er the open area between,
and grew into the grinning, freckle-faced Ban Wilson. He bounced down
awkwardly, almost losing his balance, then surveyed, wonderingly, the
four assistants of Ku Sui.

"By Betelgeuse!" he muttered, "--like robots! Horrible!"

"Yes," said the Hawk shortly. "You had no trouble, eh?"

Ban grinned again. "Nothing to mention. This has been soft, hasn't
it?"

"Don't be too optimistic, Ban. All right--when you've put these men in
the room, please relieve Friday. Send him to me in the laboratory--he
knows where it is--and stand watch yourself. If Ku Sui appears--"

"I'll let you know on the instant!"

Hawk Carse nodded and turned back into the corridor from which he had
just come. Now he would fulfil his promise. With no possibility of a
surprise attack from anyone within the dome, and Ban Wilson posted
against the return of Ku Sui, he could attend unhampered to the vow
which had brought him there.

* * * * *

He returned to the central laboratory. Quickly be rolled back the high
screen lying across one part of the curved wall and stood looking at
what was behind it. The monstrousness of that dead-and-alive mechanism
overwhelmed his thoughts again.

Before him stood a case, transparent, hard and crystal-like, as long
as a man's body and half as deep, standing level on short metal legs.
What it contained was the most jealously guarded, the most precious of
all Dr. Ku Sui's works, the very consummation of his mighty genius,
his treasure-house of wisdom as profound as man then could know. And
more: it held the consummation of all that was so coldly unhuman in
the Eurasian. For there, in that case, he had bound to his will the
brains of five of Earth's greatest scientists, and kept them alive,
with their whole matured store of knowledge subservient to his need,
although their bodies were long since dead and decayed.

For some time the adventurer stood lost in a mood of thoughts and
emotions rare to him--until he was startled back into reality by a
heavy, clumping noise coming down the corridor through which he had
entered. His gun-hand flickered to readiness, but it was only Friday,
coming as he had been ordered. Carse greeted the Negro with a nod, and
said briefly:

"There's a panel in this room--over there somewhere--you remember--the
place through which Ku Sui escaped when we were here before. It's an
unknown quantity, so I want you to stand watch by it. Open