e heavens, and Blaine
saw a number of large circular hatches in its side that evidently
covered air-locked entrances.

"You will land close by the dome, Carson," Antazzo barked, "and both of
you will get into your moon-suits."

At his tone Blaine saw red. He realized on the instant that the effect
of the pink gas had worn off and that he was his own master once more.
All the pent-up emotions of the past few days were unleashed. If only
he could get in one good punch. They might get away yet. There was
plenty of k-metal to replenish the fuel supply. He whirled suddenly,
muscles tensed. He faced the grinning hunchback--and was greeted by a
breathtaking spurt of the pink gas. This time it was not merely a
subjecting of his own will to that of the master but a complete
hypnotism, a somnambulistic state. As in a dream he turned to the
controls.

Now it came to him that the dwarf no longer spoke. He worked his will
entirely without words; his evil mind possessed fully the mind of his
victim. For Blaine Carson there was no further independent thinking. He
was an automaton, a sleep-walker.

* * * * *

Like a detached and more or less disinterested observer, he saw that he
had landed the ship. Then he noticed three dwarfs in bulky, helmeted
moon-suits, shuffling clumsily across the copper plates. Hazily he knew
he was with the others in an airlock; the hiss and the throbbing of
pumps told him that. Under the great dome there was the latticework of
a huge reflecting telescope; strange pigmy figures scuttled here and
there, working at curious machines. There was the constant purr of many
motors, the gentle pulsation of floor-plates beneath his feet.

With the moon-suit removed, he realized the atmosphere was fetid and
stifling. A great pressure bore on his lungs, making breathing labored
and difficult. And then they were in a lift that dropped into the
depths of its shaft with dizzying speed. Antazzo's grin; Tom's eyes,
dull and lifeless, floating there in the haze before his own--it was
all a nightmare from which he must soon awaken.

There followed a period of complete unconsciousness of movement and of
his surroundings. Light--light everywhere; a blue-white radiance that
beat upon his unseeing eyes with unrelenting ferocity. Stabbing pains
bored into his very brain, pains that carried with them an unspoken and
unintelligible command. Why couldn't they let him alone; leave him to