surprise. She had expected Eddie to be more discreet.

"You have no right to question my son!" she stated coldly.

"Mrs. Dukas," she was informed, "when there is an investigation of the deaths of two hundred million people, we have more than the right to question anybody."

Young Ed was scared. But he felt some of the hero-impulse. Or the desire to follow faithfully the instructions of his idol, Uncle Mitch.

"If you psych my memory, what little I know will come clearer than if I just told it," he challenged.

This was done forthwith, out in the police car parked in the street. When the helmet of the apparatus was removed from Eddie's head, the police had certain comments of Mitchell Prell's to study. Possibly they could puzzle out some of their hidden meaning. But this couldn't have satisfied them very much.

The next day the letter Prell had mentioned arrived. At least it could be assumed that it was the one. Uncle Mitch had managed to make one step of his purpose anyway! Under the heading of "Vital Section, Schaeffer Laboratories," it said:

CONTENTS

Mrs. Dukas:

Mrs. Dukas

Will you kindly report at your earliest convenience to the above section. This is of greatest importance. Please bring your son.

Sincerely,

Dr. M. Bart

Dr. M. Bart

Ed was both cold with tension and hot with eagerness. The following day he and his mother were in the battered City. Fire had scarred it. A boiling tidal wave had washed over portions of it. But the great building over the many subterranean levels of the Schaeffer Labs had stood firm. Quakes had not broken it down.

An elevator took them below, to that steel- and lead- and concrete-shielded place which might have resisted for a while even a noval outburst of the sun. They were requested to lie down on something like sensipsych 

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