he tube had blasted it off at the shoulder. But
he was far from being dead. With cold purpose in his great staring
eyes, he moved snakily toward the bench Dex had now left unguarded.

The Earthman got another Rogan; whirled to track down still another.
Promptly the leader sank motionless to the floor. The Rogan leader
continued his crawling. He reached the bench, fumbled up and along its
surface for the nearest tube.

Dex, unconscious of the sure fate gathering behind him to strike him
down, dashed past a great glass tank behind which Greca was huddling
in mortal fear, and charged down on two more of the squeaking guards.

Then, suddenly, some sixth sense warned him that something was wrong.
He whirled toward the corner he had left.

The Rogan leader, two of his surviving arms propping feebly against
the bench, was pointing a shock-tube squarely at him!

* * * * *

Dex fell to the floor to escape the first discharge of the tube, and
leveled his own. He felt the thing grow hot in his hand, saw a
blinding blue-white fire leap into being in the space between them as
the rays from the two tubes met and absorbed each other. He shifted,
to get out of the line and blast the creature he had too hastily
reckoned as dead. But he was not quick enough. A fraction before him,
the Rogan leader shifted.

Dex felt a terrible burning sensation all over his body, as the ray
from his tube met the conflicting ray less squarely, and allowed a
little of it to reach him. He shrieked as the slave had shrieked when
he felt the annihilating current from the plate sweeping through his
body.

A black fog seemed to close in around the Earthman's senses. He
crashed to the floor, with a glimpse of the leering triumph on the
Rogan's face as the last picture to stamp itself in his failing
consciousness.

The tall Rogan, obviously in great agony from his blasted arm,
squeaked a faint command. The four guards who were left issued
fearfully from their hiding places and came to him.

He pointed his tube at Dex Harlow, lying unconscious on the floor.
There he hesitated an instant, his soft little mouth slobbering in his
rage and pain. Then he let the tube sink slowly off its line.

He gave another command. The four guards picked the Earthman up and
carried him to the metal torture-plate on which the slave had met his
death. The tall leader's eyes gleamed with vicious hatred as the limp
body was fastened to the me