when they stopped before Dr. Mildume's stucco
and tile-roof house.

Mildume directed them immediately to a walled-in patio in the rear of
the place. A shed-roof covered one side of the patio and under it were
racks of equipment. Harold recognized banks of relays, power
amplifiers, oscillographs and some other familiar devices. There were
also some strange ones.

Mildume waved his long fingers at all of it. "My teleportation set-up
is entirely too bulky so far for practical use, as you can see."

"Nph," said Mr. Untz, eyeing it. During the drive Dr. Mildume and
Harold had explained more to him about teleportation and the monsters
and he was more doubtful than ever about the whole thing. "So let's
see the monsters," he said now. "Time is fleeing."

Mildume went in his hopping step across the patio to a huge tarpaulin
that covered something square and bulky. He worried the tarpaulin
away. Two steel cages stood there.

"Sacred carp!" said Mr. Untz.

Two _somethings_ were in the steel cages.

They were both iridescent greenish-gray in color, they had globular
bodies, no discernible heads and eyes on stalks growing from their
bodies. Three eyes apiece. If they _were_ eyes--anyway, they looked
like eyes. Sweeping fibrillae came down to the ground and seemed to
serve as feet. Great saw-toothed red gashes in the middle of each body
might have been mouths.

"They're--they're _real_. They're _alive_!" said Harold Potter
hoarsely. That was the thing about them. They had the elusive quality
of life about them--and of course they were thus infinitely more
terrifying than the prop department's fake monsters.

"They're alive all right," said Dr. Mildume chattily. "Took me quite a
bit of experimenting to discover what to feed them. They like
glass--broken glass. They're evidently a silicon rather than a carbon
form of life."

"This I'll buy," said Mr. Untz, still staring.

"Of course," said Mildume. "I knew you would. They will cost you
exactly ten thousand dollars per day. Per twenty-four hour period."

"Profiteer--burglar!" said Mr. Untz, glaring at Mildume.

Mildume shrugged.

There was an abrupt, high-pitched squeak. Harold stared at the
monsters. The smaller one was quivering.

"They do that when they're angry," Dr. Mildume said. "Some sort of
skin vibration. This smaller one here seems to take the initiative in
things. Must be a male. Unless there's female dominance, as in birds
of prey, wherever these things