ep water to lay their eggs, so do Petrolia go to the oil strata to
spawn future tribes.

"When we pump out the oil, they have no--shall we say
"hatching?"--beds. But now, by tapping and bringing down the oil, we
have assured them more spawning pits. They will increase, and we have
made them sense it. For that matter, the very oil they breed in, gives
them sustenance. That is why they are black fleshed and blooded, and
have suckers instead of mouths, as a black man is black through ages
beneath hot suns.

"It's easy for us, who are wiser than other men, to figure what
oilfield might contain such people. We have a rapid elevator
connecting us to the surface. And--"

"Then," Asher almost shouted, "I'm not trapped!"

"No?" Lee Wong wrinkled his forehead quizzically. "You should realize
that we cannot allow you to go back to the surface--alive, or any
other way. We intend to increase the Petrolia, spreading them to other
underground, yet uninhabited worlds. You would spoil that.

"No, you will never return to the surface. They cannot haul your tube
to the top, so they will think you perished in it. And"--Lee Wong
shrugged--"it might have been better if you had, Mr.--"

"_I wouldn't!_" the yellow man snarled. He rolled the ratchet of his
static gun and Asher was hurled to the floor by the heavy shock.
Wisely, he stood up, keeping his hands well away from the pocket in
which his own gun rested. He doubted whether his little static gun
could compete with the guns of the others, but it was something. They
had not thought to search him--perhaps they might not. It was his only
hope.

* * * * *

Lee Wong bowed low again, motioning Asher to go ahead. "Now you shall
see what we have done. We are proud, and we know you can appreciate
our workings. You will be glad to learn why we do as we are doing; you
will be intrigued as a fellow scientist. Then, so sad to say, you must
perish for having gained that very knowledge."

Asher shrugged, and through half-closed lids he eyed Lee Wong and the
rather small, slender Krenski, of the high brow and large head. Then
he walked ahead of them. Head up, shoulders back, he walked carelessly
down the wide hall--a hall that led into the main cavern of that
underground empire.

It was large--fully a hundred feet in a rough square. Not fifteen feet
from floor to ceiling at any point, it followed the course of the two
layers of granite between which it was sand