I am so far ahead
of you ... but I tell you it is a painful thing to destroy so
wonderful a work of my hands...."

Silence filled the laboratory. It was broken by the awful voice of the
living dead.

"_I release you from your second promise, Captain Carse. No doubt
what happened was beyond your control.... I will soon be dead.
Although there is still nourishment in my liquid, I grow weaker
already. I am dying...._"

Harshly, the Hawk asked a final question into the grille:

"Within what time will you retain the vitality necessary to undergo
the initial steps of the transplanting operations? Do you know?"

Dr. Ku raised his head at this, though he seemed only mildly
interested in what the reply would be.

"_I think for two of the remaining three hours._"

"All right!" said Hawk Carse decisively. He threw off the case's
switches. "Dr. Ku," he said, "you've only succeeded in accelerating
things. Now for speed! Friday, we're taking this asteroid to Eliot
Leithgow's laboratory. Go see that the port-lock doors are closed
tight, then you and Wilson hurry back here! Fast! Run!"

CHAPTER VII

_To the Laboratory_

When the Negro returned, panting, with Ban Wilson, it was to discover
Carse in the control room of the asteroid. He was studying the
multifarious devices and instruments: and they, seeing his face so set
in concentration, did not disturb him, but went over to where Dr. Ku
Sui sat in a chair, and posted themselves behind it.

The apparatus in the control room resembled that of any modern
space-ship of its time, except that there were extra pieces of
unguessed function. Directly in front of Carse was the directional
space-stick above its complicated mechanism: above his eyes was the
wide six-part visi-screen, which in space would record the whole
"sphere" of the heavens: while to his right was the chief control
board, a smooth black surface studded with squads of vari-colored
buttons and lights, These were the essentials, familiar to any ship
navigator; but they were here awesome, for they controlled not the one
or two hundred feet of an ordinary craft, but twenty miles of this
space-ship of rock.

"Yes ... yes...." Carse murmured presently out of his study, then
turned and for the first time appeared to notice Friday and Ban. He
gave orders.

"Eclipse, you see the radio over there? Get Master Leithgow on it for
me--protected beam. Ban, you bind Dr. Ku Sui in that chair, please."

Wilson was s