ked up the
syringe.

"There you are," said David.

Jerking the syringe upward, he forced a thin jet of pure alcohol into
the man's eyes. Marley screamed. Agonizing pain blinded him, and as he
clutched at his eyes, David snatched the needler from the writhing
fingers, and flashed the electronic dagger straight to the heart.

He stared at the twitching body for only an instant. People were
pounding on the door, shouting. He tugged at the desk drawer to get his
notebook, then remembered sickly that he had left his keys in the lab.
He would have to leave his notes.

[Illustration]

The shouts were growing louder, people were battering the door. Swiftly
he moved to the bookcase, swung it away from the wall, and dropped into
darkness.

He brought the bookcase back, then turned and ran along the black
passageway.

* * * * *

Leader Lanza sat in his suite at State House, conferring with his
subordinates.

"It hardly seems possible, Magnun, that so many people could have
slipped through your fingers without help from the Military. You say
both the Hachovnik twins have disappeared?"

"Yes, Leader."

"And how many people from the Institute?"

"Six, Leader. But it didn't do them any good. We got them, all right."

"But you found no bodies!"

"They wouldn't _have_ bodies after we got through with them, Leader."

"You're quite certain, Officer Magnun, that all the fugitives were
destroyed?"

Lanza looked tired, and his officers noticed in him a lack of firmness,
an indecision, to which they were not accustomed in a Leader.

"Say, those babies never had a chance, Leader. We picked up their
roboplanes somewhere over Kansas, and we shot them out of the air like
ducks. They didn't even fire back. They just crashed, burned,
disintegrated. They won't give you any more trouble. Why, we even picked
up the remains of Doc Wong's wristwatch and that old beat-up pencil case
of his." He flung them on the desk.

Lanza fingered the charred and molten relics.

"That will do, Magnun. I'll call you when I need you."

"Say, ain't you feeling well, Leader? You look kind of green."

"That will be all, Magnun!"

"As you say, Leader."

Lanza shoved aside the charred remnants and spread out the papers
waiting for him, the unimportant, miscellaneous notes accumulated over
the years by Hudson, Faure, and Haslam. And the unreadable notebook of
David Wong. He sighed and looked up as his secretary en