My search for the
cavern took longer than I had expected for I knew only its approximate
location. My own body at last had to have sustenance. Last night the
Negro, Jeff Peters, provided that sustenance.

"I shall feed those of you who remain to the first group of Shining Ones
to be awakened. After that we shall be strong enough in numbers to sally
forth and capture ample food for awakening the rest of our comrades.
Then in our full strength we shall emerge and again become masters of a
planet upon which your crude race shall exist only as _yaharigan_ herds
for our sustenance."

Layroh's resonant voice ceased. Keeping the black ray projector alertly
covering the men, he strode over to a closed metal door in the wall just
beyond them. He took a small tube from a rack beside it and opened the
door by sending a flash of yellow light into the mechanism of its lock.

"Into the pits until I am ready for you," he commanded curtly. "They
were first constructed for keeping our own _yaharigans_ while we were
working in the cavern, and they should serve just as well for you."

* * * * *

With the memory of Olsen's tragic fate still fresh in their minds, the
men obediently filed into the next room, with Layroh bringing up the
rear. The room was little more than a single large cell carved from the
living rock, and lighted by a single radium bulb in the ceiling.

Its smooth glasslike floor was broken at intervals of ten feet by
circular pits fifteen feet deep. At Layroh's order the men entered the
floor-pits, one man to each pit. As Foster lowered himself into one of
them he saw how grimly efficient a trap the pit was.

An unusually tall and active man might be able to jump high enough to
touch the edge, but the effort would be useless. Those glass-smooth
edges were so cunningly rounded that they offered no possible purchase
for clutching fingers. The diameter of the pit, ten feet, was too great
to permit any effort at climbing by wedging one's body between two
opposing walls.

Layroh sent every man into the pits but one.

"You will return to the cavern with me, Carter," he ordered. "I have
need for you at once."

They heard the door clang shut as Layroh and Carter left the pit room.
Chaos reigned as the men flung their bodies against the pit walls in
efforts to escape. There was the click of metal as several of them tried
with pocket knives to chip finger-holes in the walls, but the glassy