at was too much for Martian justice. In pronouncing sentence the judge
had termed Luke an incurably vicious character and a menace to society
such as the planet had never harbored. And Luke, his head swathed in
bandages from which his wiry red hair bristled like the comb of a
gamecock, had grinned evilly and snarled his defiance.

And so they were taking him to the dread prison camp known as Vulcan's
Workshop, a mysterious place of horror and hardship from which no
convict had ever returned. Vaguely Luke knew that it was located on
still another world, away off somewhere in the heavens. He had seen the
lips of men go white when they were condemned to its reputed torture,
had heard them plead for death in preference. Yet its terrors had not
awed him; they did not awe him now. He had beaten the law before; he'd
beat it again--even in Vulcan's Workshop.

* * * * *

A key rattled in the lock and Luke Fenton leaped to his feet, facing the
barred door with feet spread wide and with his massive shoulders hunched
expectantly. He could see now, with much blinking and watering of his
still aching eyes, and he looked out with sneering disapproval at the
three guards in the corridor. They were afraid of him, singly, these
Martian cops, even though armed with the deadly dart guns and with
shot-loaded billies. So afraid, Luke chuckled inwardly, that they had
kept him from the other prisoners throughout the trip, kept him in
solitary confinement.

The door was opening and it came to Luke that the ethership was
strangely and hollowly silent. The rocket tubes were stilled, that was
it, and even the motors that drove the great ventilating fans had been
stopped. They had arrived.

No time now to start anything. He would have to submit tamely to
whatever they might mete out to him in the way of punishment--until he
got the lay of the land. It would require some time to study things out
and to plan. But plan he would, and act; they'd never hold him here
until he died of whatever it was that killed men quickly in Vulcan's
Workshop. Not Luke Fenton.

Sullenly docile, he was prodded forward to the air-lock. A draft of hot
fetid air swept through the corridor, carrying with it the forewarning
of unspeakable things to come. And a shriek of mortal terror wafted in
from outside by the stinking breeze, told of some poor devil already
demoralized. The thick muscles of Luke's biceps tightened to hard kno