inconceivably strong. It is practically invulnerable—"

Bud said, "But what you're doing ought to hold it in check. If you bury it alive ... don't feed it..."

"Feed it!" Grossman laughed mirthlessly. "It doesn't need feeding! Don't you understand ... it has never been fed a mouthful in its life!"

"Never been—!" Rocky stared at the shaking Factor. "But—but do you realize what that means? It does not eat—yet it continues to grow. From somewhere it must be deriving the nourishment to gorge its cells. From somewhere—"

"Rocky!" Bud's voice interrupted him suddenly. It was a voice cracked with terror and strain. "Rocky—quick! We've got to get out of here! Look! The earth! Quaking—"

His warning was superfluous. All present had experienced the trembling at the same time, a violent, insistent rocking of the soil beneath their feet. Now gaunt Titanians, panic-stricken, were fleeing in all directions. Grossman had stumbled and fallen to his knees. Rocky bent over him, lifted him by main force and howled into his ear,

"A roller, Grossman! You must have a private roller somewhere around here! Where is it?"

"O-over there!" The Factor pointed uncertainly at a gray bulk dim in the gloom.

"Then come on!" snapped Rocky. "We've got to get to New Boston!"

"N-new Boston? The city? But—but why? We want to get to the Patrol Base—"

"New Boston," Rocky grated, "first. That's where you sent Lynn Graham—remember? Gad! I didn't think he could do it! But he is! Start this roller, Grossman, and let's get out of here—quick! Look! The Colossus—"

The others stared, and a little whimper escaped Grossman's slack lips as he saw the final act of the drama which had begun with the trembling of the earth beneath them.

The thin iridiscence of the hillside was seamed and cracked with a myriad of tiny black veins. The whole hummock quivered and trembled as though stricken with some petrologic ague. And then, suddenly, with a crash like that of rolling doom, the whole crown of the hill seemed to erupt explosively before them. Gigantic boulders ripped loose from ancient bedrock and raced wildly down tattered slopes. A myriad tiny fragments burst skyward, sifted down as a hail of deadly debris. There came the rending, tearing, grating sound of stone grinding against stone ... 

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