, though in truth they were far from calm! Were
Alan and Glora following us now? I could only hope so. Once out of this,
Babs and I would have to rejoin them. But how? Panic swept me. I
shouldn't have left them. Or at least I should have told them what I was
trying to do, and given Alan a chance to plan.

The panic grew, the premonition of disaster. From my belt I took the
opalescent vial with its one partially used pellet. I dumped the pellet
out. It was spoiling! The exposure to the air and the moisture of my
tongue, had ruined it! I realized the catastrophe, as I held its
crumbling, deliquescing fragments on my palm it melted into vapor and
was gone!

We couldn't make ourselves smaller! Now we'd have to wait until Polter
opened the cage. But once outside, the enlarging drug would give us our
chance to fight our way upward. My trembling fingers sought the black
vial in my belt. It wasn't there! My mind flung back: in that tunnel,
something had dropped and I had kicked it! Accursed chance! My accursed,
heedless stupidity!

I had lost the black vial! We were helpless! Caged! Marooned here in a
size microscopic!

CHAPTER VIII

I lay concealed and Babs stood at the lattice of our cage room. I was
aware that Polter had entered some vast apartment of this giant palace.
The light outside was brighter; I heard voices--Polter's and another
man's. I could see the distant monster shape of one. He was at first so
far away that all his outline was visible. A seated man in a huge white
room. I thought there were great shelves with enormous bottles. The
spread of table tops passed under our cage as Polter walked by them.
They held a litter of apparatus, and there was the smell of chemicals in
the air. This seemed to be a laboratory.

The man stood up to greet Polter. I had a glimpse of his head and
shoulders. He wore a white linen coat, open, soft collar and black tie.
He seemed an old man, queerly old, with snow-white hair.

I had an instant of whirling impressions. Something was familiar about
his face. It was wrinkled and seamed with lines of age and care. There
were gentle blue eyes.

Then all I could see was the vast spread of his white shirt and coat, a
black splotch of his tie outside our bars as Polter faced him.

Babs gave a low cry. "Why--why--dear God--"

And then I knew! And Polter's words were not needed, though I heard
their rumble.

"I am back again, Kent. Are you still rebellious? You haf still