formation about Lucile--when he felt a heavy hand on
one shoulder, and looked up into the angry eyes of his guards.

"None of that, young man!" bawled one jailer, while the other snatched
up the telephone equipment. "I thought you were up to some mischief! Get
back to work!"

Two rubber truncheons came down upon Dan's defenseless flesh as, with a
groan, he struggled back to his bench.

* * * * *

As late August shivered toward September, the world's state became still
more terrifying. Whirlwinds rushed more severely than ever through the
darkening skies; blizzards raged, and a mantle of white covered the
northern United States; agriculture and industry had virtually ceased;
and men passed their time in mumbling prayers, in making wild, fruitless
studies of the heavens, and in the sodden forgetfulness of dissipation.

Dan, however, knew nothing of all this as he labored in his hidden
laboratory. Working once more at the Deflector, in the desire to save
the earth from freezing, he had made a discovery--one which, as he
toiled, had darkened his face with lines of discouragement that
gradually gave place to horror. And in the end he had sagged down,
exhausted, with bloodshot eyes and drooping limbs ... oppressed with a
nightmare realization.

During the weeks of his imprisonment, the earth had moved millions of
miles farther from the sun. And the strength of telurox, lessening with
the inverse square of the distance, was insufficient to cover the gap.
It was beyond his power to make up the difference. Unless a miracle
intervened, the earth was doomed!

Nevertheless, was there not just the remotest hope?--possibly a chance
in a million? If only he could gain control of a larger laboratory, with
capable assistants, he might try a certain newly conceived experiment.
But to ask his captors to provide such a laboratory would be to put
himself and the earth even more hopelessly in their power.

Instead, his thoughts kept wandering in another direction. If he could
once get into touch with his wife, she might be able to help him! But
where was she now? Somewhere in hiding? Or imprisoned by the Triumvirs?
Yet if she were still at liberty, was there not a means by which he
might still communicate with her? He recalled how, during their years
together at Columbia Chemicals, they had worked out a secret code, by
which they could tap out love messages on the walls. Could this code not
be used ove