all his strength Atwood shoved it to the hilt. Bohr screamed. His twitching arms pushed Atwood a dozen feet away. With the knife still in his face and horrible ooze bubbling around it, he staggered and fell heavily from the platform. Then he was up on his feet, staggering, half blinded doubtless—staggering toward the barrage. And his scream rang out, first in the Marlan language and then in English:

"Not to be the Man-God—"

On the platform Atwood gripped the shaking, terrified girl. "We've got to get away from here."

"Why—why this is terrible."

"You listen to me! Don't talk! If you don't run with me, then I'm going to carry you." He shook her. "We're going, you understand?"

"Not to be the Man-God—" Bohr's scream still rang over the turmoil. He had staggered, found himself at one of the barrage-braziers. And suddenly in a frenzy he overturned the brazier. Its light went out. A slit of darkness leaped into the barrage.

"Not to be the Man-God—" A frenzy of disappointment, disillusionment was in Bohr's wild voice. All his plans now gone awry as he felt himself dying from the knifeblade in his head.

A slit of darkness in the barrage.... And now Bohr had staggered and overturned another brazier. It was his last act. He staggered and fell as through the widened dark slit, the hideous torrent of screaming, chattering saffron monsters rolled through. In a second Bohr was engulfed. The milling Marlans, shouting in wild terror now, were trying to run. Ponderous, sluggish steps.... The horrible yellow torrent engulfed them.

"Ah-li! Ah-li dear—" Atwood gasped. The girl, fascinated with horror had been resisting him. "We've got to try to get away."

"Yes. Oh, yes—I see it."

She guided him. Hand in hand they leaped—a great sailing leap that carried them across the square into a now almost deserted section of the village. And then another—over two or three of the mound-dwellings. Another, and they went through the opposite side of the barrage.

Together they leaped. Behind them, pouring through the break in the forcescreen, poured the monstrous genes.

Open country. The monsters were all rushing toward the barrage-break. With a leap Atwood and Ah-li went over a milling, tumbling group of a hundred of them. It was a wild, scrambling, leaping run.... The dark little 

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