Zehru Of Xollar

: Zehru Of Xollar

Three Earthlings are whisked on an

inter-dimensional journey to the den

of the Scientist Zehru.





When the rolling thunder of infra-bass first came to their ears, Robert

Blake and Helen Lawton were standing on the platform of a New York

subway station waiting for the arrival of an uptown express to bear them

to their homes.



They made a strikingly attractive co ple as they stood there. New York

had not had time as yet to remove the bronze tan of an outdoor life from

Blake's ruggedly good-looking face. His tall athletic figure was still

conspicuous for the lithe strength that had made him an All-Western

tackle less than two years ago.



Standing beside Blake's husky figure, Helen Lawton looked like a tiny,

very perfect, blonde doll, with an exquisitely molded face framed in

curly bobbed hair that was the clear golden-amber hue of orange honey.

There was a diamond sparkling on the ring finger of the girl's slim left

hand, placed there by Blake.



It was well after midnight, and the only other passenger waiting on the

station was a burly chap leaning against one of the white pillars on the

other side of the platform. After a casual glance at the fellow, with

his derby hat shoved far back from a low forehead, his blatantly

conspicuous clothing, and the suspicious bulge under one arm-pit, Blake

had mentally set him down as a minor gangster, probably a strong-arm man

for some beer mob.



Blake and Helen had been standing there but a few minutes when the

strange sound first became audible. For a moment Blake thought it was

merely the rumbling roar of an express approaching far down the tunnel.

Then he realized that no subway train could possibly produce a sound

effect so oddly disturbing and strangely alien.



It was like no sound that Blake had ever heard before. Vibrant with

colossal power, it suggested a sustained note struck from a giant organ,

a note so low in pitch that it seemed a full octave below the lowest

bass note ever struck. Whatever it was, the thundering vibration of

infra-bass was coming nearer with startling swiftness.



* * * * *



It was impossible to locate the source of the mighty pulsing note. It

seemed to be coming simultaneously from all directions, like a great

hollow sphere of invisible sound waves closing in with the station

platform as its central focal point.



Helen's face was white with dread as she shrank closer into Blake's

embrace. Blake noted that the gangster across the platform was standing

tensely at bay with his back against the pillar and his right hand

thrust under his coat as he stared wildly about him in an effort to

discover the cause of the disturbance.



The rolling thunder closed in upon them with a final rush that brought

it so near that their very bodies seemed to vibrate in harmony with that

mighty note of shuddering bass. Then with startling abruptness the green

net came.



Out from the walls and down from the roof spurted scores of quivering

ribbons of blinding green flame. Swiftly the radiant tendrils rushed in

upon the shrinking three from every side, while the infra-bass thundered

in mighty crescendo.



Blake instinctively swept Helen close within the shelter of his arms in

an effort to protect her with his own body against the searing menace of

those onrushing green flames. The next moment the fiery ribbons were

upon them, lashing about their bodies, crossing and crisscrossing in the

air above and around them in a great tangled web of interlacing lines of

flame that filled the entire platform.



* * * * *



With a shock of relief Blake found that there was no heat in those

strange flames, but his relief was short-lived as the next second

brought him realization of the real menace of the radiant ribbons. There

was a solidity and strength in those glowing streamers that held them as

helplessly captive as though they were gripped in ribbons of steel.

Dazed and helpless, the three struggled for a moment in the meshes of

the weird net of flame like fish caught in the strands of some giant

cosmic seine.



The trembling thunder of infra-bass abruptly changed to a thin whining

note so high in pitch that it seemed the nearly soundless ghost of a

metallic scream. With the change in sound Blake became aware of a new

and astounding change in his surroundings.



The walls and roof of the station seemed closing in upon him as though

he were growing in size at an incredible rate. The next moment he shot

through the roof, hurtling on and upward with the velocity of a rocket.

The sensation was one that his reeling brain could not even grasp. His

body seemed to be inside every stone, iron bar, and lump of earth, yet

at the same time every exterior object seemed within his body. It was

an eery chaos of a dozen different dimensions blending to form a Space

in which there was no known dimension.



As they flashed on out to the surface Blake had one hazy glimpse of

Manhattan's glowing lights spread all about them. Then the speed of

their progress leaped into a new and terrible acceleration that blotted

out every tangible sensation from Blake's brain.



Time and Space alike seemed to vanish as their hurtling flight sent them

rocketing on for distances inconceivably vast through a bleak and

appalling Nothingness, where neither sight nor sound existed.



Then abruptly the speed of their flight seemed to be lessening.

Sensation returned to Blake. He again heard the thin high-pitched

metallic wail, now swiftly deepening to the familiar growl of rolling

bass. He again noted the presence of the glowing green ribbons of the

net that still encircled them.



* * * * *



A blindingly brilliant purple mist was now closing in upon them from

every direction, bringing with it a nameless and agonizing force that

seemed to be shaking the very atoms in Blake's body asunder. Then they

dropped swiftly down out of the purple mists, and the strange agony at

once vanished. Blake felt their downward progress come to an end with

the gentle arrival of his feet upon firm ground.



The encircling net of green flame glowed dazzlingly brighter for a brief

moment, then swiftly vanished into thin air, while the mutter of bass

vibrations simultaneously died away into silence. Blake staggered and

nearly fell as the sudden release from the net's strands again left his

body free.



He looked down at Helen as she stood huddled close beside him, still in

the shelter of his arms. The girl's face was white with terror as she

looked back up at him.



"Bob, what happened--and where on earth are we?" Her voice trembled a

little in spite of her plucky effort to keep it steady.



Blake's bewildered gaze was already roving around them trying to

comprehend the incredible details of their surroundings. "I've no idea

what happened, dear," he answered slowly. "As to where we are now, I'm

very much afraid it's nowhere on Earth!"



"Then where is this hopped-up layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on

Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly

turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery

flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement

upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly

with the two who now represented the only link with the familiar world

he had known.



"Gee, for a minute I thought they had me on the spot in some new way,

sure!" he chattered excitedly as he came quickly over to join Helen and

Blake. "There's plenty of guys wantin' to turn the heat on me there in

the Big Town. I'm Gil Mapes, see? But this ain't no frame-up like any I

ever heard of. What happened anyway, fellah?"



* * * * *



For the moment Blake did not answer. The three of them were silent as

they stared about them with eyes that were dazed by the startlingly

unfamiliar aspect of every detail in their surroundings.



From the twin purple suns that blazed down through the tenuous mists

overhead to the barren blue-gray ground underfoot, there was not a

single object familiar to Earthly eyes. The huge enclosure in which the

three of them stood was obviously the work of intelligent beings of some

kind, but its mechanical details were products of a science different

from any known to Blake.



The purpose of the enclosure seemed to be to maintain an area of clear

air in the midst of the swirling purple vapors that pressed in against

it from the top and from every side. In shape it was a great oblong

cell, some fifty feet high, two hundred yards long, and about one

hundred yards wide. The three captives stood near the center.



Fencing in the enclosure at twenty-yard intervals and reaching upward to

the ceiling were slender posts of some lusterless black metal. Between

these posts streamed unbroken, nearly transparent sheets of some unknown

force, the only visible sign of which was the presence of countless

millions of tiny shimmering golden flecks which danced like dust motes

in a ray of sunlight. It was obviously this thin sheet of unknown force

that was keeping the purple mists at bay, for fan-like antennae at the

top of each post spread a similar shimmering sheet that formed a ceiling

for the clear-aired area.



* * * * *



The three Earthlings were facing one of the side walls of the big

enclosures. The purple mists outside made it hard to see clearly for

any distance, but Blake had an impression that the surrounding terrain

was featured by the same barren, nearly desert bleakness that

characterized the interior of the enclosure, where scattered clumps of

dead, spiky black branches of shrub-like vegetation were the only sign

of plant life.



Just within the distant end wall at their right there was a low platform

surmounted by a wide arch some ten feet in height, both constructed of

silver-colored metal. There was nothing between them and the end wall to

their left, but they could see that the ground sloped sharply upward

from the barrier-sheet, and on the crest of the ridge a gigantic

cone-shaped structure of solid black could be seen dimly through the

intervening mists.



The cone-building seemed to be the source of the power that kept the

enclosure intact. Slender cables of black metal ran down the slope from

it into the clear-aired space, spreading out over the dusty gray-blue

ground to the base of each of the tall posts, with a heavier

copper-colored cable running on the silver arch. From within the

windowless interior of the cone there was audible a low hum as of

tremendous power being generated there.



"Gee, what a rummy joint this place is!" There was frank awe in the

gangster's voice as he at last broke the silence. "That guy with the

green net sure took us for one sweet ride. Mebbe we're on the Moon now,

or on Mars, huh?"



Blake shook his head. "No, we're completely out of our entire solar

system. Those twin purple suns up there prove that. We may even be in

another universe, or another dimension from our own. A piece of

apparatus that could whisk us up through fifty feet of earth and masonry

as that green net did obviously works in dimensions of which we've

never dreamed. The only thing we're sure of is that we were brought to

this purple world deliberately and intentionally by an intelligent being

of some kind, scooped up like tadpoles from a mud-puddle and dumped here

in this elaborate enclosure It had already prepared for us."



* * * * *



Blake nodded to where the black cone-building loomed through the purple

mists outside the end wall. "Whoever or whatever the thing was that

brought us here, I have a hunch It's there in that power-house watching

us. I'd suggest that we walk down toward that end of the enclosure for a

closer look. We may at least find out whether we're guests or

prisoners."



"Listens good to me, fellah," agreed Mapes, sliding a hand up to his

shoulder holster and bringing out a squat black automatic pistol of

heavy caliber. "We'll do a prowl, over that way, and if His Nibs tries

any more funny business mebbe a few slugs outta this rod will change his

mind for him."



"Better go easy with the gun, Mapes," advised Blake as the three of them

started slowly toward the cone-building. "From what we've already seen,

there must be weapons in this world that would make your pistol look

like a kid's pop-gun. We'd better go easy till--wait, what's that?"



The thin high-pitched whine, followed promptly by the familiar growling

thunder of infra-bass, had again become audible. At the same moment a

long pencil-like beam of green light glowed into visibility, extending

from the tip of the cone to a point high within the enclosure just back

of them. As they halted abruptly and watched, they saw the interlacing

meshes of the green flame-net materialize suddenly at the end of the

beam.



The beam curved into an arc that dropped the net swiftly to the ground

some thirty yards from them. Its meshes were packed nearly full of dark,

writhing figures.



"Looks like some more tadpoles arriving for our pond!" Mapes exclaimed.

"I wonder what part of N' Yawk His Nibs yanked these babies from?"



* * * * *



Blake's answer died on his lips as the net and beam glowed blindingly

brighter for a brief second, then disappeared, leaving the dark figures

in full view. Helen choked back a gasp of horror. Mapes swore in

consternation and hurriedly swung his pistol into line with those

writhing shapes.



The net's latest captives were not from New York, nor were they from any

other part of the planet Earth. Hideous spawn of some unknown world out

in the black void of Space, they writhed for a moment in a nightmare

chaos of countless brown-furred bodies, then swiftly disentangled

themselves before the staring eyes of the three Earthlings.



The things were apparently too low in the mental scale to have any

reaction to their situation other than a blind instinct to attack any

other living being within reach, for they promptly headed for the three

captives from Earth.



As the creatures came shambling rapidly forward on powerful bowed legs,

and with the tips of their long hairy arms brushing the ground, they

looked like grotesquely distorted apes. The crowning horror of those

shambling figures, however, lay in the fact that they were completely

headless!



Even when the things approached to a distance of less than ten feet

before halting in momentary indecision, Blake could detect no sign of

any normal skull in the blunt space at the top of the powerful hairy

torso. There was a furry-lipped mouth opening of some kind in the hollow

between the bulging shoulders, but of eyes, ears, nose, or brain cavity

there was no discernible trace.



For a long moment the headless ape-things and the three human beings

stood silently facing each other. Mapes' pistol was leveled pointblank

at the nearest of the creatures, but their overwhelming numbers made the

gangster hold his fire.



There were two distinct groups of the things. At least twenty members of

each group were in the crowd facing the Earthlings. To the rear of these

attackers two oddly repulsive objects were carried and carefully

shielded by picked guards of four unusually large and powerful

ape-things.



* * * * *



The nature of those two guarded objects puzzled Blake. They looked like

large eggs of dirty-gray jelly, about a yard in length. They were

obviously alive, for their gelatinous masses quivered and trembled in

constant activity. Blake noted that there seemed to be a curious

connection between the ebb and flow of pulsations in the egg-masses and

the movements of the ape-things.



His attention was abruptly recalled to the headless things in front of

him as they suddenly began shambling forward again. There was no

possible mistaking the intention of those advancing horrors. They were

moving to the attack.



They reached barely to Blake's shoulders, but he realized that their

enormous numbers and hook-taloned hands would make the result of the

battle almost a foregone conclusion. The fact that the headless things

were without eyes was no handicap to them. The swift certainty of their

movements proved that they had a sense of sight of some kind that was in

every way as efficient as eyesight.



Blake looked hurriedly around him, seeking a place where they might be

at the best possible advantage in the impending battle. There was a

small dense thicket of the spiky dead branches half a dozen yards to

their right. At Blake's low command, the three made a dash for the

thicket. Arriving there, they ranged themselves against it, with their

backs at least partially protected from attack.



* * * * *



The maneuver seemed to puzzle the ape-things for a moment. They stood

passively watching the retreat of the three until they had reached the

thicket. Then the creatures again began slowly closing in upon them.

Blake snatched up a dead branch from the ground near the thicket, and

was delighted to find that its weight and tough fiber made it an

excellent club.



He stripped off his topcoat and passed it back to Helen. Its tough

fabric, heavily rubberized for proof against rain, might guard her head

and face at least momentarily from those ripping talons if the headless

attackers came to close quarters. With Helen safely behind them, Blake

and Mapes turned grimly to face the enemy.



The attack was prompt in coming. Moving with the perfect synchronization

of a single unit, one of the main groups came shambling in, followed an

instant later by the other group. Mapes' pistol sent a bullet crashing

squarely into the nearest attacker. The creature staggered momentarily,

then came lurching on again, apparently not even crippled. Blake swung

his heavy club in a whistling arc that sent two of his adversaries

broken and writhing to the ground.



He heard Mapes' pistol bark four times more as the things closed in.

Then the gun was knocked from the gangster's grip by a groping

talon-armed hand. Mapes tried to batter back his assailants with his

naked fists, but the flailing arms of the horde knocked him from his

feet. His limp body was promptly tramped into unconsciousness by the

milling feet of the close-packed group.



Blake lashed the heavy club about him with a burst of savage fury that

for the moment sent the furred horrors reeling backward. Their retreat

ended after a scant two yards. Reforming their ranks, they again began

cautiously shambling forward in a new attack that Blake realized would

probably mean the end.



* * * * *



It was easy enough to batter the things to ground, but it seemed

impossible to seriously hurt them. Their incredible vitality and their

overwhelming numbers made them almost invincible. Grimly Blake set

himself to battle as long as he could in that last desperate effort to

keep the hordes at bay.



He noticed idly that the two groups still kept their oddly separated

formation. Behind them the two egg-masses of jelly were now seething in

new activity after a brief lessening of their gruesome shivering. Blake

now saw that there was a direct and unmistakable connection between the

activity of the jelly and the corresponding activity of the ape-things.



Realization of the fact sent a sudden flash of inspiration flaming

through Blake's weary brain, correlating the real significance of a

dozen different things he had been subconsciously noting ever since the

first appearance of the weird beasts.



Those attacking things were not hordes of individual animals. They were

merely two complete organisms, with the members of each organism

controlled by its nucleus through invisible lines of nervous force as

the various individual cells of the human body are linked by nerve

fibers. No wonder the creatures themselves were blind. The egg-mass that

was the nucleus of each of the two groups was eyes, brain, and seat of

life for every ape-thing in the group.



With a swift surge of hope Blake realized the way to conquer the things.

If he could only shatter those flaccid masses of jelly, he would destroy

the swarming dozens of beasts at the same time.



Reaching the jelly ovoids seemed at first consideration to be an

impossible task. They were carefully guarded far in the rear of the

attacking groups. Blake knew that he had scarcely a chance in a hundred

of battering his way through the intervening ape-things.



* * * * *



Then he remembered the gangster's pistol. His searching eyes found it

immediately, there on the ground nearly under the feet of the ape-things

as they again shambled forward to the attack.



Blake staked everything upon a last desperate sortie against the

advancing things. With his club whistling around his head in crashing

blows that wrought murderous havoc in the close-packed hordes, he drove

them back for one breathless moment that gave him time to leap forward

and snatch up the pistol.



The ape-things were already springing back upon him as he swung the

pistol into line with one of the jelly-masses. He barely pressed the

trigger before the charging brutes knocked him from his feet.



As he went down he flung his arms over his head to protect his face from

the expected attack of those hooked talons, but none came. A body

thudded down upon him, then slid limply off again without making any

move to attack. Blake scrambled to his feet.



Writhing upon the ground all around him were ape-things in their death

agonies. On the ground beyond them, quivering and broken in the midst of

its dying guards, was a viscid mass of loathsome gray jelly. Blake's

shot had apparently struck home squarely in the center of that

vulnerable blob. Even as he watched, the gelatinous mass shuddered in a

last convulsion, then became quite still. At the same instant the last

sign of life vanished from the writhing ape-things on the ground.



A good half of the attacking creatures were included in the dead bodies.

The other half, Blake now saw, had retreated to cluster in wild panic

about the remaining blob of jelly. Realizing exultantly that his single

shot had slain one of the two weirdly disassociated organisms, Blake

with pistol in hand advanced toward the other, trying to get a clear

shot at the jelly through the furry bodies clustering around it.



* * * * *



The group promptly turned and fled in blind panic. Blake sent the

pistol's last shot crashing into the mass without any appreciable

effect. Then the things' stampede carried them hurtling on through one

of the gold-flecked side walls out into the swirling purple mists.



The gold-flecked sheet flowed together again so swiftly behind the

things that a fraction of a second later there was not even the

slightest indication in its shimmering unbroken surface to show that it

had ever been pierced.



For thirty yards the fleeing ape-things sped on into the purple vapors.

Then disaster struck them with bewildering swiftness. They stopped in

full flight, shuddered for a moment, then slumped to the ground with

their limbs writhing in agony. In their center the jelly ovoid quivered

madly in the same strange torture.



Tiny patches of vivid purple appeared at a hundred different points upon

the dying creatures. The patches spread and merged with lightning

rapidity until a solid sheet of livid purple covered the writhing mass.

Swiftly that mass lost both movement and shape as it melted down into a

pool of turgid purple slime. Then the slime vaporized into purple mists

that blended into the surrounding vapors, and all trace of the

ape-things and their jelly nucleus had vanished.



Stunned by the incredible speed of this general dissolution, Blake

realized for the first time the real reason for the presence of the

gold-flecked walls of force. Without those shimmering walls the captives

would not have lived for a minute in the deadly purple atmosphere of

this weird world beneath the twin suns. The gold-flecked walls were both

their protection and their prison. The swirling purple mists outside

those walls held the Earthlings as effectively and hopelessly prisoners

in their enclosure as gold-fish in a bowl of water.



* * * * *



Blake turned back to the thicket to see how Helen and Mapes had fared in

that terrific battle with the headless things. He was relieved to see

that the girl had apparently escaped without even a scratch. She was

kneeling beside Mapes' prone figure, doing what she could to revive him.

The gangster was badly battered, but he seemed to have no serious

injuries. He was already beginning to stir weakly and show signs of

returning life.



Blake started to step over to the two. Then he stopped abruptly as he

heard a sharp metallic clang from the cone-building out in the purple

mists beyond the end wall. He looked quickly up and saw that an oval

window had opened in the structure near its tip. Framed in the opening

was what seemed to be a large concave mirror. At one side of the mirror

was a living being of some kind, but the intervening mists prevented

Blake from making out any details beyond a hazy glimpse of a cluster of

what seemed to be long slender snake-like black tentacles.



The next moment there spurted from the mirror a broad and swiftly

spreading beam of red light so brilliant that it glowed clearly even in

the bright purple rays of the twin suns. Before Blake could shout a

warning to Helen the racing flood of ruddy radiance was upon them. The

scene reeled in a blurred kaleidoscope of flaming colors before Blake's

eyes for a brief second, then complete oblivion swept over him.



* * * * *



After an interval that seemed hours, consciousness returned to him as

suddenly as it had left him. His first bewildered look around him

disclosed the fact that startling changes had occurred in his

surroundings during the period while he was under the anesthesia of the

red ray.



His first effort at movement brought realization that he was in the grip

of a strange paralysis. His head and neck seemed quite normal in every

way, but from the throat downward his body was completely dead as far as

any power of voluntary movement was concerned.



He twisted his head stiffly to one side, and saw that Helen was standing

there beside him. Just beyond her was the motionless figure of Gil

Mapes. Both the gangster and the girl were in the grip of the same

strange paralysis. Like Blake, they were standing there rigidly

motionless, facing the gold-flecked barrier wall just in front of them.



A moment's painful scrutiny of their position showed Blake that the

posts forming the wall of the enclosure at the end toward the cone had

been brought in nearly a hundred yards toward them while they slept. The

shimmering barrier sheet was now scarcely a yard from their faces, yet

they still stood near the thicket where they had battled the headless

horrors. Blake saw his coat half-buried in the blue-gray dust near his

feet where Helen had discarded the garment to minister to Mapes.



Their unseen captor had obviously made definite preparations for

whatever his next purpose with them was to be, for a long wheeled

platform had been brought to a position opposite them just outside the

shimmering gold-flecked sheet. Blake noted the shattered remains of

Mapes' pistol on the ground at one side of the platform. It had

apparently been fished from the enclosure and rendered harmless after

their captor had seen the weapon's efficient use against the headless

ape-things.



Clustered upon the wheeled platform was an assemblage of intricately

winding coils, glowing tubes, and other apparatus that conveyed no more

meaning to Blake's bewildered gaze than a sight of the interior of a

metropolitan power-house would to a Congo savage.



* * * * *



There was only one piece of the apparatus regarding whose probable

function Blake could even guess. This was a pair of long slender arms

that projected through the shimmering walls into the enclosure,

supporting at their end a large thin metal plate located just over the

heads of the three Earthlings. Blake was willing to wager that it was

this overhead plate that was responsible for the odd paralysis that held

them helpless.



Then a figure came slowly into view from where it had been concealed by

the apparatus, and Blake forgot all thought of the strange mechanisms as

he watched the monstrous thing clamber stiffly from the platform and

halt squarely in front of the captives to stare at them through the

transparency of the intervening force sheet.



The thing was a curious blending of human and bestial features. It stood

barely five feet in height, yet its great scale-armored skull was at

least three times as large as that of a grown man. There was colossal

mental power and nameless evil glowing in the dark depths of the two

abnormally large eyes that stared fixedly out from under the heavy

forehead. The thing had no nose. The mouth opening, surrounded by a

rosette of flabby gray skin, was a mere slit. The entire skull and face

were covered with small, closely overlapping scales of lusterless gray.



The head merged directly into a short black torso nearly as wide as the

skull itself. From this trunk there writhed a score of long black

snake-like tentacles, each terminating in a flexible three-fingered

"hand." The trunk was supported by two short thick legs, armored with

gray scales, and ending in broad three-toed feet.



"Greetings, Earthlings!" The voice that emanated from the grotesque

mouth was surprisingly resonant in tone. "Allow me to present myself. I

am Zehru, imperial scientist of Xollar."



* * * * *



The monstrosity seemed amused at the expressions of blank surprise upon

the faces of his captives. "I learned your crude language from your

brain cells while you slept under the red ray," he explained. "Also I

learned many other things regarding your planet, Earth. I am glad to

find your world so well adapted to my purpose. Within a few years after

my arrival there I shall be its unquestioned ruler."



Blake started to voice the many questions that were surging through his

mind, but an imperious gesture of an outflung tentacle stopped him.



"Silence, Earthling!" There was tolerant contempt in Zehru's ringing

voice. "I will explain some of the things that puzzle you. There is no

reason why I should trouble myself to do so, yet it may while away the

tedium of the short wait yet remaining before my apparatus becomes

charged to the required point. Listen carefully, Earthling, for at best

you will find many of my thoughts beyond the feeble limits of the word

forms with which you have provided me.



"The world of Xollar, where you now are, is a planet in the island

universe known to your astronomers as the Great Nebula of Andromeda.

Until a short time ago I was one of its ruling scientists. Then I

sinned, and so grave was my sin according to the laws of this planet

that the Council of Three decreed my death. That death sentence upon

Xollar is irrevocable, and no man has yet escaped it no matter where

upon the planet he may be when the appointed time for his execution

comes. I was given the usual period of grace in which to put my affairs

in order. Instead, I have labored unceasingly here in my laboratory, and

my labors have borne fruit. I am the first man in Xollarian history to

find a means of escaping the dread death penalty.



"Briefly, I discovered a way by which I can flee to your far-distant

universe, where not even the powers of the Council of Three can follow

me. That way lies through the door of inter-dimensional Space. In Space

as you know it, the almost unthinkable distance of a million light years

separates Xollar from the dwarf star you call your Sun. Yet, traveling

between Space, the two planets nearly touch each other. The same

situation of being near neighbors in inter-dimensional Space holds true

with Xollar and at least seven other planets located in widely separated

parts of your universe.



* * * * *



"Let me try to illustrate what I mean by traveling between Space. We

will assume a nearly two-dimensional universe in the form of a circular

piece of paper three feet in diameter. There is a dot in the exact

center of each side of this paper. To a two-dimensional creature, forced

to travel only on the surface of the paper, the distance between the

two dots can never be less than thirty-six inches. Yet by cutting

between the two surfaces and going directly through the paper the dots

are less than one-hundredth of an inch apart.



"Such is the case with Xollar and the planets in your universe which are

our immediate neighbors in inter-dimensional Space. In order to reach

those planets I had only to develop a method of using sufficient force

to cut between the three dimensions of intervening Space. In solving

this problem I developed both an inter-dimensional net to bring beings

from your universe to mine, and an inter-dimensional gate to permit

beings to pass from here back to worlds in your galaxy.



"You have already seen the workings of the net. It was the device of

green fire that brought you here. The use of the net was a vital part of

my plans, for without the use of a physical body from some world in your

universe I could not hope to live longer than a few minutes after

leaving Xollar via the inter-dimensional gate. The inherent

characteristics and basic elements of your galaxy and the Andromedan

universe are so different in every way that an inhabitant of either

star-group cannot exist in the other. Xollar's purple atmosphere is

characteristic of Andromedan worlds. Your oxygen-saturated air is

typical of worlds in your galaxy. Just as Xollar's purple mists would be

immediately fatal to you, so would your clear oxygen-tainted air be

quickly fatal to me.



* * * * *



"Accordingly, my only chance of surviving in one of your worlds is to

first transfer my Intelligence to the body of one of the dwellers upon

that planet. Of the seven planets within reach of my net I found only

two that promised to be at all suitable. One was your Earth, the other

a minor planet circling the star you call Vega. I brought both you and a

net-load of Vegans here to this oxygen-filled enclosure I had already

prepared.



"The Vegans were the headless things with the jelly nuclei. I watched

your battle with them, and waited to choose as my vehicle the planetary

type that proved the stronger. You vanquished the Vegans, so it is in

the body of an Earthling that I shall leave Xollar, and it is to the

planet Earth that I shall be hurtled through the inter-dimensional gate.



"Aside from the slight difficulty caused by having to keep my body and

yours each in its proper element during the operation, the matter of

transfer into one of your bodies is a simple one. It involves none of

the clumsy brain surgery of your Earthly science. We of Xollar have

found that the real Intelligence of a being is an invisible force not at

all dependent for existence upon the protoplasm through which it

manifests. My Intelligence can function quite as well in your brain

cells as in my own.



"I require no assistant in the transfer." Zehru indicated an intricate

piece of apparatus on the platform behind him. It was a massive cylinder

of fluorescent metal, with two long metallic cables running from its

center, each cable ending in a saucer-shaped disk.



* * * * *



"I have only to thrust one cable through the force-wall into your

enclosure and place its disk upon one of your heads, then place the

other disk upon my own head. The apparatus is entirely automatic. Three

seconds after both disks are in place my Intelligence will course into

the Earthling brain, driving out his Intelligence and destroying it as

mine enters.



"I will, of course, remove the selected body from under the paralyzing

plate before I attach the disks. Then when I am safely transferred to

the Earthling body I will have only to walk on through the enclosure to



the silver arch at the far end and leave Xollar forever.



"That silver arch is the inter-dimensional gate to your Earth. Its

operation is slightly different from that of the net. Where the net was

capable of reaching under the surface of your planet, a proceeding I

tried when two attempts upon the surface proved fruitless, the gate is

so adjusted that it will place its passenger exactly upon the surface of

your world. It requires no cooperation from this end. When I step under

the arch I merely close a black lever there. Inter-dimensional force

immediately catapults me to your Earth. Then the automatic mechanism of

the gate will within half a minute of my departure release an explosion

that will shatter everything within a radius of a mile here, and so

prevent the Council of Three from even guessing the method of my

escape."



"But what of the two of us whose bodies you do not need?" Blake

protested. "Can you not at least take them through the arch-gate with

you back to their home world?"



"Why should I do anything so foolish as that?" Zehru answered callously.

"They might easily be a menace to my first attempts to establish myself

upon your planet. Far better to leave them here in their present state

of paralysis to be safely destroyed in the explosion of the gate."



* * * * *



Zehru now thrust three of his tentacles into a vat of milky fluid, and

withdrew them coated with a silver sheen on the black flesh. The silver

glaze seemed to be an insulation against both the oxygen of the

enclosure and the paralyzing force of the overhead disk, for the

Xollarian promptly thrust the three silver-coated arms through the wall

and began handling the bodies of Mapes and Blake in a painstaking

process of examination.



Again Blake noted that the shimmering gold-flecked wall closed quickly

in and kept its surface unbroken no matter how often objects were thrust

through it.



Completely ignoring Helen, Zehru lifted first Mapes, then Blake, his

tentacles probing, fingering, exploring. There was enormous power in the

Xollarian's grotesque body. He lifted the men as though they were wooden

dolls, bringing them close to the shimmering wall to peer at them, then

setting them carefully down again on their feet under the disk. Blake

wondered idly why their stiff bodies did not topple over when they were

left unsupported, then decided that the paralyzing force of the disk

probably left the automatic muscular balancing movements unimpaired,

affecting only the powers of voluntary movement.



* * * * *



Then, as Zehru set him down after one of the periods of examination,

Blake noticed a new and startling change the moment his feet touched the

ground. His right leg and right arm were no longer dead!



He hurriedly glanced down at the ground at his feet, and promptly found

what seemed to be the reason for his partial freedom from the paralysis.

In setting his body down the last time Zehru had moved Blake slightly.

His right foot now rested upon a corner of the discarded topcoat lying

half-buried there in the blue-gray dust.



The heavily rubberized cloth apparently acted as an insulating sheet

that prevented the effective grounding of the paralyzing force that

streamed down through Blake's body from the overhead disk. Consequently

all portions of his body between the coat and the disk were free from

the paralysis. For a moment Blake wondered at Zehru's carelessness. Then

he realized that the insulating qualities of rubber would naturally be

unknown to a Xollarian.



Noting that Zehru was busy at the moment with his work upon Mapes, Blake

quickly grasped at the faint chance the presence of the rubberized cloth

offered him. Working with infinite slowness and caution, he edged his

right foot over an inch at a time, dragging the rest of his body with

it.



Luck was with him. Zehru continued, absorbed in his work upon Mapes. The

Xollarian's telepathic powers apparently functioned only with the aid of

the red ray, for he remained oblivious of Blake's actions. One final

cautious dragging movement, and Blake's entire body was upon the cloth,

with every muscle again vibrantly alive.



* * * * *



Blake stood there motionless, faking paralysis, while his brain raced in

an effort to figure the best use to make of his present advantage. He

was still trapped, not daring to reach even a hand beyond the protection

of the cloth underfoot. The first essential of any effort at escape

would have to be a lunge of sufficient power to take him safely beyond

the area of the disk's influence.



Blake's first thought was to hurl himself through the barrier wall upon

Zehru, trusting to sheer surprise to overwhelm the Xollarian, but he

quickly dismissed that plan. It left too many elements in Zehru's favor.

There was a tube-like weapon thrust in a belt around Zehru's middle and

there were probably a dozen other different weapons lying handy to his

reach among the apparatus on the platform. The deadly purple mists

beyond the wall would alone in all probability overcome Blake before he

could batter Zehru down.



By far the best plan was to stage the battle inside the enclosure where

Blake would be in his own native element. If he could yank Zehru inside

the wall he would have him away from contact with his mechanical weapons

and battling in an atmosphere inherently poisonous to him. Under those

circumstances, Blake felt that he might have an even chance in a

hand-to-hand combat with the powerful but slow-footed Xollarian.



Once Zehru was eliminated, escape back to Earth should be a simple

matter. The silver gate, with its automatic mechanism needing only the

closing of a lever, was ready and waiting there in the enclosure behind

them.



* * * * *



For long tense minutes Blake forced himself to remain rigidly motionless

while Zehru labored over Mapes. Then finally the Xollarian turned his

attention briefly back to Blake, and thrust two tentacles in to grip his

body. No sooner had the tentacles crossed above the border of the cloth

than Zehru realized that something was wrong. He tried to whip his arms

back again but too late.



Blake made a lightning snatch at a tentacle with both hands, and in the

same lithe movement turned from the barrier wall and flung himself

headlong toward the center of the enclosure. Zehru had no time to brace

himself. He was jerked bodily through the shimmering wall and on after

Blake's lunging body.



One of the Xollarian's waving tentacles grasped wildly at the overhead

disk in an effort to stay his flight. The only result was to bring the

entire disk and its supports crashing in ruins to the ground upon the

struggling figures of Blake and himself.



Blake was upon his feet again instantly. Snatching up a yard-long scrap

of metal from the wreckage of the disk, he flung himself upon Zehru.

The Xollarian seemed for the moment too dazed by his fall to fight back.

With tentacles raised to guard his head, he staggered backward in

retreat, every step taking him farther away from the wall and the purple

mists.



Blake was vaguely aware that Helen and Mapes, freed by the wrecking of

the disk, were scrambling to their feet. Mapes was already running

toward the combatants. Blake was glad at the prospect of an ally.

Zehru's dazed condition was swiftly passing. He had now stopped his

retreat and was already fumbling a tentacle toward the tube-weapon in

his belt.



Blake flung himself upon Zehru in another effort to beat him down before

he could draw that weapon, but his metal club glanced harmlessly off the

tentacles Zehru raised to shield his head. Then beyond Zehru Blake saw

something that made him stop his assault.



* * * * *



It was Mapes, sprinting toward the silver arch-gate at the other end of

the enclosure. Blake's heart sank as he realized the gangster's

treachery. If he once reached that arch he could send himself safely

hurtling back to Earth, while Blake and Helen would be left to perish

with Zehru in the explosion that would immediately follow. It was too

late for Blake to head the gangster off. He had already covered half the

distance to the arch.



Zehru noted Mapes' fleeing figure almost as quickly as did Blake.

Swiftly the Xollarian swung his tube-weapon into line with the fleeing

gangster. A thin pencil of dull yellow light of a peculiar density

spurted from the tube toward Mapes. There was a flash of blinding flame

as the light beam met the gangster's body; then Mapes' figure seemed to

literally explode, as though blasted by dynamite from within. So

devastating was the force of that explosion that nothing remained of

Mapes' body beyond a few scattered fragments of shoes and clothing.



Blake was still dazed at the cataclysmic suddenness of Mapes' death as

Zehru swung the tube around to train it upon him. Only a last-minute

desperate effort upon Blake's part saved him. His wildly thrown metal

club made a lucky hit on the tube itself, knocking it, shattered and

useless, out of Zehru's grasp.



Unarmed, Zehru faced Blake with his face contorting in agony. For a

moment the Xollarian swayed there, apparently trying to gather his

failing strength for the next move. The deadly air of the enclosure was

already taking hideous toll. The scaly flesh of his head and face was

dissolving like melting butter.



Zehru's strength was ebbing too swiftly for him to have any chance of

gaining safety through either of the distant side walls. His only hope

of fighting back to the purple mists was to pass Blake and go through

the nearby end wall through which he had originally been drawn.



He came lunging forward in an attack whose sheer fury made Blake give

ground before the menace of the lashing tentacles.



* * * * *



Blake took another backward step, then staggered as his foot struck a

rough spot in the ground. Zehru's tentacles were upon him before he

could recover himself. His club was jerked from his fingers and sent

hurtling far out of reach. Half a dozen of the tentacle-arms lashed

around his throat in a strangling grip.



He clawed wildly at the choking coils, but they failed to loosen even a

fraction of an inch. Desperately Blake sent his fists smashing into the

gray face. The scale armor of Zehru's skull, fast weakening in the

liquefying influence of the oxygen, gave way beneath that battering

attack. He staggered, and his coiling tentacles relaxed slightly.



Blake tore himself free. A final smashing blow, with every ounce of his

one hundred and ninety pounds behind it, sent Zehru crashing to the

ground. The Xollarian tried to rise, then feebly slumped back, his

strength spent. Blake leaped forward to finish his opponent, but stopped

as he saw that his efforts were not needed.



The deadly air of the enclosure was now overwhelming Zehru with swift

and hideous death. He was literally rotting before Blake's horrified

eyes, the gray-scaled skin sloughing off in streaming rivulets of pallid

ooze, and the entire body contorting in what was obviously a death

agony.



Sickened, Blake stepped back a pace or two. Zehru's tentacles feebly

beat the ground around him, then suddenly one of the writhing arms

blundered upon a thin cable running along the ground. Before Blake could

spring forward to stop him, Zehru with a last surge of power ripped the

fragile metal strand completely in two.



It was the Xollarian's dying effort. He slumped in a motionless, nearly

liquescent heap. But that last blind blow at the Earthlings threatened

to be a deadly one. The severed cable led to one of the black posts

surrounding the enclosure. With the cable's parting an entire section of

one of the gold-flecked barrier walls vanished. Xollar's deadly purple

mists were already surging in.



* * * * *



Speed was the Earthlings' only chance now. Helen was as quick to realize

the danger as was Blake. Side by side they started their mad race toward

where the silver arch-gate loomed nearly a hundred yards away.



They had covered barely half the distance when the air around them

began to show a definite tinge of purple. With the appearance of the

purple hue there came a strange and swiftly increasing agony, a

torturing vibration that seemed to be tearing every atom in their bodies

asunder.



They were within ten yards of the arch when Helen fell. Blake grabbed

her up in his arms and stumbled on. There was no longer enough oxygen in

the air to even breathe. Blake's lungs were on fire. Every cell in his

body seemed vibrating in unbearable torment.



It was all that he could do to struggle up on the low platform. He

staggered across the space and under the arch. It took the last shred of

strength in his tortured body for him to lift his hand and pull the

black lever down into place.



Its action was instantaneous. The agony of the purple mists was blotted

out in a surging wave of mighty force that swept Blake and Helen up and

away through a Spaceless universe where black chaos reigned awesomely

supreme. There was a long terrible moment of hurtling through distances

inconceivably vast. Blake's brain reeled in nausea.



Then suddenly all motion ceased and everything was normal again. There

was firm grassy ground under his feet and a cool breeze was blowing in

his face.



He opened his eyes and saw the gray half-light of early dawn. After the

first swift look around him he sighed in mighty relief. To his left was

the familiar skyline of Fifth Avenue. To his right was Central Park

West. They were somewhere in Central Park, safe again in their own

world.



And somewhere in that other world beneath the twin purple suns, the time

mechanism of the silver gate should even now be releasing the explosive

that would forever blot out all trace of the evil handiwork of Zehru,

cosmic fisher of Xollar.