box lying next to Wade— had faded back in the distance. Ahead lay Earth. Earth and Matt Markham.

Grimly, Wade pictured Markham's confusion and horror at the sight of the man he had thought condemned to a living death, pictured the swift and deadly justice that would come to Markham from Jardon's secret.

"I don't think," Wade muttered, "that Matt will have any welcome banners out for my arrival." Then he thought of Nada Warren, and the tiny muscles at the corner of his jaw tightened in a brief prayer. A prayer that he would arrive in time to prevent Markham from getting Nada. For Nada, thanks to Markham, thought Wade Baron was dead. Wade could vision Markham's phony condolences to Nada. Condolences that might make Nada turn to Markham for solace.

Hours slipped by as Wade drove the tiny craft mercilessly through space. In his mind he was forming a plan. It was obvious that he didn't dare land at Space Base in New York, for Government guards would seize him before he could reach Markham.

But there was a long unused and now deserted space landing base at Long Island. Wade decided to land at this point. From there he could make his way to Markham's palace at Government headquarters. For a while Wade had contemplated going directly to the Unifyer. He could place his information, information pointing to Markham's treachery before the Unifyer and leave the rest to the Government Leader.

This was the logical thing to do, if it weren't for the fact that Wade knew Markham had undoubtedly placed men in key positions close to the Unifyer. Men who would prevent any such information from reaching the highest official in Government.

Besides, Wade had a driving desire to see this through alone. In addition to the other scores that were to be settled with Markham, there was his own personal accounting to be demanded. Wade didn't want to relinquish this pleasure of revenge.

So Wade slipped to a landing, many hours later, at the long deserted space landing base at Long Island. He noticed, as he braked his tiny space craft into mooring at a rusty catch-tower, that there was no one about the place. Which was as he wished it.

Divesting himself of his space gear, Wade once more slid his arms through the knapsack-like harness attached to the metallic little box. When it was resting securely against his chest, he made several careful adjustments on the dialed front.

Moments later, and Wade stood alone on the deserted landing platforms.

"Now," he said to the silence surrounding him, "for a personal accounting with Matt Markham!"

9: Face To Face

GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTERS in New York, located in the mile-high Unification Building, centered in the heart of the metropolis, buzzed with a suppressed excitement. On the top floor of the towering structure were the personal offices of Government Commissioner Matt Markham.

Behind an elaborate chromealloy desk, attired in the brilliantly crimson tunic of his military rank, sat Matt Markham, Commissioner. Blond and beefy, his face an inscrutable mask dominated by the coldness of his eyes, Markham faced three guard officers who stood at attention before him.

"This," Markham declared matter-of-factly, "is the day of reckoning. Our men, men loyal to your Commissioner and our Cause, have all received their instructions. To you three belongs the burden of this task." He looked at them for a moment of dramatic silence, then continued.

"Our plans have been carefully, exactingly made. There should be no flaw in the mechanism. Each and every man knows his exact duty. Each and every man knows our appointed zero hour, at which time he is to perform that task." He stopped again for an instant. "You men represent the inner guard. It is your duty to see that the armed forces of Government fall behind us in this plan."

A short, dapper little guard officer spoke.

"That will be taken care of, Commissioner. Everything will go through as scheduled. The rank and file of the guards, of course, know nothing of what is to happen. But the officers are so strategically placed that there should not be the slightest hitch in the plan. The men will follow the officers in control. We have seen to it that only officers loyal to our Cause will be alive when the zero hour arrives."

Markham smiled.

"Splendid, then. Our friend the Unifyer should be quite unpleasantly surprised within the next few hours!"

A thickset guard officer, heavily pockmarked, bared his lips in a jagged-toothed smile.

"The old fool will never know what happened to him."

"Neither," added Markham, "will the people."

Markham nodded, then, indicating the meeting was at an end.

"The next time I see you, gentlemen, it will be in the luxurious suite of the Unifyer. Good day, and good luck!" He gripped the hand of each briefly. Then they turned and left the room.

The pock-marked officer paused at the door.

"Good day, Unifyer!" he smiled.

Commissioner Markham smiled in return, and when the officers had gone he leaned back in his chair, a curious expression on his face, the lust of power in his cold eyes.

In just two more hours, Markham told himself, he would have complete control of Government. The neonboard on his desk flashed a deep purple, and Markham leaned forward, flicking the switch.

"Yes?" he said into the board receptor.

"Miss Nada Warren to see you, Commissioner," a voice answered in reply.

Markham's grin of self-satisfaction deepened.

"Send her in."

SEVERAL moments later Nada Warren entered the elaborate suite. Her ash-blond hair, falling to the shoulders of her black, close-fitting tunic, her delicately-chiseled features, soft red mouth, and warm brown eyes, served to produce the usual sensations on Markham. Behind the cold glitter of his gaze, his mind was inflamed with the dancing sparks of desire.

"Nada!" Markham rose from behind his desk and stepped forward to meet the girl in the center of the room. He took her hands in his, and the touch of them served to make his beefy face flush deeper.

"Matt," Nada was speaking, "I've just come from the Patrol officers."

Markham's eyes narrowed.

"I told you, Nada, you must get reconciled to the fact. Any further search for poor Wade is useless. He's gone, Nada. Dead. I've checked the Patrol offices myself, every day for the last three months. If there was anything to indicate that Wade was still alive, they surely would have known."

Nada Warren seemed to crumble inside at the words.

"I, I suppose you're right, Matt. But I can't help clinging to some hope. You know how I feel about it."

Matt Markham forced himself to soften his tone.

"Sure, Nada, I know how you feel, poor kid. I feel the same about Wade myself. But we must accept the fact that he'll never return. Lost in a space wreck, poor devil. He's gone, Nada, and we must face it, the two of us."

Nada Warren turned tear-stained eyes to the man who held her hands in his.

"Matt," she said brokenly, "you've been splendid. I shall never be able to repay you for what you've done, for the consolation you've been to me."

Matt Markham was thinking: Yes you will, Nada, you'll be able to repay me. You're going to repay me, Nada, and sooner than you think.

Markham said:

"I don't expect any repayment from you, Nada. Wade meant much to me, too, don't forget it." He dropped her hands. "Sit down, Nada, and relax a bit. I've something I must tell you."

Nada Warren took a seat beside the huge chromarble desk.

Matt Markham brought forth a platnoid cigarette case, offered a cigarette to Nada, took one for himself. When he had lighted them both, he returned to his seat behind the chromarble desk.

"Funny," he said, blowing a cloud of blue toward the ceiling, "how many ancient customs have clung, in spite of civilization. We still smoke, for example, just as those in centuries before us."

But as Markham spoke he wasn't concerned with the words he uttered. He was thinking: Yes, many things are the same in spite of progress, Nada. The desire of a man for a woman. My desire for you. Civilization's progress hasn't been able to change things as basic as that. I want you, Nada, and I'll have you. I'll have power, too, beyond all reckoning, within this hour. Within this hour my men will strike. You don't know about that, Nada. But it doesn't really matter.

MARKHAM'S thoughts made him glance abruptly at his watch. Less than an hour. In less than an hour the revolt would be under way. He cleared his throat, shifting his gaze to Nada Warren, knowing that the words he spoke would have to be carefully chosen.

"We've learned to have much in common, Nada," he began.

Nada Warren nodded.

"Yes, Matt. I guess we've been thrown together pretty much these past three years."

Markham smiled. This was taking the trend he wanted.

"The two of us have been through much," he continued. Then, abruptly, "What do you think of me, Nada?"

Nada Warren was slightly startled by the question.

"Why," she said slowly, "I think that you're splendid, Matt. You mean a great deal to me— as a friend and companion. You know that, Matt."

Markham pursed his lips thoughtfully. This would have to well acted. Nada was no fool.

"Nada," he said, in an excellent imitation of painful hesitancy, "I don't know if I should tell you this." He paused abruptly. "No forget it Nada," his expression was one of remorse, "forget I ever tried to tell you."

Nada Warren frowned.

"What, Matt? What is it you're trying to say?"

Playing his role to the hilt, Markham shook his head sorrowfully.

"No, Nada, please forget it. I can't say it. I wouldn't be fair to the memory of Wade."

"Matt," Nada Warren's voice was soft, "Matt, please tell me what you're trying to say. Please."

Markham forced himself to keep his voice calm, with just the proper amount of torment in its undertones.

"I'd never say this, Nada, if Wade were still alive."

The girl remained silent, gazing at him in perplexity.

"Nada," Markham burst forth, "you've come to mean more than anything in the universe to me!"

"I, I, don't understand, Matt," the girl replied. "We've had much in common; you've been grand. I think you're fine. But for anything—"

Markham rose, face flushed.

"Nada!" he said huskily, "you have to listen to me, Nada. I want you, girl. I can make you happy. I can make you forget the tragedy of Wade's death. You think a lot of me, Nada. You said so. You'd make my life utterly complete, Nada!"

Nada Warren rose from her chair.

"Matt!" she said, and Markham could feel the shock in her voice, the bewilderment.

"Nada," Markham said desperately, "I'd never had told you, if Wade were still alive, believe me, Nada. Please believe me!"

Nada Warren's face had gone white, strained.

"Please, Matt. Please. You don't know what you're saying!"

Markham moved to where the girl was standing, reaching out and taking her hands roughly in his.

"Please, Matt!" The bewilderment in Nada Warren's voice, bewilderment and growing alarm, was lost on Markham. He pulled the girl toward him.

Nada freed herself in a quick twisting motion, retreating a few steps.

"Matt, don't, please. Don't!"

Markham's eyes glittered coldly, while cursing himself inwardly for his poor timing. But the die had been cast. It was up to him to force the thing through.

"I just want to give you happiness, Nada, that's all. I love you, Nada. I always have. Now that Wade is gone, can't you, won't you consider me?" His voice was hoarse, pleading.

"Matt, you're forgetting yourself!" The alarm had gone from Nada Warren's voice, to be replaced by icy frigidity. She fixed Markham with a cool level gaze, her eyes meeting his.

"Nada!" Markham's voice was strangled with passion and he moved toward her a second time.

His eyes, the lust he couldn't conceal behind them, made Nada gasp in terror.

"Matt! No! No!"

"I'll have you, Nada. Just as I'll have the world at my feet within the hour. I'll have the world to offer you, Nada. Riches, power, anything you want will be yours!" Markham had abandoned sham, abandoned pretension. His face was shining in unholy triumph, greed.

NADA WARREN had backed to the huge windows to the side of Markham's desk. Windows as wide as the other three walls. She felt their cool surface against her palms. Her heart was pounding wildly in terror, as she read the truth in his eyes. Her hand went to her red mouth.

"Matt!" she whispered hoarsely, "you killed Wade!"

Markham's laugh was savage.

"So you've figured it out, eh?" His voice became sharper. "Don't be a fool, Nada. I'll control the universe within this hour. I'll give you anything you want, girl. I'll have you whether you say yes or no!"

"You're mad!" Nada's voice was vibrant with horror and loathing for the man who advanced menacingly toward her.

Despairingly, Nada was aware that the window behind her was too thick, too solid, to smash her way through it. Through it to the streets a mile below.

"Don't come any closer," she choked, "stay where you are!"

"I want you, Nada," Markham leered, moving cat-like toward her, "I want you, and I'm going to have you!"

"No Markham. No, I don't think you are!"

Nada's glance shot to the far corner of the room, cloaked in heavy draperies. Markham halted, puzzled, bewilderedly, in his tracks. He turned automatically to face the intruder.

Nada Warren's voice came to him as he turned.

"Wade!" Nada gasped hysterically. "Wade!"

Wade Baron, mud-caked and bearded, gaunt and unsmiling, clad in a tattered crimson tunic, stood facing them! A small metallic box was strapped to his chest, and he held a light-luger unwaveringly in his right hand.

"Your draperies," Wade said with ominous softness, "provide an excellent listening post. You should have them removed, friend Matt!"

10: The Flame Of Revolt

"BARON!" Markham's cry was choked, strangling. "Wade Baron!"

"You seem surprised, Markham." Wade said with the same deadly softness to his voice. "Didn't you expect any visitors? Or was it that you didn't expect any ghosts as visitors? For I am a ghost, Markham. A man you sent to Hell. Remember?" Wade was moving slowly toward him.

"No!" Markham's voice was a trembling moan. "You're dead, on Cardo. They told me you died there!" His hands shot convulsively to his jaw.

"Look into my eyes," Wade said quietly, menacingly, "look into my eyes and tell me what you see there. A soul? No, Markham, you killed that thing they call a soul!"

Nada Warren crumpled beneath the strain, falling forward in a faint.

Markham's hand flashed to his side, but Wade was quicker. He was across the room in a bound, smashing the side of his light- luger against Markham's unprotected cheek. The weapon for which Markham had grabbed thudded to the thick rugs, and he stumbled backward, holding his hand to the gash inflicted by Wade's blow.

"Don't get any ideas, Markham. I want to talk to you, before I take care of you for once and for all!" Wade grated.

"How did you get in here?" Markham bleated.

"That's unimportant. Take a seat behind that desk," snapped Wade, indicating his command with a movement of his light- luger.

Wade was beside Nada Warren, now, the hate in his eyes softening for a brief instant as he bent over her body. His light-luger, however, was still trained unwaveringly on Markham.

"Water," Wade indicated the decanter on Markham's desk. Hand shaking, eyes fixed in horror on Wade's light-luger, Markham complied. In a moment Wade was forcing the liquid down Nada's throat. She was whimpering softly, and he held her tenderly in his arms.

"Nada," he whispered, "Nada!"

The girl sat up, dazed, shaking. She looked at Wade, at Markham, still frozen in terror behind his desk.

"Wade!" she sobbed, burying her head in his chest, Wade helped Nada to her feet, light-luger never leaving Markham's body for an instant.

"Go over there, dear," Wade said, pointing to the far corner of the room. Mechanically, Nada moved away, and Wade turned on Markham.

"Markham," Wade said with quiet menace, "we'll forget the things I've sworn to make you pay for— for the moment. I have a message for you. A message from another soul you ruined— Professor Jardon!"

Markham sat looking rigidly at Wade's pistol, wordless, hypnotized. A faint murmuring, a rumbling, drifted into the room from the huge windows by his sides.

"I've learned enough to fill the gaps during my absence from Earth, Markham. Jardon told me. A kindly, decent, splendid old man. The man you had kicked to death. Remember? He told me of your greed, your madness for power, and the way in which you intended to seize that power. I swore to him that I would prevent it, Markham. And I shall!"

Suddenly, as if coming out of a coma Markham leaned forward. The mention of Jardon, the reminder of his scheme, had changed him instantly.

"Baron," Markham said with returning confidence, "you're too late for your Girl Guide heroics. In another ten or twenty minutes I'll be supreme here on Earth, supreme in the councils of universal Government!"

Then his head cocked to one side, as the murmuring coming through the window grew sharper, louder. "Baron!" Markham rose from behind his desk, face flushed in triumph, "Hear that noise drifting up here from the streets?"

The sounds were stronger, a strange confused mixture of stacatto roaring. Wade, listening, paled slightly.

"That's the little coup you intended to stop, Baron!" Markham snarled with savage triumph. "It's started. No one is going to stop it, Baron. It means that in another hour I'll be Unifyer. My men are moving across the metropolis at this instant, sweeping on toward the Government quarters of the Unifyer. The army is behind them."

WADE stood rooted, facing Markham, doubt and anxiety mingled on his features.

"Harm me, Baron," Markham continued, "and it will be hell for you, hell for Nada, too!"

Wade had moved now, moved swiftly to the great window. He peered out, out down into the streets a mile below. It seemed as if thousand tiny ants swarmed excitedly, angrily around the streets. He knew, then, that Markham wasn't bluffing, that the hour of revolt was at hand!

Markham was laughing, now, laughing harshly.

"Go ahead, Boy Scout! Stop it. Stop it if you can!"

Wade was still facing Markham, light-luger trained on his enemy's body. His hand shot quickly to his chest, to a tiny dial on the lower right side of the metallic box strapped there.

"I'll turn it over to Jardon, to the hell he made for this emergency. The secret which you sought to wring from him!" Wade said evenly.

Markham's laughter was redoubled. "A little metal box, excellent!" His soft body shook with mirth. "Capital, Baron. A splendidly stupid bluff."

"Wait," Wade said, "perhaps you'll change your mind." His voice was level but his mind was chanting a desperate prayer, a prayer that beseeched his Creator to let the dream of the old man, Jardon's secret, not fail him.

Wade's gaze flashed momentarily to the great window, through which was pouring the increased volume of roarings from the street below. In the sky, he could see tiny red dots, doubtless space fighters controlling the revolt from the air. Wade knew that it was these space fighters of Markham's which would decide the fate of the battle. The Unifyer's loyal troops might crush an uprising on the ground but not while the insurgents controlled the air. Wade knew that Markham's space fighters must be conquered, destroyed before the revolt could be put down.

His hands flew to the metal box strapped to his chest, made swift adjustments. If Jardon's plan worked—

At that instant, as Nada screamed warning, Markham launched himself on Wade.

Wade had only time to half-wheel, as the heavy body of the other drove into him. He felt himself going down. The light-luger was still in his hand, and he brought it down heavily on the top of Markham's skull. Again, and again, until at last Markham went inert beneath the blows. Wade pushed him aside and rose to his feet, cheek torn from Markham's clawing hands.

He glanced quickly again through the great window. The huge clouds of scarlet-coated fighting ships were thundering in on the defenseless city, sending their streams of death blasting into the ranks of the Unifyer's troops.

A grim smile touched his lips as he felt a sudden throbbing hum emanating from the metallic box strapped to his chest. From across the uncharted expanses of space, from the silver-domed dynamos on Planet Twenty, power was flowing to him.

He waited anxiously, while precious seconds ticked away, while Markham's hordes of ships spewed destruction on the city, until suddenly an orange glow gleamed from a crystal indicator set on top of the metallic box.

Wade's jaw hardened. This was the moment. He moved closer to the window overlooking the vast panoramic view of the holocaust that raged below.

HIS fingers touched the master switch; the switch ominously and cryptically marked, Release. For a frozen atom of eternity he breathed a silent prayer and then his lean fingers shoved it home.

The humming stopped for a split second; Then it crescendoed into a shrill whining roar of power. Wade felt the metallic box on his chest quiver as untold, unimaginable power poured into it.

For an instant the volume of power grew— and then— from the tiny inch-wide opening in the face of the metallic box a myriad of silver pellets began to pour.

Like angry wasps they flashed toward the window, smashing through it with savagely destructive power. Wade watched tensely as the silver pellets continued to blast from the metallic box and roar into the atmosphere, swiftly gathering into white clouds above the scarlet-coated space fighters.

A savage exultation filled him. This was Jordan's secret. Electron bullets! Electron bullets powered by the mighty dynamos on Planet Twenty and possessing a destructive force beyond the imagination.

The stream of electron bullets had stopped now and Wade's fingers flew to the rheostats that controlled the flight of the silver streaks of death that had blazed from the metallic box. He made calculations desperately, adjusted the rheostat with trembling fingers that steadied suddenly, became sure, deft. It was if somehow, Old Jordan the scientist was beside him, cautioning him, advising him, even in death.

The silver hordes of electron bullets were plummeting downward now, diving into the closely-packed scarlet-coated space fleet of Markham.

Tiny streaks of death and destruction! For every hit they scored a space ship exploded with ear-shattering detonations. Under Wade's miraculously inspired guidance the silver wasps of death flashed through the ranks of Markham's fighters, looping and circling, leaving in their hissing wakes a trail of tremendous explosions and carnage. The unhit ships rocked and swayed, tossed about helplessly by the mighty blasts that followed the destruction of their fellow crafts.

Wade's mouth set in a mirthless smile as he watched the destruction of Markham's crimson tube-ships. The remnants of the once-mighty fleet of space fighters were turning now, turning frenziedly and streaking away from the scene of battle.

The struggling in the streets, Wade could see, was slackening as the traitors turned their eyes to the heavens and saw what was left of their most powerful ally driven from the sky.

GRUNTING in grim satisfaction Wade swung the silver streams of electron bullets into the fray below. Again and again he sent hissing streaks of death flashing through the barricades outside the palace, mercilessly decimating the crimsoned ranks of the traitors.

Under this onslaught Markham's men broke at last, running madly, hysterically for shelter. It was then that the Unifyer's personal battalion, wearing the gold and purple tunics of the Home Guards, poured forth from behind the barricades they had set up to defend the palace.

It was then that Wade felt assured that the backbone of Markham's coup was shattered, and that the Home Guards would swiftly be able to restore order in the streets.

Every nerve, every fibre in Wade Baron's mind and body screamed tautly from the strain he had endured. His entire being was flooded with a vast and infinite weariness. The battle had raged only an hour, but in that hour Wade had been forced to project his command to every quarter of the hostilities. It had been a staggering, incredibly taxing job, but he had managed it. Managed it, and now watched the revolt turn into a route, as the Home Guard broke the remaining resistance among the shattered ranks of Markham's followers.

Wade, with the gesture of an ancient warrior sheathing a battle sword, flicked the dial that would send the wasps of death back to the silver-domed dynamos of Planet Twenty.

He felt no personal triumph, for it had been Jardon who had conceived this, whose staggering knowledge had given birth and actuality to this tool by which democracy had been preserved.

Wade ran a hand wearily across his browned lean features, through his lank, matted black hair.

His ears rang loudly from the sudden hush brought about by the cessation of the loud explosions. All was silent, save for the muted noises drifting ever more faintly up from the streets.

Suddenly Wade wheeled rapidly, thinking of Nada, of Matt Markham whom he had left unconscious on the floor. Wheeled, and turned ghastly white in sudden fear.

Both Nada and Markham were gone!

11:  Markham's Last Ace

WILDLY, Wade's gaze swept across the room. There wasn't a sign of the girl he loved, the man he hated. Despairingly, cursing himself for a fool, Wade realized that Markham had probably dashed for escape after coming out of the semi-conscious state in which he had left him. Dashed for escape, taking Nada Warren with him.

Wade realized that the deafening noises of battle would have drowned any cries made by Nada, even had they penetrated his tremendous concentration at that time. He realized this and cursed again, starting toward the door.

There was no sign of them as Wade dashed through the outer offices of Markham's suite. There was no sign of them as Wade raced into the corridor. The elevator tubes, by which passengers were taken to the various floors of the towering Government Building, were, Wade found an instant later, not in operation. Naturally, at the start of the revolt everything else had ceased, and the operators had deserted their posts, probably leaving the tubes at the first floor of the building.

Which left only the emergency shaft passage out of the building. Wade started for this, certain that Markham, too, had been forced to use it. It was at the far end of the corridor, an opening to long successive flights of stairs which led eventually to the bottom of the gigantic building.

Wade was starting down the first of these stair-flights, when a muffled sound came faintly to his ears, bringing him to an abrupt halt. He waited there on the stairs, listening for a repetition of the sound, his heart hammering wildly at the realization of what it meant. The sound, seeming like a choked cry, had come from above, from the opening onto the roofs above. The roofs which, Wade remembered quickly, were used as space landing platforms by the building employees and officials.

The sound came again, and Wade knew it for what it was— a sob from Nada Warren!

In an instant Wade had turned on the stairs, and was dashing wildly upward once more, past the top floor, onward to the roofs, toward the vast landing platforms up there.

Even as he struggled gasping up the last flight, the flight leading directly out onto the roofs, Wade heard a grunted curse which could only have come from the throat of Matt Markham!

Less than a minute later, Wade burst out onto the roofs, onto the broad aluminoid space landing platforms. Burst onto the roofs and caught sight of Nada and Markham!

In that split-second, while time hung motionless, suspended, the tableau stamped itself indelibly on Wade's brain. There was a space craft there, in front of which Matt Markham struggled frantically with the wildly clawing Nada Warren. An object in Nada's hand— the wrist of which Markham held savagely— made Wade's glance shoot swiftly to the atomic motor of the space ship. It was cracked, useless, from a series of sharp blows. Blows that could only have come from the metal space landing bar which Nada held.

What had happened was now clear to Wade. Crystally clear. The space ship was the only one on the roof. Markham had contemplated making his escape in it. But Nada had somehow gotten the metal bar, opened the motor cowl and rendered the ship useless.

All this stamped itself on Wade's mind in the instant he stood there after emerging onto the roof. Then, snarling savagely at the sight of Markham brutally twisting the bar from the grasp of Nada, Wade went into action.

MARKHAM hadn't seen him emerge on the roof, had his back half-turned to Wade as he approached. But Nada, spying Wade, cried out sharply, and Markham wheeled just in time to catch a vicious smash on the side of the jaw. The blow drove him back and to the side, so that he sprawled on his knees beside the spaceship.

Nada Warren had dropped the bar, and it slid to within an inch of Markham's hand. Wade, diving face forward for it, was too late. Groggily, Markham seized it and drove it in a smashing blow toward Wade's skull. It missed its mark, landing sickeningly, paralyzingly on Wade's shoulder, bone cracking beneath the impact.

Wade felt searing flashes of pain drive through his shoulder. Nevertheless he managed to roll free from a second blow and rise to his feet. Markham, too, was now standing, facing him, the bar held menacingly in his hand.

The fury of madness was in Markham's eyes, the blazing hatred of revenge in Wade's, as the adversaries faced one another.

"Wade!" Nada Warren's scream split the air, as Markham hurled the bar savagely at Wade's head. Hurled it savagely and cursed hoarsely as it snicked past Baron's head by inches.

Wade could feel that the arm which had taken Markham's first blow was useless, and automatically his right hand shot to his belt, pulling forth his light-luger.

Deliberately, Wade centered the gun on Markham's head, was sliding his finger to the trigger. Then, he lowered the luger, threw it far to one side of the platform, beyond the reach of either of them.

"To hell with it, Markham," Wade grated. "I could burn your damned brains out with that gun. But I'd prefer to beat them out. Beat them out, slowly, just to see them splatter the platform!"

Markham who had paled at the sight of the light-luger, then gasped in amazement as Wade tossed it aside, grinned ghoulishly. His eyes darting to Wade's injured arm. He knew that these odds would be better than ever for him. And he moved forward toward Wade with an animal-like growl.

In the next instant he drove in a flying tackle, catching Wade below the knees, smashing him to the platform beneath his crushing weight.

Kicking desperately, Wade rolled free, his good fist smashing twice into Markham's unprotected face. Smashing twice, to be followed by a driving blow from his elbow as he rose.

But Markham was on his feet also, and coming after Wade again, endeavoring to drive in toward him from the side he knew to be injured. Twice, Wade lashed out with his uninjured hand, sending Markham reeling back from the sledge-like force of the blows.

Their struggle had carried them more than twenty yards from the space ship, and now they were less than the same distance from the edge of the landing platform, from the sheer drop one mile to the streets below.

Wade was unaware of it, but Markham was cunningly forcing the struggle in that direction, forcing Wade back toward the lip of the platform, back toward that sheer drop to death.

AGAIN Markham carried the fight, butting in toward Wade with his bullhead lowered, arms lashing clumsily, yet tellingly against Wade's ribs and face. And again Wade managed to slip most of the blows, to send several more thudding into Markham's soft midriff.

But the struggle was horribly unequal.

Markham had the odds, and he was playing them to the hilt. He knew that he had merely to keep his eyes on Wade's uninjured arm. For from there, and there only, could Wade do damage.

Wade was further impaired by the presence of the metallic control box, Still strapped to his chest. Its straps confined even his uninjured arm, making quick movement difficult. Steadily, therefore, he was forced to yield ground to the dogged charges of Markham.

Perspiration clouded his vision, and his matted lank hair slipped constantly over his eyes. But Wade fought on with a desperate fury born of stark revenge, lashing, lashing, backing step by step, as Markham kept coming in.

Wade was less than ten yards from the edge of platform when another rush from Markham made him retreat a step as he drove his fist into his adversary's now bloody face. It was then that he slipped.

He felt himself falling forward, but was powerless to stop, and he felt Markham's huge bulk hurtling down on him as the platform rushed up. Another instant and Markham landed on his chest, driving every last breath of air sickeningly from his lungs. Groggily Wade tried to roll out from underneath him, fighting for breath as he did so.

To Wade's amazement Markham had risen to his feet, was weaving blindly, holding his hands to his eyes, his face pouring blood. And in that instant, Wade realized that Markham's face must have struck full force against Jardon's metal box on his chest, been badly lacerated by the stunning impact.

Somehow, Wade struggled to his feet, blinking back the sweat from his eyes, the sight of the weaving Markham dancing fuzzily in his vision. He started out after that vision, a scream shrilling in his ears as the vision of Markham suddenly vanished!

Someone was holding him, wiping the blood and sweat from his face, sobbing, crying his name. The fog cleared and he saw Nada.

"Over the edge," Nada was sobbing hysterically. "He was blinded with blood, and staggered over the edge of the platform! You started to follow him, but I stopped you in time! Oh Wade, Wade!"

NADA WARREN was waiting outside chambers of the Unifyer when Wade emerged the following day. Her face, glowing with possessive pride and happiness, shone especially brightly at the sight of Wade's clean-shaven lean features, carefully combed black hair, and smiling wide mouth.

"You look a little different, Wade," she said, taking his arm as they moved toward the door together. "So different that I'll bet you impressed the Unifyer into handing over an odd planet or two!"

Wade paused there in the hall, beside the main door where the Home Guards in purple and gold stood stoically at attention, and put his hands on Nada's shoulders.

"Look, honey," he said, drawing her closer, "we don't want any planets today. Or tomorrow, either, for that matter of fact. All we want is what I asked for, and got, that soft berth in the survey department of Government. A soft base on Earth, good old terra-whatcha-m'call-it, huh?"

"Terra firma, honey," Nada replied, "terra firma!"

Wade looked pained.

"If you're going to start picking on me already, we might as well get married pronto. Make the persecution legal, huh?"

Nada Warren disregarded the, stolidly watching sentries, disregarded everything, in fact, except her answer to Wade Baron's question....

_______________________

3: Squadron Of The Damned

Amazing Stories, July 1942

1: Ricky Werts Joins The Space Patrol

IT was a dingy, dirty interspacial tramp freighter that carried the quiet, expensively attired, serious expressioned young man to Barkay— that nethermost outpost of the civilized interplanetary belt— and deposited him, ornate luggage and all, on the filthy space wharf that was Barkay's only welcome mat to visitors.

The serious, expensively tunicked young man, had then inquired of an unkempt and somewhat besotted Martian wharf stevedore, the way to the nearest and least louse-infested hotel. The stevedore appraised the young man's rich blue tunic, determined gray eyes, and costly trappings and grinningly gave him the information.

At the hotel, a drab, duralloy, rusted structure of ancient origin, the wrinkled little clerk at the alumnoid desk, subjected the gray-eyed young man to the same scrutiny, and ended with the same knowing grin.

"Name?" said the wrinkled clerk in a tone of voice that indicated any name would do.

The gray-eyed young traveler thought a moment, while the wrinkled little clerk waited without impatience. It was generally like this. Most of them intended to use names other than their own. Some of them had them glibly prepared, and others— like this young fellow— found it hard to remember them.

"Richard Werts," he said hesitantly.

"From?" the clerk inquired, not looking up from his ledger.

"Earth," the young man said. "Western continent." There was the ring of truth to this. They generally didn't try to conceal the location from which they had come.

"A day and a night?" the clerk asked.

The young man nodded. "Yes, that should be sufficient."

"It generally is," the clerk agreed.

The young man gave him a sharp glance, but said nothing. He picked up his expensive luggage, took the room slip the clerk had handed him, and turned away.

The young man took three strides then stopped abruptly, turning back to the desk. The clerk raised his wrinkled brows.

"In the past four or five months," said the young man, "was there another chap, about my height, a little heavier, and with red hair and blue eyes, registered here?"

The clerk shrugged. "Four or five months is a long time."

The young man's straight mouth set impatiently. He dropped his luggage, secured his wallet, and peeled off several Martian Klekas. He folded them into a ball and hurled them to the top of the alumnoid desk. The clerk picked up the ball casually, smoothed out the currency and put it in his pocket.

"Yes," he said. "There was a young fellow, little older than you, maybe three years older. Registered four months ago. Day and a night. Gave the same last name as you did."

The young man looked up. "Same as I?"

The clerk nodded. "Werts," he said. "Funny, ain't it?"

The young man considered this unsmilingly. "What first name?" he asked.

The clerk bent down behind his battered desk. He came up with the musty ledger in which he'd recently entered this young stranger. He thumbed back through its greasy pages. Then his thumb was running down a column. He looked up.

"Clark," he said. "Clark Werts."

The young man looked satisfied. "Thanks," he said. He turned away again, picking up his luggage.

"Have to take the stairs," the clerk shouted after him. "The elevator ain't worked in ten years."

The young man crossed the small, decrepit lobby and turned to the staircase. He didn't look back ...

IN the gray bare surroundings of his room, the young man who had registered as Richard Werts placed his expensive luggage in a corner and sat down on the edge of an ancient duralloy bed. He removed his tunic coat and carefully took from it a small, worn envelope.

He opened the envelope and removed a letter.

For what was probably the sixtieth time he had examined the message, he began to read it again. It was short, terse, and penned in a strongly masculine hand.

Dear Ricky:

This is it, kid. This is the fare-the-well. Don't try to follow me. By now you'll probably know I was the guilty devil. Understand me, when you find I've taken the easy way out. Stick to your guns, 'Commander,' and don't let this throw you.

Best,

Clark.

The young man folded the letter, eyes blurring, and put it back in the envelope. Then he placed the envelope carefully back in his rich blue tunic coat. He rose to his feet then, and began pacing back and forth beside the bed.

"Clark didn't do it," he said. "I know he didn't do it." He was muttering the words, half aloud, as if the sound of his own voice should reassure him.

"My brother would never have done it," he muttered again. "He was decent, too damned decent. Clark wasn't the sort. Even if he'd been desperate— the way they tried to tell me he was— he'd never had been that sort. Commander," he said more softly, "I'll never forget that by-word of ours."

The young man was thinking, and the years were falling away. Five, ten of them. He was eleven years old. Young Ricky Stevens, hanging around the Spaceport, waiting for his brother, Clark, to come in from school. Six years older than he, Clark had been all of seventeen then. That seemed like a ripe old age to the kid who stood waiting for his older brother. Young Ricky had always looked on Clark as sort of a god. And when Clark, big-shouldered, red-headed, and grinning in that flashing way of his, stepped out of the ship at Spaceport, young Ricky Stevens almost broke his neck dashing across the space landing platform to his side.

"Hello, Commander," Clark had grinned. "Glad you're here to meet me!"

That had been a special sort of title with them. When they'd been even younger, and played around the vast family estate— the war games that kids always played— Ricky had been Clark's army. An army of one kid, commanded by his older brother. It was Clark who made his younger brother call him Commander at first, and young Ricky had been happy to do so. Neither of them had thought the family name, Stevens, was military enough in its ring. So Clark had devised another— Werts.

Ricky had called his older brother Commander Werts from then on. And when Clark had grown out of the war game stage, Ricky had still affectionately called him Commander. It had been one of the proudest days in young Ricky's life when Clark passed on the coveted title to him.

CLARK had been going to school, leaving for four years, and Ricky, a lump in his throat, had watched his idol packing. The two of them, with that understanding sensed only by brothers, had felt the significance of the parting.

"I'll be back, kid," Clark had said a little huskily, patting young Ricky on the arm. "And in the meantime it'll be up to you to keep things running here."

Ricky had gulped and nodded, his eyes filmed by tears which he was much too proud to shed.

"Tell you what, kid," Clark had said suddenly. "The army is yours. I pass my command over to you. From now on you're Commander Werts."

Ricky's eyes shone through the film. "Gee, Clark," he'd gasped. "Gee!" The accolade left him breathless.

And from that time on, Clark had called his brother by the title he'd passed on. He'd used it less, as the years marched on, but whenever there was cause for unspoken praise, Clark called him Commander Werts. Ricky always understood.

Clark had gone on to college, then, and Ricky entered prep school a year or so later. When Clark had finished college, and came back to the New York estate of the family, Ricky was in his second year at another university. They'd kept in touch constantly, and there were vacations that gave Ricky a chance to see his brother for a few days.

Clark had set up an Interspacial Export firm of his own— in characteristic fashion disdaining the family business and wanting to make his own way in the world— and he offered Ricky a place in it when the younger brother graduated from college. But as much as Ricky would have wanted to be with his brother, he, too, showed characteristic family independence and entered law on his own.

"I know how you feel about it, Commander," Clark had grinned. "As much as I'd like to have you in my outfit, I must admit I'd have been a little disappointed if you'd leaned on me to get a start."

Ricky had been glad of his decision, then, even if it meant he'd see much less of Clark now that they were both out on their own. Clark's export business took him on constant space tours, and Ricky was more or less confined to New York where he had his law practice.

Clark's business had prospered. At least that was the way it had seemed. And then there'd been that disastrous affair.

There was a murder. Clark's greatest competitor was brutally slain. Everything pointed to Clark— who couldn't be found.

It was shown in court that the murdered man had been too tough a competitor for Clark's export firm. It was also shown that Clark's firm was on the brink of bankruptcy. There was a confusing inter-contract deal between Clark's firm and that of the murdered competitor. It showed a perfect motive for the ghastly crime. Clark's mysterious disappearance was taken as conclusive proof of his guilt.

And then the letter from Clark had arrived at Ricky's law office. The same letter which he had just reread for the sixtieth time. It had been a genuine letter, Ricky was certain of that. But as for the so-called "confession" contained in it, Ricky hadn't been able to believe as much.

But the authorities believed it. Ricky hadn't wanted to take the letter to them, but a friend of Clark's— a chap named Paul Ebbing, who'd been in the export game with him— had seen the note and convinced Ricky that they should turn it over to the interplanetary police.

They found Clark not so long after that. Found, at least, the charred body of a person they identified as Clark. A charred body in the wreck of Clark's private sports space ship. Self destruction, they said in their reports. Suicide, proving beyond a doubt that Clark had been guilty.

CLARK'S body had been identified by the clothes, or what was left of them, and general markings. But Ricky hadn't found his class ring. And this, plus several other suspicious details of the horrible incident, had made him certain that the charred corpse found in the wreckage of his brother's space ship was not Clark.

Ricky let the identification stand, with the realization that he could reopen the case later when he proved his conclusions correct. He had then set out to find Clark.

And now he had found him.

Here in the most forlorn and desolate outer reaches of space, at the very border of the interplanetary badlands, Ricky had picked up the first substantial clue leading to confirmation of his belief that Clark was not dead.

For Clark had registered in this same hotel. And Clark had kept his true given name and used— for obviously sentimental reasons—  a last name that had been a by-word with them when they were kids.

The same name that Ricky had chosen to use in registering— Werts.

Ricky stopped his pacing. He fished into the pocket of his discarded tunic coat for a venusian cigarette. His hands trembled slightly as he lit it.

He exhaled a cloud of smoke.

Tomorrow he would draw even closer to Clark. Tomorrow he would register with the Outer Space Patrol Legions.[*] Clark was already in their ranks, Ricky was certain. People didn't come here to Barkay for the scenic advantages. There were none of those on this god forsaken little asteroid. People came here with one purpose— the same purpose that had drawn Clark here, and now had brought Ricky. They came to bury their past in the dangerous future of the Outer Space Patrol Legions, whose central headquarters were, appropriately, located on this desolate little sphere called Barkay....

__________

[* Outer Space Patrol Legions were formed by the conference of Universe Peace in 2032 A.D. to keep and maintain the freedom of the void for Universe commerce. Attending the conference were heads of the departments of state from Mars, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto. At that time the suspicious, crafty Malyas from the planets of Messier 31 refused to participate in the conference. Since they were considered outlaw brigands their coöperation was never expected or trusted. In reality the conference was instigated by the Interplanetary Federation for the express purpose of bringing law and order to the space frontier—  a frontier that had often been violated by the Malyas from their bases on their planet in Messier 31.— ED.]

2: A Man In The Making

THE Recruiting Officer of the Outer Space Patrol Legion faced Ricky the following morning. He sat behind a small, clean, unpretentious desk in a white, bare, severe office. He wore the deep blue tunic of the Legion. On his chest were miniatures of many campaign medals, and on his left arm were six gold seniority stripes. He was a short man, dark haired and wide shouldered, and a rugged, granite like expression chisled on his rocky features.

His eyes fixed Ricky's unsmilingly.

"We never accept a man who isn't absolutely aware of what he's getting in for," the Recruiting Officer declared. His voice was deep and somewhat harsh.

"I know that," Ricky answered.

The officer's eyes traveled over Ricky's expensive attire.

"There is no story book glory connected with the men of our patrols. Not of the sort that legend leads people to believe, at any rate. The pay amounts almost to nothing. Promotion can only be attained by the hard way. It's long in coming, if you live to deserve it."

"I understand that also," Ricky said.

"Most of the men who enter this office," the officer went on, ignoring Ricky's last remark, "are running away from something or someone in their past. We don't delude ourselves that they're coming to us because of any appeal service in our ranks might have. We are not interested in what they are escaping from, nor what they might have been before they joined us. Most of them are misfits, for any of a hundred reasons, from society. We don't care about that, either. If they are cowards, we find that out shortly enough and before their cowardice can cost us the lives of any others in our ranks."

Ricky looked at the hard, gnarled hands of the officer as he drummed his fingers on the desk while he spoke.

"Your enlistment in our ranks is for seven years," the officer went on. "Quite frankly, four out of every ten men who join our ranks never live to be mustered out of service at the end of that time. I'd like you to consider this very carefully. Take a day to do it, if you like. It's obvious from the words you use, from the clothes you wear, from your very manner of standing here before my desk, that the life you've left behind you is a lot softer than the life you wish to enter. Think that part over very carefully. If you're running away from something back in that life— and I repeat we don't care if you are— I just want you to realize you're running away straight into the arms of a buzz saw when you come to us. Do I make myself clear?"

Ricky nodded slowly. "I understand perfectly. I shan't need any additional time to consider this. I've thought it out carefully long ago."

THE officer considered Ricky's expression for a moment. Then he shrugged, smiled, and reached for a sheaf of papers beside his elbow. He placed them before Ricky.

"The enlistment is seven years. The penalty for desertion is, at all times, death. Sign these," he instructed.

Ricky leafed casually through the papers, seeming to examine them carefully yet swiftly. Then he bent over them and affixed his signature to the bottom of each paper. When he straightened up he seemed to have relaxed.

The officer pressed a microtube button on his desk and spoke into a tiny box. "A recruit, Richard Werts. My office. Supplies."

He flicked off the button and turned back to Ricky.

"My luggage," Ricky began, indicating the expensive baggage behind him. "Will I be permitted to—"

The officer anticipated his question, shook his head. "It will be returned to you seven years from now— when you're mustered out. Don't worry about it."

Ricky smiled for the first time. "I wasn't worrying. I was just wondering."

At the corner of the little office a door opened. The officer stood up behind his desk, clearing his throat. He held out a gnarled right hand.

"Goodbye, Legionaire Richard Werts," he said, "and good luck!"

Ricky took his hand, felt the hard, strong, reassuring grasp and was grateful for it. He grinned once, and the officer returned the grin. Then he turned on his heel, after executing a somewhat makeshift salute. An orderly stood waiting for him, his expression noncommittal.

"Follow me, Legionaire," he said....

IF Ricky had felt that he would soon be beside his brother Clark, and that the arrival of that long awaited moment would be but a matter of days, he was doomed to disappointment. Exactly one month after he had left the small recruiting office in Barkay, he was still on that god forsaken little asteroid, undergoing the rigid training service at the military barracks there.

It was hard going. The thick shouldered recruiting officer hadn't been guilty of understatement when he'd warned Ricky of that. There was drill, endless and fatiguing. There was instruction in military maneuver that seemed endlessly wearisome.

The barracks were cold and prison like in their atmosphere. The other recruits with whom Ricky trained, some fifty of them, were for the most part cynical riff-raff from the interplanetary gutters. But they were tough, and apparently fearless. Only a few of them were stupid. And in the attitudes of all of them there was complete and almost happy acceptance of their new lives. They seemed, all of them, like men glad to have left the rest of the world behind them, happy in the awareness that their past was buried completely for the next seven years.

The days were long, and even the constant attention to drill and detail, drill and detail, didn't lessen their aching endlessness to Ricky. But with the passing of each of these days, Ricky was confident in the knowledge that he was getting harder, swifter, keener— tapering down into the vicious human fighting machine that symbolized the Legionaire of the Outer Space Patrol.

At the end of a month there was strength and steel and sinew in his very bearing. His muscles were flat and hard, his eyes alive and restless. He was beginning to wear the swashbuckling blue tunic of the Legionaire as if it were a part of him, and he eagerly awaited the day that would send him off to his first patrol station.

And finally there was that day when the Instructing Officer stood before the fifty monthlings on the parade ground and read the order that tingled every last man of them to his heels.

"Forty out of fifty of you," the Instructing Officer had announced, "have been judged as ready for preliminary patrol training. The rest of you will remain here at the barracks for two more weeks extensive training in fundamentals. Those forty of you who have been judged fit for further work will be sent to the Outer Space Patrol Legion Base at Tromar.[*] The other ten, if they don't show considerable improvement within the next two weeks, will receive unimportant detail assignments at the home bases."

___________

[* Tromar is a frontier space port comparable to the outpost of Cheyenne in the year 1840. Tromar, in the year 2038 A.D., was subjected to constant raids and life there is as perilous as it was for those brave Americans and Filipinos who fought with MacArthur of the Philippines in the year of the Great War, 1942.— ED.]

Standing there at attention, Ricky felt the tingling surge of excitement and suspense that comes only to a soldier at such moments. The Instructing Officer began to read the names of the favored forty—

"Yjaka, Carroll, Masters, Revwa, Nougak, Werts, Sommers" and his voice went on naming the other thirty-three, while Ricky stood there elatedly, hearing only his own name ringing in his ears. He'd made it. He was closer, now, to Clark!

When, finally, the Instructing Officer had dismissed the monthlings, Ricky was joined by a tall, hard, sleek earth-man named Carroll. He had bunked in the same dormitory as Ricky, and although they had spent occasional leisure moments together, Ricky had always felt a subconscious distrust of the chap.

"Congratulations, Werts," Carroll said, in his soft, too cultured voice. "I see we'll both be heading toward inevitable glory now, eh?" There was, as always, the slightest amused contempt in his voice. Barrack rumor had it that Carroll was a jewel thief hiding from the interplanetary police. Ricky neither believed nor doubted this, for he had already taken the Legion attitude of accepting a man on present value rather than past renown or notoriety.

BUT there was something in Carroll's attitude that Ricky instinctively resented; a camaraderie that intimated common bonds, not only of having lived well and fully in their respective past lives, but equally uncleanly.

Carroll didn't seem to notice the fact that Ricky didn't answer him, however, for he continued to stride along beside him as they made their way across the parade ground to the canteen.

"There's a rumor around that we're going to be trained damned fast," Carroll went on. "Seems there's been more than an average ratio of trouble running along the outer space borders. The grapevine has it that a small asteroid garrison of the Outer Space Patrol Legion was completely wiped out a few days back. There was nothing but their charred corpses left lying around when the checking Patrol arrived on the scene."

Ricky felt a sudden chill. Perhaps Clark had been one of that annihilated garrison!

He forced himself to reply casually. "Is that so? What post?"

Carroll shook his head. "Don't know. One of the bad spots. They think the Malyas did it, however. Little doubt of that angle."

Ricky shuddered mentally. The Malyas were a vicious, weird tribe of Outer Space brigands. Creatures from another universe, their periodic raids and constant guerilla warfare along the interplanetary borderlands, had been the greatest problem faced since the formation of the Interplanetary Federation. Cruel, cunning, inhuman, the threat of these creatures was a constant danger to the civilized sections of space.

"Was the garrison comprised of new men or veterans?" Ricky asked.

Carroll shrugged. "Veterans, or so I understand."

Ricky sighed in relief. Clark was probably not among them. Carroll noted this sudden change in expression, and his brown eyes narrowed. They entered the canteen, and Carroll bought a bottle of Venusian wine.

"Share it, won't you, old boy?" Carroll invited, indicating a small table.

Ricky shrugged ungraciously. "Very well."

They were seated, and Carroll filled the glasses, when he said casually, "You're a funny duck, Werts. Can't seem to dope you out. You aren't like the rest." His tone indicated that Ricky was like himself, and that the comparison was meant as a compliment.

Ricky shrugged, sipping the cheap, bitter wine. He fished into his tunic pocket and found a cigarette. They were a harsh Junovian brand, the best he could afford on his meager pay allowances.

Carroll's tone was cloying, confidential. "Myself, for an example," he said, dropping his voice, "I'm not like the rest of our comrades, either. We're both used to better things. Neither of us were thugs. I, well, I don't mind admitting, had a rather slick thing before I came here." He laughed apologetically. "I was able to do quite nicely for myself with it, until it suddenly became a matter of immediate urgency that I remove my handsome hide to a quick hideout. This seemed to be my best move."

Ricky took a deep draught on his cigarette and raised his eyebrows noncommittally. He said nothing.

Carroll pushed his uniform cap back on his slick blonde hair and refilled his glass. He was driving at something, that much was obvious. And it was also certain that he didn't quite know how to go after what he sought. Ricky wasn't being helpful. Suddenly Carroll leaned forward and his tone became sickeningly friendly.

"What was your racket?" he asked.

Ricky's gray eyes clouded with frost.

Carroll had the grace to turn crimson. "I mean," he said swiftly, "I wasn't trying to pry into your background, old boy."

"What were you doing, then?" Ricky asked frigidly.

"I, ah, I was just comparing notes, so to speak. I didn't think you'd be touchy. We could save ourselves a lot of grief in this present set-up if we got together. One for all, all for one, that sort of thing, you know." Carroll said in an explanatory torrent.

"I see," Ricky said noncommittally. "And what's your background, Carroll?"

CARROLL became suddenly more at ease. He grinned and bent forward once more. "Ice," he said. "Valuable jewelry. Flick!" He waved one long fingered, gracefully tapered hand to show the theft of an object from thin air. He sat back and grinned.

"Society background, pinch the pearls stuff, eh?" asked Ricky.

Carroll nodded. "Right. It was a cinch. Society chap myself, you know. Made it easy. Had lots of friends. No one suspected."

"Then why are you here?" Ricky asked in the same toneless voice.

Carroll frowned, then laughed. "I see what you mean. If no one was wise, why am I here. Good question. They got wise, eventually, under rather messy circumstances. There was a person murdered. Ghastly thing, ruined my trade. I had to scoot."

"So you joined the Outer Space Patrol Legion until things died down and you could come back in seven years or so, eh?" Ricky said.

Carroll smirked. "Seven years is a long time. Too long for one of my, ah, impatient traits."

"The penalty for desertion is death," Ricky reminded him flatly.

"So is the penalty for murder," Carroll smiled.

"Then you have an angle," Ricky said. "I see."

Carroll smiled smugly. "You might say I have many angles, old man. All of them right angles." He snickered at his play on words.

"And I take it that these angles need two men to properly develop them, eh?" Ricky asked.

Carroll nodded. "That's it exactly," he admitted. "I knew from the minute I set eyes on you that you were the man to take in on my plans. You have brains, old boy, and background."

Ricky nodded sarcastically. "How flattering of you," he murmured.

The look Carroll gave him was suddenly sharp. "I'm not trying to be flattering," he said, the purr leaving his voice and his eyes growing hard. "I'm trying to let you in on some angles— smart angles— that can make this forced concealment in these uniforms," he indicated his plain blue tunic distastefully, "a little bit more pleasant and a little less permanent. What do you say?"

Ricky met his cold stare evenly. He held out his empty glass, and Carroll filled it.

"I say," Ricky declared with measured distaste, "that your wine is much better than your ideas. And I can't say that I enjoyed the wine too much!"

3: Carroll's Second Bid

THE Outer Patrol Space Legion Base at Tromar was much larger than the preliminary training quarters at the enlistment base on Barkay. And it was two days later that Ricky, with the forty men from the primary training garrison, arrived at the new location.

The first sight that met his eyes when he entered the huge walled garrison was the broad, glistening sheen of silver metal that served as the space landing platform for the fortress.

As Ricky followed the others from Barkay out the door of the space transport ship and onto the ever extending platform of the landing runway, his jaw fell open in amazement at the vast array of variously designed orange and blue space fighting craft.

Their leader, one of the Officers from the base at Barkay, saw the open mouthed astonishment on the faces of the men he led, and smilingly explained, "These are the space birds of war. When you learn to fly 'em and fight 'em, you'll be ready for patrol duty."

And on that note, the month's training at Tromar began. A month that made the grueling sessions of training on Barkay seem like child's play by comparison. But Ricky was hardened now, by his first month in the Legion, and it was that hardness that enabled him to survive the rigors of the month that followed.

They learned to handle the space fighters during the morning sessions. They learned to put them through maneuvers in the afternoon grinds. They learned to use the deadly crafts in mimic combat in practice night patrols.

And there was more than that. Navigation, ray gunnery, fleet flying, the intricacies of mass out-in-space boarding party raiding, and countless other drills.

This month moved more swiftly for Ricky, however, for he had at last caught up on a link or two in Clark's recent movements. There was a little old Junovian who worked in the garrison canteen, for example, who remembered Clark as having been at the Tromar base four months before.

With this information on hand, Ricky went cautiously about gathering additional information concerning his brother's whereabouts from others at the garrison— men stationed permanently there— who were able to recall Clark.

Officially, however, Ricky was able to gain no information. A solid wall of secrecy surrounded the movements of Outer Space Patrol Legions and the men in them. This was understandable, of course, for that very cloak of mystery aided in concealing troop and military maneuvers from possible enemy spies.

As the end of the final month's preparatory training drew to a close, but twenty-five men remained of the original forty recruits who had come from the base at Barkay.

Ten of the fifteen had been too slow in night maneuvers. They had died for their navigational inaccuracies, paid for minor miscalculations with their lives. Crack-ups in outer space, especially at the utterly phenomenal speeds with which the space war ships hurtled through the void, were inevitably fatal.

Two of the fifteen had killed one another in a bloody brawl during a drunken argument. The other three had been shot for attempted desertion. Their court martials had been but formalities.

And through it all Ricky had remained unscathed. Sheer nerve, indomitable hardness of muscle, had saved his life twice. The Ricky of four months before would not have lived, but this was a different person who strode to the Garrison Commander's Office, three days before the expiration of the month at Tromar, to receive his orders.

AN orderly in the outer office gave Ricky his sealed orders. Gave him his orders in exactly the same manner as he did the other twenty-four men who'd finished their preliminary training. A crisp salute, a folded white envelope, a brief smile, and Ricky walked back past the line formed along the corridor outside the offices.

"We get same base. Don't you hope? Don't you like?" asked Yenka, the burly Martian recruit who'd joined in the same batch with Ricky, back at Barkay. Ricky grinned and nodded. He liked the purple thatched Yenka. The fellow had been a strong arm robber, according to the camp grapevine. But his very frankness about his background, and lack of hypocrisy, made him much more tolerable to Ricky than, say, Carroll.

Back in his quarters. Ricky opened his envelope. The white, teletyped sheet, was terse, officially cold.

OUTER SPACE PATROL LEGIONNAIRE RICHARD WERTS:

PRIMARY— BARKAY

ADDITIONAL PRIMARY— TROMAR

ULTIMATE STATION TO WHICH YOU ARE TO PROCEED IMMEDIATELY, HAS BEEN DESIGNATED AS CEPANI. ASSIGNMENT TO SPACE PATROL SERVICE AT THAT POST HAS BEEN ARRANGED.

COMMANDER USLANKY.

Ricky felt his hands shaking as he held the white sheet tightly in his fingers. His heart hammered with excited expectancy. This was what he had been waiting for. Active assignment. The chance to find Clark!

He stuffed the envelope into the pocket of his blue uniform tunic and lighted a cigarette. Immediate assignment. That would mean this very night, no doubt.

Ricky sat down on the edge of his hard cot and wondered how far Cepani was from Tromar, how far it was from Barkay.

Footsteps sounded on the duralloy floor. Ricky looked up and saw Carroll. The tall, sleek, lithely muscled blonde jewel thief had avoided Ricky for the most part, since their arrival at Tromar, and Ricky was certain that he'd been nourishing hatred toward him ever since their last afternoon in Barkay.

His expression now, as he approached Ricky, surprisingly contained no malice. The big, wide shouldered blonde was even smiling ingratiatingly.

"Well, we're together again, I understand," Carroll said, by way of greeting.

"I don't know what you understand," Ricky said, "or where you get your information. I just opened my assignment envelope a few moments ago."

Carroll smiled. "I told you once a person could play things the right way in this outfit. You get to have the right angles and you find out things. I knew we'd both be assigned to Cepani yesterday. If you'd asked me I could have told you as much."

"Look," Ricky said with cold politeness, "will you kindly get the hell out of here?"

Carroll smirked. "As you like it, Werts. You're being a damned fool, however. I can also tell you, right now, that Cepani is the outpost garrison that was wiped out by Malyas a little while back. Remember that bit of grapevine information I got? Cepani, my friend, is going to be a tough place to stay alive in. It's a nasty post. A man'll need a lot of angles to keep his hide there. Think that over, old man, and any time you're willing to get wise, let me know."

Carroll turned away, then, and strode jauntily down the row of barrack cots and out the door. Ricky watched him leave, frowning meditatively. There was something screwy about Carroll, something aside from the naturally repulsive oiliness of the man, that was distastefully ominous, menacing.

"How," Ricky wondered aloud, "does he know so damned much official information in advance? And where does he have this rumor source of his?"

RICKY shook his head in bewilderment. It was too hard to understand. Just as it was hard to understand why Carroll would have returned with his "angles and ideas" today, after having been so coldly and emphatically rebuffed by Ricky on the first occasion.

Ricky shook his head again. It was strange, too damned strange. He shrugged. However, there was no time to think of that now. There was gear to check, and supplies. He felt almost positive that his departure for the active duty post was scheduled officially for tonight.

The burly, purple haired Martian, Yenka, came bursting into the barrack quarters just as Ricky set about cleaning his equipment. His face was beaming, his yellow teeth savage in a grin of glee.

"We get same base!" he chortled. "We get same base! Good, is not? Fine, isn't?"

Ricky grinned, then the grin left his face and his eyes narrowed. Yenka, too, was aware that he was assigned to the same base as Ricky. What in the hell was this?

"Look," said Ricky quietly, "how do you know we're assigned together?"

Yenka slapped Ricky thumpingly on the back with his huge paw. "Carroll is outside when I am come in. Carroll is tell me, after I am tell Carroll what base I am being sending to. Is fine, no?"

The frown left Ricky's features. That explained Yenka's knowledge. He rubbed a faint stubble of beard on his chin reflectively a moment, then addressed Yenka abruptly.

"When did Carroll join the outfit?"

Yenka looked bewildered. "Carroll, when he come to Barkay?"

Ricky nodded. "It was about the same time you showed up in our ranks, wasn't it?"

Yenka thought a moment. "Is so," he decided emphatically. "He is join Legion at same day I am. We almost join same time."

"That's what I thought," Ricky muttered reflectively.

"Why is good to know?" Yenka demanded puzzledly.

Ricky grinned disarmingly. "No reason, Yenk. Just wondering, that's all."

"That Carroll a bad one," Yenka warned dourly. "Don't make term with that Carroll, Reeky."

Ricky nodded. "Never in a million light years, Yenk. Don't worry about that."

Yenka grinned at this reassurance. "Is good. Worry Yenka to see Carroll-snake slink around you, Reeky. You good fella. No place with Carroll."

Ricky patted the Martian Legionaire's burly shoulder somewhat affectionately. "Don't worry, Yenk. You'd better start getting your gear in shape, else you'll get caught with a lot of last minute preparations. I've a hunch we'll be saying goodbye to Tromar sometime tonight."

Yenka raised bushy purple eyebrows. "This night, you think, eh, Reeky?"

RICKY nodded. Yenka made a whistling noise to indicate both surprise and delight, and shuffled down the line of barrack cots to the far end of the room where his own quarters were located.

Ricky set about the task of polishing his leather holsters, equipment sacks, beltings, and space boots and gauntlets. As he worked he went back over Carroll's actions from the first day he'd seen the jewel thief at Barkay. Meditatively, as he worked, he endeavored to find some chink in the armor of that Legionaire's actions that would explain some of the mysterious knowledge he seemed to have access to.

By the time he'd set about polishing the glass turret on his space helmet, Ricky had covered and recovered the ground he'd mapped on Carroll's actions. There were plenty of suspicious movements, but not one of them indicated anything.

Ricky gave it up, and sighingly forgot the matter.

As Ricky had expected, the call to leave for active duty came that night. The eerie sound of the siren bugle shrilled forth the signal to the twenty men concerned, and the barracks quarter in which the men had been lying in open-eyed anticipation, suddenly came to life ...

4: The Malyas Attack

RICKY was the first man out on the parade ground. Yenka followed not so far behind them. Trotting, dragging their compact full fighting equipment with them, they trotted across the parade ground to the vast, wide stretch of the space landing platform shimmering in the pale half light of the silvered darkness.

There was a sergeant waiting for them, standing just off from a large, fifty-rocketed space transport ship. The sergeant had a white sheet of paper in his hand. The muffled warming-up vibrations of the rockets in the large troop spaceship were throbbingly exciting to Ricky, who felt his heart trying to keep tempo.

The others were arriving now, taking their places at attention beside Ricky and Yenka. Carroll was among the last of the stragglers to arrive, and Ricky wondered, fleetingly, if the lithe blonde giant hadn't known of this embarkation. It seemed unlikely that he wouldn't have known in advance, especially in view of the fact that he seemed to have private sources of information constantly on tap.

Then Ricky shoved the problem from his mind. The sergeant was calling the role, and the Legionaires were acounting themselves as on hand and ready.

The sergeant, Marlow, a red necked, bull voiced man, then donned his own glass turreted space helmet, drew on his space gauntlets, slid into the zippered, electrically heated space suit he'd had ready, and the others followed suit.

Sergeant Marlow held up three fingers of his right gauntlet. That indicated that their receptor gauges should be set at third volume intake, to permit complete and unhampered communication with one another and their superior officer during the journey through space.

The throbbing of the rockets on the big troop transport had grown in volume to an almost deafening staccato.

The side hatchways on the ship were rolled back, a gangplank let down. Turning in formation drill, the Legionaires picked up their gear, shifted their electra-rifles to their left shoulders in unison, and marched up into the side of the ship.

Ricky was the first inside the troop carrier, and he made his way to the front of the big spaceship, taking his place on the right of the aisle in a small, comfortable seat that was fashioned so as to provide the utmost space for fighting equipment while at the same time affording bodily comfort as well as could be expected.

Yenka took the seat across the aisle from Ricky. Behind them, in straight two-across formation, the others took their places. Then Ricky heard the doors at the side of the ship rolling back into place. A moment later Sergeant Marlow marched down the aisle, inspecting the proper placement of equipment on the part of his charges.

Up ahead of him, Ricky knew, behind the heavy duralloy doors that blocked their compartments off from the troops they carried, were the pilots of the space craft.

Sergeant Marlow's red face beneath the glass turret of his space helmet was grim and unsmiling. Around the training grounds of Tromar he had been a bluff, jovial, almost raucously humorous chap. His attitude now was in complete contrast.

Marlow looked like what he was. A tough Sergeant in a tough outfit in a tough situation which he was determined to carry through with professional hardness.

And then Marlow was moving to the rear of the spaceship troop transport, and from the sudden, almost imperceptible lessening in the rocket vibrations of the craft, Ricky was certain that the pilots were easing rocket throttles toward the first open blasts that would send them screaming spaceward.

He was hurled back against his seat in the next instant, and from the porthole on his right, Ricky caught only the flickering swirl of the night's starstream shooting past them.

They were out in space moments later. Out in space and headed for Cepani.

THE minutes that followed stretched themselves into interminable hours, and finally, on instructions from Sergeant Marlow, the contingent of space Legionaires dug into haversacks for their concentrated rations. After this there was a brief exercise period, a period in which the men moved up and down the confinements of the spaceship in squads of four for ten minutes at a time.

Later Ricky slept, and when he woke again he was startled to realize that a day had passed and that they were into another night and another meal on concentrated pill rations. There was more exercise after this, and more sluggishly plodding hours of silence as the sleek craft roared through the space lanes.

Ricky must have dozed off a little later, for suddenly he was blinking his eyes and looking startledly about as the voice of Sergeant Marlow rang through the receptor of his space helmet.

"Discard all but fighting gear!" the voice thundered. "Prepare to repulse attack. Malyas are closing in on the transport!"

Ricky was on his feet then, pushing haversack equipment to the side of the seat, reaching for his electra-rifle. His heart began to pound furiously in excitement. On every side of him other Legionaires were discarding their unnecessary equipment and lining themselves in formation along the aisle of the transport.

Ricky took a quick glance out the transport porthole. All he saw was the blackness of space around him. Then he was out in the center aisle of the ship, lining up with his comrades. Yenka was directly on his right, the pug-faced Martian's features grinning delightedly behind the turret of his space helmet.

Sergeant Marlow moved swiftly up the line to the front of the ship. He stepped through the heavy bulkhead that led to the pilot's compartments. A moment later he reappeared.

Ricky noticed that he had strapped two atomic pistols to his sides.

"All right," Marlow barked. "There's exactly three Malya ships heading toward us. They haven't opened fire yet. They haven't the range. I've a hunch they'll try to board us. We'll need two gun crews to man the atomic cannon on our top turret." His eyes swept along the line of Legionaires.

"Carroll," Marlow snapped, and from the far end of the line the tall blonde stepped forward.

"Yenka," Marlow barked in the next breath. Almost chortling with glee, the Martian stepped forward.

Marlow hesitated an instant. "Werts!" he snapped. Ricky stepped forward.

"You three will man the fore gun turret," he said. "Leave your electra-rifles in the cabin, take your atomic pistols along."

Then Ricky was dumping his rifle to the top of his equipment, making fast the notches in his holster belt as he strapped an atomic pistol to his waist. Even though he'd removed his space gauntlets, his fingers all felt like thumbs. His mouth was dry.

"All right," Marlow ordered. Then he barked three more names, instructed those Legionaires to man the rear gun turrets, and declared he would arrange the porthole defense with electra- rifles in another moment.

Ricky, Yenka, and Carroll passed Marlow on the way to the forward hatch that led to the upper gun turret.

"Don't forget what we've burned into your thick skulls," he snapped. "Good luck."

CARROLL was first up the hatchway ladder, Ricky followed behind him, and then Yenka. Then they were on the smooth "bubble" of glassicade atop the space transport, and Yenka was tugging the hatch cover back in place.

Ricky saw that Carroll had already dashed to the firing position behind a round snouted atomic cannon, and he paused a minute, to look up through the sheen of glassicade around them.

And then he saw the Malyas.

There were, as Marlow had said, three of their ships following the troop transport through space at a distance of several miles. They were incredibly slim, sleek ships, and Ricky recalled that they were reputed to have tremendous powers of speed, but very little maneuverability.

He settled himself behind the second atomic cannon.

Yenka had left the hatch, now, and took the third post.

Ricky dragged on his space gauntlets and seized the trigger bars of the atomic cannon. He swung the gun around in a swift circular motion, making certain that it wasn't jammed. Carroll and Yenka were making the same tests on their guns.

Carroll caught Ricky's eye and grinned, waving his gauntleted hand in a nonchalant gesture. As much as he despised the man, Ricky had to admire his coolness and eclat under danger.

There were covers, partitions, over each of the three atomic gun positions. Ricky pressed the button which rolled back the glassicade cover around and above his cannon. It worked smoothly. Ricky turned the current higher on his electrically heated space suit, as the cold swept in through the sudden vent, and signalled Carroll and Yenka to do the same. He saw their hands turning the switches on their chest panels and nodded in satisfaction.

Ricky pointed to his opened cover partition, indicating that he thought it wise that the others swing theirs free for action now rather than later.

The Malya ships were creeping up closer now, and Ricky was certain that the pilots of the transport, knowing they couldn't outrace the enemy, were slowing somewhat to permit a better defense of their ship.

Ricky's gun faced the tail of the ship, Yenka's gun the nose, and Carroll's the center. And then the slim, sleek craft of the Malyas were driving upward for altitude, getting ready for dive attacks.

Ricky's gauntleted finger released the stop catch on the side of his trigger bars. His head was craned back, and he peered upward at the Malya ships climbing high behind the tail of the transport.

Any instant now, and they would start diving—

They dove!

Ricky's fingers pulled tight on the trigger bars and his atomic cannon belched orange flame upward into space. He fired too soon with his first blasts, missing the first diving Malya ship. The Malya craft took advantage of this, and red fire coughed from its nose as it hurled death and destruction toward the transport.

Ricky's cannon-work, although it hadn't accounted for a Malya ship, had diverted its fire, and the red spurts of flame went wide of the transport as the first diving ship continued onward under the quarry.

Ricky held his fire on the second ship until it was less than a few hundred yards away. He didn't miss this time, and the orange blasts that coughed from his cannon caught the Malya craft squarely on the nose, setting it immediately aflame!

With fierce satisfaction, Ricky watched the Malya raider roll over, down, then away. By now it was nothing more than a blazing ball of flame dropping wildly through space. First blood.

The third Malya ship cut its dive short, rather than risk the same fate, and zoomed up quickly out of range, climbing for safety. Ricky relaxed and wished to God that he could get inside his space helmet to wipe the streaming perspiration from his face. He turned and grinned at Yenka who was waving clasped hands above his head. Carroll was smiling also, and nodding his compliments.

Ricky waited there while moments ticked sluggishly onward. But the Malya spacecraft which had climbed upward to safety didn't appear again. Neither did the first ship that had dived on them. Ricky's spine began to ache.

Finally, when it seemed as if an hour must have passed, Ricky saw the hatch cover to the cabin below slide back and Marlow's turreted head thrust through.

He signalled them to leave their posts and his head disappeared back into the cabin. Ricky pressed the button that rolled the glassicade partition back over his gun position. The others did likewise. He set the stop catch on the trigger bars of his atomic cannon and climbed wearily to his feet.

The attack was over. The Malyas had been beaten off.

Ricky was last down the hatch ladder into the cabin. Yenka was jabbering excitedly to Marlow and pointing at Ricky. Marlow met Ricky's eyes.

"Nice work," his voice came to Ricky. "They got Fleck, one of our men in the underside turret." His face was tired.

Ricky felt suddenly utterly weary. The triumph drained from him leaving only aching fatigue. Fleck had been a good man. A Legionaire hates to see a good man go from his outfit. Ricky realized that had he been in the under turret rather than Fleck, it might be Fleck who had the honor, and Ricky who was dead. That was the Outer Space Legion. That was war in space ...

5: Death Strikes The Patrol

CEPANI was as desolate an asteroid garrison as Ricky had ever laid eyes on. And when the large transport ship slid onto the space landing platform at Cepani hours later, Ricky looked out the porthole with a mixture of wonder and disgust on his features.

The fortress on Cepani was apparently all that the asteroid contained. It was a military outpost, nothing more, nothing less.

Yenka, standing at Ricky's shoulder, expressed the emotions of all the newly arriving men.

"It bad," he declared sincerely. "A place for a Legionaire to go crazy."

Sergeant Marlow, moving up and down the aisle to make certain that his charges would be ready to disembark with a flourish, looked none too happy about his new assignment. Neither did the small knot of Legionaires who waited curiously out on the landing platform.

But Ricky's excitement returned when he saw those men waiting for them, for this was the garrison at which Clark might be stationed. This might be the end of his search!

Marlow lined them up before they were ready to step out down the gangplank to their new quarters.

"Step out there like Legionaires," he barked. "Move like you've a brass band tooting at your heels. You've had your first taste of action already, men; now act like it!"

And then he led them down the gangplank and onto the platform.

Ricky's heart was pounding furiously as he peered eagerly at the faces of the men who apathetically watched the disembarkment. There were perhaps ten of them. Three were officers, Ricky knew instantly from the gold braid on their blue tunics.

None of the other seven was Clark.

Ricky felt a swift surge of bitter disappointment. But, he realized, an instant later, this certainly wasn't the Cepani Legion garrison in its entirety. Clark might be anywhere around the place. He might even be out on patrol duty. There was still certainly hope of finding him here.

They were on the landing platform, lined before the space transport ship, and Sergeant Marlow was stepping forward to greet the three officers of the Cepani garrison.

Even the Officers of the garrison looked weary and somewhat disgusted, Ricky realized as he saw their expressions. But all of them were clean shaven and turned out with military shine. They hadn't let their weariness or disgust send them to seed.

Then Ricky saw that all their space boots, those of the officers and seven men alike, were covered with a thick, chalky, gray substance. He frowned at this.

Marlow came back from the officers, then. "You men are already assigned to quarters. Break formation and hustle over to the barracks. Your new Commanding Officers will look you over later. If you hurry with your cleanups we'll be in time to join mess."

The weary contingent of newly arrived Legionaires broke ranks immediately, some removing their space helmets and gauntlets, others leaving them on as they trotted toward the end of the landing platform toward the barracks at the other side of the fortress.

Ricky walked wearily behind them. He had removed his space helmet and for the first time had a chance to thoroughly scratch his neck and wipe the perspiration and grime from his features. He was one of the last to the edge of the landing platform, and when he arrived there and looked down the ladder that led to the parade ground his jaws fell open in thick dismay.

The newly arrived Legionaires who were already off the platform and down on the parade ground were stamping around with hoarse curses of bitter disgust. Stamping around in chalky, gray dust that lay at least four inches thick over the entire terrain!

Yenka came up behind Ricky and looked down. He too stared with disgusted disappointment.

"It's awful!" he cursed. "Damn dust! Damn place! Choke damn men to death!"

Another voice sounded behind them, and they turned to see Carroll staring cynically down at the parade ground.

"This, my friends," he said sarcastically, "is the lovely rich soil of that most charming of asteroids, Cepani!"

Ricky merely stared at him wordlessly....

RICKY and the others of his contingent had washed and changed to crimson fatigue tunics some thirty minutes later. And in the small mess hall of the Cepani garrison they had their first meeting with their new comrades, some twenty of them.

It was learned in the course of the meal that two patrols of five men each were out on duty and would be in shortly after mess. On the right of Ricky at the long mess table was Carroll, who seemed more talkative than ever before.

"The food is at least passable," Carroll declared. "And if we don't have to slough around in that damned dust too much none of us will choke to death. I'd much rather die with my boots on than by dust strangulation."

Ricky still felt no closer to Carroll, and still considered him worthy of suspicion. But the fact that they had been together through a brief conflict with the Malyas seemed to give him a little more reason to ignore the ex-jewel thief less.

"I thought you were averse to dying with your boots on," Ricky observed.

Carroll laughed. "So I am, old boy. So I am. And I still don't intend to do so."

Ricky ate on in silence.

"You're pretty anxious about something or other, aren't you?" Carroll observed a moment later. "I've noticed that your eyes can't stay in one place longer than a second."

Ricky flushed. "You're too damned observant to suit me."

Carroll shrugged, went on eating, then paused once more. "You expect, or hope, to find someone here, don't you?" he asked.

Ricky looked at him levelly. "Perhaps," he said.

"Friend?"

"You'd like to know every last bit you can ferret, wouldn't you?" Ricky blazed. "Why in the hell don't you concentrate on your food, Carroll?"

Carroll shrugged his wide shoulders again. "Sorry if I was prying, old boy. I just thought I could be of some help. There's a chap named Werts at this garrison— a Werts other than yourself, I should say. That your man?"

Ricky almost choked on the liquid he was drinking. He was flooded with mingled emotions, rage at Carroll for having learned so much, and wild relief to realize that he had at last found Clark. For it must have been Clark!

He held back his fury at Carroll. "He's not in this mess hall," he said evenly. "How do you know he's here?"

"Out on patrol duty," Carroll said, his eyes watching Ricky's expression carefully. "I saw his name posted on the board in front of the Commander's Office here— the Patrol Assignment Board. Your name was the same as his. So I imagined from that and your other rather strange anxiety in actions, that you were looking for someone and that this other Werts chap was the man."

"Very clever deduction," Ricky said. "I'm thankful for your information, but I don't particularly like the curiosity that prompted you to get it."

Carroll smiled in what he imagined to be a disarming manner. "I still insist, old boy, and this should be further proof, that it would never hurt the situation any if you were to throw in with me. We could work very well together."

Ricky disregarded this and went on with the motions of eating. But he didn't actually touch his food after this, for his mind was too filled with the elation of having at last found his brother. The waiting for the signal that mess was over was almost more than he could stand, so great was his eagerness to get out to the landing platform to wait for Clark's patrol to return.

WHEN the signal came, Ricky was first on his feet. He almost ran from the mess room. A quick glance across the parade ground and up at the landing platform showed him that no patrols were in as yet. The big space transport ship that had carried him here from Tromar was still there, however, and engineers were working over its rocket tubes to get it in shape for its return voyage.

Ricky then raced to the office of the Commanding Officer. On a Patrol Assignment Board, just outside the door of the office, Ricky found what Carroll had said he'd seen there. Clark's name on the list of men on patrol duty.

Ricky lighted a cigarette and stalked nervously up and down the corridors of the barracks for the next ten or fifteen minutes. He knew that Clark's patrol wouldn't be in until another patrol had readied itself to take off in place of it, and when he finally heard the throbbing of atomic motors out on the landing platform, he almost shouted with relief. It meant that a patrol was getting ready to go out, and what was more important, was waiting for Clark's patrol to come in.

Ricky moved out of the barracks and onto the dusty parade ground. Quickly, he trotted over to the landing platform and ascended the ladder that brought him up to its shining surface.

One space patrol fighter was being warmed up, and beside it— at the far end of the platform, away from the big transport— stood five Legionaires, veterans of this garrison, who were clambering into their space gear.

On the platform behind the space patrol fighter, a mechanic was checking over a swivel mounted steamgun before placing it in the gun turret of the ship which was being readied.

Ricky walked over to the group, and the five men getting ready for patrol looked curiously at him, almost appraisingly, as if trying to judge from his walk and actions what sort of replacements they'd been given this day.

Flicking his cigarette over the side of the landing platform Ricky addressed the nearest of the Legionaires who was slipping into extra insulated space boots.

"Patrol should be in pretty soon, eh?" Ricky asked.

The Legionaire nodded. "Any minute. It's already overdue. We've been here too long already."

"See plenty of action here, I imagine," Ricky said casually.

The Legionaire gave him a swift glance and then broke into hoarse laughter. "Hell, buddy. Action is an understatement at Cepani. Wait'll you really get a taste of those Malya devils!"

Ricky flushed at the Legionaire's scoffing reference to the attack on the transport. Evidently these men, veterans by comparison, were skeptically doubtful about the staying powers of the new replacements to their garrison.

"Tough babies, eh?" Ricky asked. He peered upward into the dusk. The Legionaire followed his gaze. Ricky saw nothing, but the Legionaire was suddenly waving his arms.

"There's our patrol coming in!" he shouted to the others.

Ricky blinked, and then he saw it, a small dot high in the murky heavens.

One of the mechanics was on his feet. "Hell," he shouted. "That ship is in trouble!"

The Legionaire nodded excitedly, grimly. "You're right. She's limping in!"

Then the men on the platform were cursing and moving swiftly around him. How they had discerned that the patrol fighter was coming in in bad shape was more than Ricky could guess, but he wasn't concerned with that nearly as much as he was with the awful premonition that assailed him.

For that was Clark's patrol, and if it was in bad shape that meant that something might have happened to Clark!

The dot was growing larger and larger now, and the men on the platform had stopped running excitedly around and were waiting stolidly watching it draw closer and closer.

The next minutes that passed seemed like an eternity to Ricky. He wasn't aware of how long he stood there before the trim blue space fighter patrol ship finally settled sluggishly to a landing on the lower end of the platform.

RICKY was with the rest of them as they dashed across the platform to the side of the badly disabled craft. He was, in fact, the first one to the door of the cabin, and even as he tugged it open a charred, unpleasant odor assailed his nostrils.

Three men lay dead, their bodies gruesomely burned, in the cabin of the fighting craft. Ricky was pushed aside as other Legionaires clambered into the ship. Then he was forcing himself to follow them inside, forcing himself to look closely at the baked features of what had been Legionaires to find that none of them was Clark.

Then they were tearing open the bulkhead door that led to the compartments where the two space pilots sat. They dragged out a limp body that Ricky knew immediately to be dead. It was all he could do to peer at the face. Not Clark— it wasn't Clark!

Sobbingly, praying and cursing in the same breath, Ricky forced his way through the bulkhead into the forward pilots' compartment. Two Legionaires were lifting a third gently from behind the controls of the craft, a third was removing the man's space helmet.

Ricky saw the familiar red thatch of hair that was his brother's trademark. Red hair on a head that rolled limply from side to side as they carried the body from the compartment.

"I don't know how in the hell he got back," one of the Legionaires was repeating over and over again. "I don't know how in the hell he got back!"

Ricky crowded close to them, gazing down at the man they held in their arms. Clark's handsome face looked up at him. But those laughing eyes were closed, and the strong mouth was twisted, frozen, in anguish, while his head continued to roll limply from side to side....

6: Brothers In Hell

"GOD," Ricky cried, "Oh, God!" His mind was a blaze of searing grief and anguish and he followed dumbly, like a man in a trance, as the still form of his brother was carried from the scarred space fighting craft.

There were others outside the disabled ship when they stepped out onto the landing platform. Legionaires who had dashed to the platform the moment the news of the disaster had reached the barracks. And in front of the press of men around the ship, Ricky saw vaguely the stern, tired face of the Commanding Officer.

He was directing the situation calmly, any emotions he might have had cloaked behind his efficient handling of the disaster. His voice came to Ricky foggily, as if from a great distance.

"Take that man," his finger was pointing at Clark, "to our emergency ward immediately. There might be a chance."

"I don't think so, sir," one of the Legionaires was saying. "I think he's already dead."

"Take him to the emergency ward!" the Commanding Officer's voice lashed out like a whip.

A path was cleared in the press of bodies, and Clark, lifted to a stretcher, was carried through this by two Legionaires. Ricky followed dully behind. A hand reached out and caught his shoulder.

"Stand back from there, buddy. You're not a mascot for that cot!"

Ricky looked up and saw the face of a noncom unknown to him. His fist snapped into a crashing blow before he was conscious of willing it. The noncom, mouth red with blood, staggered back. Ricky turned dully, scarcely conscious of what he'd done, and started after the stretcher.

Sergeant Marlow loomed up before him.

"What's wrong with you, Werts?" he shouted redly. "Have you lost your mind?"

Ricky looked at him dully, shaking his head puzzledly like a man under hypnosis. "No," he said thickly, slowly, "no, that man, that man on the stretcher is my brother."

Marlow looked at him in amazement. He gulped once. Then his hand touched Ricky's arm. "Follow along, Werts," he said simply.

Ricky turned away and followed after the stretcher....

LATER, it must have been three or four hours later, Ricky slumped dully on a bare bench before the door of the emergency hospital of the garrison. He had been that way, staring blankly at the corridor walls, scarcely moving a muscle, for what had seemed to be eternity.

Inside the ward there had been sounds, murmuring voices. And Ricky had bleakly tried to learn from these scant sounds what was going on in there.

Yenka, on hearing the news that was flying through the barracks, had come to Ricky to do what he could. Stumblingly, he had tried to express his sympathy, his best wishes, and tried to press on Ricky a carton of cheap cigarettes, Yenka's most priceless possession. He had left eventually, however, realizing that there was little he could do until word was learned of Clark's chances.

Ricky still waited for that word even now.

And suddenly the door of the emergency room opened. A young Lieutenant Physician appeared in his white tunic. He looked at Ricky an instant, while time hung breathless, then asked, "You are his brother?"

Ricky was already on his feet, shaking his head affirmatively, too choked inside to say a word, utter a sound.

"Better get back to your barracks," the young lieutenant medico said kindly. "The corporal, your brother, has pulled through splendidly. He'll be in shape to talk to you tomorrow possibly."

Ricky's knees suddenly felt weaker than tissue. He held to the corridor wall for support. Cold sweat stood out on his forehead, but he was grinning, grinning like an idiot.

"Thank God," he said insanely, over and over again, "Thank God!"

The Lieutenant Physician smiled understandingly. "Get back to your barracks, Legionaire," he said. "That's an order."

RICKY went back to his barracks. But he did little sleeping that night, for all he could think of was the almost tragic circumstances under which he'd finally reached Clark.

And when the siren bugle sounded that following morning, Ricky was the first man to dash from the barracks. Back outside the door of the emergency ward once more, he found himself sympathetically sent away by an orderly who assured him that Clark had improved through the night vigil.

At mess, Carroll was the most vocally inquisitive member of Ricky's contingent.

"So it was your brother you were looking for, eh?" Carroll asked smilingly.

Ricky nodded. "Yes. I suppose it's barracks conversation by now." He wasn't any more inclined to chatter with Carroll on this occasion than any other.

"Odd, a brother combination in the Outer Space Patrol Legion," Carroll mused aloud.

Ricky's glance was glacial. "Odd, the fun you have prying into things that are none of your damned business!"

But as usual, Carroll seemed quite impervious to insult. "Sorry," he grinned, "I guess I'm too fascinated by thinking of angles. A brother combination in a set-up like this certainly points to the possibility of a lot of angles in the background."

Ricky's eyes narrowed. Again he had the feeling of uncertainty as to how much the blond Legionaire really knew. But it seemed too impossible to consider that the ex-jewel thief would know anything about the reasons that brought Clark and himself into the Legion. Reasoning this way, Ricky dismissed the suspicion.

"He's greatly improved, your brother, I understand," Carroll said a moment later.

Ricky nodded coldly and continued eating. Yenka, who sat on the other side of him, muttered something into his plate about Carroll, and when the mess was concluded, Ricky was on his feet and out of the hall before Carroll could pick up a conversation again.

Once more Ricky returned to the emergency ward. The orderly was still in front of the door, and Ricky waited around in the corridor, finishing a cigarette until the Lieutenant Physician arrived.

The young medical officer smiled and nodded to Ricky and went inside the ward. Impatiently, Ricky made another march down the corridor and, by the time he returned to the door of the emergency ward, the Lieutenant Physician was poking his head out of the door. He beckoned silently to Ricky.

"He's able to see you for a few minutes now," the medical officer declared. "But I wouldn't advise you to talk about anything that might excite him. I'd also advise you to do most of the talking yourself."

Ricky nodded eagerly. The medico opened the door wider and Ricky stepped into the large, light, spotlessly white emergency ward room. Only one bed was occupied, and that was by a window. Clark lay in this bed, his head propped up slightly by pillows.

He had a few minor bandages on his chin, several more patched on his cheek, and his eyes were completely covered by bandages.

"There's a visitor for you, Corporal Werts," the young medical officer told Clark.

Ricky saw his brother's head turn in the direction of the young medico's voice.

Ricky turned to the Physician Lieutenant, asking a question with his eyes. The young officer nodded and smiled.

"Certainly, I'll step out of the room."

The door closed behind the medico and Ricky walked quietly over to the side of Clark's bed.

"Hello, Commander," he said. "You've had a hell of a scrape, but you seem to be as tough as ever." His voice was husky, blurred with emotion.

Clark's head turned toward him, as if he were trying to see through the bandages that covered his eyes. For a moment his jaw was slack in wordless astonishment.

"Ricky!" he gasped, after an instant. His voice shook. "Good God, it's you, Rick!"

Ricky placed a hand on his brother's arm. "Yeah, it's Ricky, Commander. Just as always I never catch you when you're not involved in some slam bang situation."

"But Rick," there was bewilderment as well as sheer elation in Clark's excited voice. "Rick, boy, what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story, Commander," Ricky declared. "It begins with my refusal to let a grand guy make a sap out of himself by heroic self-accusations."

CLARK'S expression suddenly changed, his face going grave. "I'll tell you about that, kid. I'm guilty as hell, just as I insisted I was at first. Sorry to shame you this way, Rick, but it's true." There was a stubborn ridge to the muscles of his jaw.

Ricky's fingers dug into his brother's shoulders. "We'll hash that out later, Clark. In the meantime you be a topnotch patient. At least you'll have your kid brother around to look out for you from now on in, you big hulking oaf."

The shadows left Clark's cheeks and he smiled. "Commander, eh? I passed that title on to you, Rick, remember?"

Ricky's voice was husky again. "Yes, I remember. And that's what you need from now on, Clark, a Commander to push you around."

Clark's expression became grave again. "I told you, Rick, on the other thing, I'm guilty as—"

"Ah, ah," Ricky placed his hand gently over his brother's mouth. "We'll talk about that later. Tomorrow, if you're well enough. But now I'd better duck out of here. You'll need your rest."

Clark raised his hand, caught Ricky's. "Thanks, kid. Thanks for everything. I, I, aw, hell, Commander, I should have known you'd track me down. I should have known you'd follow me."

"I stick," Ricky said simply. "Just the way I know you'd stick. Keep a stiff upper, Clark." He withdrew his hand from his brother's. "I'll be in to see you tomorrow."

"So-long, Commander," Clark said softly.

"No grin?" Ricky asked. "Long lost brother and no grin?"

Clark grinned.

Ricky laughed. "That's better, oaf. Until tomorrow."

Ricky turned at the door before he stepped out of the room. Clark was still grinning.

Out on the parade ground Ricky found Yenka waiting eagerly for him.

"How is brother?" Yenka asked earnestly.

"Swell, Yenk," Ricky said, patting the burly Martian's arm. "What seems to be eating you? You look worried."

"Malyas," Yenka bit off the word distastefully.

Ricky's face went grim. "Malyas?"

"Last night," Yenka said, pointing skyward. "Malyas catch transport ship on way back Tromar. Khhhhheech!" He made a gesture that showed a knife slitting a throat.

"They got the transport on the way back to Tromar?" Ricky gasped in horror.

Yenka nodded. "Night patrol pick up sight wreckage of transport ship drifting in space on way in with dawn."

Ricky considered this in horror. He hadn't known the transport was going to attempt a return voyage to Tromar last night. Neither had any of the others, for that matter. It was generally understood that they'd wait until daylight to leave Cepani. Obviously the night departure had been meant to avoid trouble with the Malyas. Obviously, too, that trouble hadn't been avoided.

Ricky recalled the charred bodies he'd seen in the space patrol ship his brother brought in, and promptly felt a little sick at the realization of what had undoubtedly happened to the pilots of the space troopship.

Instinctively he shuddered. "Anything else popping?"

"Along same trouble," Yenka answered. "Is rumor made that Malyas plan circle Cepani, wipe out garrison like before."

Ricky frowned. "Where'd you hear that? Certainly the officers would be aware of it."

Yenka shrugged. "Dunno where hear. Is around barracks. Tell that communications to Tromar, ev'vyplace else, cut off. No get word through for help. Officers try. No do."

Sergeant Marlow came around the corner of the barracks building, saw Ricky and Yenka, and hurried in their direction.

"Yenka," Marlow snapped. "Get to your quarters and get your gear ready. We might need you on a scout patrol job."

Yenka saluted happily and hurried away. Marlow turned to Ricky. The lines of worry on his face were too plain to ignore. Ricky had a hunch that this might indicate the authenticity of the rumors Yenka picked up around the barracks.

"Sorry about your brother, Werts," Sergeant Marlow said.

Ricky smiled. "It's all right now. He's pulled through. Just left him a little while ago."

Sergeant Marlow's face became embarrassedly troubled. "You didn't talk to the Lieutenant Physician?"

Ricky had a sudden, horrible sinking sensation.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I did, for a moment before I went in to see Clark. Why?"

Marlow was plainly wishing he had bitten off his tongue. His face was flushed. Ricky forgot the other's ranking, grabbing him by the sleeve urgently, desperately.

"What do you mean, sergeant?" Ricky demanded. "For God's sake let me in on whatever's wrong!"

Marlow said softly, "I'm sorry, Werts, I thought you'd been told. Your brother's fine. That is, he'll be up and around in no time. But he's blind, kid. He'll never see again!"

7: The Siren Shrieks

FOR a moment Ricky stood there, too sickly stunned to say a word. His face was drained of blood, his senses reeled in horror. Clark blind— blind!

Marlow's hand was on Ricky's shoulder, shaking him gently. "Easy, kid. It's not as if he'd died. You still have your brother alive and almost in one piece. He was lucky, kid. Lucky as hell. He'll be around in almost no time."

Ricky looked up wordlessly at Marlow. He shook his head slowly from side to side.

"No." Ricky said. "No." He passed his hand tremblingly across his eyes, and the significance of the gesture made him recoil as if from his own thoughts.

Marlow's fingers dug deep into Ricky's shoulders now. "Snap out of it. He's alive. He's perfectly intact. His eyesight is all he's lost. Snap out of it, Werts!"

"Yeah," Ricky said, suddenly sickly resigned. "Yeah, that's all he's lost— just his sight!" There was no mistaking the bitterness that shook his voice.

Marlow said very softly, "Have your gear ready inside of an hour, Werts. You may be assigned to scout patrol duty also."

Ricky nodded, saluted mechanically. Marlow slouched away in the thick gray dust of the parade ground.

Unconsciously Ricky turned back toward the building which housed the emergency ward. Clark was there— living in darkness from which he'd never emerge.

Behind him, across the parade ground and up on the landing platforms, Ricky heard the muffled throb of space patrol fighting ships being warmed up for duty. Still plodding onward through the deep layers of gray dust, Ricky continued toward the emergency ward building. He was less than forty feet from the entrance when he saw a tall, wide shouldered, lithe-hipped blond Legionaire emerge and look somewhat furtively around.

It was Carroll.

Somehow seeing him coming from that building filled Ricky with an instant's swift surprise and suspicion. This was gone when Carroll saw him and grinned.

"Hello there, Werts," Carroll greeted him. "Glad to hear your brother's pulled through so well."

Ricky's lips went tight. Obviously Carroll hadn't heard that Clark was blind yet. Ricky nodded and tried to smile. No matter how much you despised a man, you couldn't freeze him when he was offering friendly greeting of that sort.

"Thanks," Ricky said briefly.

Carroll paused. "Came over to the ward to see if the Lieutenant Physician was around. Had a message to give him from one of the noncoms."

"Find him?" Ricky asked.

The question was innocuous enough, but Carroll seemed to hesitate for a fraction before answering. "No," he said after an instant in which he flushed slightly. "No, he wasn't around there anywhere." Then he added quickly, "Nasty rumors flying around, aren't there?"

Ricky nodded grimly. "The Malyas, you mean of course."

Carroll nodded. "Yes. Our communications are supposed to have been cut off completely, too, I understand."

"Bad," Ricky said tersely.

"Very," Carroll agreed. "Walking back to the barracks?"

Ricky shook his head. "Just going to drop back to peek in on my brother for an instant. Then I've got to get back to the barracks and haul out my gear. Might be assigned to a scout patrol sometime within the next hour or so."

CARROLL looked disappointed, started to say something, changed his mind, grinned, and strode away. Ricky watched him trudge through the thick gray dust of the parade ground for an instant, then turned again toward the entrance to the emergency ward.

As Ricky stepped into the building he almost collided with the young Lieutenant Physician. Then he stepped back and saluted. The young medical officer put out an arm to halt him.

"Werts," he said quietly, "there's something I have to tell you."

"I know," said Ricky evenly, fighting back any emotional recurrence. "I just heard about Clark's blindness."

The young Lieutenant Physician swore softly in condemnation of himself. "I'm sorry, Werts. I meant to tell you before you entered the room, then I decided to let you know after you'd seen him. I was called away momentarily, and you'd left by the time I returned."

"That's quite all right, sir," Ricky said huskily, his voice betraying his emotions for the first time. "I understand."

"Otherwise he's doing splendidly," the young medico said in quick assurance, as if trying to negate his other words. "He has the recuperative powers of an ox. It wouldn't surprise me to see him walking around tomorrow."

"Thank you, sir," Ricky said. He started to move away, then hesitated. "Legionaire Carroll was here a moment ago looking for you, sir. Said you weren't around. He had a message from a noncom."

"Carroll?" The young lieutenant frowned. "The tall, blond chap? The one with the wide shoulders?"

Ricky nodded.

"Why, that's odd," the young medico declared, sincerely bewildered. "I met him as he was coming out of your brother's room. Your brother was sleeping at the time, and Carroll had persuaded the orderly to let him in for an instant to sort of silently pay his respects. When he passed me coming out of the room he didn't say a word about it— just saluted and went off."

Ricky frowned. "He was in to have a look at Clark, you say?" There was something distinctly suspicious about Carroll now, Ricky was certain. Something ominously suspicious.

THE young lieutenant nodded. "And you said he told you he'd been looking for me. He must have forgotten it, which would be quite impossible under the circumstances in which we passed one another. That's really very odd."

Ricky's jaw was hard. "It is more than odd, sir," he said very softly. "It's damned strange." He paused. "You say my brother was sleeping?"

"He still is," said the lieutenant. "The orderly didn't let Carroll go much beyond the door because of the fear that he'd wake your brother. The orderly was in the room all the time, or I should say, during the very brief time Carroll was there."

Ricky shook his head. "I don't quite understand his interest; unless it was prompted by knowing me."

"Perhaps that was it," said the medical officer vaguely.

Ricky saluted and started to turn away once more.

It was then that the silence was torn by the low, terrifying scream of the bugle siren.

The lieutenant went rigid, as did Ricky. The siren stopped, then began again. The same low, screaming whine pierced the air.

The young lieutenant's face went white. He turned to Ricky.

"Better get to the barracks immediately, Werts, that's the alarm siren. This garrison is about to be attacked!"

But Ricky had already started toward the door. He'd learned his alarm signals in primary training. And hearing the "attack" siren sounded under these circumstances brought him immediately back into the harness of the Legion. He turned once, as he started through the dust of the parade ground, to satisfy himself that the medico would be taking care of Clark. Then he bent his head and raced for the barracks ...

8: Attack Alarm

AT the barracks Ricky found a scene of frenzied activity. Legionaires, dashing up and down the aisles of cots, were shouting to one another and hurriedly climbing into space boots, and bringing forth fighting gear.

Ricky had no time, now, to think about the strange actions of Carroll; and even the thought of Clark's tragedy was pushed to the back of his mind as he struggled into space boots and strapped atomic pistol holsters to his sides. This was action. This was space warfare. This was what he and the rest of the Legionaires had been toughened and hammered into. Ricky was a unit, a cog, of a fighting machine now. There was no time for him to be anything else.

The siren bugle was picking up the alarm call again and again, sending it wailing over the garrison. The sound of it quickened heartbeats, sent pulses hammering and fighting blood pounding in the flesh of all these Legionaires.

Yenka appeared briefly beside Ricky.

"Malyas," he said. "Like I hear rumor— Malyas!" The burly Martian's white grin flashed happily as though this hour was what he had been living for.

Ricky nodded, grabbing his electra-rifle and his space helmet.

"Parade ground?" he asked.

Yenka nodded. The Martian carried his space helmet under one arm, his electra-rifle was slung over his massive shoulder. Two atomic pistols were strapped to his sides, the duralloy butts of them gleaming like twin death rays.

Ricky paused to throw his equipment momentarily on the cot while he drew on his space gauntlets. Then Yenka was helping him sling the electra-rifle over his shoulder, shoving his space helmet under his arm.

Legionaires were already dashing from the barracks and out to the parade ground where they quickly formed ranks. Ricky and Yenka ran behind a group of these, sprinting through the thick dust of the parade ground to the half-formed platoon commanded by Sergeant Marlow. Breathlessly, they took their places.

The alarm siren bugle was still wailing the attack signal.

Legionaires continued to dash from the barracks to the formations on the parade ground, taking their places, grim, tense, expectant. The ranks were at last filled, and suddenly the attack alarm siren stopped. The silence became loud.

From his quarters, the Commanding Officer of the Cepani garrison suddenly appeared, followed by his staff. Moments later he stood before the ranks of his under-officers and men, his eyes sweeping across the formations in grim satisfaction.

Then he spoke, his voice harsh and commanding.

"This comes sooner than we had reason to believe it would, men," the CO declared. "The Malyas are moving in on us, you all know that much by now. The patrols we have out there at the moment are doing a valiant job of standing them off— but the ring will break at any moment and the devils will be swarming in on us." He paused, his cold eyes sweeping once more along the ranks.

"The garrison before us was wiped out— slaughtered— completely by these same devils. This very rotten dust you stand on, rank and nauseous, is the scorched hell their attack left behind them on that occasion. The garrison that so valiantly perished defending Cepani before us was completely surprised. The Malyas had never penetrated this territory before that." The Commanding Officer coughed. "We are not unprepared. Those of you who have been here for more than a month are well trained in the defense of this fortress. Those of you who have but recently arrived here as replacements," he paused to look at Sergeant Marlow's outfit, "are the best men from our primary training centers. We haven't had time to train you in the garrison defense of Cepani— you last arrivals. But you are trained in space warfare, and all of you have had your first taste of its actuality during your voyage here."

Ricky wondered what the CO was leading to.

"As a consequence," he went on, "you will be given the task of relieving our defending patrols in space. The veterans of this garrison— those who have been thoroughly trained to its personal defense— will remain to man the very walls of the garrison. We have decided this the most logical move. That is all. Your superior officers will give you your instructions. I need not remind you that the honor of the Outer Space Patrol Legion demands the avenging of the last massacre of the Cepani garrison. Good luck, Legionaires!"

THE Commanding Officer turned on his heel, and strode swiftly through the heavy dust back to the headquarters building. Three of his under officers followed behind him.

There was a momentary silence, then the voices of the subaltern officers were barking commands to the ranks. Ricky heard Marlow's husky voice.

"That's our assignment, men. You know its importance. Due to the scarcity of our numbers, the patrols will be divided into five groups of four men each. Each of the patrols will have a leader, with the exception of the squadron fighter which will be commanded by me." He paused a moment. "Step forward, those men whose names I call, and receive from me the lists of the men in your patrols. You men are to lead your individual space fighter craft. You will keep in constant communication with my squadron fighter."

Sergeant Marlow took off one of his space gauntlets and dug a beefy hand inside his tunic pocket. He brought forth four white slips of paper.

"Higgens," Marlow barked. A short, wiry Legionaire stepped forward and the sergeant handed him one of these slips.

"You're in charge of the first space fighter craft," he said. "The men to be with you are on this list."

Higgens turned, read three names, and three more Legionaires stepped from the ranks.

"Proceed to the space landing platform," Marlow said. "Your craft has been assigned to you. Wait there for further instructions." Higgens saluted and led the three men of his crew at a brisk trot to the landing platform.

Marlow looked at one of the slips in his hand an instant, then raised his head. Ricky saw the sergeant's eyes meet his.

"Werts," Marlow said.

Ricky stepped forward, heart pounding, and took the slip Marlow, extended to him. Ricky saluted, turned, and looked down at the list.

"Yenka," Ricky read aloud, "Carroll, and Mepha!"

Yenka, beaming happily stepped from the ranks and joined Ricky. Carroll, smiling faintly, sauntered from his position also. Mepha, the third man in Ricky's patrol, a fat, round, little Junovian with a bald head and a hairless face, stepped forward also. Mepha was a topnotch man with an atomic cannon.

"Landing platform," Ricky said. Then he saluted Marlow once more and started in a trot through the heavy dust of the parade ground toward the landing platform some eighty yards away. He could hear the others running behind him, and then he was ascending the duralloy ladder to the landing platform, while the throb of atomic motors and the spluttering of preliminary rocket bursts filled his ears.

On the platform, Ricky was met by a perspiring mechanic who asked, "Second patrol?"

Ricky nodded. "Werts in command," he answered. The words sounded strangely reminiscent, and then for a fleeting instant he recalled the games that he and Clark had played as kids.

The mechanic jerked his thumb to a sleek, blue, bullet nosed space fighter craft at the far end of the platform.

"Your ship," he said. "She's well warmed. Guns've been checked, everything set."

Ricky turned to Yenka, Carroll, and Mepha. "That's our baby," he pointed. "You three get over there, and I'll stand by here to get any last instructions from Sergeant Marlow."

Yenka and Mepha nodded and started over to the craft. Carroll, grinning annoyingly, lingered to say, "Sure thing, chief." There was amused mockery in his words.

THE third group of Legionaire was on the platform, now, and Higgens, in charge of the first group, had joined Ricky to wait for Marlow's final instructions. The leader of the third group took his place beside them, as did the leader of the fourth patrol who appeared on the platform minutes later.

Then, at last, Marlow stood before them. "Ships will leave the platform in the order of patrol number originally designated," he barked above the now deafening roar of rockets and motors. "We'll meet at the edge of the first zone defense belt, and I'll give each ship its assignment by communication," he said. "Good luck."

Marlow turned then, and trotted toward the squadron fighter— the central command of the group— a larger, fatter, more heavily armed craft.

Ricky wheeled and trotted down to the far end of the platform where Yenka, Carroll, and Mepha waited beside their ship.

"All set!" Ricky shouted. "Let's go!"

They climbed in before him, slipping on their space helmets as they did so. When Ricky followed them into the cabin of the space fighter craft, he held up a gauntleted hand, showing four fingers. The three nodded, adjusting the receptor buttons on their space suits to the band he'd indicated.

Ricky adjusted his glass turreted helmet, set the ban receptor on his own space suit.

"Mepha will take the rear atomic cannon bubble," Ricky announced into the micropanel of his helmet. Inside his own glass turret, Mepha's bald, round head nodded and grinned. The little Junovian went back to his post.

"Yenka will cover the electraguns on our under bubble," Ricky announced then. "And you, Carroll, take care of the port and starboard porthole defense."

Yenka pushed back a section of the flooring in the space craft which revealed a small compartment just large enough for him to fit into. It was a veritable tiny fortress from which he could—  by use of the deadly electraguns placed there— successfully cover the ship from any attack from beneath.

Carroll grinningly took his seat along the starboard porthole of the ship, stacking the electric-rifles of the others in order beside him for sniping use. Ricky waved a gauntleted hand, and opened the door leading to the pilot compartment in the fore of the ship.

And then Ricky was behind the instrument panel of the craft, checking navigational dials and inspecting the trigger releases on the brace of small atomic cannon which were his to command in flight.

The pilot compartment was basically designed for the use of two men. The co-pilot generally being responsible for the gunnery while the pilot handled the ship itself. With the skeleton crew system, however, it was Ricky's duty to be both gunner and pilot.

Ricky checked the instruments a second time, and flicked the switch that connected him with Marlow's larger squadron fighter.

"Werts, in command of second patrol," Ricky announced. "Coming in, sergeant."

Ricky spoke into the same micropanel of his space helmet as he used to address the crew. The exception was that he had flicked a second receptor button which would send his voice through the communication panel on instrument board before him. He waited a moment.

Marlow's voice came in. "Second patrol, stand by. Second patrol, stand by. First patrol leaving, first patrol leaving."

Ricky waited, tensely, gauntleted hand on the throttle that would throw the atomic motors into full speed.

Seconds seemed to trickle by. Ricky's heart pounded. Out there in space the Malyas waited. Even at this moment they were trying to break through the ring of patrol ships standing them off from Cepani.

Then Marlow's voice came in again. "Second patrol— second patrol- -second patrol!"

"Second patrol standing by!" Ricky announced.

"Up and at 'em, Werts," Marlow's voice came in. "We meet at the first zone defense belt. Don't engage in combat under any circumstances until you receive your assignment."

Ricky leaned forward, giving the first pressure to the atomic motor throttle.

"Second patrol— leaving," Ricky announced. He shoved hard on the throttle, the ship shuddered for a fleeting second. Ricky eased the power an instant, then the back of his seat was pressing hard against his spine and they were hurtling out into space.

THE blackness of the night flashed by, silvered by starstream as the space fighter ship climbed farther and farther out to meet the void. Ricky's fingers were tense on the controls, his face anxious, his forehead beaded with tiny drops of sweat.

Minutes flicked by, and Ricky checked his instruments once more, altering the course of the ship several degrees, sliding the nose more directly toward the rendezvous agreed on with Marlow.

More minutes flew by, while Ricky, preoccupied by his calculations, continued to check his instrument panel. Then finally he leveled the space craft out, sending it in a wide, wheeling arc. Through his vizascreen he could see the nose of the ship of the first patrol down below them, circling lazily in the same waiting maneuver. This was the place of rendezvous with Marlow's squadron fighter.

Ten minutes later Ricky saw the third patrol space ship wheel into vision on the vizascreen, higher than his own ship, and begin the same wheeling maneuver. Ten minutes after that, the fourth patrol ship appeared, still higher, and swung wide in identically the same tactical waiting maneuver.

Marlow's squadron fighter appeared at last, taking a position higher than them all. Ricky flicked the switch that connected communications with the larger ship once again.

"All four patrol ships!" Marlow's voice sounded. "Come in on the connection."

Ricky announced his ship after Higgens had chimed in. The leaders of the other patrols followed in order.

"Higgens' fighter is assigned to my patrol," Marlow's voice declared. "We are to relieve those patrols already on duty and in action against the Malyas."

Ricky frowned impatiently. Higgens was assigned to duty with Marlow, and if Ricky knew the sergeant well enough, he realized that the red necked Legionaire would select the fightingest, most dangerous spot for himself.

"Patrol two, Werts in charge," Marlow's voice came in again, "will proceed immediately to—" and then he gave the navigational directions to the spatial location, "where it will be expected to destroy the Malya forces established there to cut off Cepani Garrison communication with Tromar."

Ricky felt a swift chilling thrill along his spine. This was action. This was an assignment equally as dangerous as that which Marlow had selected for himself.

"When this has been accomplished," Marlow's voice went on, "the second patrol is to return immediately to Cepani for further instructions if it is possible." The last four words had an ominous ring to them.

"I repeat my navigational directions to patrol two," Marlow picked up again. And then, while Ricky made rapid chart notations on the table by his instrument panels, Marlow repeated his navigational instructions.

"That is all, patrol two. Proceed immediately— as instructed. Good luck!"

Ricky cut himself back in. "Second patrol," he said, "proceeding at once as directed." He snapped off the switch, checked his instruments with his navigational readings, allied them swiftly, and threw the space fighter craft over and down in a rolling dive, picking up tremendous velocity and straightening out after the outline of the first patrol ship had blurred by them.

"On the way!" Ricky muttered tightly to himself. Then he settled down to following his navigational directions.

RICKY had a fair idea of what he could expect to encounter on his assignment. The Malyas had a particular method of ambush attack, and it seemed to be this same method that they were now employing.

It depended first on superior strength, second on a cunningly unexpected attack. They had both advantages in this present attack on Cepani. Thirdly, their mode of ambush included the complete severance of communications between the garrison under attack and any other posts that might rush them aid. In this instance they had blanketed Cepani in silence, making it impossible for the post there to communicate with Tromar, the nearest and largest Legion replacement center.

And it was up to Ricky, and Ricky alone, to destroy this blanket of silence that had been thrown around the Cepani Garrison by the Malya attackers.

Yenka appeared at the bulkhead door to Ricky's forward compartment somewhat later. He held up four fingers to indicate that he had something to say. Ricky flicked the receptor button on his own space suit and nodded.

"We have assignment?" Yenka asked.

"Right," Ricky answered. "I was waiting for one of you to stick your nose in here. We're to break up the communications jam the Malyas have belted around Cepani."

Yenka grinned, tremendously pleased by this information. He nodded happily, enthusiastically.

"Pass it on to Carroll and Mepha," Ricky instructed.

Yenka nodded and disappeared, slamming the bulkhead door behind him. Ricky settled back once again to a careful rechecking of his chart and instrument panel. It would take several more hours to arrive at his dangerous destination.

Those hours were not long in passing....

9:  Battle In The Void

RICKY saw the long, sleek, silver outline of the Malya engineering vessel in his vizascreen when he was still several space miles away from it. It was almost the size of a space battleship, but was lower and more heavily turreted.

Beneath some of those turrets, Ricky knew, were concealed heavy guns to repulse attack, and beneath the others were the vital machines which were this moment sapping all space-radio power from the belt that had been thrown around Cepani. Sapping that communication power from the void, so that the Cepani garrison's frantic signals of appeal would never get through to Tromar.

And then, but the fraction of a minute later, the Malyas aboard the long engineering space craft realized his approach. He could see small dots, figures that must have been Malyas, rushing swiftly along the open deck spaces of the craft. Then, it seemed scant seconds later, three silver bullets streaked out into the void from hidden catapults.

Fighting craft, Malya scout fighters, sent forth to intercept the attack on the engineering vessel!

Ricky reached forward swiftly and flicked the button on his instrument panel which connected him with the gun positions on his own craft.

"Action!" he barked. "Three enemy fighter ships just launched from engineering vessel. Bearing in on us soon, stand by your posts!"

He flicked the switch back and turned his attention to the controls of his craft, throwing the ship into a nose-up climb. Running his tongue over dry lips, Ricky kept his eyes alternately moving from his instrument panel to the vizascreen. The enemy craft were deploying in a wide formation, each obviously preparing to take a section of Ricky's craft in their attack on it.

The Malya fighters, however, couldn't outclimb him. Ricky smiled in satisfaction as he realized this, and made swift plans accordingly as they followed him upward, dropping behind with every passing second. From the center of his vizascreen, Ricky could see the foremost Malya ship.

If they couldn't outclimb him, then they couldn't outdive him.

The Malya ships were faster than his own on straight stretches. Ricky knew this and had already resolved to keep the hell off straight stretch maneuvering.

His target selected, Ricky set himself for his maneuver. He flicked the communication switch to his gun positions. "Hang on tight," he shouted. "Hang on tight and prepare to fire as we dive. Center Malya ship will be your target!"

Ricky pulled back on the control levers, flipping the ship over on its back and down swiftly in a straight dive. Directly in the center of his vizascreen, rushing at him with incredible speed, was the center Malya craft.

Ricky's gauntleted fingers found the trigger bars controlling the brace of atomic cannon in the nose of his craft. He was fighting back the physical nausea accompanied by the dizzying force of his terrific dive.

And then the nose of the silver Malya craft was less than two hundred yards away, and already the pilot was trying desperately to veer off from Ricky's ship, which, if it followed its dive, would surely crash headlong into the other craft.

But on either side of the Malya craft were companion fighters. And any veering to either side would inevitably be at the cost of both the veering craft and the ship it collided with on its side.

The Malya craft was trapped. Its pilot elected to take the only other course, just as Ricky had prayed to God he would. The silver space fighter pulled up and over, in a frantic effort to dive back and out of the way. The broad silver outline of its belly gleamed in Ricky's trigger sights for as long as he needed.

HIS fingers pressed the firing bars. Bolts of orange flame spat forth from the nose of his ship, blasting the silver Malya craft into splashing thousands of searing red fragments!

The two companion ships to the annihilated Malya fighter passed in twin flashes of silver on either side of Ricky, still climbing as he dove, unable to check their speed in time to turn and pursue him.

Ricky grinned grimly. One out of the way.

But the others would be in pursuit at any moment. He began to pull slowly out of his dive, careful not to black himself out with any too sudden maneuver.

Now, suddenly, in his vizascreen he saw the outline of the momentarily unprotected engineering craft of the Malyas, and just as suddenly remembered the vital importance of his mission. The downing of the defending space fighters was incidental to the destruction of this craft that had blotted out all communication.

Ricky's hand found the electra-bomb releases below his instrument panel. He leveled off slightly, then threw his ship into another dive. In the vizascreen, the engineering craft of the Malyas loomed swiftly larger, wider. Some of the silver turrets on the deck of the long slim craft rolled back and black snouts of cannon appeared.

Ricky gritted his teeth. The craft had more to protect it than its fighter ships. But this was his chance. He continued the dive. The vizascreen showed the engineering craft vastly larger now, and Ricky pulled back slowly out of his dive, releasing electra-bombs as he did so.

Hell broke loose beneath him. Two of the electra-bombs found their marks and exploded aft and amidships on the silver craft. And at the same instant, red flashes of flame puffed from the snouts of the defending cannon, the blasts from the bolts rocking Ricky's ship like a leaf in a gale.

Ricky climbed, then. Climbed as swiftly as he could. The two silver fighter scouts of the Malyas would be somewhere up above him, he knew. But he had to climb out of range of the guns on the deck of the engineering craft.

And as he climbed, the first of the remaining two silver Malya space fighters dove down on him in attack.

Ricky rolled over hard to the right, and as he did so, felt the vibration of Mepha's rear atomic cannon shaking the ship as the little Junovian gunner opened fire.

There was a blinding burst of flame somewhere on the tail of his ship, and Ricky instinctively realized what had happened. The superb little Junovian gunner had spied the second Malya fighter diving in on the rear flank and had destroyed it with an incredibly accurate burst of fire.

Ricky felt a fierce flame of pride. The Legion trained men to fight like the very devils of hell!

Two down— one to go!

But that one was accounting for itself with a deadly hail of neonfire, blue bolts of streaming death, working on the top of Ricky's ship from an uncovered position as it relentlessly continued its dive. Ricky continued to roll his craft hard to the right, instinctively waiting for the vibration that would signal Yenka had opened fire from the belly of the ship, which was now up toward the diving Malya craft.

THERE was no thudding vibration from Yenka's electraguns. Time hung in hell while Ricky waited for that vibration. Desperately, he flicked the communication-to-gun-bubble switch.

"Yenka!" Ricky screamed. "For the love of God, Yenk, Fire!"

Yenka's voice, tight and despairing, came back.

"Guns jammed. Guns jammed to hell, Reeky— s, soooreee!"

Ricky's eyes went wide in horror. Yenka, there in the gun bubble, belly up to the diving Malya craft, with his guns jammed. Wildly, Ricky tried to throw the ship back on its stomach to give his burly Martian comrade cover. But it was too late— grim seconds too late.

"Agggghhhheee!"

Yenka's scream gurgled to Ricky's ears, along with the snicking hail of neonfire shattering the bubble covering in which the Martian gunner had been covered.

Ricky continued his roll-over, sickeningly aware that he had heard the happy-go-lucky, hard-fighting Martian's voice for the last time— in a death scream!

But there was no time to think of that now. Every second was precious, every twisting gyration through which he put his ship meant the ultimate difference between life and death.

And then the Malya fighter had streaked past, veering down to the right as it did so, to keep out of range of Ricky's fore guns in counterfire.

Ricky jammed the nose of his ship upward, then, climbing for every last millimeter's advantage he could get, a new scheme in mind. Below him lay the partially disabled engineering craft of the Malyas. Below his right beam the silver streak of the Malya fighter ship was leveling out of its dive and beginning a counter climb.

Deliberately, Ricky slowed the power of his climb, giving the silver enemy ship to the far right of him a chance to gain in the twin maneuver.

The remaining Malya ship would try to outclimb him, Ricky knew, for height was a precious advantage in space combat. But this time Ricky was willing to sacrifice that advantage. This time he wanted to get the Malya ship on his tail.

And his enemy continued to climb, continued to gain greater height. Ricky was leveling off now, watching his vizascreen intently. The Malya ship had noticed his new maneuver, and now that it had a height advantage was also leveling. Ricky flicked the communication switch on his instrument panel.

"Mepha!" he barked. "Get ready to fire. There'll be a silver streak on our tail pretty quickly."

"Not for long," Mepha's voice came back confidently. "All set, Ricky."

Ricky snapped the switch. In the vizascreen he could see the engineering ship directly below him. In the upper corner of the screen he was able to see the Malya fighter ship wheeling around to get on his tail. He waited tensely, giving the silver ship its chance to complete this maneuver. Then he waited for a fraction of a second longer, while the Malya craft, picking up the incredible speed it possessed on straight stretches, dashed toward him.

Then Ricky threw the controls forward, pointing the nose of his ship directly down at the engineering vessel. Behind him, now, less than a hundred yards away, was the Malya space fighter. Ricky saw its nose drop as it followed him down in his dive, sticking to his tail.

THE back of Ricky's seat was pressing hard against his spine, and dizziness was assailing him again. The engineering craft was looming larger and larger on his screen. The Malya fighter was still on his tail. But Ricky wasn't utilizing full power for his dive. He was giving his pursuer a chance to draw closer. Close enough so that it would be directly within the same firing range that Ricky was. Close enough so that the engineering ship below would have to withhold its own defensive fire for fear of downing the silver Malya fighter along with Ricky's ship.

The Malya pilot was realizing the trap he'd fallen into, realizing that he'd formed a protective shield for Ricky's craft unwittingly. But it was too late. He was already in a peak velocity dive. He couldn't pull out of it and away from Ricky's tail without tearing his ship to shreds.

And the engineering ship below was forced to withhold its fire!

Ricky's gauntleted hand found the electra-bomb release. They caught the engineering craft in five sections, shattering it from stem to stern in belching explosions of hellish fury, accomplishing his mission as ordered!

Slowly, still staring into the vizascreen at the smouldering ruins that remained of the engineering craft, Ricky pulled out of his dive. Momentarily, in the wild surge of elation he felt, he had forgotten the remaining Malya space fighter.

And that momentary forgetfulness was almost enough to cost Ricky his life and the lives of his command.

A whirring streak of silver shot past the nose of his craft. In leveling off after pulling out of the dive, Ricky had forgotten that the Malya ship was still on his tail, and that in a level stretch he could be easily overtaken by it. He felt the vibration of the Malya craft's neonfire lacing along the sides of his ship, felt a second jarring thud on the nose of his craft, and looking startledly through the forward porthole of his compartment gasped in astonishment.

A Malya, space suited and carrying a ray weapon, had boarded his ship and was even now advancing cautiously along the nose of the craft toward Ricky's compartment!

SWIFTLY Ricky cursed, recalling that this daring boarding stunt was a favorite trick of the Malyas. One Malya would disable an enemy craft at the expense of his own life if need be!

Ricky's hand flew to the communication switch. He flicked it swiftly.

"Carroll!" Ricky shouted. "Malya's boarded us. Coming along the nose!"

Carroll's voice came back, almost nonchalantly. "Rightho, I'll greet the devil!"

Ricky watched the strange, space suited creature advancing slowly, laboriously, along the nose of the ship, cursing his own inability to remedy the situation. The creature could not be reached by Ricky's cannon fire, and there were no other weapons within the compartment which would be of use against him.

Then Ricky was aware that the weapon the Malya carried was spitting flame. And he was also suddenly conscious of the fact that the creature was crumpling, twisting, under the fire of Carroll's electra-rifle!

The creature pitched sidewards then, and for an instant fought for balance before pitching off the nose of the ship. Ricky flicked the communication switch again.

"Nice work, Carroll," he shouted.

"Picking off ducks," Carroll's voice came smugly back to him.

Ricky cut the switch, turned to the navigational chart and made calculations which would take them back to Cepani. For the job was done. The silver Malya ship, after seeing the disaster that overtook their boarding stunt, was dashing off, unwilling to continue the combat further. Malyas stayed to fight only when the odds were in their favor, never when the odds were even.

Ricky swung the nose of his ship around, feeling suddenly weary. The appeals to Tromar would get through, now, the interference in the communications was eliminated. And Yenka lay dead in the lower gun bubble. Minutes later the bulkhead door of his compartment swung open and Carroll stepped in, grinning. He pointed to his receptor button.

"Next move?" Carroll asked.

"Back to Cepani," Ricky said, turning his head slightly. "We're to get further instructions there."

Carroll nodded. "That's what I thought," he said.

Ricky didn't see the heavy wrench Carroll held in his hand. He didn't see it until it had swung high and started to descend on his helmet in a vicious arc. Then it was too late, for the jarring concussion of the blow on his shatter proof helmet knocked him senseless. Blackness, warm and sticky, settled in on him ...

10: Carroll Pegged

FOGGILY, Ricky could hear the throbbing of rockets and motors against the blanket of pain that dulled his senses. He was conscious of moving his arms and legs, trying to turn himself. And then he opened his eyes.

He was on the landing platform of the Cepani Garrison. A round, bare face was bending over him. Mepha's face.

Ricky sat up, dazedly trying to wipe the cobwebs from his mind. There was a nausea in the pit of his stomach and he felt like vomiting. Vaguely he began to remember what had happened.

"Better now?" Mepha grinned.

Ricky felt his head. His helmet had been removed. And now full recollection hit him. His expression was one of tight anxiety. He grabbed Mepha by the arm.

"Carroll, where's Carroll?" he demanded, fingers biting deep.

Mepha grinned. "Carroll all right. Carroll bring in ship after you knock head on bulkhead."

Ricky was trying to rise, and Mepha was helping him to his feet.

"You mean," Ricky grated, "Carroll told you I'd had an accident, was knocked out?"

Mepha nodded. "I came up to forward compartment. Saw Carroll kneeling over you. He saw you have accident. He take ship back."

Ricky realized now why he was still alive. Carroll had been interrupted by Mepha after he'd knocked Ricky out. He didn't dare do away with him while the Junovian looked on.

"I drag you back into compartment, main compartment, leave Carroll up front to take in ship," Mepha explained. "No think you come around so soon. Accident like that usually keep man unconscious many hour."

"Yes," Ricky nodded grimly. "Evidently Carroll thought so, too. Where in the hell is that skunk?"

Mepha was faintly puzzled. "He back at barracks," he declared. "Help coming in from Tromar, now. Garrison sitting pretty. Malyas going 'way— fast." He grinned.

Ricky took a few tentative steps, found he could maneuver under his own steam. He started for the ladder leading down to the parade ground.

"Where you go?" Mepha cried anxiously. "You weak, you too sick yet to try run around."

"I've got a nasty puzzle to clean up," Ricky shouted. Then he was scrambling down the ladder and his feet were hitting the thick dust of the parade ground. Seconds later he was racing toward the barracks. He found them deserted, save for one Legionaire.

"Seen Carroll?" Ricky demanded.

The Legionaire nodded. "He just left. Said something about an assignment. But he headed toward the emergency ward first."

Ricky wheeled and dashed from the barracks. The emergency ward! Clark was there, and Carroll had gone there just before the Malya attack had started. Gone there, for some mysterious reason, to see Clark. And now, after knocking Ricky out, and wanting for some mysterious reason to kill him, Carroll was heading for Clark once more!

There was no one in the corridor of the emergency ward building when Ricky arrived there. There was no sentry posted outside Clark's door. Ricky heard the sounds, then, sounds coming from behind that door. Sounds of struggle, muffled, desperate!

The door was locked from the inside. Ricky stepped back four paces and crashed into it with his shoulder. It tore slightly. Ricky stepped back again. The sounds of struggle were louder inside the room. Ricky heard muffled curses.

He crashed his shoulder into the door again. This time the lock tore through the jamb and sent Ricky sprawling into the room and against someone's legs.

It was pitch dark in the room, and Ricky's groping hands felt that the legs were clad in space boots. They wouldn't be Clark's. He wrapped his arms around them, pulled backward. There was a loud curse as a body crashed down on Ricky— Carroll's voice!

THEN Ricky was rolling out from under the body, his fists smashing again and again into a face. The body suddenly went limp beneath him. Ricky leaped to his feet, sought the wall switch, and flooded the room with light. There at his feet, his face a bloody mess from the effect of Ricky's fists, lay Carroll!

"Ricky!" a voice in the corner gasped.

Ricky wheeled, and for the first time saw Clark, swaying in the corner of the room with a heavy duralloy chair raised in his massive arms.

"Clark!" Ricky sobbed. "Clark, old rock, he didn't get you!"

Clark's bandage was torn from his head, and there was a fresh cut on the side of it, next to the half healed wound already there. The fresh slash was bleeding.

"He tried to, God knows," Clark said weakly. "He entered in the darkness— that was his mistake. We were on even terms that way. I could tell where he was by his breathing. When I called out and he didn't answer, I knew something was fishy. I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, made a dive for him, and started pounding. I—" Clark had crossed the room to Ricky's side, and was staring down at Carroll, his mouth open.

"My God," Clark gasped. "It's Lebanc!"

But Ricky, too, was staring in open mouthed astonishment. Staring, however, at Clark. His face was a mixture of emotions. "Clark," he shouted wildly, "Clark— you can see!"

His brother looked up at him blankly. "Why not—" he began.

But Ricky had grabbed him by both shoulders. "You can see!" he repeated again and again. "A blow of Carroll's must have jarred your vision back!"

Ricky was laughing and sobbing and pounding his brother on the arm ecstatically. "You were supposed to be blind, Clark! Blind for life! They didn't tell you, and I couldn't bring myself to it. But a blow gave us a miracle. Your sight is back!"

Clark was grinning now. "And that isn't all that's back, Rick. That isn't all that's back by a long shot. The person you see sprawled on the floor before you, the person you called Carroll, is really a chap named Lebanc. A lousy skunk I searched through hell to find. The murderer of my competitor. The guy who committed the crime I was tagged for."

Lebanc, alias Carroll, stirred slightly and groaned. Ricky, still grinning like an idiot, resisted the savage impulse to kick him in the head....

WHEN sanity returned to the little garrison on Cepani some few hours later, and the replacements from Tromar— after sweeping the space lanes clear of the attacking Malyas— took over the patrols to give the men of Cepani's gallant garrison a much needed rest, Carroll, or Lebanc, confessed in full to the Divisional Commanding Officer.

Clark and Ricky were at the murderer's side during the proceedings to see that he told his story correctly. And by fitting the pieces together, the thing became clear.

"I was certain Lebanc, alias Carroll, had taken refuge in the ranks of the Outer Space Patrol Legion," Clark had stated. "I joined to find him."

"But you were slightly ahead of him," the Divisional Commander observed. "He joined after you did."

Clark nodded. "That's right. But he did join, as I'd had a hunch he would, thank God."

"Never imagining that you were already in the Legion," Ricky added, "until he found out by mistake while going through the Divisional Reports on the sly. Your electraphoto was there, and he recognized it. That's when he began to get ideas about escape. He knew he'd need a confederate and picked out me as his foil."

Clark nodded. "Never suspecting you were my brother," he said.

"Then it wasn't until his arrival at Cepani, where fate threw the three of you together, that he knew something had to be done fast," the Divisional Commander declared.

Ricky nodded this time. "But fate played into his hands. Clark came in from patrol that day, badly wounded and blind as far as anyone knew. That's when Lebanc, or Carroll if you will, had to visit you to make certain you were the man he feared. Fortunately, he didn't know you were thought to be blinded for life. He merely presumed your eyes were bandaged and that you'd be up and around shortly to identify him."

Clark grinned ruefully. "And I would have been killed then and there by our chum, if a sentry hadn't been with him when he peeked in on me. As it was, when the attack alarm sounded, he had to postpone his plans until return. By then, however, he was wondering how much Ricky knew about the situation. That's why he tried to kill Ricky on the way back to Cepani after the destruction of the Malya engineering base."

"Mepha prevented him from doing that," Ricky broke in. "But he figured I was out for quite a spell, and when he brought the ship in he headed for Clark, intending to kill him, then escape on his own in one of the patrol fighters."

The Divisional Commander smiled faintly. "But you broke in in time to save your brother's neck, in true Legion pattern, eh, Werts?"

Ricky clenched and unclenched his fists subconsciously. "I was ready to kill Carroll," he admitted.

The Divisional Commander grinned frankly this time. "Sometimes," he observed, "I'm inclined to believe we plant the killing instinct too strongly in you men. However, I'll admit you had a natural reaction."

Ricky turned to Clark. "What about the note you left me, and the body that was found in your wrecked sports spaceship?"

Clark shook his head. "Some poor devil about my size and weight that Carroll, alias Lebanc, killed and planted after I'd left. And just part of that note was mine. The confession stuff was forged in by our blonde comrade."

The Divisional Commander sat back. "Lebanc, or Carroll, is being shipped back for trial and punishment on Earth," he said. "Under the circumstances, the Legion can make one of its rare exceptions and release you two from service. You can return to Earth at any time you like."

The two brothers looked at one another. Clark, bloody and weary; Ricky ragged and battle grimed. They exchanged grins.

Outside, the siren bugle, cool in the silence around Cepani, sounded the mellow notes of "All Clear."

The Divisional Commander looked back at them.

"Hell, Sir," Clark and Ricky declared in one voice, "we're just beginning to enjoy our enlistments!"

______________________

4: Lord of the Crystal Bow

(as by Duncan Farnsworth)

Amazing Stories, May 1942

1

IT was close to midnight, and of all the offices of the fifty some floors that comprised the massive, towering structure of the opera building, mine was one of the few whose windows still blinked pinpoints of light out into the black, starless night that shrouded the huge city.

It was still Monday, however, and I had another hour before my copy was due in the offices of the Chicago Blade, where I held the titular position of Music and Dramatic Critic. It was generally this way after a Monday night opening. Frantic, last- minute efforts to knock out a review in time for the third metropolitan edition.

I crushed out another cigarette, stuffed my second page into the typewriter and picked up where I'd left off.

And the scintillating brilliance of Madeline Trudeau's glorious voice was doubly heightened by her unequalled dramatic ability and her striking, dark-haired beauty.

Leaning back in my battered chair, I lighted another cigarette and deliberated for a minute. Rigoletto might have been performed with lovelier voices than Madeline Trudeau's singing the role of Gilda, but never had I seen such a dazzling combination of voice, beauty, and emotional magnificence as tonight's performance by the raven-haired soprano. There was no exaggeration in the lines I'd just written. And my laudatory criticism was totally uninfluenced by the fact that I was very much in love with the little operatic star.

I got back to work. I was to meet Madeline at one o'clock. I didn't want to keep her waiting, even though I was supposed to pick her up at an after-the-opera party on Lake Shore Drive. There would be far too many other eager escorts waiting to step into my place if they got the chance. Madeline's loveliness was never lacking thronged male admiration.

This thought alone was enough to speed my efforts as I went about finishing up my copy. And precisely twenty minutes sooner than I had hoped, I'd finished my review and was stepping out of the opera building and hailing a cab.

When I turned in my copy at the offices of the Blade, Hendrick, my city editor, looked up at me sharply.

"Get any late dope on the disappearance of Frederick Loche?"

I looked at Hendrick bewilderedly. Frederick Loche, veteran in musical and operatic fields, was a well-known composer and the ex-conductor of a symphony orchestra. He was also director of the opera company which had performed Rigoletto less than three hours ago.

"Loche?" I blinked. "Disappeared?" I shook my head. "I hadn't heard a damned thing about it, Hendrick. What's the story?"

Hendrick threw up his hands.

"I'd certainly hate to run a news paper that depended on news from you music critics," he snorted. "You mean to tell me that you were covering tonight's performance and never had an inkling of the story that broke right under your nose?"

"Look," I was getting a little sore at his attitude. "I cover the opera, the music, the voices. That's my job. If an usher happened to stab a contralto on the middle of the stage, I'd see it. But as for covering an opera like a police beat, that's not my line."

Hendrick shrugged.

"Well whether you know about it or not, your pal Fredrick Loche is gone— missing. He was last seen about the middle of the performance. People backstage saw him go out for a breath of air. He never returned."

"Maybe he wasn't feeling too well. Perhaps he went home," I said. "Loche invariably has a case of jitters when it's opening night. He's not so young any more, you know."

"His apartment has been checked," Hendrick said, "and he didn't go there. He didn't even have his hat or coat with him when he left. They're still around."

I began to get a little worried.

"When did they realize he was gone too long?"

"When he didn't come back," Hendrick said with sarcastic patience.

"Perhaps he went right to his apartment, forgetting his hat and coat, picked up a coat there, and left again," I suggested.

"Don't ever," Hendrick said disgustedly, "try to get a job as a police reporter on this sheet, Lannister, you're too naive. Everything was checked, including the fact that he didn't return to his apartment since he left for the opera tonight at seven."

"Anyone see him when he stepped outside for some air?"

Hendrick nodded affirmatively.

"One of the property men. He saw a uniformed messenger come up to Loche when he was about ten yards away from the stage door and hand him a long package. He says Loche seemed surprised, and that the messenger beat it immediately."

"What happened then?" I asked.

"The property man had to get back in for a scene change. He didn't see anything after that."

I was worried more than before, now. But there was still the chance that Hendrick, ever seeking to blow up an incident into a five-hour headline, was making too much of this purported disappearance of Frederick Loche. But the old man was one of my closest friends. I owed him a lot. It was he who got me my first musical reporting job. And if there was anything to Hendrick's suspicions, I wanted to find out.

"Why don't you see what you can pick up on the story?" Hendrick asked. "You knew the old guy pretty well, didn't you?" He must have been reading my mind.

"That's just what I intend to do," I declared. I turned and started away.

"Give us a ring the minute you learn anything," Hendrick shouted after me. "Anything at all, understand?"

I CAUGHT a cab outside the office of the Blade. It was just a five-minute ride over to the Lakeshore Drive apartment where the after-opera party was being held, and where Madeline would be waiting for me, surrounded, I strongly suspected, by a convoy of admiring males.

I suppose I might have worried more about Fredrick Loche's supposed disappearance, if I hadn't been more than half-convinced that Hendrick, stuck for local news, was merely hoping to make a few columns to carry until the home editions came out. I had noticed that he hadn't played up the Loche disappearance in any of the first metropolitan editions as yet. He was too smart an editor to stick his neck out on the block unless it had been absolutely established that the old director had disappeared. Hendrick was just building a hunch around the circumstances which must have come to his attention by a semi-frantic tipoff from a reporter who'd been backstage when Loche turned missing.

But I knew Loche well enough to realize that a situation such as this, to him, was not particularly unusual. If he hadn't been the brilliant genius that he was, people would have tagged him as eccentric long ago. He really wasn't eccentric, however. His habits, like his great mind, differed vastly from the ordinary human pattern.

A butler let me into the twelve room suite on the Drive where a wealthy patron of the opera— I can't recall his name now— was entertaining for as varied a group of guests as you could imagine.

There was wealth there, much of it stuffy and dull, some of it clever. There was also talent, and charm, and intelligence gathered in that array. Champagne was being served by stripe- shirted caterers, and I'd no sooner removed my coat than I was taking a glass from a broad silver tray.

Several people had already nodded to me, smilingly calling my name, but I answered with the briefest of greetings, moving through the confusion of cigarette smoke, conversation, and laughter toward the largest drawing room of the place.

I caught sight of a group of black dinner jackets, formed in a circle almost two deep, and grinned to myself. Madeline was in the center of that circle, I wagered mentally.

She was. And it was several minutes before I could get her off by herself out onto the glass-enclosed terrace of the swank apartment.

"Finally," I said at last, taking her tiny hands in mine, "I can talk to the great soprano alone."

Madeline laughed, and it was like tinkling music, beautiful music. She was wearing a silvered gown that set off her raven- haired five feet and one inch of incredible loveliness like a lustrous jewel.

"Did you like me tonight, Tommy?" she asked.

Madeline's question was what you could expect from any star to a critic, and yet there was something else in her voice. Something honest and open and sincere.

I grinned, shaking my head from side to side.

"You'd never believe me," I said. "Read my review tomorrow. But," I added, "I'll apologize here and now for suddenly finding myself woefully short of adjectives. I didn't use enough of them. Few critics could have."

Madeline took her hands from mine and squeezed my arm lightly.

"You say wonderful things sometimes, Tommy. Aren't you afraid they'll go to my head eventually?"

I shook my head.

"I have an antidote if they ever do."

"What's that?" Madeline demanded.

"I'll marry you," I grinned. "No woman could ever remain conceited with a lout like Tom Lannister for a husband."

"You aren't as bad as all that," Madeline protested in mock horror. Then, expression jokingly judicial, she stepped back a pace.

"You have nice eyes," Madeline decided, putting a finger to her chin and pursuing her lovely red lips contemplatively. "They're gray, and clean, and somehow a person knows that their owner will be decent and honest."

"Thank you," I made a half-bow, like a symphony conductor.

"You're rather short, however," she went on.

"Five feet eight inches," I broke in. "And what right have you, my celebrated soprano, to speak of lack of height?"

"But you're sturdy," Madeline resumed the game. "Your shoulders are wide, and your hands are strong, and you walk with the assurance of a trained athlete."

"How flattering," I laughed. "This is fine, go right on. My college coach would be pleased to know he made a man of me."

Madeline shook her head. She sighed.

"Ahhh," she added in mock despair, "but look what football did to your features."

"Quarterbacks," I sighed ruefully, "always get the worst of the beating. Go ahead, I can take it."

"Your brows," she said, "are just a trifle beetled, bumpy. It's a wonder all those kicks on the head didn't jar your brain."

I made a gibbering face.

"Sometimes I think they did, haw!"

"I agree with that diagnosis sometimes myself," she went on. "But I can't ignore your nose. Adonis would never have lasted a minute with a nose like that."

"Adonis," I reminded her, "never tried to bring down Nagurski in an open field."

"But it isn't so bad," Madeline decided. "Just a trifle flattened at the bridge. And anyway your smile is nice. It's so white and even I'm sure you see your dentist three times a year instead of two."

"And now that I've been taken apart and put back together again," I declared, "what about you?"

"I am a small girl with a big salary and black hair," Madeline said quickly, "plus a terrible craving at the moment for a glass of champagne. Anything else you might add would never be believed."

I sighed disappointedly.

"Very well, discourage me just because I'm not tall and handsome."

"I despise handsome men," Madeline said. "They're all so dull."

"That's something in my favor then," I said. "And just for those kind words, spoken generally, I'll take your hint about the thirst for champagne and scout up a couple of drinks."

Madeline made a mock curtsy.

"Mistah Lannister, suh, youah sooo gallaant!"

"Just call me Rhett," I answered. "You know, Rhett Butler. Then I'll be gone with the wind."

"Offfoo!" Madeline made a face of sharp pain. "That was quite terrible. If there's one thing worse than a pun, it's a bad pun. Run for those drinks before I throw something!"

AS much as I hated to leave Madeline for even an instant, I found myself threading my way through the crowded drawing room toward the bar a minute later. Of course it took a little time. Things always take time when you're in a hurry. People had things to chat about as I passed, and other people wanted to shake hands. And when I finally reached the bar, it was just in time to see Geno Marelli, the very temperamental and exceedingly famous tenor, staggering drunkenly away from it.

I don't think he recognized me. He was muttering thickly under his breath, and his heavy, almost purple marceled hair was tumbled down over his forehead. His handsome, swarthy features were a mask of rage.

I called for a couple of champagnes, and stood there watching Marelli's back disappear amid the groups in the drawing room. Vaguely, I wondered what was eating him. His performance that night in Rigoletto had been dashingly brilliant— a fact which I hadn't omitted in my review— and so superbly done that I suspected he was definitely trying to outdo Madeline's magnificent work. Certainly he couldn't have been disgruntled over anything concerned with his work.

One of the musicians in the opera orchestra tapped me on the shoulder. His name was Bostwick— a round, dumpy, bald little man— and I'd known him several years.

"You'd better watch it, Lannister," he grinned. "The World's Greatest Tenor is muttering about getting your scalp."

"Geno Marelli?" I blinked in surprise.

Bostwick nodded.

"No less. The Great Voice seemed jealous of the fact that you were out on the veranda with Madeline. And he was also mumbling something about 'having it out' with Frederick Loche."

This time I looked at Bostwick sharply.

"What about Loche?" I demanded. "Has anyone located him since he left the opera house tonight?"

"Not yet. He's probably down on the lower level of the Michigan Avenue bridge, looking at the Chicago river wend by. Tricks like that aren't unusual for the old man."

I frowned.

"I suppose you're right," I said. "I hope so."

"I think Marelli was headed for the veranda," Bostwick said. "Maybe you'd better get back to Madeline. When Geno is nasty, he's poisonous."

I picked up the glasses of champagne.

"You're right," I nodded. "Thanks."

IT didn't bother me that a lot of the champagne spilled over the edges of the glasses as I hurried back through the crowded drawing room.

And when I stepped out onto the veranda it was deserted save for two people locked in furious embrace.

Those two people were Madeline Trudeau and Geno Marelli!

I dropped the glasses I held in either hand. Dropped the glasses and took three swift steps in their direction. Then I was yanking hard on Marelli's shoulder with my right hand, and swinging him around into a smashing hook delivered with my left. I put every last ounce of weight and sinew into that punch.

Marelli caught it flush on the chin.

I stood back, watching him drop like a newsreel run slow motion. He slid to his face on the veranda flagstones, directly between Madeline and me.

Madeline's face was white, terrified. Her mouth was half open as if she'd been trying to scream and no sounds came. The shoulder strap on her gown was half torn. And the marks of Marelli's paws on her white shoulders had left red marks.

She was breathing in quick gasps.

"You shouldn't have done that, Tommy," she said. "You should never have done that. He'll kill you for it He's killed other men before, and now he'll kill you!"

I looked at her in astonishment. Her voice was low, husky, shaking with terror.

2

IT was noon when I woke up the following morning in my bachelor apartment at the club. I wouldn't have wakened if it hadn't been for the constant ringing of my telephone beside the bed.

When I picked the instrument out of the cradle my vision and senses were still blurred from sleep. But the voice on the other end of the wire snapped me out of my fog immediately.

"Lannister!" it barked. "What in the hell have you been doing, eating opium?"

It belonged to Hendrick, that voice. Hendrick, my city editor.

"What's up?" I growled. "I'm in no mood for wise cracks."

"I don't suppose you've seen the extra editions of the Blade," he said. Hendrick would be lost without sarcasm.

"I went to bed at five. I never read the papers until I get up."

"Fredrick Loche has disappeared," Hendrick said. His voice underlined the "has."

"Are you certain?" I demanded. "Sometimes he roams for a day or so."

"I'm certain," Hendrick snapped. "So certain I want you to get right over to the apartment of Geno Marelli, the temperamental tenor, and accuse him of Loche's murder."

"My God," I gasped, sinking back weakly on the pillow. "Now who's been eating opium!" Then I said, "You're out of your mind. Have you found a body?"

"No," Hendrick began, "but—"

"Have the police found Loche's body?"

"Of course not," Hendrick snapped. "I'm playing a hunch. Loche has disappeared. I've reason to believe he's been murdered. He and Marelli had a terrific verbal tangle backstage before the curtain went up on the opera opening last night. Marelli threatened in front of five people to cut Loche's heart out. Now Loche can't be found."

"And so I'm supposed to trot over to Marelli's and accuse him of murdering Loche and doing away with the body, eh?"

Hendrick's voice came back excitedly.

"That's it. Good God, Lannister— don't you see what a helluva headline we'll have if we scoop everyone including the cops on that?"

"Sure," I said, "I can see the headline. Killer of director stabs music critic to death when confronted with guilt. Exclusive story in the Blade. Read all about it. Two cents a copy. Go to hell!"

I slammed down the receiver and lay back.

THE telephone was jangling again in another minute. I picked it up.

The voice squawking on the other end might have been an enraged Donald Duck, or it might have been my city editor Hendrick. Reason led me to assume it was the latter.

"When you finish ranting," I said calmly, "I'll be able to understand you."

Hendrick became intelligible. Hang up on him, would I? I was a lousy, blank, blank so-and-so, and my ancestry was lurid and rife with scarlet shame. Who did I think was paying me more than I was worth every week? Did I forget that I wasn't just working for the managing editor, and that the city editor could also give me orders which I'd damned well better follow out— or else?

A job was a job.

"All right," I said, when Hendrick was running the length of the field again. "All right. I'll bare my throat to his damned stiletto. I'll call you back as soon as I've seen him. I'll give you his reactions. But if he pulls a knife, or a gun, or even bites me in the ankle, I get a two-hundred dollar bonus, understand?"

"Listen," Hendrick screeched. "I got a nephew just outta high school. He can play a piano and write fairly intelligible English. He'd love your job as music critic."

"All right," I said. "All right. You can skip the bonus if that's the way you feel about it." I paused. "But about this talented nephew of yours," I added, "if he wants my job there's one other qualification he'll have to have."

"What's that?" Hendrick demanded.

"He'll have to be able to take orders from a screw-loose moron," I said. Then I hung up.

MOST of the opera celebrities were staying at the swankiest Loop hotels. But Geno Marelli preferred to live apart, and was quartered in a modest ten-room suite in the ritziest hotel on the north side of town.

I gave the cabbie the address of that hotel, when I caught a yellow just outside the door of my club. I'd picked up a copy of the Blade from the desk in the lobby on my way out, and now I settled back to scan Hendrick's lurid suppositions about the Fredrick Loche disappearance last night.

It yelped about a lot, with two-column cuts of Loche, Madeline, and other stars of the old man's opera company. It yelped about a lot, but it didn't say much. Hendrick had put out his neck, but not awfully far. He was no dummy, even if he did love to play hunches. The story made sensational reading, but when you put the paper down you couldn't remember exactly what it said. One of those yarns.

I gave my attention to the passing scenery on the Outer Drive. The morning was cold, but bright and sunny and brisk. An exhilarating morning, or I should say an exhilarating early afternoon, for it was about a quarter to one by now.

We pulled up in front of the north side hotel at exactly one.

I got Marelli's room number at the desk, and three minutes later I was pressing the buzzer at the door to his apartment. After what must have been about thirty seconds, the door opened and a head peered out. A swarthy, Latin-looking head.

"Is Geno Marelli in?" I asked.

The brown eyes in the Latin head regarded me dubiously. Then the fat lips moved.

"I am sorry, sir. Senor Marelli seems to have left the suite in my absence. He was not here when I returned. Do you wish to leave your name?"

I shook my head.

"Never mind," I declared.

The door closed and I went back to the middle of the hall and pressed the elevator button. On the way down, since the elevator was deserted, I asked the boy a question.

"Did the opera singer, Geno Marelli, leave his apartment yet?" I don't know what prompted me to ask that.

The elevator boy shook his bead.

"Not by this elevator, sir."

There were three other elevators, and when I stepped out into the hotel lobby again, I waited around until each of them came down. None of the elevator boys had taken Marelli downstairs. His suite was on the fifteenth floor. It was unlikely that he'd walked. Marelli was a lazy lout and he'd sooner have jumped.

I stepped into another elevator and went back up to Marelli's apartment again. This time when I pressed the buzzer and the Latin head stuck itself out of the door again, I pushed hard against it and found myself standing inside Marelli's apartment, confronting a spluttering valet who was babbling excitedly and indignantly in Italian.

"Are you going to get your boss out of bed and tell him he has a visitor, or am I going to wake him?" I demanded loudly, flicking a hand at my coat lapel.

OF course I had no badge under my lapel, but the gesture was so swift and significant that Marelli's valet seemed to get the idea I'd wanted him to.

"But Senor officer," he protested, "my master is not here— I swear it!"

I pushed past him, walking swiftly through the luxurious rooms. It took me four minutes to convince myself that the valet was telling the truth. Marelli wasn't around.

Then I went back to the living room. The valet had followed me, muttering bewilderedly in his native tongue. I turned on him.

"When you left, was he still here?"

The valet nodded excitedly.

"Yes, Senor officer. That was perhaps twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. I have been back only ten minutes."

"Then, at the most, you were only gone fifteen minutes, eh?"

The valet nodded.

"Yes, Senor."

I frowned.

"And he was here when you left?"

"Yes, Senor. He was sound asleep. He was feeling ill. He came in about four o'clock this morning. His eye was badly bruised and his jaw was swollen."

I hid a grin, rubbing the fist that had done that neat little job. Then the significance of what the valet had said hit me.

"You said he was asleep when you left?" I demanded.

"Yes, Senor. Soundly. It seemed strange to find him gone when I returned. He was never one to leave without breaking fast. In addition to that, his morning toilet generally consumed half an hour while he selected the apparel he would wear that day."

That sounded like Geno Marelli, all right. And it made everything increasingly puzzling.

I went back to Marelli's bedroom. The valet was following.

"Look through his closets and see if any of his wardrobe has been removed."

This took the valet several minutes. Then he shook his head bewilderedly.

"No, Senor. Nothing has been removed."

"Then he walked out in his purple pajamas," I said. "How very interesting."

I WENT to the rear of the apartment, opened the kitchen door that led out into a back hallway. There was a freight elevator door in the middle of the hallway. I pressed the button on it. A janitor in blue coveralls opened the doors and looked out at me when the elevator came up to our floors.

"Taking something down?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"You been operating this elevator all morning?"

He nodded affirmatively.

"Take any passengers down in it from this floor?"

He thought a minute.

"One," he said.

"Who?"

He shook his head.

"How should I know. He was just a messenger. He brought a long package up to this floor, told me to wait, rang the back doorbell, and give the package to Mr. Marelli, the opera fella. Marelli closed the door and went back inside. I remember he was sleepy and cross and in his pajamas. He looked like he'd been in a fight somewhere the night before. The messenger got back in the elevator and left. That's all.

"Say," and his voice took on a high querulous, suspicion, "why do you wanta know?"

"I'm running a contest," I said. "Put what you just said in fifty words, send it in to us with the top of your elevator, and who knows but what you'll be the winner of a thousand dollars a year for the rest of your life."

I went back into Marelli's apartment. The valet was still trailing wonderingly behind me.

I stood there in the kitchen, thinking out loud.

"A long package," I said. "And now he disappeared. Gone right in broad daylight. Lovely." I was frowning.

The valet disappeared and returned a moment later.

"There is no trace of such a package in the apartment, Senor," he said.

I snapped my fingers. I had one of those flashes of inspiration that are usually pictured in newspaper comics by a light bulb bursting above a character's head.

"That's it," I muttered. "Of course that's it! Loche was seen taking a package— a long package— from a messenger. Then, in the middle of a city of four million people he disappears completely. Both disappearances are positively alike!"

The valet looked at me uncomprehendingly.

"Where's the telephone?" I asked him. "I got a call to make!"

3

HENDRICKS sat still in his editorial throne long enough to listen to the entire story. This time I told him everything I knew— not all of it for print— including the fact that I'd bopped Marelli in the face the previous evening when I'd caught him making wild advances at Madeline.

"Well I'll be—" Hendricks exclaimed. "It's a cinch that those two disappearances are alike. Unless," and he slapped his palm down hard on the desk to emphasize his doubt, "Marelli really did away with Loche, and then got his own hide out of the way by faking this coincidental disappearance."

"I thought you said you'd checked Marelli's actions from seven o'clock until four a.m.," I said. "His time is accounted for straight through those hours, without a break. He couldn't have had the chance to remove Loche, let alone hide him."

"An accomplice, or two of them, couldda done the job for Marelli," Hendrick said. "That's easy enough. But even so, I've a new theory on this. And the new theory is that the two of them were spirited away and slain, or vice versa."

"Because they've disappeared," I said, "you got to make them dead." I shook my head despairingly. "You haven't a single fact to show that either one of them is dead. Take it easy on that angle. Let it go that they've disappeared until you're able to prove the rest of your theory."

"The trouble with you," Hendrick declared sympathetically, "is that you've got no imagination. You'll never be an honest-to-God newspaperman."

"Like you?" I asked.

"Like me."

"Thank God for that," I said. I left then, to get back to the club for a spot of lunch and perhaps a short nap. It was while I ate my lunch that I went over the scene that had occurred on the veranda of the Lakeshore Drive apartment the night before. In the light of Marelli's addition to this growing enigma, what happened there might have been important.

Hell, after those two disappearances, anything that happened might be important.

I recalled that after I'd slugged Marelli, he'd been unobtrusively removed from the scene to a bedroom where he came to and received treatment for his eye. At Madeline's request, I'd taken her home right after that.

My efforts to find out what she'd been so horribly afraid of when I'd knocked Marelli cold were unavailing. She wouldn't talk about it, and nothing I could say would persuade her to do so. She was stubborn, yet trying to give me to understand that she'd let me know whenever she felt it was safe to do so.

Even the warmth we'd shared during the brief period together on the veranda, seemed to have vanished in that cab ride to her apartment. I had the feeling that she was keeping me away from her mentally. Not as if she wanted to do so, but more as if she felt she had to— as funny as it sounds— for my sake.

And of course I recalled her words: "He's killed other men before, and now he'll kill you!"

THAT was incredibly strange. Aside from a more or less vague and mutual dislike for one another, Geno Marelli and I were scarcely more than acquaintances. Why should he want to kill me?

A punch in the jaw didn't seem to be motivation enough. His hot Latin blood, in a moment of drunken jealousy, might motivate him to knife a rival for Madeline's affections. But the cold light of reason would keep him from doing such a senseless thing once the rage flashed past him.

It was definitely a tough nut to crack. No matter how I went at it, there seemed to be no tip-of-the-fingers solution. I gave it up, then, resolving to get in touch with Madeline before the second performance at the opera this evening.

This last thought made me realize, in a flash, that if Geno Marelli wasn't found before evening, there'd be another tenor in the leading role. I'd never thought of it that way before.

But thinking of it from that angle produced no more than any other approach. So I left the remains of my luncheon no further ahead in the snarl. I decided to go upstairs for a quick nap.

Which proved to be a good idea, for when I entered my apartment the telephone was ringing. Hendrick was on the other end of the wire.

"Look," he said when I picked up the receiver, "I'm calling you about this because you know more about the opera crowd, the singers and all, than any man on our staff— but not because I value your opinion."

"I wish you'd let a man sleep. Just because you don't value his opinion is no reason to drive him to insomnia," I snapped. "What's up now?"

"There's an old maid in Marelli's hotel," Hendrick said, "who occupies an apartment across from him. She used to watch through her window, since he's been in town, for glimpses of him moving around the apartment. She's got a case of hero worship for all singers, especially handsome ones, I guess. Anyway, one of our smart reporters got into Marelli's apartment, saw that it faced one other apartment in the entire hotel, and took a chance that someone in the other apartment had been looking in on Marelli about the time he disappeared, see?"

"It sounds terribly involved," I yawned.

"Our reporter talks to this old maid, and she admits that she was just glancing casually across at his window— undoubtedly she was actually peeking— when she saw him in his blue pajamas about the time he disappeared."

This got a little more interesting.

"Go on," I said.

"Evidently Marelli had just gotten outta bed. He was rubbing his eyes and swaying a little as he walked through the drawing room— that's the room the old maid can see— and headed for the kitchen."

"To answer the back bell," I broke in excitedly. "Go ahead."

"WELL," Hendrick's voice resumed, "that must have been it. For he came back into the drawing room carrying a long package. He was opening it, tearing the wrapping away, while the old maid across from his apartment looked on." Hendrick's voice poised dramatically. "Guess what he pulled out of the package."

"Three complimentary tickets to the Mudville Choir Practice?" I asked.

"Smart guy, huh?" Hendrick snorted. "He pulled out a long bow, sort of a crystal bow."

"A bow?"

"Yeah, like the Indians used to use," Hendrick said. "You know, bow-and-arrow."

"Arrows, too?"

"No, just a bow. This funny looking crystal-like bow," Hendrick said impatiently. "Now here's what I want to ask you, was Marelli interested in archery or anything like that?"

"No," I said.

"Did he collect strange weapons?"

"Not to my knowledge," I answered. "Unless you can call blondes weapons."

"That's what I thought," Hendrick's voice declared. "The old maid told our reporter that Marelli was looking at it in complete astonishment. Then he shrugged, puzzledly, sort of, and turned and walked back to the bedroom, slowly, turning the bow around in his hands as if he was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with the damned thing."

Hendrick's voice had stopped talking.

"And then what?" I asked.

"Then he was in his bedroom and she couldn't see him any more," Hendrick said.

"That's a helluva note," I exclaimed. "He must have disappeared minutes after that. A crystal bow, eh? Have you seen it yet?"

"Seen it?" Hendrick's voice was disgusted. "It wasn't around the apartment anywhere. You didn't see it around when you were there, did you?"

"No," I admitted. "No, I didn't."

"If those two long packages that Marelli and Loche both received were identical, then Loche probably got a bow too," Hendrick said.

"Yes," I said sarcastically, "the chances are very strong, especially if they were, as you say, identical."

"So he wasn't interested in archery?" Hendrick asked again.

"No," I told him once more.

"Was Loche?"

"I could say almost positively that Loche wasn't either," I answered.

"Then it was probably unexpected and unfamiliar to Loche, too," Hendrick said.

"If it was a crystal bow that he got, yes," I agreed. "But supposing it wasn't."

"It was a bow, all right," Hendrick said, "and probably a crystal one. I just got a hunch."

"Just so long as your hunches don't keep me awake," I said, "it's all right with me."

"I'll wake you up again if it's necessary," Hendrick snapped.

"You didn't wake me up," I said. "I'm just getting down to sleep. Now I lay me—" I began lazily.

Hendrick said a nasty word, almost knocking my eardrum loose with the noise he made hanging up. I put the receiver into the cradle and sat down on the edge of my bed.

SOMETHING new had been added— a crystal bow.

And instead of serving to clarify the mystery, it had only filled in as an additionally tangling knot. For five or ten minutes I sat there on the edge of my bed, trying to turn back through the pages of my mind in an effort to recall anything pertaining to a crystal bow.

If there was anything there I was too tired to think of it. Finally I realized that a fresh brain could tackle the problem a little bit more successfully. And a nap would freshen my brain. I sank back, and was putting my head to the pillow with deep and luxurious satisfaction.

Brrrrriiiinnnnggg!

It was the damned telephone again. I clenched my teeth and tried to shut out the sound with my pillow. To hell with it. Let it ring itself out.

Brrrrriiiinnnnggg!

Hendrick, no doubt, with something inane to ask me. Probably the next thing he'd be asking was what I knew about the Indian Rope Trick. Let him look in the encyclopedia.

Brrrrriiiinnnnggg!

It was no go. My nerves weren't strong enough to stand a battle with that telephone. And even if my nerves held out for a short spell, my curiosity was bound to win out.

I took the receiver off the cradle.

"Hello, Tommy," said the voice on the other end of the wire. "I didn't rouse you from a sound sleep, did I?"

I didn't have to ask who was speaking. Madeline Trudeau was the only girl I knew who spoke like silver, tinkling bells.

"Madeline!" I didn't try to hide the surprised elation in my voice.

"I just wanted to thank you for what you did last night, Tommy," she said. "I know I must have acted strangely to you, and I'm sorry I was such a chatter-knees. I don't know what ever made me say what I did when you pried Geno away from me."

This was daylight. What had happened was done. Madeline had time to think it over, and now she wanted me to forget it all, just like that. But the terror that had been in her eyes and voice hadn't been synthetic. It had been hard, real. Listening to the bells tinkle in her voice now, however, it was hard to keep that in mind. She was the Madeline I'd talked to on the veranda before I went for the champagne.

"That's all right," I said. "And about the rescue scene, don't mention it. Any of the Rover Boys could have come through as nobly in the pinch as I did."

Madeline laughed. Maybe it was only my imagination that led me to believe that laugh wasn't as natural, as genuine, as it might have been.

"Seen the papers yet, Madeline?"

THERE was a silence. She knew I meant tire Fredrick Loche disappearance yarn in the Blade. Her voice was casual, too casual, when she answered.

"It's not true, is it, Tommy?"

"The suppositions, you mean?" I asked.

"Yes."

"No, I don't believe they're true. Hendrick, the city editor, draws heavily on his imagination in such stories. I'm pretty sure Loche is off somewhere, looking at paintings in an obscure gallery, or sunning himself conspicuously on the lawn of Lincoln Park. He's done things like that before."

"Yes, that's true. I'm glad to hear you think that, Tommy," Madeline said. She seemed vastly relieved, in spite of the casual reference to it at the start. Of course there were a lot of reasons why she might be vastly relieved. The first was that few people who were connected with music or opera didn't know and love old Fredrick Loche.

I was wondering if it would be smart to mention anything about the Marelli disappearance, or anything about the increasingly snarled mystery that was piling up.

"Just a moment, Tommy," Madeline said. "There's someone at the apartment door making an awful racket with the buzzer. The maid is out and I'll have to answer it." Her voice faded away.

I sat there waiting, still wondering if I should mention the Marelli mess. Perhaps a minute passed. Then her voice came through to me.

"Strange thing," she said conversationally. "That was a messenger delivering a long package addressed to me. I haven't opened it yet, but I'm terribly curious to see what's in it!"

4

TIME hung motionless as the significance of Madeline's words hit me.

Then a thousand wild premonitions raced crazily around in my mind. A long package. Loche and Marelli had both received packages of the same description before they'd mysteriously vanished. And now Madeline. This could be coincidence, of course, sheer coincidence. But there was an ominous hunch crawling along my spine. Too ominous.

"Madeline!" I barked. "For God's sake listen to me carefully, Madeline!"

I heard her gasp in surprise, start to say something. I cut in on her swiftly.

"That package you just received," I began.

There was a sudden click and a buzzing static in my ear. It was as if someone had cut in on the wire.

"Hello!" I shouted. "Madeline— do you hear me?"

A voice came lazily into my ear.

"So sorry, sir. I'm afraid I cut you off accidentally."

It was the voice of the switchboard operator in the lobby. I cursed steadily while I heard her fiddling with plugs and switches. Moments trickled by. Sweat stood out on my forehead. The switchboard operator's voice came in lazily once more. She spoke through a mouth full of chewing gum.

"What was the number you were calling, Mr. Lannister?"

I started to tell her. She cut me off again.

"That's right, sir. I almost forgot. The call was an incoming one. If you just hang up, I'm certain your party will call back in a minute or so."

I scorched the wires with my reply, concluding,

"And damn your vacant little blonde bean, get that number in a hurry!"

The operator's voice was pained.

"Yes, Mr. Lannister. After all, Mr. Lannister, mistakes—"

"Get that number!" I blazed.

I heard the connections being made again. Then there was a buzzing, loud, sharp, evenly spaced.

The operator's voice broke in again.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lannister. Your party seems to have a busy wire at the moment."

I slammed the telephone back into the cradle, cursing. In the interim between the time the fuzzy-headed, red-lipped, gum- chewing moron at the switchboard had messed up the connections in my talk with Madeline, someone else had probably called that apartment.

I stood up, lighting a cigarette. Madeline's apartment was about ten minutes by cab from the club. I had no idea of how long she'd be on the telephone with whoever had called her just now.

Grabbing my coat, I made for the door.

TWO minutes later the club doorman was hailing a cab for me. And when I jumped inside I barked Madeline's address to the driver. He threw the car into gear and I leaned forward anxiously shouting:

"Make it in five minutes and it'll be worth your while!"

The cabbie nodded, and immediately jammed hard on the accelerator. We whipped around a narrow corner and shot for Michigan Boulevard just in time to beat a red light. Madeline's apartment was on the south end of the Loop. And the cabbie handled his hack like a halfback swivel-hipping through a broken field toward a touchdown. He was in and out of traffic snarls like an elusive ghost. But we made time.

In exactly four minutes after we'd pulled away from the curb at my club, the taxi rolled in front of the Michigan Boulevard hotel at which Madeline was staying.

I threw the driver a five-dollar bill and rushed past the startled doorman into the lobby of the place. There was an elevator line at the other side of the lobby, and the operator was just about to shut the doors before going up.

My bellowed "Hold it!" must have startled the operator and all the sedate residents of the hostelry in the lobby out of many years growth. But he held it.

There were three floor stops made before Madeline's floor number was reached. And during the interval it took to make those stops and discharge passengers— scant seconds though each one was— I died a million deaths of anxiety and frantic impatience. But at last I was out of the elevator and dashing down the twenty-fifth floor hallway toward Madeline's suite.

I pushed hard on the buzzer of her door with one hand and knocked loudly and insistently with the other.

The door was opened almost immediately. Opened by the fat person of Frieda, Madeline's South African, coffee-colored personal maid.

Her face, through all that coffee-color tan, was ghastly white. Her thick lips were twitching, and her usual cheerful smile of greeting was replaced by a grimace of sheer terror. Her big brown eyes were wide and filled with horror and unmistakable hysteria.

"Mister Lannister!" she gasped. "Mister Lannister, oh I am glad, so glad, you are here!"

"Frieda," I blurted, moving past her into the apartment, "where is Miss Madeline?"

I was in the drawing room by now, looking frantically around. And two things were immediately apparent. Madeline was not there, and on the center of the living room floor there lay, amid several sheets of brown wrapping paper, a bow of curious crystal composition!

"Madeline!" I shouted, fighting off the ominous terror that assailed me. "Madeline— where are you?"

FRIEDA came up behind me. Now she was sobbing uncontrollably. I wheeled to face her, placing my hand on her shoulder in a gesture that was meant to steady her.

"Frieda," I demanded. "Frieda, for the love of God, tell me where your mistress is!"

Frieda made choking noises that should have been words. She was trying desperately to say something, but she was reverting to a mixture of South African that was unintelligible.

"Frieda!" I shouted, "for God's sake, tell me what this is all about!"

Her eyes rolled, glazed, then closed. She toppled toward me in a dead faint. I caught her as she fell, lifting her in my arms and carrying her over to a chair, cursing as I did so.

I left Frieda propped there in the chair and swiftly started through the other rooms in the house. There was no sign of Madeline in any of them. In the bathroom I ransacked the medicine cabinets, got a bottle of ammonia, a cold towel, and returned quickly to the drawing room.

It took several minutes to bring Frieda back to consciousness, and another two minutes before she was able to say anything. Her eyes fell on the curious crystal bow still lying in the center of the room, and she shuddered involuntarily.

"Where is Miss Madeline?" I demanded again. "What has happened?"

"She is gone," Frieda said faintly. "I saw her go."

"Where?" I demanded. "Where has she gone?"

Frieda began to shudder again, and her eyes grew wider, fixing themselves in horrified fascination at the crystal bow lying on the thick red rug.

"Where, Frieda?" I repeated. "Where has she gone?"

"The Lord would know," she shuddered, "I do not."

"But you said you saw her go!" I insisted. "For God's sake, girl, speak up!"

Frieda suddenly seemed to go into a trance. She said nothing, merely continued to stare in hypnotic fascination at the crystal bow. I shook her shoulder gently.

"Tell me what happened," I begged, "right from the beginning."

This seemed to be a better approach. It was as if she were able to talk of anything that was not immediately related to that crystal bow and whatever had happened to Madeline.

"I was out, Mr. Lannister," she whispered huskily. "I had just gone to make arrangements with her hairdresser. A matter of minutes, you understand, I was away."

She hesitated again for an instant.

"Go on," I demanded.

"When I was coming down the hallway, after just stepping from the elevator, I saw a messenger turning away from the door of the suite. I do not notice him as he passes me. I was just concerned that I was not there to receive whatever package he left."

Again a pause, and again the terrified glance at the crystal bow lying ominously on the rich red rug.

THIS time I didn't have to prompt her to go on, however, for she hesitated only a moment before resuming.

"When I was entering the apartment, coming through the drawing room, Madeline was just leaving the telephone. She smiled at me and asked for what time I have arranged her appointment with the hairdresser. She added that she had just been talking to you and that the connection was somehow interrupted. She said she expected that you will call back, Mr. Lannister, and would I please notify her when you do so."

Frieda paused again, this time keeping her eyes from the crystal bow. When she resumed, she seemed to be fighting for self control.

"Madeline then went into the drawing room where she had left the recently delivered package. I was in another room, and I could hear the sounds of paper wrappings being torn away as she opened it. My curiosity is strong, of course, Mr. Lannister, and I was about to enter the drawing room when the telephone rang. I went to answer it. The person on the other end of the wire said he was a reporter from a newspaper, that he had some questions he would like to ask Miss Madeline and would I call her to the telephone. I told him to wait, and put the telephone to the side while I went to the drawing room to inform my mistress that there was a call waiting."

The pause in the narrative of Frieda was longer now, and her fight against the impending terror in it was more difficult. There was nothing I could do but wait, while she closed her eyes and squeezed her nails hard into the flesh of her palms while her thick lips went flat against her white teeth.

"She was standing there in the drawing room," Frieda said huskily now. "The package she had already unwrapped. In her hands she had the bow of shining crystal—" She broke off, shaken by violent shudders. Then stumblingly she went on.

"She was holding it— so." Frieda made an illustrative gesture with her hands. "Holding it and gazing at it like, like, ohhh, how you say— a rabbit gazing at a snake!" Tears welled in Frieda's large brown eyes now. "There was a light shining from that damnable instrument, that weapon of crystal death. A light reflected in its shimmering string as the sunlight pouring through the window struck it. It was horrible!"

I looked swiftly at the crystal bow, then back at Frieda.

"Miss Madeline," she whispered huskily, "was staring at the bow as if she hadn't heard me come into the drawing room. And then something— I, I, could never describe it to you, caused me to cry out sharply, in fear. Miss Madeline had been just in the act of plucking the string on the bow, in fact she did so just as I cried out."

"And then?" I blurted, leaning anxiously forward.

"The bowstring, it sang zeeeeeiiiing, so, its vibrations ringing through the room like the cry of a wild beast. My scream must have come at the same moment, for I recall Miss Madeline turning, open-mouthed in astonishment, toward me. The shock of my cry caused her to drop the bow to the floor, as she vanished, disappeared completely, into thin air but a second later!"

5

FRIEDA had scarcely finished before she collapsed completely, sobbing wildly, shuddering brokenly, and all the while mumbling incoherently to herself in a combination of English and African dialect.

I was stunned, shocked, incredulous. The coffee-colored maid was out of her mind. She had to be. What she had described was more than humanly believable, more than humanly possible. There must have been something else, something that had brought about this temporary hallucination from which she suffered.

But no matter what the truth of the matter happened to be, one fact remained. Parts of her tale were indisputable; and other parts fitted into perfect coincidence with what had happened to Frederick Loche and Geno Marelli. The facts that fitted were two. Madeline had received the mysterious crystal bow. For it was lying before me on the rich red rug of the drawing room that very moment. Secondly, Madeline was gone.

I stood up, then, lifting Frieda in my arms like a child. I carried her over to the divan, placed her there, then went to a telephone and called the house physician of the hotel. The poor girl was more than merely distraught. She needed a doctor and a sedative badly. Then, perhaps, after she had rested, I would be able to obtain more coherent information from her.

When I returned from the telephone, Frieda was lying on the couch in a dazed, almost uncomprehending state. Her eyes stared dully almost glassily, at the ceiling. Her body was limp from utter nervous exhaustion. She was breathing heavily, like a person sleeping through an unpleasant dream. I didn't try to talk to her.

Then, for no reason I was sure of at the moment, I picked up the mysterious crystal bow and the wrappings that had covered it. I carried the bow and the wrappings to the kitchen where I disposed of the latter in the incinerator.

I stood there for several minutes, then, examining the crystal bow.

It was a strange, weirdly constructed weapon, fashioned— as I stated before— of a smooth, translucent, crystal substance that felt as soft as silk to the touch of my fingers. The center section of it was flanged slightly, yet rather narrow, while the sections on either end of the instrument were of wider flanges. It had about it the style of an ancient Mongol, or perhaps Persian, design. The bowstring, stretched tightly from end to end, was a thin strand of what seemed to be a solid silver thread.

I was turning the weapon around in my hands, examining it with more than curiosity, when the buzzer to the front door of the apartment sounded sharply several times.

There was a cupboard on my left, and I opened it hastily. The bow would just fit in there— it was perhaps five feet long— I found as I hastily placed it on a shelf. I still wasn't certain what prompted me to conceal it, or what had prompted me to destroy the wrappings moments before.

WHEN I went to the door the house physician, carrying the ever present black bag, was standing there impatiently. He was a little man, old, with thinning gray hair and pince-nez glasses.

"In there," I said, pointing toward the divan where Frieda lay in the drawing room. "Miss Trudeau's maid has had a severe shock. I arrived here a few moments ago to find her practically incoherent. I think she'll need a sedative."

The doctor looked at me a moment curiously.

"Where is Miss Trudeau?" he asked.

"She's out," I said. "I expect her back shortly." Again I knew that I was concealing information, evidence of this mystery. And again I wasn't certain what prompted me to do so.

"And you are...?" the doctor asked.

"I am Thomas Lannister," I said. "A friend of Miss Trudeau's. I'm waiting for her."

"Oh yes," the Doctor said. "Music critic chap from the Blade, eh?"

He went into the drawing room, then, and I went back into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette. For the next several minutes I paced back and forth, taking deep draughts from my cigarette and trying to find some way to pierce the cloud of mystery and foreboding terror that lurked around the strange circumstances of the past twenty hours.

My anxiety for the safety of Madeline was foremost in my thoughts, of course, and it was only the almost obvious connection between her disappearance and that of Loche and Marelli that kept me returning to the circumstances of those other two mysteries. I was vaguely aware that— whatever was behind all this— the three occurrences were definitely linked to one another.

But every idea I had met inevitably against a stone wall in the blind alley of deduction. And before I knew it the doctor appeared in the kitchen.

"I would like you to help me move Miss Trudeau's maid to her bedroom," he said crisply. "You were right in presuming that she's had a severe shock of some sort. I gave her a hypo. She should sleep for five or six hours. After that time I'll be in to see her again."

I nodded vaguely, and went with the little medico back to the drawing room. There we both lifted Frieda gently from the divan and carried her into her bedroom. I found a heavy quilt comforter and placed it over her, while the doctor arranged the pillow beneath her head.

"I'll be back about the time she should be waking," he said.

"Thank you," I told him. "If you should be needed sooner I'll have Miss Trudeau call you."

The doctor left, then, and I closed the door of Frieda's room behind me and started back to the kitchen.

IT was while I was moving through the small hallway leading to the kitchen that I passed the telephone table there. There was a loud, static buzzing issuing from the receiving end of the telephone, and I saw instantly that Frieda had left it out of the cradle when she'd gone to call Madeline in the drawing room. After what had happened then she had quite naturally forgotten all about it, and left it as it was.

I stopped to put the telephone back into the cradle, realizing as I did so that here was the explanation for Madeline's line having been busy for so long. Obviously, right after my connection with her had been broken, the reporter from the newspaper Frieda'd mentioned had called. Frieda had then left the telephone momentarily to call Madeline and had never returned to it, thus leaving the line open and busy.

And quite suddenly another thought occurred to me. A reporter had been on the other end of the wire. And unless I was very much mistaken that reporter had probably been calling on Hendrick's advice from the offices of the Blade. With the wire open, and with the chap waiting for Madeline to answer him, he'd have been able to hear Frieda's sharp cry, or scream, and the ensuing commotion that followed when I arrived at the apartment.

Obviously, then, unless the staff of the Blade had lost its nose for news completely, a reporter would soon be over here to see what was going on. I hadn't figured on that. I hadn't figured on that any more than I'd figured on calling Hendrick to tip him off on this last disappearance. What the hell, newspaperman or not, this last occurrence was something for me and me alone to handle. And until I found out just what was what, Madeline's name wasn't going to be dragged across the front pages of Hendrick's Blade. Even if I hadn't been in love with the girl, I'd have thought too much of her for that.

I tried to calculate approximately how long it had been since the reporter from the Blade had called and gotten suspicious of his reception on the telephone. Fifteen minutes, perhaps. Maybe twenty. But at the outside, twenty minutes would just about give him time to be arriving here now.

Still debating mentally about the advisability of being on hand when the reporter from the Blade arrived, I went back into the kitchen. I took the crystal bow from the long cupboard in which I had concealed it, and again the very weirdness of its design, its appearance, reached out for my fascinated inspection.

There was an exit to a rear hallway from the kitchen. It would lead, I knew, to a freight elevator, and flights of fireproof stairs. If I wanted to leave, I'd better do so now, before Hendrick's snoop would arrive on the scene.

I thought for a moment of waiting him out, letting him sound the buzzer until his finger wore off. After all, aside from Frieda— who was now definitely "out" for the next few hours.— I was the only one present. If I didn't let him in, he wouldn't get in.

False reasoning, of course, and I realized it an instant later. No answer from this apartment would only further arouse the newshawk's suspicions. He'd go to a bell captain, or a day manager, and under the guise of grave concern, get them to force an entry to the apartment.

And yet I couldn't walk out now, leaving Frieda holding the bag on the entire ghastly mystery. It wouldn't be fair, especially since she was on the verge of a complete breakdown. And then, if she had had wild hallucinations, Madeline might very well return to the apartment.

faith in the last presumption, however, was growing weaker with every passing moment. For something in the back of my subconscious was busily weaving an inner conviction that possibly Frieda's story of the disappearance into thin air was actual fact. My mind knew better, of course. That is, my active, thinking conscious mind knew better. But deep at the core of the soul of every man there lies a hidden, primitive, unrecognized factor that psychologists call sixth sense and gamblers term a hunch. And that hidden factor that sorts all unknown factors and arrives at an unspoken conclusion was pushing my mind eerily toward the conviction that there was more than hallucination and hysteria to Frieda's terrified account of what had happened.

And if what she had described had actually occurred—

I lingered over the implications of this thought an instant, turning it around in my mind as I turned the strange crystal bow unthinkingly in my hands.

Madeline had been in the act of plucking the bowstring when Frieda— strangely set to terror by the very sight of the weapon and the consuming fascination of Madeline's regard for it— had cried forth. Simultaneously with Madeline's plucking of the bowstring, Frieda's cry had rent the air.

Obviously, it had been the cry of horror that had startled Madeline into releasing her grasp on the crystal bow. Perhaps, too, it was her reaction to the weird sound set up by the plucking of the bowstring.

I recalled that Geno Marelli, although he had been seen with the bow in his hands minutes before his disappearance, had not left it behind him when he vanished. As for Frederick Loche, I could assume that he too had been given the package containing the bow. And if he had left it behind him it hadn't been found.

Could this bow in my hands, this weird crystal weapon, be the same one that was delivered to Loche, Marelli, and Madeline in turn?

And was it an actual instrument involved in the disappearances of the three, or just a symbol, an indication of what was to happen to them?

Evidence pointed toward its being the former. And yet, aside from the somewhat unique design of the weapon, it appeared to have no potential power. The bowstring was silver. That in itself was, of course, exceedingly strange. The crystal substance of which the actual strangely shaped staff of the bow was made seemed to be nothing more than glass. Unusually well processed glass, of course, but still nothing more mysterious than glass. So the very elements from which the bow had been constructed were not in themselves unfamiliar.

And yet the strange combination of the silver and glass in a bow of such weird design could, purposely perhaps, be a catalyst that gave an entirely foreign result.

I HAD continued to turn the weapon around in my hands as I pondered these confusing mazes of speculation, and suddenly I was aware that my right hand seemed subconsciously itching toward the silver bowstring. I shifted the stock of the bow into my left hand, held it up half as an archer might, reaching out the fingers of my right hand to pluck the silver bowstring.

The impulse to follow through my gesture became at once almost unhumanly overpowering. And it was an instinct born of something stronger and deeper than natural reflex action. It was almost as if I had received a command from some mind stronger than my own. An almost irresistible command to place my fingers around that silver bowstring, draw it back, and release it.

My fingers reached forward, and I felt an inexplicable sensation of giddying weakness, chilling helplessness.

As if from a great distance, an evenly spaced ringing came to my ears. Vaguely, I was aware that it was the telephone in the hallway of the apartment.

The ringing continued, still as if from a distance, while I stood there posed like a futile archer without an arrow, my hand reaching for the silver bowstring.

I was conscious of that fact that every instinct seemed to tell me to answer that telephone. I was aware, also, that whoever was on that wire might have some connection with Madeline's disappearance.

It is impossible to describe the sensations that held me frozen in the same position while the telephone kept ringing. It was just as if— as I said before— some force, some power, some mind stronger than the resistance I could offer, was fighting back my natural reactions to break away from the overpowering command that urged me to pluck that bowstring.

I felt as if I were standing off at a distance, watching myself, witnessing my struggle to break the grip of that steel band of fascinating hypnosis. Watching the cold sweat on my forehead, the shaky uncertainty of my knees. Watching myself succumb to a terrifying power that was crushing my very instinct, my will itself in an ever closing fist of iron.

It was the sound of the telephone that gave me my last grasp on the straws of reality. It was something to cling to desperately, frantically, while I fought to keep from being drawn off into a wild, fearsome sea of black, unknown forces.

Then the telephone stopped! My grip was gone. My hand inched closer and closer to the bowstring. My fingers circled around it. My arm bent slightly, and I drew the bowstring back.

There was no stopping the irresistible compulsion to release the string. My fingers opened, my mind an agony of revulsion. The string twanged...

6

I WAS conscious, instants later, that every last material fibre of my being seemed engulfed in an overwhelming explosion of blinding electrical force.

Vaguely, in the chaos of sound and concussion that swept me into blackness, I could hear a strange, eerie zziinnng that I suspected dimly to be caused by the vibration of the bowstring I'd released.

The sound grew louder, louder, like circles spreading in a pool of water into which a pebble has been dropped. The blackness became a suffocating mantle which I was no longer able to thrust from my head and shoulders. The ringing of the explosion was still in my ears, shutting out further sensation as the blackness did the light. My right hand was clenched fast to the center of the crystal bow, fingers numb. And then I knew no more...

ETERNITY might have passed unnoticed in the interval before I opened my eyes again. I know that I had no sensation that time had passed. No realization, immediately, of what had happened.

I was clutching hard to an object, like a straw in a turbulent sea. Gradually the bright white lights all around me were coming into clearer focus. My head was aching badly, and my body tingled weirdly. I was sprawled on a hard, warm, smooth floor. The crystal bow was still clenched in my right hand— the straw in the sea of dizziness.

And quite suddenly, then, my consciousness returned fully. I had plucked the silver bowstring. I had been standing in Madeline's apartment, and then—

Dazedly, I raised myself on my fore-arms. But this place in which I now found myself was— was certainly not Madeline's apartment! It was a huge, high domed room of tremendous proportions. It was fully a mile in length, a quarter of a mile high. It was white and crystalline, and utterly bare of anything save the walls and the floor and the vast ceiling!

And the source of strong white light that made me blink and peer dazedly at what I saw was nowhere visible.

Instinctively, my heart began to pound in the ominous excitement of the unknown. My mouth was suddenly dry, and I ran my tongue across my lips tentatively, climbing to my feet.

There was no sound in this vast room save the sound of my own labored breathing. There was no sign of life about me, anywhere. The floor, the walls, the incredibly distant ceiling— all these were signs of life if you like. Signs, at any rate, of human activity, human ingenuity and construction prowess, but not of human presence.

And now I realized that the bow was still in my hand. I gaped at it foolishly, as if I'd never seen it before.

I WAITED there, for what I don't know. Waited there, while the sound of my own breathing came softly to me as if in echo thrown down from that vast white ceiling. The excited beating of my heart refused to still.

Some of the shakiness had left my limbs. The tingling in my body had stopped. My temples throbbed with aching monotony.

Something instinctive, some stray fragment of knowledge, had been at the back of my mind from the instant I'd opened my eyes in this incredible room. And now I realized what it was. Everything around me— the floor, the walls, the ceiling, was constructed of precisely the same crystal substances as the mysterious bow I held in my hand!

I was perhaps a dozen yards from the wall on my right, and I moved over to it, running my hand along the almost silky surface of it. There was about it the feeling of something akin to vibrancy. It seemed somehow alive to my touch. A ridiculous idea, of course. But nevertheless I took my hand from it swiftly.

My brain, all this time, had been working with increasing speed as I tried to sort the strange series of events that had led me to this weird room under such strange circumstances.

Knowledge as to precisely where I was, of course, was lacking. As far as I knew this could be Siam or Salt Lake. A week could have passed since I was in Madeline's apartment, or a month, or an hour. I had absolutely no idea of the time element.

How I had gotten here was something else as yet unfathomable. The forces that had brought me here were also beyond my ken. I recalled the swimming blackness that had engulfed me almost at the instant that I plucked the silver bowstring.

Apparently, shortly after my loss of consciousness, a person or persons had delivered me to where I now found myself. That much seemed evident— except for the fact that the person or persons seemed nowhere about.

This had happened to Madeline. I knew that much. She had then disappeared. Undoubtedly it had happened, too, to Marelli. Loche, also, had evidently undergone the same experience. The bow, the terrifying compulsion to draw the silver bowstring, the exploding blackness— and oblivion.

I wondered, suddenly, if they, too, had been brought to this vast and incomprehensible room of crystal and white light. And then I wondered how they had vanished. Perhaps by now I was also on the list of those who had "vanished." I cursed the wave of darkness that had deadened my senses and thus prevented my forming the haziest notion of how I had been brought here.

If the pattern were not to be broken— that is the pattern as I had imagined it until now— I was undoubtedly standing in a room in which Loche, and Marelli, and Madeline had stood before me.

But there was no trace of others having been here before. And the maddening, vast silence of my surroundings seemed to mock my effort to pierce their mystery.

THERE was a small door at the far end of this room, and now I started for it. For some reason of which I was unaware at the moment, I still carried the crystal bow.

My footsteps, strangely enough, made no sound in the vast hall. And yet my breathing continued to echo softly back to my ears. As I moved on doggedly toward the door, a cold sweat suddenly beaded my forehead and at the same instant I had the sensation that eyes were watching me from some invisible vantage point.

Several times I stopped, looked to the right and left and behind me. But there was still no sign of human presence. I felt those eyes more strongly after each such instance.

The door was not far away now, perhaps several hundred yards, and I found myself moving faster, as if trying to evade some unseen forces following behind me in that naked hall.

I could make out the general structural detail of the door more clearly now. It, too, was of crystal substance. It seemed to have no knobs or grasping points, but otherwise resembled a standard door in size and appearance.

The distance left to the door was now less than a hundred yards. I was wondering, of course, what lay beyond it. Wondering, when it opened quite swiftly, unexpectedly.

I stopped, my fist tightening around the bow in my right hand. A man stood outlined in the door frame. He was of medium height, with unusually wide shoulders, unusually thick arms, extraordinarily stocky legs. These physical characteristics were easily discernible, since he was attired in a tight-fitting costume of a grayish leather tunic top, and ankle-length breeches of the same leather and tightness.

He was staring at me— not hostilely, not cordially. He had gray eyes that seemed utterly devoid of any capacity for emotion. His face was round, rugged, and struck me as being a remarkable composite of all the peasant stock features of all races. There was no flicker of intelligence in the muscles of that face. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

He had paused there momentarily in the doorway, staring at me. Yet I swear there was not even a trace of appraisal in that stare. There was nothing in his look that could be classified as human or unhuman. Yet, physically, this person was undoubtedly human. And now he started toward me.

I had been frozen, rooted by the shock of his sudden, startling entrance. Now I found voice.

"Who are you?" I demanded shakily. "Who are you, and what is this place?"

THE man in the grayish leather tunic continued to advance toward me. His facial muscular reaction to my words were unchanged, unblinking. He continued toward me. Instinctively I stepped back, although there seemed to be nothing you could interpret as menace in his advance.

"What is this all about?" I demanded hoarsely. This time there was a definite crack in my voice.

The creature in gray moved closer, less than five yards away now. His eyes were still fixed on mine, unwinkingly, unemotionally. I could read nothing in those impassive features.

But there was one positive indication in his advance that belied his outward lack of emotional display. The tight breeches he wore were snug enough to reveal the fact that his thigh muscles were bunching into readiness for swift action. I saw this the instant my eyes flicked to his legs. An old backfield trick, that leg watching. With it I'd been able to elude numerous would- be tacklers on the college gridirons in my student days. The very stance of a man advancing on you betrays his intentions.

This time I backed no further. I stood there waiting, watching on the balls of my feet, catching my timing from the rhythm of this fellow's stride.

He was four feet from me when I dove headlong at his muscular legs, pitching the crystal bow sideward as I did so.

I felt the solid crunch as my right shoulder drove into his thighs. Then my feet were stabbing the smooth floor, driving hard, picking up momentum as my arms wrapped around the back of his legs. It was close to a perfect tackle, and my adversary hadn't expected it.

We spilled to the floor an instant later as I jerked his legs up from under. I was on top, and my palm had come up against his forehead, slamming his head back onto the floor, but hard, as we hit. The solid clack of skull hitting floor surface was grimly, swiftly satisfying. Then his legs went limp. He was out cold.

I stood up quickly, untangling myself from the inert lump of emotionless humanity that lay at my feet.

Stood up to see the man I had just knocked unconscious coming through the door at me once more!

I stepped back in amazement, then looked again at the figure lying at my feet. No— the creature coming through the door was not the same chap who lay at my feet. Not the same chap at all— merely his twin!

The same medium height, the same unusually wide shoulder, unusually thick arms, incredibly stocky legs, and the same grayish leather tunic top and breeches of the same material. The facial similarity was also identical to the fellow lying at my feet. Even to the lack of emotion stamped on the newcomer!

If two people were ever stamped from the same mold, they were the man who lay at my feet and the other who was now advancing toward me from the door!

And the second chap seemed not to notice his counterpart lying unconscious at my feet. The gaze he had fixed on me was identical to the gaze the other had directed at me when he'd first entered. No curiosity, no hostility, no friendliness— absolutely no emotional reaction of any sort.

Except the same bunching, tightening, of the thigh muscles to indicate that he possessed the same intent as his predecessor.

THIS time I didn't wait. Perhaps I'd forgotten that timing was everything. Or perhaps my easy victory over his counterpart had made me too confident. I just drove in, bent low, head down, arms swinging like sledges at this second adversary. The mistake was mine, I knew it the instant my first punch had flattened my knuckles against the solid wall of granite-like muscle that should have been his solar plexus.

And then an open-handed swipe from a hard palm against the side of my head sent the world spinning and my knees buckling. I recall that I wondered foggily why my head hadn't parted company with the rest of my body after such a tremendous wallop. And I remember, too, that I kept throwing punches into the incredible muscle-armor of this new adversary. And then there was another solid, even more terrific open-palmed swipe, thrown down this time, down on the base of my skull. A sledge couldn't have done the job more neatly. I felt the floodgates of my will open wide as my knees turned to water and refused to support me any longer. A myriad of stardust whirled giddily around against a rich purple backdrop of utter darkness.

I felt as if were falling through a million miles of space. Falling— while an incredible number of faces, all of them exactly alike, all of them the same as my adversary's, peered unemotionally down at me from a million miles above...

7

THERE was an immediate sense of luxurious comfort in my every muscle when I opened my eyes again.

I felt as buoyant and refreshed as a man who has slept fifteen hours with an easy conscience. Under me there was a mattress of some sort of down which I suspected to have been gathered from the wings of angels. Covering my body were silken sheets, and beneath my head a silken pillow of the same angel-down.

There was no ache in my head, no uneasy sensations in my limbs or stomach. I had the sensation of never having felt better in years. My waking had been caused by nothing of which I was immediately conscious. And now there was no foggy, fuzzy aftermath of sleep to cloud my mind. The first thing I remembered distinctly, almost instantly, on waking was my recent unsuccessful struggle with the emotionless humans in the hall of crystal.

I felt the side and back of my head in instinctive wonder. It should have been throbbing horribly. But as I said before, physically I was utterly refurbished, completely atuned. And now, sitting up in my luxurious bed, I turned my attention to my new and strange surroundings.

The room in which I found myself was also crystal. This time, however, I was in much smaller quarters. Quarters not much larger than a double bedroom. The bed in which I was lying was a huge affair, a dozen feet long and some six feet wide. On the crystal that was the floor of my strange room there were scattered rugs of richly woven silk, thick and shimmering in the indirect lighting that seemed to come from the crystal walls.

There were doors at either end of my chamber. Doors similar to the one I'd seen in the great hall. There were chairs, several thick tables of a rich, dark wood I couldn't recognize, and a lounge. And spread out carefully on the lounge was a complete set of clothing.

I realized, then, that I was wearing silken pajamas. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to find an explanation for all this. It was no use. Moments, or hours, before I had been attacked by strange men in gray tunics. Vigorously, forcefully attacked. And yet I now lay comfortably in the midst of utterly strange but exceedingly comfortable surroundings.

There was no doubt that I was still in the precincts to which the experience with the silver bowstring had taken me. But where I was, or how I had arrived here, was still an enigma. And it was while I was still groping with this baffling maze of weird circumstances, that the music began.

IT WAS faint at first, so faint that only subtly did I begin to realize its presence. Strange music, coming apparently from nowhere. Music of perfect, utterly precise arrangement. Music that was undeniably mechanically exquisite. Every note, every bar, in mechanically gem-like sequence.

I sat on the edge of my strange bed and listened, frowning. As perfect as it was, as mechanically flawless, the music was utterly devoid of emotion. Just as lacking in emotion as the faces of the two assailants in the great crystal hall.

I shuddered involuntarily. The very iciness in the measured music that filled the room was somehow terrible.

And then while I dressed, donning the clothes that had been left for me on the lounge, the music continued. The clothes that had been left for me were of a silken material, soft, rich. There was a coat that was cut as a tunic, trousers cut almost as my own had been. All of the apparel, however, was alien, strange, different to the most minute details from garments I had seen before. But they fitted as perfectly as if they had been tailored to my measure.

By the time I had finished dressing, the music had stopped. I stood there for a moment by the lounge, debating as to what should by my next move. Strangely enough, I had the feeling of comfortable unhurried assurance that a house guest in familiar surroundings might have had. Perhaps this was due to the fact that everything seemed to have been ready for my wakening, and that the room in which I found myself seemed to have been prepared especially for me.

I moved over to the door on the right of my room. It opened easily, soundlessly, to my pressure. I stepped out into a hallway. By now I wasn't surprised to find that the walls, ceiling, and flooring of the hallway was also made of the crystal substance.

Again I had the impression that hidden eyes were watching my movements. I looked to the right and left. The hallway was less than twenty yards long, and on either end were other doors. No one was visible.

I started toward the door at the right end of the hallway. Now I felt even more certain I was being watched.

When I reached this second door I hesitated an instant before pressing my hand against the crystal panel. And in that second, a voice from the other side of the door said:

"You will please enter, Lannister."

I WAS caught off guard. My jaw fell open. My eyes widened.

"You will please enter, Lannister," the words came again from the other side of the door. The voice that spoke them was deep, rich, and yet the words seemed totally without emotion.

I caught my breath, clamped my jaws hard, and pushed against the door. And as it opened, I had a split-second photographic glimpse of the speaker and the room in which he presided.

He was a rather tall man, black-haired and ruggedly handsome. He wore a tunic similar to mine, except for the fact that it seemed to have military designations on the coat. He was standing beside a wide desk in what appeared to be a combination study and laboratory. A small room, richly carpeted in thick silk, luxuriously furnished in every detail.

The desk beside which he stood faced a huge window which extended from the ceiling and from wall to wall. It was in itself an entire wall. Strong sunshine flooded its unsectioned surface, filling the room, outlining the figure of the man who stood beside the desk. The black-haired, tunicked fellow smiled briefly at my confusion.

"Do step in, Lannister," he said in his deep rich voice. "I see that you are, ah, more or less emotionally disturbed by all that has happened to you in the hours that passed."

Mechanically, my eyes still moving from object to object in the room, I obeyed.

"I am Grael," said the man beside the desk. He still stood there motionless, as if those three words were explanation sufficient in themselves.

"Whoever you are," I answered, "perhaps you can tell me where I am and what has happened." I didn't bother to keep the hostility from my voice.

The man called Grael smiled briefly.

"That in due time," he said. "It seems that it should be sufficient that you are safe and unharmed." There was no menace in his voice, for there was no emotional register to it.

"What about the others?" I demanded. "What about Loche, and the girl, and Marelli? Are they here?"

Grael nodded.

"You will see them presently, Lannister." He paused an instant. "They, too, are safe and unharmed."

I noticed his eyes, then. Pale eyes, a light gray green. They, too, showed no emotion.

"You slept well, I trust?" Grael asked.

"Too well," I snapped. My nerves were fraying. "What is this all about? Where in the hell am I? Where is Madeline Trudeau? What did you do to all of us?"

"You are very inquisitive," Grael observed. "It is odd to see emotion displayed to such a degree. Interesting. Like browsing through an ancient document."

I wasn't getting this. I wasn't getting any of it. I didn't like it. And there was something about the person who called himself Grael that I didn't like. Something other than the fact that he seemed to be the one with the key to this bewildering situation.

Now Grael half turned, waving briefly with his hand to the huge window behind his back.

"Step over here, Lannister. Step over here and satisfy your insatiable curiosity if you must."

I FOUND myself moving over to the window. Grael had stepped from the desk to move beside me. Stupidly, I stared down at the scene revealed beneath that window.

A city lay sprawled below us. An incredible city. A city that stretched on and on, as far as my eyes could see. Vast, unbelievably modern. A metropolis of towers and turrets, and roads that were layer on layer around the spiraling structures they circled. A city of magnificent design, of endless architectural perfection.

A city made entirely of crystal!

I stood there dumbly, staring in mute fascination at the marvels that spread beneath that window. I don't know how long it was before Grael broke the silence.

"Your reactions are the same as the others displayed," he said calmly. "And I do not wonder."

"But this—" I stammered, waving my hand at the scene below us.

"Is perfection," Grael finished. "Absolute perfection. The result of centuries of toil toward just this goal."

"But this is not—" I started to protest.

"Not possible?" Grael broke in again. "It has been accomplished, but it is not possible? Not in your world, Lannister. Not in your world, of course."

"My world?" I blurted. "You—"

Grael interrupted once more.

"Your world, Lannister. The world you left in the past."

The words seemed to echo and reecho in my mind. I couldn't grasp their significance. They were impossible words, unbelievable words, and meant nothing that was real, nothing that was—

"You are not in your own world any longer, Lannister," Grael's deep rich voice was speaking again. "You have been taken through time, into what for you is a thousand years in the future."

I tore my eyes from the scene below us. I wheeled to face this person who called himself Grael. I started to speak.

"You are an intelligent man, Lannister," Grael said quietly. "You are more intelligent than the mass mind of your era. The others were more intelligent also. Think, Lannister. Consider my words. Gaze below you. Remember what has happened. You have no alternative but to believe what I have told you. Use your intelligence."

I stood there with my hand pressed to my face, as if trying to hide the incredible truth from the eyes of my mind.

Sanity screamed that I deny this. Reason, coldly, irrevocably made me know that somehow this was true. A thousand years— a thousand years beyond my own time era!

Finally then, I looked up at Grael.

"Why," I said huskily, "why in God's name did you bring us here?"

GRAEL moved away from the window, took a seat behind his desk.

He waved me to another chair on the opposite side of it.

"The others, Loche, Marelli, and Madeline Trudeau," he said calmly, "were brought here. I wanted them."

"The bow," I said, "that crystal bow was the instrument that—"

Grael cut in.

"That served as the vibrational impetus to hurl them from their time era into this. Yes, that is true. That was the manner in which I summoned them. You, however, are here quite by chance, by accident, Lannister."

"That doesn't made a great deal of difference now," I said quietly. "How I got here is unimportant. Why did you want Loche and Marelli and the girl?"

Grael smiled briefly. As I expected, there was no emotion in the smile. It, too, was mechanical. Yet it was ominous.

"I don't see why I should trouble myself with an answer to that," Grael said. "I am merely stressing the point that your arrival here was somewhat unforeseen, Lannister. I really don't know what I'm going to do with you. If Madeline Trudeau hadn't dropped the crystal bow, you never would have found it. You would not have been hurled through time after her."

"What do you want with her?" I demanded.

"You must remember that this civilization is utterly different than your own, Lannister," Grael said, apparently inconsequentially. "My world is foreign to you. My purposes are also beyond your comprehension at the moment." He paused. "Perhaps you recall the creatures, one of whom you knocked senseless, you encountered on your arrival here?"

I nodded.

"They typify the peoples of this civilization— with the exception of myself," Grael said. "Under the direction of a few such as I, this civilization was constructed by creatures such as those you have already seen. They were bred, scientifically of course, to labor, to build, to obey."

"But—" I began.

"It was inevitable," Grael went on musingly, ignoring my interruption, "that man should one day strive to reach the ultimate in mechanical perfection. Civilization, even the civilization which you understand, grew gradually out of bestial chaos into a machine-dominated world. It was the perfection of the machine that kept man advancing. It was the very basic imperfection of man, his emotional instability, that hindered that advance. That hindrance finally became the obvious factor that stood in the way of real progress.

"Science, in the form of a small group of unusually intelligent men, finally decided to conquer that factor, to eliminate it completely. The end they sought demanded the mechanization of man himself, the standardization of human flesh and brain power, the elimination of human emotions as they were then known."

I THOUGHT of the faces of the pair I'd encountered in the great crystal hall. If they were examples of what that standardization had ultimately led to, it had been more than successful.

"Bit by bit, this standardization began," Grael went on. "It was fought, as all progress is fought by the stupid. A very bloody war became necessary. A war that almost ravaged the entire globe. It was a war of Science against the Human Element. Naturally, the imperfect failed to survive. Science, the victor, began to rebuild when it was over. Rebuild with men that were bred but to labor, to build, and to obey. Progress became infinitely more rapid. In less than two centuries the entire world was successfully mechanized."

Grael paused a moment, to turn slightly in his chair and fix his cold, emotionless eyes on me.

"But the small group of men who ruled, the men of science, began to diminish with alarming rapidity," he continued. "You see, they could not successfully fashion themselves into perfectly mechanized units of the system. They still were capable of emotion. The factor, now eliminated from the rest of the creatures of earth, seemed to concentrate itself in the men of science. They had fashioned creatures who would labor and build and obey. Now they found themselves faced with the realization that they would have to fashion, of their own numbers, creatures who could think, and direct, and command— but who were free from emotional shackles."

I sat there, spellbound by his words, stunned by their import. This was history— as it had happened in this world, his world— as it was going to happen in my world, a world a thousand years back in the past!

"The task was greater than the men of science had imagined," Grael went on, "for this time they were dealing with themselves. And until now they had been loathe to think that they were imperfect. But their very survival in the new world they had created demanded that they adapt themselves to the necessary pattern.

"And in increasingly great numbers, the few survivors among them died in their sacrifices of themselves to this objective. But the sacrifices were necessary, and costly though the experiments were, the goal had to be achieved.

"It was achieved," Grael concluded calmly. "Achieved in the last, the ultimate attempt. I am the result of that achievement. The others are gone. I alone am left to direct, and think, and rule. The world as you see it now is my world. The world of Grael, the Ruler!"

THE silence hung heavily for an instant.

"You will not survive forever," I said.

Grael smiled mechanically.

"Forever," he declared.

"But alone," I gasped, "with nothing but this, this flawless mechanical perfection everywhere around you. With none but humans no better than machines or animals for companionship!"

"The desire for companionship," Grael reminded me, "is an emotion. I am without emotions." His deep, rich voice was scornful.

"Then why are we here?" I demanded. "Why did you take Loche and Marelli and the girl from the past into this flawless hell?"

Grael smiled emotionlessly again. He made a bridge of his strong slim fingers and placed his hands against his chest.

"This world, mechanically perfect though it be," he declared, "is not quite as I would like it. Certain elements of cultural perfection have not yet quite been attained. I will draw from the past, in other cases as well as those of Loche, Marelli and the girl, the elements needed to mechanically perfect our culture."

"And how can they aid you in this?" I asked. "Our, their world is far behind your own. Your developments along any such lines would be centuries ahead of anything that they, or I, can conceive of."

There was something in the flat lustre of Grael's eyes as he answered that sent a chill down my spine.

"Quite true," he agreed. "However, I am not in need of assistance in my task. All I seek is the material with which to work!"

Grael had not described his intentions. But his inference struck home the moment he had spoken. It was ominously plain. Much too ominously plain!

8

MY eyes must have showed my emotions. Or perhaps my fingers tightened whitely against the arms of my chair, for Grael rose suddenly, placing his finely-molded hands atop the surface of his desk, staring coldly at me.

"And I wouldn't advise you, Lannister, to object too strenuously to any experimentation I might have in mind. You are utterly helpless in this world. Never forget it. Consider yourself fortunate to be left alive while I debate your possible worth to me!"

I started to say something, for helpless rage had suddenly engulfed me. I started to say something at the same moment that I half-rose from my chair. My intention at that instant must have been instinctive, crystallizing all the ominous dislike I had held for this creature from the first moment I'd set eyes on him. Perhaps I had intended to throttle him, perhaps just to wallop him.

But my action was never completed.

Grael's hand darted swiftly into the middle drawer of his desk. When it came out again, I was staring into the face of an utterly astounding weapon. It was a small, crystal object, shaped like a cross between a pistol and a pear. Its muzzle was as round as a half dollar.

"I wouldn't advise any foolish daring, Lannister," Grael snapped. "This antiquated weapon I hold in my hand is an object over a century old. It is called a disintegrator pistol. It is in excellent working commission. It can split your body into a thousand atoms before your eyelash could flicker."

I sat back, swallowing my impulse to mayhem.

"You could eliminate me this minute," I admitted to Grael. "What induces you not to do so?"

Grael shrugged.

"I may find you valuable, Lannister. Although you came to me quite by chance, there might be some material in your being that would be of use to me. Waste is stupidity. Until I can decide what utility you might possess for me, or a lack of it, you will be fairly certain of staying alive."

I forced a mocking shrug.

"How very thoughtful of you," I said acidly.

Grael nodded contemplatively.

"But of course," he said. "This is a world that was thoughtfully constructed. It must be preserved in the same manner."

I watched him wonderingly as he dropped the disintegrator pistol contemptuously back into his drawer.

He saw my expression and grinned in cold mockery.

"The drawing of the gun was, of course, merely a gesture. It served to keep you in bounds more readily than some of my other methods. You would be more likely to understand such a gesture, than the mere waving of my hand. The waving of my hand, incidentally, would have thrown enough force around you to crush you like a thin sheet of paper."

I THOUGHT of the feeling I had had on two occasions since my arrival at this place. The sensation of being watched. I wondered if the wave of his hand he spoke of could be an agreed signal with invisible watchers. The idea was not reassuring.

"You might have been stupid, however, had I only raised my hand," Grael went on. "It might have resulted in your being crushed to death before you realized the futility of your attack. However, a method you were likely to comprehend, a drawn pistol, held you in check excellently and preserved your life for a while also."

Grael pressed a thick button on the shiny surface of his crystal desk. A panel beneath it glowed pink, then saffron. He stared down at it, thoughtfully, intensely. I had the impression that the glowing panel at which he was staring was nothing more nor less than a device from office-to-reception-room that is commonly used in present day business establishments. But I had the additional impression that if he were conversing, he was doing it mentally.

Finally Grael snapped off the switch and looked back up at me.

"In a moment you will be privileged to see the first of your number. I have already begun my experiments on the composer, Loche."

I had no time to say anything to this, for in the next instant, as if on a signal, the door to the room opened and Fredrick Loche, dazed, wild-eyed, and supported on either side by two of Grael's gray-tunicked, identical peasants, was led in!

"Loche!" The name escaped my lips in a gasp of horror.

The old man's eyes met mine, seemed to look through me, with no flicker of recognition in their bloodshot glaze. He was wearing a tunic costume, obviously supplied by Grael, and his once trim Van Dyke beard and gray moustache were weeded with gray stubble. Spittle showed at the corners of his sensitive mouth. His thin frame seemed utterly racked by weariness, and his feet dragged behind his body as he was helped along.

I wheeled on Grael.

"Damn you, you lousy roach-ridden swine!" I cursed. "What have you done to the old man?"

Grael favored me with a mechanical smile.

"I told you that Loche is the first of my experiments, Lannister. He is, unfortunately, older and more feeble than I had thought at first. In draining the necessary cultural material, the, ah, creative genius, I seem to have taxed his physical stores gravely. Too bad, perhaps. If he were to live longer I could obtain more from him."

I lunged at Grael, then, a red haze covering my mind, anger screaming for release in my muscles. I was dimly aware, as I drove in toward him, that he waved his hand.

SOMETHING seemed to crush in on me from all sides in the next instant.

Crush in on me and hold me motionless. It was like the pressure of tremendous air force. My ears rang, my chest seared with pain. I fought madly for breath, unable to move a muscle, unable to cry out. Blackness swam before my eyes.

And then the tremendous pressure was released, and I found my knees refusing to support me as I tumbled inertly to the floor. Every muscle in my body seemed paralyzed. The pain was still in my chest, in every nerve fibre. My arms and legs ached terribly in the minute while blood returned sluggishly to them.

I was climbing to my feet, then, weakly, gaspingly, shakily. Grael, watching me intently, was still smiling in that mechanical fashion of his.

"I warned you against that, Lannister." he said quietly. "I hope that will be lesson enough."

I looked at Loche, then, held between the gray-tunicked, thick-muscled workers of Grael's creation. His head had fallen forward, his chin sagging on his chest. His eyes had closed.

Grael waved lightly toward the door. Turning, the two guards dragged Loche out of the room once more. Dully, I watched them leave. I turned to Grael.

"For the love of God," I choked. "Why don't you put him out of his misery?"

"He has not been tapped fully as yet," Grael declared. "As soon as he is, just as soon as we have his musical genius transferred info units of material actuality, electrical force rays, I will dispose of him."

Until this moment I had never been fully aware of the horrible ghastliness of Grael's scheme. I had caught the implication carried in his talk of his "experiments", of course, but not until now was I fully awakened to their frightful significance.

Loche was being treated as a root from which a dye is sapped, an ore from which a precious metal is gleaned. What Grael wanted was not mere knowledge which had been ignored in this future civilization. In some hideous fashion, the man was able to transpose mental and spiritual cultural qualities, the very fluid of a human soul, into actual material forces. Forces that could be stored as serums are stored. Forces that could be administered to his slavish peoples as serums are administered!

And Loche, when his very soul fluid had been sapped from him, would be tossed aside as a useless bit of ore, or a dried husk, is thrown off!

expression on my face might have amused Grael had he been capable of even such a trivial emotion.

"I see you comprehend at last, eh Lannister?" he said.

My lips tried to form words. My mouth was dry and wadded with cotton. I felt a horrible nausea deep at the pit of my stomach.

"It is odd," Grael said musingly, "that after ignoring the cultural attributes of progress in favor of the mechanical perfections as we have done for so many centuries, this civilization should at last attempt to restore certain of the lacking culturable attributes that would complete the perfection."

"Culture," I spat, "inoculate into the unthinking swine of this world of yours— you're mad!"

"You forget, Lannister, that you are a barbarian from a thousand years back into the past. You know nothing of our civilization and the things it can accomplish. However, you will be soon enough aware of the last experiment, the one now being so successfully undertaken with Loche." He paused. "The girl will be soon subjected to it."

My blood froze, and for the briefest moment my heartbeat faltered.

Grael was looking at me narrowly.

"You overestimate the place you and your companions hold in this scheme, Lannister," he said slowly. "You are but the first. It was by chance that Loche, Marelli, and the girl happened to be the first in my experiments. I might have sought others before them. There will be others after them, thousands and thousands of beings from the past, each with something desirable to be drained from them. Artists, sculptors, musicians, poets— any and all who have something I deem necessary to my scheme, will be torn from the past and brought to me in the same manner that the rest of you were."

"Damn you, Grael," I said hoarsely, unconscious of what he'd been saying. "Damn you, what can you want with the girl?"

"There will be the beauty and artistry, the tonal perfection of her voice," Grael said musingly. "Those qualities should be of inestimable value."

I found myself thinking wildly that this was all some hellish nightmare. That I would wake, cold with sweat and grateful to have it done with. This couldn't be reality. This creature, this city, this world of the future— it was all impossible, all hallucination. I would wake and lift the telephone and talk to Madeline. I would learn that she was safe, and that it had been nothing more than a ghastly dream, a hell created by nothing more than my imagination.

But Grael was standing there before me. And the walls of the room were close enough to touch, and the silken rug beneath my feet was real.

A feeling of helpless rage flooded me, leaving me weak and shaking. Grael's voice came to me, as if from a distance.

"You are emotionally disturbed, Lannister. Emotions are bad allies. They can destroy you. That is why you will find none in this world."

I MIGHT as well have been bound and gagged. My arms were free, my legs unshackled, my will undominated, but the mysterious force which had almost crushed the life from me as I'd rebelled at the sight of Loche, was too much to buck. There was only one thing to do for the present. One attitude to maintain if I were to help Madeline. Grael put this into words for me.

"You would be wise to keep your emotions under control," he declared, moving around from behind his desk. "Marelli and the girl, Madeline, know nothing of the ordeal Loche is undergoing. If you prize the life of the girl, and I'm certain that you do, give her no indication of what lies ahead or what has happened to Loche."

Grael had started toward the door now. He paused.

"You will be my dinner guests, the girl, yourself, and Marelli, very shortly. I'd advise you to return to the room assigned you. One of my people will call you shortly. Please remember that anything you try to do would only be futile, and disastrous to the girl."

I watched Grael leave the room, my lips working in rage, my fists clenched in impotent fury. And then I fought for calm. There were certain elements which I might muster to my advantage in regard to this creature Grael. Certain very interesting elements that were only now beginning to dawn on me.

And, too, I would very soon be dose to Madeline again....

9

I RETURNED to my quarters after that. There was nothing else that I could do. And when two of Grael's peasant- like guards came to get me for the "dinner party", I was conscious of feeling very much like the sheep being fattened before the slaughter.

They took me through a series of corridors, not too complicated for me to fix them in my memory, and finally left me in a fairly large crystal room, ornately established with all the accoutrements of a banquet hall.

I was left alone there, evidently the first to arrive, and I was pacing nervously back and forth when the door at the other end of the room opened and two peasant-like guards ushered in— Madeline!

Our cries must have sounded simultaneously.

Madeline's eyes widened, her mouth opened in almost hysterically happy amazement.

"Tommy! Oh, Tommy!" she gasped.

"Madeline!"

I was across the room, and she was in my arms, and I was talking wildly, insanely, joyously, just to have her safe and still unharmed. She was answering just as swiftly. And as I talked she pressed her lips close to my ear and whispered furtively:

"Keep this pretense, Tommy. I know what's happened to Loche. I know what waits for us. I had a chance to overhear a laboratory scene a little while ago—"

And then she was talking loudly again, emotionally, and I could feel that someone Madeline could see had entered behind me. The rest of her message would have to wait until we got another chance to be alone.

I continued talking also, for several more moments, and then I took my arms away from her and turned. I faced Marelli.

His face was white, almost ghastly white. He seemed not to notice the fact that Madeline and I had been in each other's arms.

Our eyes met, locked. He ran a trembling hand through his dark wavy hair. His swarthy, handsome features were twisted in fear.

"So, Lannister. You are with us, eh?" he said huskily.

I looked at him distastefully.

"As much as I hate to admit being in the same boat as you, I guess you're right, Marelli."

Madeline touched my arm with her hand lightly. I knew it for a signal that I should say nothing of her whispered half-message to me. Marelli's next words confirmed my interpretation of the gesture.

"Where is Loche?" he asked.

I forced myself to shrug.

"I haven't any idea."

"That, that Grael told me that Loche was also here," Marelli said fearfully. "Good God, do you suppose they've—"

"They've what?" I interrupted.

Marelli shuddered, shrugged.

"This damnable situation is more than I can endure much longer. There's something up that Grael's sleeve that—"

MARELLI saw Madeline's eyes go to the door behind him, and he stopped as I too looked in that direction.

Grael had just entered. He was smiling mechanically, as I had imagined he would be.

"So very fine to see you all could accept my invitation," Grael said. His words were mocking, but there was no mockery in their inflection, or his manner. He had changed to another military tunic.

"Shall we all be seated?" he asked.

The table in the center of the room had been set for four people. He indicated his wish that Madeline sit at the center of the table, to his right. I sat at the other end, directly opposite him, and Marelli was placed on Grael's left, just across from Madeline.

There was a heavy, pregnant silence.

Grael looked from one to the other of us, his glance lingering a little longer on Madeline.

"You have no idea how you honor me," he said after a moment. "Lannister expressed horror at the fact that my world gave me nothing that was really close to human companionship. Now, for the first time in many years, I seem to have all of it I could desire."

Again his eyes flicked around the table in mocking scrutiny of our tense faces. And again, they lingered a little longer on Madeline.

"Documentary evidence in some of the musty archives in my library indicates that the peoples of your era engaged in much conversational interchange while dining," he resumed, his words still cutting with acid mockery. "It is strange that you are so silent."

"In a civilization much older than our outdated era," I said sarcastically, "a race called the Chinese had the philosophy that the best preparations for dining were silence and meditation."

Grael smiled automatically at this. But his eyes were unsmiling as they lanced appraisingly at mine.

"I see," he declared. "Perhaps meditation might be best. I only hope that our efforts, hasty though they are, to duplicate the fare of your own lost civilization are successful. I anticipate an unusual experience in tasting your dishes. You might not find them to your liking, since I was only able to direct that they be reproduced synthetically."

Marelli suddenly burst forth.

"When will you permit me to return?" he demanded hoarsely.

Grael smiled in that now monotonous mechanical manner.

"That is difficult to say," he declared.

Marelli stood up suddenly.

"I demand that you release me!" he shouted.

Grael looked silently at him.

"Nothing holds you back. Go where you will. You are at liberty to view all of my civilization you wish," he declared.

Marelli sat down. His face was flushed beneath the pallor of his skin.

The attendants came in then. The same, uniformly constructed features as before. The same alikeness in every detail of their body, bearing, and clothing. There were four of them, carrying trays of the synthetically prepared foods of our civilization.

IN silence we turned our attention to the meal. During the half hour that followed none of us spoke save Grael, who confined his words to brief comments on the dishes as they came. Oddly enough I found myself eating almost ravenously. Madeline scarcely touched her food. Marelli ate moderately.

If the fare was synthetic I would have defied the best chefs of my acquaintance to detect it from the genuine. Clearly, there seemed to be nothing in the way of horrors or imitation cuisine that this super civilization could not accomplish.

During the course of the meal, however, I kept Grael under a close and secretive scrutiny, studying his every movement, every word. My first dawning apprehension of certain elements in his character was now becoming a certainty. And additional proof of the ever increasing strength of these elements was even more chilling and purposefully demonstrated in the additional attention Grael was turning to Madeline.

Occasionally, too, I had time to observe Marelli. The swarthy tenor was still obviously frightened, still white and uncertain in his manner. But somehow I had the feeling that Marelli was touching up his own characterization, his own fear, with a bit of broad acting. I had the definite impression that he was not as frightened as he seemed to be. There was a watchful wariness about him that came to the surface only for the briefest of seconds when he felt he was unobserved.

Madeline was keeping a stiff upper lip, and doing a beautiful job of it. Her fright and discomfort at her surroundings was nicely registered, revealing just that and nothing more. I felt certain that Grael didn't imagine she knew what had happened to Loche.

And it was during the last course that the music began. Began in the same manner that the music in my bedroom earlier had begun, coming apparently from nowhere, faintly first, then more clearly.

It was music that differed from that I had heard before in my quarters. Different in melody, that is, though not in character. It was the same icy perfection, the same flawlessly scientific combination of bars and measures and notes.

Grael seemed strangely irritated by it, and his eyes went from mine to Marelli's to Madeline's, almost challengingly.

And now, quite suddenly, I was aware of the subtle changes that were beginning to manifest themselves in Grael's personality. They were all changes that indicated a faint but growing emotional disturbance!

His irritation was an undershading of emotion. I realized now that this was the first occasion on which I'd seen him display even so faint an undercurrent.

I was aware, too, that all Grael's commands to those who served us at table were directed mentally, through thought power. And it was only toward the end of the dinner that minor slips, errors, began to crop up in the carrying out of these orders. On several occasions the look-alike peasants who served us hesitated, floundered, did the wrong thing at the wrong time. Clearly, Grael's thought transference commands to them were not going as he wished them.

I had a feeling that Madeline knew this, or sensed it, as well as I did. And I had a feeling that she sensed something else, something I was just becoming aware of Grael's increasing attention to her.

Quite suddenly, then, the music in the background changed.

IT was instantly apparent that the icy flawlessness of the previous music was gone completely. The perfection of note and measure vanished, to be replaced by low, half-ragged, half- guttural rumblings of sound that soon became a theme in itself.

I didn't recognize this new music at once, for though it was totally different from the previous melodies, it had a strangeness that was almost barbarically stirring.

Swiftly, I glanced at Grael. His expression seemed unchanged. He was looking at Madeline, apparently unnoticing the veer in the tempo and the style of the music. But I had noticed something in this change of melody. Something that just struck home as I watched Grael.

This barbaric music in the background was a part of a never presented and still uncompleted symphony of Fredrick Loche!

"There is Ravel there," Loche had said of this music that now filled my ears. "There is Ravel there, and a sense of his Bolero, but it is too crude, too basic, too barbaric. There is no beauty to its stirring." And so Loche, some five years before, had never finished the symphonic composition.

And yet I listened to it at this moment, recognizing it for what it was, while a sudden chill touched my spine and I wondered how, and through what method of super-civilized deviltry it was now coming to us. There was one answer, an answer I didn't care to think of. An answer that involved the helpless old man and the musical genius that was stored within him. The genius that was being drained from him.

Grael suddenly rose, then. He looked first at me, and then at Madeline. He addressed her when he spoke.

"You will return to your quarters. I wish to speak with you later."

Madeline rose reluctantly. Her eyes caught mine for an instant, sending some signal I couldn't quite interpret. Then she turned from the table. Grael moved behind her, then accompanied her to the door at the far end of the room.

After a moment the door opened, and two of Grael's twin-like guards stood there. Then Madeline stepped out of the room, the door closing behind her, while Grael wheeled to face Marelli and me.

"I have decided to delay no longer," he announced suddenly. There was a feverishness in his eyes, now. "The two of you shall follow the old man Loche!"

10

GRAEL'S words cracked across the room like rifle fire.

Marelli and I were on our feet almost simultaneously. But it was Marelli who answered him. The swarthy tenor's face was contorted in terrified alarm.

"No!" he cried. "No, you cannot do that to me! I can be of value to you. Take the others, as you planned, as you agreed!"

I looked at Marelli trembling there. My first reaction was mingled amazement and revulsion. His words had told me something I'd never imagined. Marelli had, in his short confinement here, wasted no time. Obviously, he had volunteered to aid Grael in his madness, even at the sacrifice of Madeline, Loche, and myself. Aid him in the hope that he might save his own hide!

My movement was quick. In three steps I was beside Marelli. One second later my left chopped up in a vicious arc at his blue stubbled chin.

"You stinking scum!" I raged. "You yellow, stinking scum!"

Marelli slid slowly to the floor, his terrified expression doing a double-take, just before his eyes closed. I wheeled back to face Grael.

Grael seemed to be enjoying the swift tableau hugely. His automatic grin was wide. There was a hard, bright, glint in his eyes. Something new was in the deep rich calibre of his voice.

"This is so amusing," he laughed. "Mortal emotion running rampant. When he revives, and when you both are securely in custody in my laboratories, ask him why he was so pleased to see Loche dying; ask him why he would not have been anxious to return to his own time world if the old man had been still alive."

Every atom of instinct in my body prompted me to drive in on Grael. But the utter futility of any such attack had already been painfully revealed to me. And the memory of that lesson was still strong enough to hold me there, hesitating in helpless fury.

Grael laughed loudly, mockingly, reading my mind.

The music that had been still in the background, Loche's music, was growing mountingly stronger, wilder. I noticed suddenly that Grael's breathing was increased in tempo.

Behind me I felt the door opening. I could sense it, and could sense, too, the pair of stolid-faced, twin-like guards who were moving up behind me.

Something made me disregard them. Something made me start for Grael instead. Something similar to a wild, red, blot of rage that blanketed my brain.

I can recall the curious expression on his face as I drove in toward him— an expression of surprise, bewilderment. I remember that his hand flashed forth briefly, as it had done on the other occasion when the pressure of invisible force had almost crushed the life from me. And then I was aware that my fists were pounding hard into his solar plexus, and that I was a snarling, raging, frothing animal lusting to kill the creature before me.

HEAVY blows were being rained on my back, and then my face, and I was slipping down into a fog that grew grayer, thicker, with every instant. There was a split second of blackness. A split second of blackness that was shattered, then, by the rude awakening of a boot kicked against the side of my skull.

The room suddenly blazed with light again, and I was blinking my eyes weakly and trying to stagger to my feet to resume the battle. But arms as strong as cables were being wrapped around me, rough paws were dragging me helplessly to my feet. And I was too weak, too sick at my stomach from that crushing kick, to resist further.

Grael's face loomed before my own. Grael's face, bruised slightly, and scratched a bit, contorted with rage. His huge hand slapped me then, as I was held by one of his guards. And then his hand slapped me twice more, and the blood ran from my gums.

The guards dragged me from the room then, and I was vaguely aware that Marelli, white and shaken, and once more conscious, was also being dragged away with me.

They took us out into the corridor, and turned right, still with their cable-strength arms wrapped fast around us like unbreakable bonds of steel. There were doors we passed, and finally another door at the far end of the corridor. This door opened automatically when we were but four feet from it.

One of Grael's laboratories was revealed inside. A large room, crystal like the rest, filled with machines and instruments and complex equipment of unimaginable variety.

They pushed us into that room. Pushed us into the hands of two other guards who looked exactly like the rest of Grael's peoples, and left. And it was Marelli's hoarse scream that directed my attention to the far corner of this laboratory.

For Fredrick Loche was in the far corner of that room. Fredrick Loche as God had never ordained any man should be. Fredrick Loche, with but his head visible, face sweat streaked, Van Dyke and gray mustache smeared with brown and red blood flecks. Fredrick Loche with his eyes brimming with more screaming, burning, hideous pain than I have ever seen in the eyes of the most tortured of men or animals!

And those tortured, hell raked eyes were looking mutely at us. Looking mutely, but with positive recognition, and heart rending appeal!

LOCHE was confined in some sort of a machine. A huge, intricate, devilish device that covered all his body save his head. And from the pulsing vibrations of the hellish mechanism of that machine you somehow got an immediate and horrible insight into what was being done to the rest of his frail body.

And suddenly I was aware that in this room also were the pounding strains of savage barbaric music, Loche's music. And then I saw the guards, who had moved stupidly forward to take us in hand. And in their stolid, emotionless eyes there burned a crazy spark of hatred.

Loche's feeble cry split the air as they drove toward us.

"Look out, Tommy! They're incensed to kill, to destroy!"

And then I had time only to realize that the mouth of the guard who bore down on me was twisted in slavering rage. His arms wrapped around me in the next instant, and his weight drove me hard back against the wall, crushing the breath from me.

I was down, then, and fighting for my life!

Vaguely I recall using every trick I'd ever learned, from Queensbury to Dead End, gouging, slugging, kicking, mauling, twisting all the while to get the heavy bulk of my adversary from my chest.

I was rolling away, then, and staggering to my feet, while the guard climbed upright also, and then he was coming in on me again. Coming in on me with his head lowered, his arms wide, like a wrestling gorilla. There was the same mixture of madness and rage in his expression, the same flaming hatred.

I was breathing raggedly, and I knew that at least one of my ribs had been splintered. My strength was momentarily spent, and the brief pause I'd need to regain it wasn't going to be offered to me by my adversary.

He continued to lunge in, head down, chin out.

Instinctively, I dropped my left foot back, took a half-step forward with it, and swung my right leg up hard, sharply, accurately, in the swinging arc that had once sent punts spiraling fifty and fifty-five yards down the gridiron.

But I wasn't swinging my foot into a football this time. I was swinging it, with every last atom of strength, into the lowered head and outthrust chin of the creature who bore in on me.

I had the sickening satisfaction of feeling teeth giving 'way in his mouth, of hearing his jaw crunch as it shattered under the terrific impact of my kick.

And then the creature was twisting to the floor, falling in an inert lump. I never knew if I'd broken his neck. But I do know he didn't move in the rest of the time I was in that room.

I TURNED away, then, to find the other guard coming at me.

At least for an instant I thought it was the other guard— but it wasn't. It was Marelli, wielding a nasty- looking club of crystal reinforced by a sort of steel covering. He'd been luckier than I. He'd gotten his hands on a weapon before his adversary attacked. And now his adversary lay on the floor beside my own attacker, beaten to a bloody mess.

And Marelli was coming in at me, attacking me!

My mental instinct was amazement.

My physical instinct, fortunately enough, had been geared to survival but moments before and was still so geared.

I sidestepped the blow he'd aimed at my skull. Sidestepped as the force of his skull-splitting swing carried him through its momentum, past me. Sidestepped and stuck out my foot.

As Marelli sprawled headlong over my outstretched leg, I stepped back in and shoved hard with my palm against his back, sending him crashing head foremost into the wall.

I didn't give him a chance to rise. There wasn't time or reason for that.

I landed on top of him seconds after he crashed into the wall. The weapon he'd tried so cunningly to bash my brains out with had skewered off to one side. I fastened one arm around his neck and dragged him to his feet. Then I held him off at arm's length and let him have a right cross on the chops.

Just as he was slithering down the wall to the floor, I got him again with a left hook. He was out, obviously good for quite a snooze, before he hit the floor.

And then I was dashing toward Fredrick Loche, aware that the music flooding the room was growing to almost deafening proportions. I was at his side then, forcing myself to choke back the anguish I felt for the old man's plight.

"Tell me," I begged swiftly, "what I must do to free you from this damned thing!"

Loche shook his head negatively, slowly, as if every effort cost him hellish torment.

"It is no use, Tommy!" he whispered hoarsely. "The rest of me is—" he shuddered, "is no longer able to live outside of this machine of Grael's."

"But—" I choked.

Loche shook his head. "No, believe me, Tommy. This is the end for me."

Again I tried to speak, again a slight shake of his head cut me off.

"Get to Madeline, quickly, Tommy. The end nears for Grael, too. His civilization will all be as furiously insane as the guards in this room who attacked you. The music, my music, is destroying them... all of them."

HE closed his eyes for a moment, wetting his parched lips.

"They were fools to think they had eliminated emotion," Loche whispered again. "Grael was a madman to think it possible. Emotion is the soul force of humanity. Without it there can be no human being. They didn't destroy emotion as they had thought... They merely subjugated it, shackled it, put it to sleep... Emotion remained in all of them. Remained latent, waiting for the force that would rouse it again... The world in which they lived would never have roused it... But they brought us here, peoples from a different world of time... Our emotions hadn't been deadened... We held power over them there... Power Grael didn't realize we would have... My music demonstrated that power... stirred their dormant emotions... they weren't capable of meeting it... and but a little started their insanity."

Loche shut his eyes and clamped his jaws hard against a swift surge of pain.

"Go to Madeline, Tommy. You must save her. Marelli, leave him. Marelli killed to steal a symphonic composition from a starving friend of his. Marelli came to me later, tried to pass off the symphony as his own. I had heard it, suspected how he had obtained it. Madeline, too, had known the friend Marelli had murdered. We had no proof, we were waiting. Leave Marelli... it is better that he die here."

My mind was running a wild gamut of a million thoughts. And I took my eyes from the face of the anguished old man for but an instant. When I turned back again, Fredrick Loche was dead.

But the music, his music, was still surging through the room. Was still flooding through this flawless city of crystal. And his own vengeance was being wrought by those wildly pulsing strains.

I left Loche, then, and the laboratory.

There was but one thought in my mind. Madeline was somewhere. And wherever that was, I had to get to her side.

There were corridors again, the same ones I remembered being dragged down not so long ago. I tried every door along those corridors. Followed every turn. Minutes crawled into what seemed to be special eternities of anguish. And the music was still growing in crescendo. While outside the babble of voices was beginning to rise ferociously. Grael's slaves, rising in wrath against the man and machines who had stolen the birthright of their souls.

And still I searched, frantically, feverishly, sobbingly.

"Madeline!" I shouted. "Madeline!"

And my voice echoed back to me through those vast crystal halls like mocking death.

AND finally there was a door through which I could hear a voice coming— Grael's voice, thundering deeply, richly, madly.

"It is my world!" I could hear him declaring wildly. "The world of Grael— Grael the Ruler! But I cannot rule alone any longer. I knew that this night, do you understand? I knew that Grael needs one to rule beside him. One who is beautiful, intelligent. You will rule beside me, eh? You will share my domination. It is the world I offer you!"

"You're mad!" a voice answered him much more softly. It was Madeline's.

Unhesitating, I hurled my weight against that closed door. It gave slightly, but remained unshattered.

The music flooded the corridor, wild, unbridled, unchecked. Chords crashing one on another in a symphony of madness.

Again I hurled my weight against the door. It was impossible, now, to hear the conversation going on in there. Once more I slammed my shoulder hard into the crystal surface of the door, and this time it swung suddenly inward, released of whatever lock had held it. I was pitched head foremost into the room by my own tremendous momentum.

I heard Madeline's shrill scream as I sprawled to my face in the center of the room.

Quickly I scrambled to my feet. Scrambled to my feet and faced Grael. We were in the same room in which I had first encountered him, the thick-carpeted, luxuriously furnished study-laboratory. Madeline stood against the wall on my right, her face bleached in terror. Grael stood behind his desk, the desk that fronted the wall-length window.

His face was contorted in a mask of fury. His black hair was disarrayed, and his ruggedly handsome features were as hard as the granite glints in his insane eyes. In his hand he held the weapon he had taken from the center drawer of that desk before. The disintegrator pistol, still looking like a cross between a crystal pear and an automatic. Its round barrel was pointed at my stomach.

"You thought you would intrude, eh Lannister?" he grated.

"Put that thing away," I said sharply. "Your world is crashing around your shoulders, Grael. It's gone mad. You've gone mad. You and your emotionally starved slaves!"

"How did you get here?" Grael demanded.

I took half a step toward him.

"Tommy!" Madeline cried.

"Stand back!" Grael snarled.

"Why don't you wave your hand, Grael?" I asked him. "Why don't you wave your hand and have those invisible force fields crush in on me?"

HIS face grew more furious. The muscles in the corner of his mouth twitched. The music, Loche's music, was still rising in madness.

"You can't any longer, Grael," I said. "You can't control this flawless civilization that way any longer, for the basis on which it was constructed, lack, of human emotion, has been shattered. It's over, Grael. Your slaves are in mad revolt. Your world of crystal will soon be torn apart by the very creatures who were bred to construct it!"

Grael's fingers tightened around the strange pistol in his hand.

"Look behind you, Grael," I said. "Look down on your world of perfection, and see what is happening to it!"

Grael backed away from his desk, backed toward the window behind him.

He turned his head slightly, looking down through that huge window. His face went white in horrified amazement. He wheeled back to face me. And in that split second in which he turned his head, I drove in at him.

I could hear the weapon in his hand sounding staccato shots. I could see the fire that blazed from the muzzle of the pistol. And then the very shock of the weapon's fire— passing as close as it did— threw me violently down.

Grael was cursing then. Cursing because he'd spent the firing power in the weapon without bringing me down.

Madeline stood less than four feet from him. She must have come up on him from the side as he fired at me. She held a weapon in her hand. A weapon I could remember only too well— the crystal bow!

There was something different about it now, however. Something that carried the menace of death. There was a silver arrow shafted in its bowstring.

Grael started to move for Madeline. Started seconds too late, for in the next instant, she released the arrow, sending the silver shaft home into his chest!

GRAEL'S gurgling scream as he sprawled back against his desk was drowned, an instant later, by a wild, furious, singing vibration. The vibration of the bowstring. It grew louder, louder, wave on wave of singing vibration flooding the room.

Madeline had dropped the bow, now, standing back, looking whitely aghast at Grael. I was on my feet, and my arms were around her.

The vibrations continued to sing in ever widening circles of sound and force around us. The floor beneath our feet was rocked, shaken, by their very intensity. The walls, the room itself, were blurring, cracking into a jumbled maze of black and white that grew blacker and blacker...

I was still holding Madeline in my arms when consciousness returned. Holding her in my arms and blurting her name again and again.

We were in the drawing room of Madeline's apartment. We were back in our own time strata, our own world and civilization. The madness had passed, the holocaust of horror engulfing that future world was spared us.

Loche was gone, had sacrificed his life that we might live to return. Marelli, left there in the future, might now be torn asunder by the mobs of emotionally maddened slaves before that world became shattered.

And now Madeline had opened her eyes, and they were looking into mine bewilderedly, then widely, in amazement, as she realized we were back again, and that somehow, it was over.

"Tommy," she said. "Oh, Tommy!"

Her arms were tighter around me. I brought her closer. Unspoken was our realization that the madness had passed, and that the future, our future, waited to be faced— together....

______________________

5: The Living Manikins

Fantastic Adventures, February 1942

1: Napoleon B Dribble

"WHAT this store needs," thundered Napoleon B. Dribble somewhat hoarsely, "is a new broom, a new leaf, new angles!"

While Napoleon B. Dribble paused to mop his fat head with an imported linen handkerchief, Hugo Hempsted wondered vaguely if this were the thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth time his employer had run the gamut of those phrases during the five-hour conference. But now Mr. Dribble was clearing his throat raggedly and plunging onward.

"We need brains, reorganization, efficiency," Mr. Dribble declared.

Hugo knew that this meant the axe for a hundred or so employees the following day. But he was weary enough to hope that he might be one of them. By now he was keenly regretting his choice to the Employee's Committee of Ten. At first, when word had come to him that he'd been selected to represent the workers in the store at the all-important conference, Hugo had been both frightened and flattered. The choice of the Employee's Committee of Ten had been made by Napoleon B. Dribble, personally. But by now Hugo was fatigued and fed-up.

For he knew why the Great Man had chosen him.

Napoleon B. Dribble was proud of his reputation for man-to-man square dealing with his employees. It was Mr. Dribble's constant assertion that the employees were the backbone of the store. They had a right, he also asserted monotonously, to have a voice in any matters that vitally affected the store. And so when such matters arose— as in tonight's board meeting— Mr. Dribble selected a committee of ten employees to represent their fellows.

And his personal selections from the rank and file— Hugo was now disgustingly aware— invariably resulted in nominating a man like Hugo, and nine similarly spineless saps. The committee of ten employees was not expected to contribute to such conclaves; it was rather permitted to watch silently as the board of directors aired the discussions.

Now, looking at the nine fellow employees who sat with him at the wrong end of the long table, Hugo was aware that his particular committee of ten had filled in admirably all evening, presenting a solid block of awed silence.

Hugo realized that he would not exactly relish the spot of leaping to his feet and arguing with those board of director bigwigs himself. Not that he was a Caspar Milquetoast. No, he wasn't the quailing type of some of the other employees sitting there with him. He was merely a fairly intelligent, not overly ambitious, plain young man who had sense enough to keep his mouth shut when it was expected of him. Napoleon B. Dribble must have been aware of this when he picked Hugo.

But by now he was exceedingly tired, and thinking woefully of the fact that he'd have to be behind his necktie counter in another four hours while the entire board of directors, including Dribble, would be climbing into mauve pajamas and soft beds.

Hugo thought of several rather startling tricks he could pull to bring this thing to a close. But a job being a job, Hugo discarded these ideas and went on listening to Mr. Dribble.

"I have facts and figures," Mr. Dribble rasped like a basso file, "which will show you why our sales have declined." He fished into the inner pocket of his expensively tailored coat.

Hugo thought his head would burst if he had to hear any more facts and figures.

"These figures—" Mr. Dribble repeated, still fishing in his pocket. "These figures" he paused again, face perplexed. "Drat it," he exclaimed, "where in the blazes did I leave those papers?"

Hugo smiled happily. Maybe they would be spared the figures.

The look of consternation on the face of Napoleon B. Dribble melted into one of executive enlightenment.

"Harrrumph," he snorted. "Of course. Back in my desk in the office. That's where I left them." He peered commandingly down at the wrong end of the table where the Employee's Committee of Ten sat looking noncommittal.

"Mr. Hempsted, old chap," Mr. Dribble rasped unexpectedly. He always added the "old chap" stuff when throwing his weight around with an underling. "I wonder if you'd be good enough to hop into a cab and run over to my office in the store to get those papers. They're in the top drawer, and we'll probably be needing them before the session here is finished."

Hugo felt all eyes turning in his direction. He felt himself coloring. What the hell, he told himself, he wasn't a messenger boy. Tell him you're not a messenger boy, Hugo, an inner voice demanded. Get up on your pins and growl back!

He got up on his pins, head lowered in deferential modesty.

"Yes, Mr. Dribble," Hugo heard himself saying, "I'll be glad to." He was already excusing his conscience by telling himself that a free ride in a taxi was not to be sniffed at.

TWENTY minutes later Hugo dismissed the cab driver, and turned to march up to one of the side doors of the vast imposing structure which was Dribble's Department Store.

Hoping that he wouldn't be shot by the night watchman, he clicked around with the lock for a moment, and finally the door opened. Hugo took the precaution of locking the door behind him. Then he turned into the darkness, facing the vast jumble of aisles and show cases that were the main floor of the store.

Involuntarily, Hugo shivered. It was gloomy dark, and the white sheets covering the cases off the deserted aisles added to the generally ghostly impression of the place. Quite a different joint, Hugo realized, from the bustling bee hive of commerce it resembled in the daytime.

Hugo started down the center aisle, moving cautiously for fear of tripping over an unforeseen object. Vaguely, he wondered where in the blazes the night watchman was sleeping.

A tiny icicle of excitement trickled down Hugo's spine, and he smiled half fearfully. This was far more invigorating than the stuffy, overheated, bore-some conference room. His sleepiness was vanishing.

The rigid, unnaturally posed figures of the display manikins stationed approximately one every third aisle added to the eeriness of the place. Now and then Hugo found himself peering up at the bathrobed statue of a young man, or the be-corseted figure of a smiling rigidly posed middle-aged woman. Most of these figures were as familiar to him as his fellow employees, for he was surrounded by the same manikins every day. But they looked different now. Possibly because of the lack of lighting. They seemed, incongruously enough, much more alive by night than by day.

Hugo smiled, feeling pleasantly frightened. He'd really have a tale to pass around his department the following morning. He moved on, passing the moustached manikin posed with a golf club over a golf ball in the sporting goods section. The moustached manikin wore hideous salmon-colored plus fours. Idiotically, Hugo had the impression that he was too intent on the club in his hands and the ball at his feet to look up as Hugo passed.

Again trickles of excitement touched Hugo's spine.

He moved even more slowly, now, for he was passing the Gentleman's Game Room section. He knew from memory that it was cluttered up with portable bars, roulette tables, deep leather arm chairs, and similar sundry accessories. One of the arm chairs, just directly ahead in the gloom, contained the manikin figure of a pink-cheeked, clubbish looking old gentleman dressed in tweeds— his fixed smile advertising the solid comfort afforded by the chair in which he'd been placed.

The smiling, seated, pink-cheeked manikin had always seemed a trifle foolish to Hugo. If people wanted to initiate themselves into the comfort of a chair it seemed damn silly to plunk a plaster-of-paris manikin down in it to prevent customers from trying the thing out.

He shook his head, stepping around the chair and the manikin reposing in same.

And at that instant hell broke loose for Hugo Hempsted; hell in the form of a vast, blinding, electrical explosion that threw Dribble's Department Store into a great orange burst of light and knocked Hugo flat on his face to the floor. And during the endless split-second that followed, Hugo lay there stunned and dazed, while the orange blaze of light readjusted itself to a glow of normal proportions and a hand shook Hugo gently by the shoulder. A voice was ringing in his ears....

2: An Impossible Happening

"I SAY, old boy," the voice was repeating like a broken gramophone. "I say, old boy," it inquired, "are you all right?" And then Hugo, before he could answer, felt strong hands grab him around the middle and lift him to his feet.

Hugo stood erect, swaying groggily for a moment while he realized through the confusion that the lights of Dribble's Department Store were all burning brightly. Then there was that voice again, filled with polite, anxious concern.

"Are you all right, old boy?"

Hugo turned to face the solicitous voice of his benefactor. He replied automatically as he did so.

"Sure," Hugo said, "I'm all right now. It was just a—" and the sentence froze right there. Hugo's jaws fell slack in wild astonishment. The speaker standing before him was a pink- cheeked, clubbish looking, tweed clad old gentleman— a person distinctly similar in appearance to the manikin who sat in the chair.

Hugo's gaze shot to the chair. The manikin no longer sat in it. His eyes flew wildly around the chair, then back to the person confronting him. There was no doubt about it. The manikin who'd been seated comfortably in the leather chair— the inanimate statue of plaster-of-paris— was now standing before him inquiring about his health!

Hugo Hempsted's mouth flew open, but no words issued. In the back of his throat a startled scream of sheer gibbering terror fought to be heard. But even that was drowned in a gurgle.

"Ugh!" said Hugo Hempsted.

"Indian moccasins are on the third floor," said the manikin courteously. "Beads and feathers on the ninth." He chuckled at his little jest. "I hope you feel all right, old boy," he started politely again.

Hugo's voice had failed him, but his legs didn't. He turned, bolting down the aisle like the proverbial bat out of hell. Hugo ran wildly, sobbingly, blindly, like a crying child. He didn't hear the pink-cheeked manikin's amused chuckling fading behind him. He didn't hear anything, in fact, until he reached the Model Home.

There, darting into its first floor precincts with the instincts of an animal dashing to its lair, Hugo hurtled into the living room of the Model Home, turned and frantically bolted the door behind him. He wheeled, then, and made a terror-stricken dive behind a display sofa in the far corner of the room. And as Hugo hurled himself behind the sofa he suddenly found himself in a tangle of legs and arms and perfume and squeals. The behind- the-sofa refuge, he realized as he scram-bled around in an effort to get to his feet, had been occupied by another person, and that person was a girl!

FOR an instant Hugo forgot the frenzied fright that had driven him here. And for another instant he gazed bewilderedly down on the slim figure of the blonde girl on whom he had so unceremoniously dumped himself. She was climbing to her feet, white-faced and shaken with fright.

"All right," said the blonde girl— and Hugo's memory of the last few minutes deserted him long enough to allow him to realize that she was exceedingly pretty— gazing fearfully at Hugo. "All right, I'll explain everything!"

Hugo opened and closed his mouth, but no words came forth. He was torn by three primal instincts. Curiosity bade him stay there with the girl and find out what this was all about. Fear urged him to get the hell behind the concealing safety of the sofa. Self-preservation demanded that he do likewise. But the girl was very pretty, and Hugo was inordinately curious. Besides, her very presence seemed to make his other fears seem trivial.

"Who are you?" Hugo blurted swiftly, his instinct of self- preservation giving 'way before the urgings of curiosity.

The blonde girl— and the precocious side of Hugo told him that she had the face of a lovely woodland elf— gulped and replied. "My name is Judy Carmody. My father is Michael Carmody. He's the night watchman at the store here."

"Where is he?" Hugo demanded, "I have to find him." He was suddenly pressed by fear again. "There's something strange going on in this store that—"

The girl seemed on the verge of crying.

"That's just it," she broke in. "Daddy was so sick tonight that he couldn't come down to the store. But if he didn't show up, Mr. Dribble would fire him. Mr. Dribble can't stand sickness in his employees. So I took a wild chance and got Daddy's keys and came down to try to work his shift through for him."

Hugo's eyebrows lifted, digesting this information.

"You mean—" he began.

Judy Carmody broke in once more.

"Yes, I've been here since midnight. The other watchman always leaves a little before twelve, and so when I took over the shift there was no one around to notice the difference." Her voice was now definitely shaky. "And it all would have gone through all right, except that this has happened!" Twin tear drops edged her blue eyes.

"This?" Hugo asked. "What do you mean, this?"

"The noise. I heard a noise. Obviously you made it," the girl said. "But it frightened me so I ran to the central alarm box and switches. I wanted to pull the police alarm, but I guess all I did was turn the lights of the store on instead."

Hugo remembered the stunning blast of electricity that had signaled the lighting up of the store.

"You certainly did," he said reflectively.

And then his recollection of the incident that followed the lighting of the store returned to him. Cold sweat broke out on his brow, and he clapped his hand to his mouth.

"My God," he muttered strickenly, "I'd forgotten the damned manikin!" As he spoke he shot a glance over his shoulder. The door to the living room of the Model Home was still securely locked as he had left it. No one seemed to be breaking it down at the moment.

Judy Carmody was looking at him as if he were a trifle mad.

"What's wrong?" she inquired. Hugo's fright seemed to calm her down a great deal.

Hugo looked at Judy.

"I don't know if I should tell you. You'll think me mad," he hesitated.

Judy Carmody's gaze became cool and commanding.

"Tell me," she ordered. "I've cried on your shoulder, now you use mine. Incidentally," she concluded, "who are you?"

"I'm Hugo Hempsted. But that is neither here nor there," Hugo said hurriedly. "The point is this." His tone lowered to a stage whisper. "There is something strange going on in the store!"

AND then Hugo breathlessly recounted what had happened to him after the lights went on. Being a thorough young man, Hugo had included a mention of his mission in the store, plus an explanation of the board meeting, and finally, a lurid description of the manikin who accosted him. Judy heard this out. Then she stepped very close to him until her face was a scant three inches from his own.

"Breathe," commanded Judy Carmody. Hugo breathed. She stepped back, shaking her head. "No, you haven't been drinking," she decided. Her eyes appraised him curiously. Then she said, "You won't tell a soul about my filling in in Daddy's place, will you?"

Hugo swore to everlasting secrecy.

Then Judy said,

"Well then, Daddy's not out of his job yet, and if you'll help me turn those lights off again, I'll go down with you to investigate the walking manikin you saw. It's as much to my advantage to know about any strange doings in this store as it is to you."

For just an instant Hugo eyed the safety and concealment of the place behind the sofa a bit wistfully. Then, with the girl beside him to stiffen his backbone, he made a brave effort at a jaunty smile.

"Very well," he said. "Let's find that light switch, then we'll look into my optical illusion about the manikin."

He stepped over to the door which he'd locked minutes before, and opened the latch with a slight flourish of bravado.

"Well," said Judy Carmody, "open the door."

Hugo opened the door. A welter of sound poured in on them from the aisles of Dribble's Department Store. Sound that could only be voices raised in excitement and laughter. Many, many voices.

Judy Carmody was at Hugo's shoulder, and together they both stared out into the now life-packed aisles of the store. Dribble's Department Store was swarming with very much alive male and female manikins!

A slight screech caught in Hugo's throat, and he made a wild effort to slam the door shut again. But Judy Carmody had her hand on his arm, preventing retreat.

"That's not going to do us any good," she said. Her voice, though shocked and stunned, was under excellent control. Hugo looked wildly down at the girl and found reassurance in her eyes.

"But it was right," Hugo almost screamed. "The damned manikin wasn't any hallucination. Now all the manikins are alive!"

"They certainly don't look dangerous," Judy Carmody observed, still dumbfounded, but striving desperately to be matter-of- fact.

Hugo considered this.

"But they just can't be alive!" His face was sickly white and he gasped for breath like a beached salmon.

"Look for yourself," Judy said pointedly. "Then stop denying it. My grandfather," she observed reminiscently, "used to believe in leprechauns. A smart man, my grandfather."

"But clothing dummies aren't leprechauns!" Hugo almost screeched.

"No," the girl agreed. "But these are certainly live dummies."

OVER the babble of voices there was a sudden tremendous crash. Hugo looking wildly in the direction of the noise, saw the figure of the golfer in the sporting goods sections. The one with the salmon-colored plus fours who held a driver in his hands and bent over a golf ball.

Evidently, the golfer had just come to life. For he'd belted the ball before him with beautiful fairway form, and the white pellet had whistled upward— smashing the gigantic many- faceted chandelier which hung in the center of the main floor of the store.

That, Hugo saw, had been the reason behind the tremendous crash. And now the golfer was stepping down from his roost and joining the happy throngs of manikins parading around the aisles.

"Ohhhhh," Hugo moaned. "This is terrible. This is horrible. Mr. Dribble will put me in the penitentiary when he sees this!"

"Get a grip on yourself," Judy Carmody told him sharply. "I'm just as much in a spot over this as you are. If we can't straighten this thing out, then I'll go to prison also, and Daddy'll lose his job."

Hugo felt suddenly ashamed of himself. The calm of the girl had steadied him. And now his jaw set resolutely.

"You're right," he agreed. "It won't do us any good to argue the why and wherefore of this utter impossibility. It's happened, and that's all there is to it. Now we'll have to settle this mess, somehow."

"That's better," Judy Carmody said. She still had her hand on his arm. "Come on, let's dig into the job of cleaning this up!"

They started forward. Evidently the awakening of the clothing dummies throughout the store was taking place gradually, for even as Hugo's eyes flew wildly around the scene, he could see other manikins moving down from the perches they'd occupied for advertising purposes.

3: Chaos

SUDDEN flurry of motion from the huge display perch in the Women's Sportswear section caused Hugo's eyes to pop out. The most celebrated of women's displays was the scene depicted by the red-coated, derbied woman— a manikin of course— who sat sartorially clad for hunting astride a huge stuffed white horse. At the feet of the horse— adding splendid realism— had been placed two dogs. And as a final touch to the tableau, a stuffed fox had been placed some three yards ahead of huntress, horse, and dogs.

And now, Hugo knew from the terrible neighing and sudden barking, the entire dummied scene was coming alive. The huntress, astride her stirring mount, looked around and hollered.

"Haloooooo," cried the huntress, "tallyhoooooo!"

The dogs gave final yips, then, as if shot from guns, leaped out after the fox. The fox, frightened and keeping quite in the bounds of his role, looked once over his shoulder and lit out in flight. The huntress and her horse, leaping thunderously down from the big display perch, gave chase.

"Oh Lord," Hugo groaned despairingly, as the whole mad pursuit swept cyclonically through the aisles. "Oh Lord!" The huntress was making a splendid job of taking the show cases as hurdles. They all disappeared around a far turn at the end of the main aisles. But the cry of the huntress still came faintly to them.

"Halloooooo! Tallyhoooooooo!"

Hugo and Judy were moving through the aisles now, passing painted mouthed clothing dummies on every side. The dummies smiled and nodded, and went on about their conversation with other manikins.

"How will we get to the bottom of this?" Hugo cried. "Where on earth do we begin?"

Suddenly Hugo blushed furiously as a voluptuous young female manikin clad only in a girdle hipped smilingly past. Another glance showed Hugo that the manikin he'd first seen in the Gentleman's Game Room section— the pink cheeked, tweed clad, middle-aged chap— was following close on the heels of the voluptuous young wench, his round red features wreathed in a devil-may-care smile.

"Some bunch," Judy observed as she saw the deep flush grow more solidly over Hugo's cheeks.

Then Hugo saw something that made him grow weak inside. A dapper, moustached male manikin— Hugo knew him to be from a display in the neckwear section— had taken his place behind a jewelry counter and was serving a clamoring mass of pulchritudinous female dummies.

"Good heavens!" Hugo gurgled, grabbing Judy by the arm. "That fellow's handing out a stock of the store's most expensive jewels!"

Half dragging Judy, he dashed over to the counter. Angrily, he confronted the moustached manikin from the neckwear section.

"Here!" Hugo cried. "Here, stop that at once, you fool!"

The dapper, moustached manikin turned and smiled.

"Hello, Hugo," he said. "What brings you here at this hour of the morning?"

HUGO was somewhat taken aback that the dummy should know his name. But then he realized that the animated creature was from the same section in which he worked, and had probably stood on his perch for months hearing Hugo's name used.

"Stop it," Hugo repeated. "Stop it this instant!"

"Go away," the moustached young clothing dummy said pleasantly. "I'm getting a name for myself."

"You're giving away store property," Hugo stormed. "That's the same as stealing." His sense of justice was so outraged that he totally forgot the fact that he was addressing anyone but an ordinary mortal such as himself.

"Take it out of the back wages that old Dribble owes me," the moustached manikin said cheerfully.

"Back wages?" Hugo screamed. "Back wages? Why, you aren't even an employee here. You're just a manikin, a display dummy. You aren't even human."

"That's what all you people think," the dummy countered, flashing his handsome smile. "Humans have no consideration for anyone but themselves. No, go away and don't bother me!" He winked at a brunette.

Hugo shuddered.

"All these people, running around creating havoc. How long do you think this can go on?" Hugo demanded.

"As long as we like it to," the moustached manikin countered. "Now go find a corner and lie down." He held out an expensive diamond bracelet to the brunette dummy. "Try this for size, darling," he said leeringly. "They should never have put you to modeling aprons. From now on your place will be here, wearing some of this lovely ice."

Hugo started to say something else, but Judy grabbed his arm.

"Come on," she told him, "you won't get any sense out of that plaster-of-paris wolf."

"But Judy," Hugo protested, unconsciously using her first name, "we have to do something about this!"

"But there's nothing that can be done here," the girl answered. "We'll have to look further on. Maybe we'll get some ideas."

"I've got too many ideas already," Hugo began despairingly. "Ideas about what old Dribble will say when he fi—"

"Hallloooooo! Talllyyyyhooooooo!"

The manikins at the counter, Hugo, Judy, and the moustached dummy from the neckwear section all looked up at once. A small brown fox flew over a counter, through their midst, and high- tailed on.

Dogs barked, and in an instant were leaping up over the manikins at the diamond counter and onward in pursuit of the fox. By now all had sensibly dropped flat on the floor. And just in time, for the huntress, astride her white horse, just cleared the counter on the opposite side of the aisle. And now, with a second gigantic leap, her mount soared over the diamond counter, hooves whistling past Hugo's bent head. A moment later and huntress and mount had disappeared after the fox and dogs.

The group around the diamond counter picked itself up from the floor. Hugo, holding fast to Judy's arm, bent his head close to the sweet scent of her blonde hair and asked,

"Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"I'm fine, Hugo." It was the first time she'd used his name, "Let's get away from here, though. We're not getting anywhere, and time is wasting."

AT her last sentence, Hugo glanced hastily at his watch. It was six-thirty. In another two hours the store would be opening. And in another two hours Napoleon B. Dribble would be in charge of a special brigade of police whose one task would be to put Hugo Hempsted into a prison cell for the rest of his life— if something weren't done about this situation pretty quickly.

But a quick glance at Judy Carmody gave Hugo a swift, strangely unexpected sort of courage. And for a fleeting instant he wondered what it was about the girl that made him feel everything would work out for the best so long as she was by his side.

"You're right," Hugo said. "We've got to get around and size this situation up. If we find out how it ticks and why, we'll be much closer to stopping the clock on this madness." He piloted Judy along by the arm.

Hugo was doing some thinking. Just about the fastest thinking he had ever been called on to do in his life. It occurred to him that even though he'd fail to bring Napoleon B. Dribble's papers back to the board meeting, his absence wouldn't be noticed. Mr. Dribble really didn't need the papers anyway. His sending a messenger to get them— a messenger in the form of one of his employees— was more than likely just a gesture to show authority and a mystical importance.

Now that that problem was off his mind, Hugo felt a little bit better. Whether he cleaned up this mess before the store opened or not, he would at least have approximately two hours in which to go about the job undisturbed. And as for interference and possible detection from anyone other than Mr. Dribble, Hugo felt no fear. As long as the manikins stayed within the reservation— so to speak— the fact that the store lights blazed merrily would not attract any undue outside attention. For after all, many such large establishments held all night inventory checkings. Observers outside the store would more than likely think that Dribble & Company was holding an all- night inventory.

Hugo, feeling better than he'd felt since his discovery of the pink-cheeked manikin in the arm chair, looked protectively down at Judy.

"Don't worry, Judy," he said. "We've got two hours time. A lot can happen in two hours. Your Daddy's job is as safe as gold. We'll clean everything up."

The girl slipped her hand into his for an instant. Hugo could recall other girls having acted similarly. But he couldn't remember any so pretty as Judy. He felt a new flood of self- confidence.

"I won't worry, Hugo," Judy told him. "We'll figure this out."

4: "Call The Cops!"

THE appraisal of the situation took longer than Hugo and Judy had at first imagined it would. As a matter of fact, it wasted half an hour of their precious one hundred and twenty minutes. And worse than that, it left them filled with fear and frustration, and a realization of the futility of the task that confronted them.

Dribble's Department Store was a tornado of madness. In the Model Home— which they had just left fifteen minutes before— a wild party had now started. Manikins pranced and cavorted to the music furnished from the Radio and Phonograph sections, and their giddy whirlwind of excitement was stirred to a pitch closer and closer to frenzy thanks to constant raids of the Liquor section.

On the Ski Slide, the prize exhibit of the tenth floor, Hugo and Judy had been shocked, then terrified, as the manikin— dressed out for a winter at Sun Valley— suddenly came to life and whipped wildly down the great slide, out over the rows of counters, and finally saved pseudo-life and plaster-of-paris limbs by a fortunate landing atop the canvas netting of a big tent in the Camping section.

And then there was the especially voluptuous wench in the Men's Apparel section. She was clad in the very briefest of scanties— Hugo knew her to be a refugee from the Lingerie section— and she insisted on stretching her more than lovely self atop a woodsy campfire display.

"I'd much rather be here," she'd giggled at Hugo's protests, "than back in the stuffy old Ladies Lingerie section. Down there I'm just a pair of pants and a brassiere. But up here in the Men's Apparel, Wow!" She punctuated the idea she was conveying with a wink at Hugo. Judy led Hugo quickly out of there.

And as their frantic tour continued, everything grew steadily worse. Several plaster-of-paris legs were caught in the escalator, and the owners of said appendages had halted the moving stairs until they could regain the various parts of their bodies. There was much loud and drunken quarreling over this, since the wrong limbs went to the wrong people. One old dowager type manikin from the Stoutish Matron's section, for example, walked off with a trim pair of limbs belonging to a young cutie who dummied in the Debutante section.

Before Hugo could carry out his impulse to settle the dispute, Judy took his arm once more and steered him away from the escalators. But by this time the formerly cheerful let's-dig-in expression which Hugo had worn was now melted to one of growing despair.

And so it went though the rest of the inspection. A sleek, handsome young manikin— clad in a snappy pair of bathing trunks— was found loitering conspicuously around the Debutante section, seeking a perch on which to pose. Hugo and Judy didn't stop to ask him, but his reasons for trading the boredom of the Sports section were probably similar to those of the young voluptuous dummy who'd fled the Ladies' Lingerie for the Men's Apparel section. Hugo contented himself with shaking his head in anguished disapproval at this.

FINALLY, in a secluded section of the main floor stock room, Hugo and Judy faced each other to discuss the situation.

"I'm all for getting out of here, Judy," Hugo declared in bitter anguish. "We haven't a chance in the world to restore things to what they once were. Good Lord, there's only an hour and a half left. Then everybody'll be coming into the store, including Dribble himself, and we'll be—"

"I know," Judy cut in. "It looks pretty grim. But we won't lose anything by trying the scheme I have in mind."

"Scheme?" Hugo bleated the word hopefully. "What scheme?"

"Using law and order to bring them to our way of thinking," the girl said excitedly. "It should be worth a chance, anyway."

"Law and order?" Hugo was now completely baffled. "But we can't call in the police. Why they'd throw us both in the peni—"

"Not the real police," Judy cut him short. "Dummy police. Manikin police. They'd have much more effect controlling manikins than a human police force would have."

Hugo was still bewildered.

"That's all very nice," he said, puzzled. "Very nice. But where are we to get hold of a Manikin police force?"

"That's up to you," Judy said.

"Up to me?" Hugo pointed a finger at his chest to emphasize his protestation. "Why up to me? I cou—"

"You can try to recall," Judy declared, "on just what floor your store has that exhibit with the big sign saying 'Stop! Have You Forgotten Anything?'."

Hugo's eyebrows showed that a light was dawning.

"I know the one you mean," he said excitedly. "There's a dummy figure of a policeman with his hand upraised and a whistle in his mouth, right under the 'Stop!' sign!"

"That's the one," Judy exclaimed. "I remembered seeing it, but I wasn't certain that it was in Dribble's!"

"That's on the tenth floor," Hugo said. "It's up in the Tire and Auto Accessories section. Come on!" He grabbed her hand and dashed toward an elevator.

On the tenth floor Hugo brought the elevator to a smooth stop and opened the doors.

"I started in Dribble's running one of these things," he remarked. "I didn't realize it then, but it was a better job than the one I have now."

They were moving down the aisles along the tenth floor. There were no manikins cluttering up this floor, however, inasmuch as the only excuse Napoleon B. Dribble could find for inserting one into the auto accessories section was in the "Stop!" sign display.

Hugo spied a blue uniform wandering aimlessly about the counters at the far end.

"There he is," Hugo shouted. "The cop manikin. We're in luck!"

"And don't think we can't use a little luck right now," Judy declared.

But Hugo was running ahead, toward the figure of the cop manikin.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Hey there, Officer!" The ridiculousness of addressing a dummy so respectfully didn't occur to him at the moment.

"Hey!" Judy was shouting now, too. "Hey, Mister policeman!"

THE blue uniformed figure stopped. Then it turned to face Hugo and Judy who were now less than five yards away.

"Sure now," said the cop manikin— and Hugo had time to observe that his appearance was so cleverly modeled that he looked more genuine than a real policeman—"Sure now, would you people be reporting a crime to me?" There was wistful, somewhat eager, hope in his voice.

"We're reporting some rioting, a whole store full of it," Judy said breathlessly.

The manikin policeman seemed infinitely pleased.

"Now," he smiled, "that's fine. That's splendid. And where is this rioting?"

"Here," Hugo broke in. "Right here in Dribble's Department Store."

The manikin cop lifted his nightstick tentatively.

"Wonderful," he said eagerly. "Then I'll be able to use this. After all those years." He brandished the nightstick menacingly now. "You've no idea," he said, suddenly off on a tangent, "how terrible it's been just standing up there on me perch, holding this club, never being able to take a whack at anyone with it."

Hugo looked at the thick nightstick and paled slightly.

"So long as you don't use it too enthusiastically," he said, "we won't mind."

The dummy policeman smiled. He had fat red cheeks and bushy black eyebrows.

"Now tell me where them thrubble makers is," he said, "and I'll— I'll attind to the rioting. Probably communists."

"Just a minute," Judy broke in. "We've more to tell you about it, too. We don't want them merely stopped We want them brought together for a sort of, ah, well, night court. Here's what I mean." And then, rapidly, she outlined her plans while the manikin cop bent a professionally attentive ear.

Hugo stood there listening, and marveling....

5: The Law To The Rescue

IT was half an hour later, or, precisely, one hour before the store was due to open, that Hugo, Judy, and the manikin cop stood atop the central counters in the main aisle of the Dribble Department Store and gazed down at the sheepishly assembled crowd of some hundred and eighty manikins.

The manikin cop's work had been stupendous, and effective. By an uncompromising use of his club and his vocal muscles he had combed the store from top to bottom, routing his rioting fellow- dummies and herding them sternly down to this impromptu night court.

There was a great deal of surly muttering, and numerous growling protests from the group, but the fact remained that they had all been quailed by brusquely administered authority.

Where they would have blandly disregarded the minions of J. Edgar Hoover, or even the notorious O.G.P.U., the manikins were as docile sheep before the commands of law enforcement issuing from one of their own kind. Judy's idea had been a corker.

The manikin cop was obviously pleased with his work.

"There they are, Miss," he said to Judy, "ready and waiting fer any words you might have to say to them. And if any of them so much as act up even a little, I'll give 'em this!" He indicated his nightstick.

Judy smiled sweetly at him, while Hugo felt a swift ridiculous surge of jealousy toward the manikin cop. She shook her long blond hair back from her shoulders.

"Rap with your nightstick for attention, Mr. Policeman," Judy commanded.

The manikin cop pounded so hard on a counter top that it almost splintered under the force of the blows. But it had its effect, for immediately the mutterings ceased.

"Now then," Judy suddenly nudged Hugo in the ribs with her very lovely elbow, "step out and give 'em the devil, Hugo."

Hugo was startled. He had been more or less expecting Judy to carry her own idea through with her own action. The resolute calm and confident determination of the girl had caused him subconsciously to lean on her for strength and support during the last hour. Now she was turning the mess over to him, smilingly, and with great expectations.

Hugo reddened. To use a bromide, he was quite unacquainted with the art of public speaking— especially before a surly crowd of department store dummies. He cleared his throat.

"Fellow dumm—" he began, then suddenly felt like biting his tongue off. Behind him, he heard Judy titter. He started afresh. "Manikins of Dribble's Department Store," he said.

"Louder," shouted a rude dummy in the back.

Hugo's face was now the color of a lobster.

"We've brought you all here," he continued uncomfortably, "to see if there isn't something we can do to get you back to where you belong. That is, I mean—" he was floundering miserably now.

"Not that way," Judy hissed behind him. "Be firm. Don't ask. Demand. Push 'em around!"

Hugo cleared his throat again.

"Look here," he suddenly blurted savagely. "This can't go on. We've got to have an end to it, here and now!" He swung his right arm high to emphasize his statement.

"Bravo!" Judy hissed. "That's the stuff!"

Encouraged, Hugo barged on.

"Who do you think you are?" he demanded. "What sort of nonsense do you think we'll tolerate around this store?"

"Whom," the heckling manikin in the back shouted, "do we think we are? If you can't use correct English, get down off of there."

HUGO spotted the heckler as a manikin from the Books section. The red-faced old dummy that had always been on exhibit before a phony fireplace, curled up in a sofa with a book. "Shut up back there!" Judy shouted.

She turned to the manikin cop. "Go down there and hit him on the head," she demanded. The cop obligingly leaped down from the platform and started back around to the rear of the crowd. "Go ahead," Judy urged Hugo, "don't let them heckle you."

Hugo was doing some fast thinking. He was thinking of the board meeting which he'd deserted a few hours back. He was thinking of the Employee's Committee of Ten of whose ranks he had been a member. He was thinking of the huge slash contemplated throughout the employees of the store by Napoleon B. Dribble and the board. He was remembering the injustice of it all. And suddenly he found his sympathy momentarily with the manikins assembled before him. They, too, in a sense, were employees of Napoleon B. Dribble. They, too, were persecuted.

"Listen," Hugo suddenly shouted. "You will all have a decent, open, honest-to-goodness chance to state the reasons for your conduct. We'll give any and all complaints a fair hearing. It's only just, and we'll be just with you. So if you'll try to keep some semblance of order, we'll lend an ear to your troubles— providing," and here Hugo gave them all a beady brook-no-non-sense stare, "providing they are really troubles."

The audience broke into instantly enthusiastic applause. The manikin cop, having just climbed back on the counters beside Hugo and Judy, seemed displeased with this last.

"Sure and that will be no sport," he said plaintively.

Hugo turned to him.

"You'll have a chance to voice your complaint, too," he reminded the dummy policeman. "As a matter of fact," he grew suddenly magnanimous, "you can be the first to air your squawks."

Judy was busy, at the same time, silencing the applause and cheering. Now Hugo grabbed the manikin cop by the arm and drew him to the front.

"Dummies of Dribble's Department Store," Hugo announced, "we have here the first of your ranks to offer an airing of his ill- treatment, real or fancied, by the management of our store."

The cop cleared his throat somewhat despondently. Clearly, he wasn't any too wild about leaving his position of authority to become the equivalent of a fellow-striker with the other manikins. However, the momentary spotlight in which the dummy policeman now found himself was compensation enough to permit him to continue.

"MY kick," the cop began, slicing neatly to the nub of his troubles, "is about this nightstick. I've been holding it in my mitt for better than a year. And that sign above me says 'Stop!' Well," he paused pregnantly, "I don't get no chance for to use my stick on no one, and no one never stops like the sign says they should. It is vastly irritatin', that's what it is."

Hugo considered this thoughtfully, then turned to Judy for consultation.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Judy pursed her lovely lips and looked thoughtful.

"I don't know exactly what he has to complain about," she declared. "He doesn't have to pound a beat like most policemen. His uniform is kept in order for him, free-of-charge. He's even given a bath every month. Besides, his one complaint seems to be that he doesn't get a chance to hit people with his club. He can't reasonably expect to be allowed to do that."

Hugo nodded.

"You're right." He turned to the manikin cop. "I don't think you've got any fair claim for damages," he declared.

"But what about me bath?" the cop protested indignantly, seizing at a last straw.

"Your bath?" Hugo frowned. "Do you want more than one a month?"

The manikin representative of law and order paled.

"Sure and good heavens no," he wheezed. "Less is what I'm wanting."

Hugo looked at him like a teacher at a disappointing child.

"I am afraid we'll have to dismiss your case," he said.

Dispiritedly, the cop climbed down from the platform and moved back into the crowd of fellow dummies. Hugo looked over the upturned painted faces seeking the next complainant.

"I have a squawk," a voice bellowed, and Hugo saw a fat, red- faced manikin waving a pudgy arm for attention. The dummy was clad in a dressing robe, slippers, and possessed— along with his paunch— -a gray moustache of great dignity. Hugo beckoned him up.

"My plight," began the fat red-faced chap in the dressing robe immediately upon climbing to the counter top, "is one of the worst in the store." Hugo suddenly caught a whiff of very strong whisky permeating the ozone. It came from the speaker.

The paunched fellow in the gray moustache explained.

"I am in window thirty," he declared. "That's the one with the exhibit of the gentlemen grouped around the fireplace in what is intended to represent a country lodge. I'm the one on the left, holding the decanter of whisky right above a glass in my left hand. I'm looking down at the decanter and glass expectantly, but of course nothing is pouring." He paused, and stepped back a trifle unsteadily.

"Well?" said Hugo. "Go on with it."

"That's it," repeated the paunched dressing robed old gent. "Nothing pours. Not a drop. I have to have twenty-four hours of that sort of torture every day."

Hugo frowned.

"I don't follow you," he said.

"He means he's thirsty," Judy broke in, "constantly, from just looking at that glass and decanter all day long."

The dummy in the dressing robe nodded eagerly.

"That's it," he agreed.

"But you can't reasonably expect to drink during working hours," Hugo protested, somewhat shocked.

"Mr. Dribble does," countered the dummy. "So why shouldn't I?"

"But he's the head of the store, the president. He's entitled to do so if he wishes," Hugo answered impatiently.

"But I should at least be entitled to a snort when the day's work is done, say about ten-thirty in the evening," protested the old manikin gentleman. "That's not going to interfere with business. You try enduring the mental torment I go through day after day, watching an empty glass and an empty bottle in that hot uncomfortable window. You try it and see how you like it!"

Hugo looked at Judy. He was undecided.

"There's a lot of justice in his case," Judy observed.

Hugo nodded judicially.

"There seems to be."

The dressing-robed old gentleman was looking wistfully at Hugo and Judy now. Tears were beginning to rim his red eyes. He started to snivel in his gray moustache while crocodile drops began to trickle down his red cheeks.

"Here, here," Hugo blurted in embarrassment. "There's no reason to carry on. I'll take your case up with Mr. Dribble. I'm sure he'll see his way clear to letting you have a quart a week— off of working hours, of course."

The dressing-robed gentleman's paunch drew in with pleasure and new elan.

"Splendid," he cried. "Excellent. That's all I wanted to know!"

Hugo smiled as the ex-striker clambered down from the counter. Judy watched him leave, her expression a little more dubious than Hugo's.

"Next!" Hugo cried, and immediately saw a red-headed young manikin— male— pushing through the crowds up to the counter. He had a huge sheet clutched about his body, giving him the appearance of a Roman senator.

"I'm Mr. Preshrunk Snuggles," he announced with red-faced embarrassment.

"Well," Hugo stammered, a little taken aback. "What can I—"

But young Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies was immediately swinging into his plea.

"I'm in the Men's Wear window, number seventeen," Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies declared, "and you have no idea of what's under this sheet."

"Please," Hugo broke in rapidly, "please. Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies, we aren't particularly interested in biology at the moment. If you'll be so kind as to state your ca—"

But Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies was stammering heedlessly on.

"I'm a modest young man, exceptionally modest, in fact. For the past six months they've had me standing by a bed— right off the street where everyone can see— dressed in the most embarrassing costume I've ever modeled. They let me wear nothing but a pair of—" and here the young man hesitated in crimson shame, "nothing but a pair of preshrunk snuggies!"

And with that, the young manikin hysterically threw wide his sheet for a trembling instant to display a purple pair of short form-fitting underdrawers. Then he snapped the sheet around him once more, his expression now one of anguished mortification.

"You see?" wailed young Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies. "You see?"

"I see perfectly," Hugo broke in hastily. "And I agree with you that it must be embarrassing. Especially to one of your modesty." Hugo turned to consult Judy, who was giggling quite impolitely.

"What do you think?" he asked her.

"Wow!" said Judy irreverently.

"That," said Hugo icily, "is beside the question. What can we do for Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies?"

"Nothing," Judy giggled in reply, "that Nature already hasn't done."

"Will you be serious?" Hugo demanded indignantly.

Judy controlled her giggling somewhat.

"You might see to it that he's switched to modeling overcoats on the ninth floor," she suggested, "although I think it would be a shame if he were."

Hugo glared at her and swung back to young Mr. Preshrunk Snuggies.

"That is a good suggestion," he said, "we'll have you transferred to the overcoat displays."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" babbled the young manikin, clutching his sheet frantically around him and clambering off the showcase.

Hugo turned back to Judy.

"You see," he said triumphantly. "We'll clear up each case one by one, and I'm certain that all the dummies will be back at work before the store opens."

"And that's in forty-five minutes from now," Judy reminded him, looking at her watch.

Then, as he turned back to the crowd of manikins, Hugo noticed with sudden horror that a tumult had started in the rear of their ranks. Manikins, male and female, were scattering in all directions in ever increasing numbers. And through this melee of confusion, Hugo saw a blue coated figure swinging a nightstick. The dummy cop!

"Break it up!"

The ringing command was coming from the manikin policeman. And he was swinging his club in wide, sweeping arcs. Manikins continued to scatter and flee.

"Break it up, yez! Break it up! No loitering. Get along with yez!"

And suddenly it was horribly clear to Hugo what was happening. The manikin copper, displeased at losing his moments of glory, and further angered by having his own pleas rejected, was now undoing all that he had accomplished. Undoing it all by the simple expedient of acting like a cossack in a May Day parade. Already, from the sections to which the first dispersed manikins had fled, Hugo could hear cries of amusement and the resumption of the previous hubbub.

Judy grabbed Hugo by the arm.

"Oww," she moaned. "We've lost our audience. Now we'll never get them back!"

Crushed and stricken, his victory crumbling before his very eyes, Hugo nodded sickly as he watched the manikin cop swing into the very foremost of the assembly, sending the last members of the manikin gathering off in every direction. The store was once more a madhouse!

And to cap the crushing climax— Hugo suddenly heard a "yip" behind him. In the next instant a small brown ball of fur whistled over the counter and away into the aisles. A fox!

Dogs scrambled over Hugo and Judy, leaping down into the aisles barking madly after the fox. Hoofbeats drummed along the aisles.

Hugo and Judy dropped flat along the top of the showcase just as a great white form soared over them.

"Talllyyyyy Hoooooooo!"

From his position on the showcase, Hugo saw the red-jacketed back of the huntress astride the great white horse thundering off down the aisle after the dogs. He buried his head in his arms and groaned.

6: The Switch Of Doom

JUDY was shaking Hugo roughly by the shoulder a few moments later. "Come on," she said. "Stop moaning. It's not getting us anywhere at all."

Hugo lifted his head from his arms. "We're licked," he said dully. He put his head back in his arms.

Judy pounded him again. When Hugo looked up, her blue eyes were flashing angrily.

"This is no time to quit," she snapped.

Hugo sat up.

"But there's nothing left for us to do," he said. He was the picture of dejection.

"Don't be a sap," Judy answered. "We've both been saps too long. I have another idea. But a good one this time."

This didn't do much to spur Hugo. He still looked glum.

"I should have thought of it in the first place," Judy said quickly. "The lights of the store. They were the cause— unless I'm a niece to the Sea Hag— of the dummies coming to life in the first place." She paused for breath. "Did you happen to think what turning the lights off again might do?"

Hugo considered this.

"No. What would happen?"

"It's just possible that— since the lights, or the fuse blow, or whatever it was— coincided with the coming to life of the dummies, fixing the fuse, or turning off the lights, or something like that might freeze the dummies back into their original states."

Hugo sat up.

"Where are those light boxes?" he demanded.

Judy slid off the counter to her feet.

"Right near the Model Home, where you first ran into me," she said.

Hugo leaped down beside her.

"Let's go!"

IT was five minutes later when Hugo and Judy had pushed their way through the reborn melee of madcap manikins that they arrived at the central lighting boxes of the store. The main switches were some twenty yards to the side of the model home sections, back in an old stock room alcove.

"I'm not any electrician—" Hugo began dubiously as he opened the big fuse and switch box.

"This," said Judy, "is no time to begin worrying about a union card. Get to work."

With more haste than efficiency, Hugo examined the complicated entrails of the big fuse and switch box. The tangled mass of intertwining wires was slightly terrifying to Hugo, since he was the type to be thrown into confusion at the mere sight of a lamp cord. Not the least bit mechanical, or electrical, that was Hugo.

However, for another tense five minutes, while sweat poured down his forehead and trickled down his spine, Hugo fussed with the workings of the switches and fuses. Finally he stood back and looked despairingly at Judy. "I still don't feel that I can safely mess with these," he groaned. "I might kill us both."

"I'm willing to take the chance," Judy said grimly, "I don't see why you aren't."

Hugo swallowed hard.

"All right," he said. "But if I kill us both, don't come around saying I-told-you-so."

"In that event," decided Judy, "I wouldn't be likely to come around saying anything." Her tone was still slightly scornful.

Suddenly Hugo crimsoned.

"Oh, damn it, Judy. I'm not afraid for myself. I don't want anything to happen to you. I, ah, that is, I'm—" he looked at her with an expression that filled in his vocal lapse.

Judy put her hand in his.

"I'm sorry, Hugo. I didn't mean to be snappish. I know what you meant, and, ah, that is, I feel pretty much the same where you're concern—"

It was typical of Hugo Hempsted that love should come to him at a moment like this. He broke in, half-miserable, half wild with joy:

"Judy!"

For a moment they didn't care if the lights in the store were on or off. Then Hugo broke away, reeling with dizziness.

"Now," he said, suddenly masterful, "you must get out of range of this, Judy. Go over to the Model Home. If anything blows up, you'll be sheltered from it."

Judy looked at him for a moment, then gripped his hand in a stout-fella squeeze.

"Good luck, Hugo," she whispered. She was gone then, and the last Hugo saw of her she was moving toward the safety of the Model Home. Considerably mixed up mentally and emotionally, Hugo turned back to the maze of dangerous wires and switches.

IN the background, Hugo could still hear the clamor going on throughout the store. But he wasn't thinking of the manikins. He was thinking of Napoleon B. Dribble, and of the job Dribble would snatch from him if this electrical hocus pocus didn't restore the store to sanity. He was thinking, too, that he wouldn't be the only employee to be out of work at Dribble's that day. The big economy-efficiency cut had probably gone through over the unprotesting committee of ten employees. And then there would be Judy's father. He'd get sacked, too.

Hugo thought of all this, and dominantly— of course— of Judy.

Sighing, he turned back to the switches. He closed his eyes.

"Eeeny, meeeny, miney, moe," Hugo began, fishing his hand out toward the switches.

He pulled the "moe" lever, as every last nerve fiber in his body cringed from the terror of what might happen.

But nothing happened.

Nothing, that is, except that the lights went out.

Nothing, except that the clamor of wild manikin shouts in the background stopped as if they'd been cut with a knife!

For a moment Hugo was too stunned to realize the implications of this. The fact that the lights were out really didn't matter, for the morning sun was streaming in through the great windows of the store and everything was clearly visible. But finally his senses realized that the thing that did matter was an accomplished fact. The manikins were strangely silent. The store was as hushed as death!

"Yowweeeeeee!" Hugo suddenly whooped. He dashed out from the tiny alcove of lighting gadgets, looking wildly right and left through the store. Every last manikin, as far as his eyes could see, was frozen back into lifelessness— utterly rigid!

Still whooping with hysterical relief, unconstrained joy, Hugo dashed toward the Model Home.

"Judy," he cried. "Judy, it worked!"

He dashed into the room in which he had first encountered the blonde loveliness of Judy Carmody.

"Judy! Judy!"

Hugo stopped, looking wildly around. There was nothing but silence. For some reason he didn't have time to explain to himself at the moment, his heart hammered in sudden fear.

"Judy!" Hugo called.

There was nothing but silence. Hugo ran into another room, then another. Ten minutes later and he had ransacked every room of the Model Home. Judy wasn't in any of them. His voice was hoarse for calling. Judy wasn't anywhere. Judy didn't answer.

Hugo returned to the first living room. Wretchedly, almost crying in his despair and hurt bewilderment, he slumped down on a couch. He put his head in his hands. Judy Carmody had run out on him. Had deserted him at the most crucial moment. She was probably flying down some side street at this moment, terror stricken, not wanting to be found in the same store with the electrocuted corpse of Hugo Hempsted.

MISERY engulfed him. He took his head from his hands and gazed upward in despair. His eyes hit the clock on the wall. The store, he realized dumbly, would be opening in another fifteen minutes. But it didn't matter now. Nothing mattered— even the fact that the hundred and some manikins had been frozen back to rigid normalcy while engaged in their wild mischief. Even the fact that there wasn't a single dummy in the store in its proper place. And that some of the places in which the dummies now responded were quite improper. No, none of this mattered to Hugo Hempsted.

Hugo had found love— and had had it snatched from him by the treachery and cowardice of the woman in whom he'd found it. To hell with life. To hell with the store. To hell with any frantic last minute rearrangements of the dummies. Let them stay as they were. Let life move on. Hugo Hempsted was dead. Or at least his soul was.

Minutes crawled by, but Hugo made no effort to move. No effort to flee from the store before it was opened, before the holocaust created by the manikins who had had a fling at living was discovered. He sat there strickenly, sickly, waiting for the police, or the army, or whatever forces Napoleon B. Dribble would call in to do the job, to take him away to the penitentiary.

At length Hugo was subconsciously aware of voices, of cries and shouts of dismay. He heard laughter, anger, shock, all mingling in those voices. Vaguely Hugo realized that the store had opened, that the employees were filing in for work.

Dribble would arrive soon. But the thought left Hugo without terror. Nothing mattered...

"FIND that young man if you have to tear this store upside down to do it!"

Hugo heard the voice thundering very close to the Model Home ten minutes later. But he kept his dejected pose on the couch, never stirring, even though he knew the voice to be that of Napoleon B. Dribble.

"Get hold of that Hempsted if it takes all day! Track him down! Search him out! Bring him to me, personally!"

The voice was thundering nearer, and behind it were other excited voices, worried voices, quailing voices. Dribble and retinue were approaching. The search was on. Hugo wondered if they were all carrying sub-machine guns and accompanied by baying hounds.

Suddenly Hugo stood up and moved falteringly toward the door of the Model Home. There was no sense in waiting for his fate. He could end it by marching bravely into the arms of his persecutors. What difference did it make?

An instant later, and Hugo ran head on into Napoleon B. Dribble, who turned into the door of the Model Home at the same instant that Hugo stepped out.

The two went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

This, Hugo thought at the bottom of the tangle— while the shouts and cries of Dribble's followers added to the confusion— is the final bitter end. Hugo Hempsted is additionally guilty of assault and battery.

People were pulling Hugo roughly to his feet. Hands were grabbing ungently at his collar. Voices shouting. Through the haze of confusion and sickened bitterness, Hugo saw the fat red face of Napoleon B. Dribble bearing down on him.

"Hempsted!" Dribble was shouting. "Let me at him!"

In a sudden burst of angered resentment, Hugo shook himself free of the hands that held. Shook himself free, and found himself facing the beaming countenance and extended paw of Napoleon B. Dribble himself!

Hugo stepped back away from his employer's extended hand. He gasped in sheer incredulity at the happy expression on that red fat face. Something was wrong. Dribble had gone stark raving mad. Dribble was talking.

"Hugo, my boy. We've scoured the store for you. What are you doing in here? My boy, I want to be the first to shake your hand."

Hugo retreated another step back into the living room of the Model Home. Clearly, his employer was a babbling idiot. The havoc wrought by the manikins had thrown him over the brink into madness.

But Dribble followed, still beaming.

"Are you all right, boy? You look a little pale. Overwork no doubt."

Hugo sank back against the support of the living room wall. He ran a hand over his clammy brow.

"MY hat's off, my boy," Dribble babbled. "While all of us sat around talking, you went out and acted. It's stupendous. It's the most colossal display of originality, of sheer genius, of solid sense merchandising that I've ever seen! There's not another store in town that will be able to equal our displays."

Hugo gulped, looking for an exit. Dribble would froth at any minute.

"That manikin, the one we had dressed like an Eskimo," Dribble boomed. "No one but a genius would have thought of putting him inside our refrigerators. It's magnificent. And the pretty looking female dummy, in the scanties, why, she'll increase the sales in our Men's Apparel section by a hundred dollars an hour!"

Hugo gulped again. But a light was beginning to dawn.

"And the window displays— wow!" Dribble exulted. "People are jamming the streets outside to look at 'em. It's the greatest boom of publicity the store has ever had." He stepped up to Hugo, nudging him with an elbow and winking. "Of course, some of 'em are pretty spicy, but we can run 'em under an injunction, if needs be."

"You mean," Hugo at last found voice, "you like them?"

"Tuhriffic!" Napoleon B. Dribble pronounced. "And all thanks to you, my young genius. Originality! That's what this store has been crying for, and that's what you gave it. You'll be the greatest General Supervisor we've ever had at Dribble's. Between you and me, my boy, I feel like stepping out and letting you run things from now on!"

Hugo Hempsted felt like fainting. But instead, he steadied himself with a hand against a wall panel behind him.

And suddenly the panel on which Hugo had been leaning gave way— inward— while he almost slipped backward to the floor in an effort to regain his balance. But as Dribble stepped up to assist him, Hugo realized that machinery was whirring behind the panel, and that the entire panel was turning in, as a bed swung out.

You never knew what to expect from the gadgets in the model homes, and this folding bed was no exception. For as the bed swung 'round into view— so did the almost suffocated figure of Judy Carmody!

"Judy!" Hugo shouted. "Judy, are you all right?"

Dribble was gazing on in astonishment. Judy dazedly clambered out of her bed prison. Hugo encircled her in his arms.

"Judy, Judy, say something!" Hugo demanded.

"I'm all right, darling," Judy managed. "I'm just darned near suffocated, that's all!"

Hugo suddenly remembered Mr. Dribble and the stupendous good fortune which that worthy proffered. He turned to the president of the store.

"Mr. Dribble," Hugo said happily, "I'd like you to meet the woman who is going to be my wife!"

Napoleon B. Dribble, still happy, although now slightly perplexed, stepped back and regarded the boy and the girl in fond embrace. Still bewilderedly, his eyes flicked to the folding bed. Then he turned back to Hugo.

"Kafff, hmpfh, ah, er, naturally," said Napoleon B. Dribble. "Naturally!"

The End

Table of Contents

- 1: The Floating Robot
- 2: Secret Of The Lost Planet
- 3: Squadron Of The Damned
- 4: Lord Of The Crystal Bow
- 5: The Living Manikins