ers. He loses all his will to live and resist, and becomes
nothing but an automaton, whose complete mental equipment is at my
command."

There was silence. His glassy black eyes, blank and soulless, swept
over us. His mouth curled in that smug, complacent smile. He had us
with our shoulders to the floor. He knew it--and he knew we knew it.
There was no possible way we could escape. We were two thousand feet
above the earth. Our plane wouldn't get a quarter of a mile before the
magnetic ray would bring it back. Parachute? Even supposing we could
get parachutes where would we go? Drop two thousand feet into the
middle of the Arabian Desert?

My brain raced. Never before had I been in such a tight place. And
soon--if Fraser had his way--I wouldn't even have a mind to think
with! I felt choked, stifled. Was there no way out? It seemed to me
that a blanket--a soft, terrible blanket of uncontrollable
circumstance--was being folded around me, robbing me of the use of my
limbs, paralyzing me, numbing me. And out of this terrible
helplessness came again Fraser's voice.

"I have told you enough," he said suavely, "so that you may have a
faint idea of my power. I will send you now to Doctor Semple who will
administer the serum and place you under the 'nourishment ray.' This
is another of my discoveries," he added casually. "It is a ray which
allows the patient to absorb, through the shell of the skin,
sufficient nourishment, both solid and liquid, to last for twenty-four
hours."

* * * * *

Five minutes later we stood in a small room that might have been the
office of an up-to-date physician anywhere in the world. Across the
polished top of a mahogany desk Dr. Semple stared at us, his eyes,
like the eyes of our guide and Fraser, polished and expressionless.
But now we understood. Those eyes were expressionless because there
was nothing to give them expression. I tried to force my mind to
comprehend the almost incomprehensible. We were among men who were not
men! We were fast in the power of human beings who possessed no trace
of humanity, who had become nothing but scientific Robots even though
they still had bodies of flesh and blood! It was unbelievable! My
hands grew cold and my brain hot at the thought. Yet, gazing into the
bright, enamelled eyes of Dr. Semple, I knew it was true.

Carefully, scientifically, we were prepared for our injections. And
with every mechanical move of the doctor