cherous and
unmoral mechanism of flesh and blood, acknowledging no authority, ruled
by nothing save his own scientific drivings and the almost equally
powerful urges of his desires and passions! She had fought with every
resource at her command. She had wept and pleaded, she had stormed and
raged, she had feigned submission and had played for time--and her
torment had not touched in the slightest degree the merciless and
gloating brain of the being who called himself Roger. Now his
tantalizing, ruthless cat-play was done, the horrible gray-brown face
was close to hers--she wailed her final despairing message to Costigan
and attacked that hideous face with the fury of a tigress.

Costigan bit off a bitter imprecation. "Hold him just a second longer,
sweetheart!" he cried, and the power room door vanished.

Through the great room the two Lewistons swept at full aperture and at
maximum power, two rapidly opening fans of death and destruction. Here
and there a guard, more rapid than his fellows, trained a futile
projector--a projector whose magazine exploded at the touch of that
frightful field of force, liberating instantaneously its thousands upon
thousands of kilowatt-hours of stored-up energy. Through the delicately
adjusted, complex mechanisms the destroying beams tore. At their touch
armatures burned out, high-tension leads volatilized in crashing,
high-voltage sparks, masses of metal smoked and burned in the path of
vast forces now seeking the easiest path to neutralization, delicate
instruments blew up, copper ran in streams like water. As the last
machine subsided into a semi-molten mass of metal the two wreckers, each
grasping a brace, felt themselves become weightless and knew that they
had accomplished the first part of their program.

Costigan leaped for the outer door. His the task to go to Clio's aid....
Bradley would follow more slowly, bringing the girl's armor and taking
care of any possible pursuit. As he sailed through the air he spoke.

"Coming, Clio! All right, girl?" Questioningly, half fearfully.

"All right, Conway." Her voice was almost unrecognizable, broken in
retching agony. "When everything went crazy he ... found out that the
ether-wall was up ... forgot all about me. He shut it off ... and seemed
to go crazy, too ... he is floundering around like a wild man now....
I'm trying to keep ... him from ... going down-stairs."

"Good girl--keep him busy one minute more--he's getting all the war