ly, replaced immediately by
the sound of a human voice. "Mythox. Contact established. Proceed."

Almost as though the words had tripped a lever in his brain, Kirk's
paralysis ended. Both his hands seemed to swoop of their own volition to
the invisible control panel and their fingers danced across the dials
and buttons.

"Mythox," said the voice again. It seemed to swell and recede, like a
direct radio newscast from half around the world. "Contact estab--"

The word ended as though it had run into a wall. The humming note came
back, then ceased--and without warning daylight from the window washed
over the bewildered and thoroughly frightened police officer.

Not until five minutes had passed was Martin Kirk sufficiently in
control of his nervous system to even attempt replacing the loose panel
in the headboard. When at last he managed to do so, he returned the bed
to its original position, closed and bolted the kitchen door, took one
last look around to make sure nothing was out of place, then slunk out
of the apartment.

By the time he was back behind the wheel of his car and had burned up
half a cigar, Kirk's brain was ready to function with something like its
normal ability. He sat limp as Satan's collar, trying to piece together
the significance of the last half hour's events.

There was no longer any doubt that Alma Dakin was in this mess up to her
bangs. Linked as she was to the murders (and Kirk was convinced heart
disease had nothing to do with it) of those scientists, he would have
sworn she was a foreign agent bent on weakening America's defenses.
Except for one thing. That machine. The kind of mind that could design
and put together a mechanism like that was not of this planet. No longer
did Paul Cordell's story of a girl who floated in a ball of blue fire
sound like the ravings of a deranged brain. And the seeming miracle of
Naia North's escape from a cell block now passed from fantasy to the
factual.

What to do about it? Martin Kirk, at this moment undoubtedly the most
bewildered man alive, put his head in his hands and tried to reach a
decision. Take his story to the Police Commissioner? It would mean a
padded cell--and without even bothering to see if Alma Dakin possessed a
machine more complicated than an electric iron. Some government agency?
By the time the red tape was unsnarled the former secretary could have
reached Pakistan on foot.

Slowly from the depths of his terror of the Unknown, Mar