nd your promise._"

* * * * *

A voice from living brain cells, through inorganic lungs and throat
and tongue! A voice from five brains, speaking, for some obscure
reason which even Ku Sui could not explain, in the first person, and
setting to mechanical words the living, pulsing thoughts that sped
back and forth inside the case and were coordinated into unity by the
master brain, which had once been in the body of Master Scientist
Cram. A voice out of nothingness; a voice from what seemed so clearly
to be the dead. To Hawk Carse, man of action, it was unearthly; it was
a miracle the fact of which he could not question, but which he could
not hope to understand. And well might it have been unearthly to
anyone. Even to-day.

Still thrilling to the wonder of it, he went on:

"I have returned here to the asteroid with friends. Primarily I came
to keep my promise to you, but I intend to do more. Dr. Ku Sui is not
here now, and will not be for at least fifteen minutes; but when he
does return, I am going to capture him. I am going to take him alive."

He was silent for a moment.

"Perhaps you do not know," he continued levelly, "but the people of
Earth hold Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow responsible for your
disappearance. He is therefore a fugitive, and there is a price on his
head. It is my purpose to restore Eliot Leithgow to his old place by
returning Dr. Ku to Earth to answer for the crimes he has effected on
you.

"I am now ready to fulfil my promise to you. I expect no interruption
this time. I regret exceedingly my inability to destroy you when I was
here before, but I simply could not in the little time I had. I still
do not know how best to go about it. Perhaps you will tell me. I will
wait...."

An afterthought came to him. He added into the grille:

"There is no hurry. Your extraordinary position--your thoughts--I
understand...."

Then there was a long silence. For once the Hawk was not impatient; in
fact there was in him the feeling that the pause was only decent and
fitting. For before him were the brains of five great scientists, who
as captive remnants of men had asked him to end their cold and lonely
bondage. Limbless, his was to be the hand of their self-immolation.
The present silent, slow-passing minutes were to be their last of
consciousness....

And then at last spoke the voice:

"_Captain Carse, I do not wish you to destroy me. I with you to give
me new