the transformer. "As I told you before, however,
you are specimens to be studied by the College of Science, and you shall
be so studied in spite of anything you may do. Resign yourselves to
that."

"Well, say that we don't try to make any more trouble; that we
co-operate in the examination and give you whatever information we can,"
Costigan suggested. "Then you will probably be willing to give us a ship
and let us go back to our own world?"

"You will not be allowed to cause any more trouble," the amphibian
declared, coldly. "Your co-operation will not be required. We will take
from you whatever knowledge and information we wish. In all probability
you will never be allowed to return to your own system, because as
specimens you are too unique to lose. But enough of this idle
chatter--take them back to their quarters!"

And back to their inter-communicating rooms the prisoners were led under
heavy guard.

True to his word, Nerado made certain that they had no more
opportunities to escape. All the way back to far-distant Nevia the
space-ship sped, where at once, in manacles, the Terrestrials were taken
to the College of Science, there to undergo the physical and psychical
examinations which Nerado had promised them.

Clio and Costigan learned that the Nevian scientist-captain had not
erred in stating that their co-operation was neither needed nor desired.
Furious but impotent, the human beings were studied in laboratory after
laboratory by the coldly analytical, unfeeling scientists of Nevia, to
whom they were nothing more nor less than specimens; and in full measure
they came to know what it meant to play the part of an unknown, lowly
organism in a biological research. They were photographed, externally
and internally. Every bone, muscle, organ, vessel, and nerve was studied
and charted. Every reflex and reaction was noted and discussed. Meters
registered every impulse and recorders filmed every thought, every idea,
and every sensation. Endlessly, day after day, the nerve-wracking
torture went on, until the frantic subjects could bear no more.
White-faced and shaking, Clio finally screamed wildly, hysterically, as
she was being strapped down upon a laboratory bench; and at the sound
Costigan's nerves, already at the breaking point, gave way in an
outburst of Berserk fury.

The man's struggles and the girl's shrieks were alike futile, but the
surprised Nevians, after a consultation, decided to give the specimens a