Art found that once it had hooked those fierce jaws into anything, it started boring and could not be torn loose. However, it would bore only upward! When laid on a flat table, it merely writhed about, looking for some object above it. He held a thick piece of board over it. The head had bored through in a few seconds, but when he turned the board over, it backed out hastily, and flopped to the table again, where it resumed its endless searching, searching for something, anything overhead, in which it could fasten its tenuous grip.

Art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by the overhead crane. In its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip a cavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. The thing was dropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so that it was imprisoned in the cavity. Art had a hunch that it would have made little difference to the creature whether it was allowed the cavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. A little shudder ran through him at the thought of such unearthly strength. He decided to go to lunch, before he got too deeply involved.

Passing through the outer office, he met Elene Moor, lovely secretary to Doctor Theller, Chief Director of the Institute and his immediate superior. He had known Elene in college before securing this position, and he remembered the sudden elation he had felt when he discovered that he would be working near the girl for whom he had felt such a hopeless yearning in school. She had been so popular, so surrounded by young men whose zest for life, talent for fun, and supply of ready cash had utterly overwhelmed him. Now, after five years of Interplanetary, such a dull apathy had settled over him that even Elene's golden loveliness failed to stir him.

"Might as well lunch with me, Elene," he said, seeing that she was about to leave. "I have an interesting topic of conversation for the first time in ages, it seems. In fact, I'm very anxious to tell you about it."

She looked at him closely. Something certainly had aroused his interest. His keen blue eyes were alight, and his rugged frame seemed to be invested with a nervous energy which had long been dormant. Elene was glad; he almost looked like the Art she had loved, and had such hopes for, when he had first come to the Institute. But his fine intellect had seemingly withered, stultified by the impossible situation which existed at Interplanetary in the year 2186. Several centuries of scientific struggling had finally produced a mode of interplanetary travel. In 2135, successful landings and safe returns had 

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