Service Special" phones, detectors, and spy-ray--instruments
of minute size and of infinitesimal power, but yet instruments which,
working as they were below the level of the ether, were effective at
great distances and caused no vibrations in the ether by which their use
could be detected. And what could be more innocent than the regulation
personal equipment of every officer of space? The heavy goggles, the
wrist-watch and its supplementary pocket chronometer, the flash-lamp,
the automatic lighter, the sender, the money-belt?

All these items of equipment were examined with due care; but the
cleverest minds of the Triplanetary Service had designed those
communicators to pass any ordinary search, however careful, and when
Costigan and Bradley were finally locked into the designated cells they
still possessed their ultra-instruments.

CHAPTER 8

IN ROGER'S PLANETOID

In the hall Clio glanced around her wildly, seeking even the narrowest
avenue of escape. Before she could act, however, her body was clamped as
though in a vise, and she struggled, motionless.

"It is useless to attempt to escape, or to do anything except what
Roger wishes," the guide informed her somberly, snapping off the
instrument in her hand and thus restoring to the thoroughly cowed girl
her freedom of motion.

"His lightest wish is law," she continued as they walked down a long
corridor. "The sooner you realize that you must do exactly as he
pleases, in all things, the easier your life will be."

"But I wouldn't _want_ to keep on living!" Clio declared, with a flash
of spirit. "And I can _always_ die, you know."

"You will find that you cannot," the passionless creature returned,
monotonously. "If you do not yield, you will long and pray for death,
but you will not die unless Roger wills it. Look at me: I cannot die.
Here is your apartment. You will stay here until Roger gives further
orders concerning you."

The living automaton opened a door and stood silent and impassive while
Clio, staring at her in horror, shrank past her and into the sumptuously
furnished suite. The door closed soundlessly and utter silence descended
as a pall. Not an ordinary silence, but the indescribable perfection of
the absolute silence, complete absence of all sound. In that silence
Clio stood motionless. Tense and rigid, hopeless, despairing, she stood
there in that magnificent room, fighting an almost overwhelming impulse
to scream. Suddenly she heard