out with those lights--and let's go over to the "Brain Wave." I
seem to hear a pleasant tinkling of glasses from within."

* * * * *

There was. With her remarkable ability of living up to an emergency,
Oona had taken possession of the strange ship. As the two men
approached, she stood at the door, unhurried hostess of an established
home with the soft glow of an electric fireplace behind her, ice cubes
and cocktail shakers already glittering on the little bar.

It was a spacious cabin. On Scriven's orders it had been equipped
somewhat like the captain's stateroom on an old "East-Indiaman" sailing
ship.

"I like your ship, Howard," she said. "She's swaying a little on her
shock absorbers in this breeze, but that makes one feel like really
being at high sea."

Scriven heaved a big sigh. "Thank you Oona, my dear. And you have no
idea how right you are. We _are_ at high sea; in fact, we're lost--at
least I am. Unless you save my life tonight, you and Dr. Lee."

Oona laughed and even Lee couldn't help smiling. There was something
irresistible comic in the puzzled and worried expression of that leonine
face. "Come on in, you need a drink," the girl said.

The aluminum steps creaked, and then the settee by the fireplace, under
the surgeon's mighty frame. "More than one. Tonight, so help me, I would
be justified, I would even have a right to get roaring drunk."

Lee began to wonder whether the great Scriven had already made some use
of his right in Los Angeles, which would account for the startling
change in the man. The drink, however, which Oona handed him, seemed to
do a lot of good. He sighed relief.

"This, briefly, is the story: I ran into General Vandergeest at the
airplane factory. He was there to take over some stuff for the Army and
he tipped me off. We are going to be invaded, Oona, a full scale
invasion mounted by a Congressional Committee."

"Oh God," there was sincere grief in the girl's voice. "And couldn't you
ward it off?"

With a gesture of despair, Scriven waved that away. "I know, I know. But
after all The Brain _is_ a military establishment and I am only the
scientific director of it. Yes, of course I protested, I protested
vehemently, but--" he shrugged his shoulders, "it was no good. You know
how the military are." He drained his glass and swung around.

"To put you into the picture, Lee, we have under construction at this
present time the 'Thorax.' That's a v