ang of sympathy for him. He was
so plainly one of humankind, despite the fact that he had been born on
a sphere four hundred million miles from Dex's.

The fellow was paralyzed with horror. His eyes, wide and glazed,
darted about the torture room like those of a trapped animal. And yet
he made no move to break away from the clutch of the two Rogans who
held him. He knew he was helpless, that wild-eyed glance told Dex.
Knew it so thoroughly that not even his wildest terror could inspire
him to try to make a break for freedom, or strike back at the
implacable Rogan will.

* * * * *

At a nod from the leader, the man was stripped to the waist. Here Dex
started in amazement. The man's broad chest was seamed and
crisscrossed by literally hundreds of tiny lateral scars, some long
healed, and some fresh incisions.

He was dragged to a metal plate set upright in the wall, and secured
to it by straps of metal. Evidently the miserable being knew what this
portended, for he began to scream--a monotonous, high-pitched shriek
that didn't stop till he was out of breath.

The Rogan leader stared at him icily, then depressed a small lever set
in the wall beside him. The plate against which the captive was bound
began to shine softly with a blue light. The slave twisted in his
bonds, screaming again. Rhythmic shudders jerked at his limbs. His
lips turned greenish white. The shudders grew more pronounced till it
seemed as though he were afflicted with a sort of horrible St. Vitus
dance. Then the tall Rogan pulled back the lever. The slave hung away
from his supporting shackles, limp and unconscious.

Dex moistened his lips. An electric shock? No, it was something more
terrible than that. Some other manifestation of the magnetic power the
Rogans had harnessed--a current, perhaps, that depolarized partly the
atoms of the body structure? He could only guess. But the convulsed
face of the unfortunate victim showed that the torment, whatever it
was, was devilish to the last degree!

"That will be the next to the last fate reserved for you," the Rogan
informed Dex, through Greca. "Death follows soon after that--but not
too soon for you to see and feel what waits for you behind the barred
door!" And he nodded toward the cage-entrance affair, from which came
the musky, reptilian stench.

"Now that you have seen something of what will happen to you if you
refuse to tell us what we want to know, we shall pr