apparatus.

* * * * *

Eagerly, he unfastened the magnifier. Holding it before his eyes, he
bent toward the strange sphere spinning steadily in the air.

"Suffering shades of Caesar!" he ejaculated.

Beneath the lens a world was racing. He could see masses of vividly
green forest; vast expanses of bare, cracked, ocherous desert; wastes
of smooth blue ocean.

Then he was gazing at--a city?

Larry could not be sure that he had seen correctly. It had slipped
very swiftly beneath his lens. But he had a momentary impression of
tiny, fantastic buildings, clustered in an elflike city.

A pygmy planet, spinning in the laboratory like a world in the gulf of
space! What could it mean? Could it be connected with the strange call
from Agnes, with the blood on the floor, with the strange and ominous
silence that shrouded the deserted room?

"Oh, Larry!" a clear, familiar voice rang suddenly from the door. "You
came!"

Startled, Larry leaped back from the tiny, whirling globe and turned
to the door. A girl had come silently into the room. It was Agnes
Sterling. Her dark hair was tangled. Her small face was flushed, and
her brown eyes were wide with fear! In a white hand, which shook a
little, she carried a small, gold-plated automatic pistol.

She ran nervously across the wide floor to Larry, with relief dawning
in her eyes.

"I'm so glad you came!" she gasped, panting with excitement. "I
started to call you on the phone, but then I was afraid it would kill
you if you came! Please be careful! It may come back, any minute!
You'd better go away! It just took Dr. Whiting!"

"Wait a minute," Larry put in. "Just one thing at a time. Let's get
this straight. To begin with, what is it that might kill me, and that
got the doctor?"

"It's terrible!" she gasped, trembling. "A monster! You must go away
before it comes back!"

* * * * *

Larry drew a tall stool from beside one of the crowded tables and
placed it beside her.

"Don't get excited," he urged. "I'm sure everything will be all
right. Just sit down, and tell me about it. The whole story. Just what
is going on here, and what happened to Dr. Whiting."

He helped her upon the stool. She looked up at him gratefully, and
began to speak in a rapid voice.

"You see that little planet? The monster came from that and carried
the doctor back there. And I know it will soon be back for another
victim--for sacri