clicked in his mind and a startling certainty occurred to him. Oxygen was poisonous to the Agronians!

That was why his life had been spared. And the pilot's—and Gloria's. Their spacesuits would have been punctured and their oxygen supply would have spread with deadly rapidity throughout the room.

Without hesitation he removed his helmet and adjusted the controls of his oxygenating machine until it was discharging oxygen at maximum capacity.

With a shrill outcry the two aliens darted toward him. But a thin, ghostly vapor of oxygen spread rapidly through the fog-like atmosphere, and halted them in their tracks.

"You deserve to die," Emmett whispered.

The enemy collapsed at his feet and writhed helplessly on the floor. Their bodies quivered spasmodically and were still.

Gloria's hysterical, joyous laughter rang in his ears like triumphant bells, and through the Agronian atmosphere that burned his face and smarted his eyes he dimly saw George's image as he rushed to the control board. He held his breath but realized that his death was certain. He could never hold his breath long enough to replace the helmet and wait for the purifying agents to cleanse the poison that now filled his spacesuit.

When he could hold his breath no longer, he inhaled quickly and deeply.

It was like inhaling a warm, comforting darkness....

 Prev. P 9/9