deep-drawn breath showed that the man still lived.

No, he must not leave Sykes, even if he had the means of death. They
would fight it through together, and perhaps--perhaps--they might yet be
of service, might find some way to avert the catastrophe that threatened
their world. Hopeless? Beyond doubt. But he must hope--and fight!

The leader had watched the light of understanding as it returned to the
flyer's eyes. He motioned now to the others, and McGuire was picked up
bodily by four of them and carried from the room.

* * * * *

McGuire's mind was alert once more; he was eager to learn what he could
of this place that was to be their prison, but he saw little. A glory of
blending colors beyond, where the golden light from without shone
through opal walls--then he found himself upon a narrow table where
straps of metal were thrown quickly about to bind him fast. He was tied
hand and foot to the table that moved forward on smooth rollers to a
waiting lift.

What next? he questioned. Not death, for they had been too careful to
keep him alive, these repulsive things that stared at him with such cold
malevolence. Then what? And McGuire found himself with unpleasant
recollections of others he had seen strapped in similar fashion to an
operating table.

The lift that he had thought would rise fell smoothly, instead, to stop
at some point far below ground where the table with its helpless burden
was rolled into a great room.

He could move his head, and McGuire turned and twisted to look at the
maze of instruments that filled the room--a super-laboratory for
experiments of which he dared not think.

"Whoever says I'm not scared to death is a liar," he whispered to
himself, but he continued to look and wonder as he was wheeled before a
gleaming machine of many coils and shining, metal parts. A smooth sheet
of metal stood vertically beyond him; painted a grayish-white, he saw;
but he could not imagine its use. A throng of people, seated in the
room, turned blood-red faces toward the bound man and the metal sheet.

"Looks as if we were about to put on a show of some kind," he told
himself, "and I am cast for a leading role." He watched as best he could
from his bound position while a tall figure in robes of lustreless black
appeared to stand beside him.

The newcomer regarded him with a face that was devoid of all emotion.
McGuire felt the lack of the customary expression of hatred; th