used.

Stern felt an immediate and unreasoning hate for the thing, whatever it
was, a hate so strong that he forgot to feel fear. It seemed to him to
combine the repulsive qualities of a spider and a toad. The body, fat
and repugnant, was covered by a loose skin, dull and leathery, and the
fatness seemed to be pulled downward below the lower tentacles like an
insect's body, until it was wider at the bottom than at the top.

Like a salt shaker, Stern thought.

It turned its head--it had no neck; the loose skin of the body just
turned with it--and looked back inside the sphere. The head resembled a
toad's, but a long trident tongue slid in and out quickly, changing the
resemblance to that of a malformed snake.

From the interior, Dr. Curtis appeared beside the creature and stood
there vaguely for a moment. Stern noticed that his clothes seemed just
as new as when he had left, but he had grown a long, untrimmed beard,
and his face had a vacant expression, as if he were hypnotized.

The creature looked upward at Curtis, who was head and shoulders taller,
and its resemblance changed again in Stern's mind, so that now it looked
like a dog, at least in attitude. From its mouth came a low hissing
noise.

[Illustration: Illustrated by WILLER]

Curtis looked down at the dog-spider-toad, his eyes slowly beginning
to focus. The creature wiggled like a seal with a fish in sight, then
slid and bumped down the steps, with Curtis following him.

"Clyde!" cried Beryl and rushed toward Curtis.

The outstretched tentacles of the beast stopped her, but at a touch from
Curtis they fell away and Beryl was in his arms.

Stern watched the scene sourly and with rage in his heart. Why hadn't
Clyde waited another year? Then nothing could have changed things. Now
he would lose not only Beryl, but the management of the money that was
left, and the marketing of new patents on the machine. Curtis did not
approve of speculation, especially when it lost money.

"You've changed, Clyde," Beryl was saying as she hugged him. "What is
the matter--do you need a doctor?"

"No, I don't want a doctor, but I have to get home," said Curtis.

Stern felt anger again beating in his brain like heavy surf on a beach.
Curtis was sick. The least he could have done was die. Well, maybe he
still would. And if he didn't he could be helped to--Stern saw the beast
looking at him intently, malevolently. Its face might have looked almost
human, now that it was s