ng Barto, and I almost yelled "Jake, snap out of it!" before I
remembered my own peril.

Then he came into the full light, and passed not twenty feet away. I
leaned against the railing of stone, sick as a dog and retching. They
had made him over, with some unknown aborted science of an evil world!
Jake was clubfooted, lumbering, with his jaws grown into great jowls of
bone, his arms elongated and ending in hooks. Two of the fingers, or the
thumb and finger had been enlarged or grafted into a bone-like semblance
of a crab's claw. What he was going to be when they got through, I
didn't know, but neither did Jake. He didn't know anything! He clumped
along, his crossed eyes unmoving, his back bent with a weight heavy for
even his broad shoulders--a man no longer, but a mindless zombie. A
cross-eyed zombie!

I cursed silently, tearing my hands against the stone as I resisted the
impulse to fire and fire again upon those hopping, thin, white things
that came after.

"Just _what_ are those hopping things?"

"They are a separate race, who have lived with both Zervs and with
Schrees. They are a part of our life. You have dogs, horses, machines.
We have _Jivros_--that is, priests--and we have the workmen we call
Shinros, and too, we have the Zoorphs!" She laughed a little as I stared
at her. "Do not worry, the Zoorphs are not really so different. But the
Schrees and Shinros _are_ different."

"Damned, beastly, demoniac life it must be."

"To you, who expect things to be like your knowledge tells you it must
be. To us, it is our way. For a Zerv, or for a Schree, it is a good way.
The Jivros do the supervisory work, the Shinros do the hard work, and
the Schrees take it easy and enjoy life. Why do you have machines?"

"Machines are not alive. That is different."

"Neither are the Shinros alive, they only seem so. They do not know what
they have lost--it is much as if they had died.

"But come, I must show you where we can get a ship to take us away from
this and into your world. I have a life to live, I want to _live_ it!
You--have a message to deliver to your people, or they will become the
Shinros of the whole race of Schrees. I do not like to think what can
happen to your world!"

I followed her again on our furtive way among the shadows. She was
swift and sure, and made good time. She knew where she was going. It was
a broad open space deep within the city. On three sides were wide closed
doors like hangar doors. T