elieved it!" and another nodded in
wordless agreement. The third, white-faced, stared for a long time
unseeingly at the cloud-flecked bowl of the sky....

But it would be best, perhaps, to tell the story as it happened.

* * * * *

The incredible events that shaped it began two nights before, when the
larger of the two rooms in the island cabin was bathed in the bald
glare of a strong floodlight that threw into sharp prominence the
intent features of two men in the room, and the complicated details of
the strange equipment around them.

Garth Howard, the younger of the two, was holding a tiny, squawling,
spitting thing, not more than three inches long, which might have
seemed, at a quick glance, to have been a normal enough kitten. Closer
inspection, however, would have revealed that it had a thick, smooth
coat, a lithe, fully developed body and narrowed, venomous
eyes--things which no week-old kitten ever possessed. It was a mature
cat, but in the size of a kitten.

Howard's level gray eyes were held fascinated by it. When he spoke,
his words were hushed and almost reverent.

"Perfect, Hagendorff!" he said. "Not a flaw!"

"The reduction has not improved her temper," Hagendorff articulated
precisely. His deep voice matched the rest of him. Garth Howard's
clean-muscled body stood a good six feet off the floor, yet the other
topped him by inches. And his face compared well with his bulky body,
for his head was massive, with overhanging brows and a shaggy mop of
blond hair. Athlete and weight-lifter, the two looked, but in reality
they were scientist and assistant, working together for a common end.

* * * * *

The room in which they stood was obviously a laboratory. Bulky gas
engines and a generator squatted at one end; tables held racks of
tools and loops of insulated wiring and jars of various chemicals. One
long table stretched the whole length of the room, placed flush
against the left wall, whose rough planking was broken by a lone
window. There were racks of test tubes on this table, and tools,
carelessly scattered by men intent on their work.

Still another table was devoted to several cages, containing the usual
martyrs of experimental science: guinea pigs and rabbits, rats and
white mice. Beside these was a large box, screen topped, in which, in
separate partitions, were a variety of insects: beetles and flies and
spiders and tarantulas.