e half-globe showed, within its
milky interior, a hideously distorted landscape. The light had taken on
a hard, brittle appearance and its hiss had risen to a scream. The
machine thundered steadily with a suggestion of horrible power.

"Time up!"

The tall man stepped forward. His foot reached the disk; another step
and he was bathed in the light, a third and he glimmered momentarily,
then vanished. Close on his heels followed the little cockney.

With his nerves at almost a snapping point, Henry moved on behind the
fourth man. He was horribly afraid, he wanted to break from the line and
run, it didn't matter where, any place to get away from that steady,
steely light in front of him. He had seen three men step into it, glow
for a second, and then disappear. A fourth man had placed his foot on
the disk.

Cold sweat stood out on his brow. Like an automaton he placed one foot
on the disk. The fourth man had already disappeared.

"Snap into it, pal," growled the man behind.

Henry lifted the other foot, caught his toe on the edge of the disk and
stumbled headlong into the column of light.

He was conscious of intense heat which was instantly followed by equally
intense cold. For a moment his body seemed to be under enormous
pressure, then it seemed to be expanding, flying apart, bursting,
exploding....

* * * * *

He felt solid ground under his feet, and his eyes, snapping open, saw an
alien land. It was a land of somber color, with great gray moors, and
beetling black cliffs. There was something queer about it, an intangible
quality that baffled him.

He looked about him, expecting to see his companions. He saw no one. He
was absolutely alone in that desolate brooding land. Something dreadful
had happened! Was he the only one to be safely transported from the
third dimension? Had some horrible accident occurred? Was he alone?

Sudden panic seized him. If something had happened, if the others were
not here, might it not be possible that the machine would not be able to
bring him back to his own dimension? Was he doomed to remain marooned
forever in this terrible plane?

He looked down at his body and gasped in dismay. It was not his body!

It was a grotesque caricature of a body, a horrible profane mass of
flesh, like a phantasmagoric beast snatched from the dreams of a
lunatic.

It was real, however. He felt it with his hands, but they were not
hands. They were something li