a limp body. He laid it carefully down on the
floor.

"Ban's coming down with another," he said, "and there are two more
above. Go up and get them, Friday."

The Negro started to obey. But Eliot Leithgow did not move, did not
utter a sound. He stood staring at the body Carse had laid down. The
parchmentlike skin of his face seemed to whiten; that was all; but he
winced and slowly brushed his eyes with his hands when, in a moment,
Ban Wilson floated down the shaft and, approached with a second
unconscious body.

At last Leithgow whispered:

"They're all--like that, Carse?"

"Yes," answered the emotionless voice. "There were two others, but we
let them go. They were worse." The gray eyes looked steadily at Eliot
Leithgow. "I know," the Hawk said. "It's horrible--but it can't be
helped. It was these or nothing. There was no choice."

Hawk Carse had fulfilled his promise. He had brought back four
isuanacs.

CHAPTER XI

_Ordeal_

Five bodies lay on the operating tables in Eliot Leithgow's
laboratory. The air, hushed and heavy, was pervaded by the various
odors of antiseptics and etheloid. The breathing cones had been
applied to each of the bodies, and they were now locked fast in
controlled unconsciousness.

On the first table lay the body of the robot-coolie, a man of medium
size, sturdy, well-muscled, with the smooth round yellow face and stub
nose of his kind. His short-cropped, bristly black hair had been
shaved off; the head was now bald. That head was destined to hold the
mighty brain of Master Scientist Raymond Cram.

On the second table lay a twisted, distorted thing, an apelike body
with which fate had played grotesque pranks. It was hairy, of middle
height, and its dark skin all over was wizened and coarse, almost like
the bark of a tree. The legs were short and bowed, the hands stubby
claws; the face, puckered even in unconsciousness, was that of a
gargoyle in pain. The long matted hair had been shaved away; the large
pate washed with antiseptics. Soon, were the operation successful,
that head would hold the brain of Professor Edgar Estapp, world-famous
chemist and bio-chemist.

On the third table lay a shape skeletonlike in appearance, so
emaciated was it, so closely did the bones press into the dry,
fever-yellowed skin. Of one leg, only the stump was left; this
creature had been forced to hop or crawl his way through the isuan
swamps. The head, too, was no more than a skull, with great