kings of veins
through their parchment-gray skins.

The crowd parted to a narrow, living lane, and lean fingers clutched
writhingly to touch them as they passed between the solid ranks.

McGuire had only a vague impression of a great building beyond, of lower
stories decorated in barbaric colors, of towers above in strange forms
of the crystal, colorful beauty they had seen. He walked toward it
unseeing; his thoughts were only of the creatures round about.

"What damned beasts!" he said. Then, like his companion, he set his
teeth to restrain all show of feeling as they made their way through the
lane of incredible living things.

* * * * *

They followed their captor through a doorway into an empty room--empty
save for one blue-clad individual who stood beside an instrument board
let into the wall. Beyond was a long wall, where circular openings
yawned huge and black.

The one at the instrument panel received a curt order: the weird voice
of the man in red repeated a word that stood out above his curious,
wordless tone. "Torg," he said, and again McGuire heard him repeat the
syllable.

The operator touched here and there among his instruments, and tiny
lights flashed; he threw a switch, and from one of the black openings
like a deep cave came a rushing roar of sound. It dropped to silence as
the end of a cylindrical car protruded into the room. A door in the
metal car opened, and their guard hustled them roughly inside. The one
in red followed while behind him the door clanged shut.

Inside the car was light, a diffused radiance from no apparent source,
the whole air was glowing about them. And beneath their feet the car
moved slowly but with a constant acceleration that built up to
tremendous speed. Then that slackened, and Sykes and McGuire clung to
each other for support while the car that had been shot like a
projectile came to rest.

"Whew!" breathed the lieutenant; "that was quick delivery." Sykes made
no reply, and McGuire, too, fell silent to study the tremendous room
into which they were led. Here, seemingly, was the stage for their next
experience.

A vast open hall with a floor of glass that was like obsidion, empty but
for carved benches about the walls; there was room here for a mighty
concourse of people. The walls, like those they had seen, were decorated
crudely in glaring colors, and embellished with grotesque designs that
proclaimed loudly the inexpert touch