d, for the
entire area within view was encompassed with a milky diffused
brightness in which two worlds seemed to intermingle and fuse. There
were the rooftops of the city in Urtraria and its magnificent domes, a
transparent yet substantial reality superimposed upon the gloomy city
of cones of the metal monsters.

"Jupiter!" Bert breathed. "They're going through!"

"They are, Earthling. More accurately, they did--thousands of them;
millions." Even as the Wanderer spoke, the metal monsters were
wriggling through between the two planes, their enormous bodies moving
with menacing deliberation.

On the rooftops back in Urtraria could be seen the frantic, fleeing
forms of humanlike beings--the Wanderer's people.

There was a sharp click from the control panel and the scene was
blotted out by the familiar maze of geometric shapes, the whirling,
dancing light-forms that rushed madly past over the vast arch which
spanned infinity.

* * * * *

"Where were you at the time?" asked Bert. Awed by what he had seen and
with pity in his heart for the man who had unwittingly let loose the
horde of metal monsters on his own loved ones and his own land, he
stared at the Wanderer.

The big man was standing with face averted, hands clutching the rail
of the control panel desperately. "I?" he whispered. "I was roaming
the planes, exploring, experimenting, immersed in the pursuits that
went with my insatiable thirst for scientific data and the broadening
of my knowledge of this complex universe of ours. Forgetting my
responsibilities. Unknowing, unsuspecting."

"You returned--to your home?"

"Too late I returned. You shall see; we return now by the same route I
then followed."

"No!" Bert shouted, suddenly panicky at thought of what might be
happening to Joan and Tom in the land of the Bardeks. "No,
Wanderer--tell me, but don't show me. I can imagine. Seeing those
loathsome big worms of iron and steel, I can well visualize what they
did. Come now, have a heart, man; take me to my friends before...."

"Ah-h!" The Wanderer looked up and a benign look came to take the
place of the pain and horror which had contorted his features. "It is
well, O Man-Called-Bert. I shall do as you request, for I now see that
my mission has been well accomplished. We go to your friends, and fear
you not that we shall arrive too late."

"Your--your mission?" Bert calmed immediately under the spell of the
Wanderer's new