Ed Dukas was writing letters. Someone or something was also writing—unseen but at his elbow. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before he noticed. Conspicuous at the center of the next blank sheet of paper he reached for, part of a word was already inscribed: " Nippe ... " The writing was faint and wavering but in the same shade of blue ink as that in his own pen. Ed Dukas said "Hey?" to himself, mildly. The frown creases between his hazel eyes deepened. They were evidence of strain that was not new

Life had become hard enough for Eileen Dukas and her son. While most people treated them all right—from some they even received exaggerated kindness—there was, very often, a certain disturbing expression in eyes that looked at them. Les Payten, Eddie's friend said once, "I promise, Ed. No more talk about your uncle from me. Finished, see? You've had enough." Eddie suppressed the anger which sprang from loyalty to Mitchell Prell, for he understood Les Payten's good intentions. At regular interval

That same night, at his home in the suburbs, Ed Dukas read an article that had especially attracted his attention. Could vitaplasm be grown into forms unknown before? Could it be shaped from a plan—a blueprint—like the metal and plastic forming a machine? Heart here, lungs there, nervous system arranged so? Scaly armor, long, creeping body? Or wings that fluttered through the air? The author saw no reason why this could not happen. Monstrous things. Ed Dukas chuckled at the melodramatic idea. Bu

That was a bad evening for Ed Dukas. He left Barbara at her house, which was now guarded. But he did not get home easily. For that was the evening trouble became general. John Jones of old-time flesh and blood, and George Smith of vitaplasm forgot all their politeness and let their smoldering thoughts come to the surface: "So now you brew up monsters like yourselves, to attack us. I wouldn't be like you if it was the last way to be alive." "Oh, no, brother? Those creatures must be yours. What ma

As the ship rose on its column of fire some of the old love of distance and enigma came back to Ed. There was also a sense of adventurous escape, like that of city workers of centuries ago, when, chucking business and office routines, they had rushed to the country on weekends to regain a little of primitive nature while they scorched a steak over a smoky fire in the woods. On the Moon Dust there were more women and children than men: refugees from danger. But would old Mars be much safer? Didn'

Stripped of their boots and vacuum armor, they set the controls and lowered themselves into the gelatinous contents of the tanks. A warm, tingling numbness flowed into them at contact with the viscous, energized fluid. Weariness stabbed into their muscles. Their knees buckled, and they sank deeper into the gelatin. "All okay, Babs?" he asked. "Okay, Ed." Then their faces went under that surface. Their minds numbed and were blotted out. They no longer needed to breathe. The journey downward into

The colossi were piling Mitchell Prell's movable equipment into a corner, where Midas Touch pistols, turned low, could play neutron streams against it. Then they would no doubt scour walls, floors and ceilings with the same corpuscular beams. The air itself would heat up considerably. Combustible floating dust, would burn to finer dust. Drafts would seem blasting hurricanes. "There's a way out—if we hurry," Mitchell Prell said. "Imitate my movements." And so they swam in the atmosphere. But with

Ed and Barbara and Prell came to the parting of the ways sooner than they had intended. Without instruments, it was hard to judge velocity. They did not use their Midas Touch cylinders quite long enough to check speed sufficiently as they approached the great blue-green planet with its blurred ring. They hit the atmosphere, not really fast, but fast enough. Briefly, sound was reborn around them in a shrieking whistle, like a vast, thin wind. They tumbled over and over, and the strand that kept t

Ed's score stood at two points gained—Loman out of the way and the source of the monsters revealed. But these were small victories compared with what must be gained if there was to be any hope. Masses of human beings and androids faced each other, their emotions inflamed to the point of final folly. And the end of one troublemaker and the revelation of his tools were small items beside all that. Ed got out of Loman's oxygen helmet the way he had entered. Les Payten, a dazed Atlas, was stumbling

Consciousness came back to him, bringing a cloudy surprise. Rough rocky walls were around him. This was an artificial cavern crowded with neo-biological equipment, most of which he could recognize. He lay firmly on a hard couch contrived of planks and a folded blanket, part of the latter covering him. A pair of dungarees and a mended shirt had been tossed casually across his bare torso. Someone who looked like a young medico laughed near him. "One week's time, Dukas—that's all we need now for a