six inches thick, it had kept emerging from one side or another, dropping to the floor, and starting all over again. The attendants, not knowing how to pick it up, had left it alone after suffering several gashes. They were afraid to handle it too roughly, for fear of damaging it. Art smiled grimly at this. He picked the thing up, threw it on the table. He decided that he would dissect the specimen here and now, find the secret of its mighty strength. But at that moment Dr. Theller came in.

"Well, Art, I hope you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with that creature because—"

"To tell you the truth, Dr. Theller, I don't know a darn thing about it!" retorted Art cheerfully.

"You're going to learn, Art—and mighty soon! I'm going to send you out to Los Angeles. Something catastrophic is happening out there. I can't get anything very clear over the televisor—I see confused pictures of buildings crashing, utter panic everywhere. All the accounts I've heard are garbled—but creatures like this seem to have something to do with it!

"Find out what you can, do what you can, then report back. Of course, the city has no defenses, other than the police force, and they are armed only with shock guns." It was true—war was non-existent; defensive armament was unnecessary. Everything was fireproof, making a fire department likewise unnecessary.

Art took off in his strato flier from the roof of the laboratory, climbing rapidly until he reached the thin isothermal layer, ten miles up. Then he leveled off, and accelerated slowly to a speed of over one thousand mph. At this rate, he would be able to reach Los Angeles in not over two and a half hours. The time dragged as Art tried to picture the disaster that had overtaken the West Coast city, and just how it could have been caused by animals like the one he had seen.

Art always disliked riding the strato layer. Too far below him were the rich, rolling prairies, the mountains covered with mighty timber trees and lush greenery. There was no desert, no wasteland. Any land not level enough to grow crops, or occupied by cities, was covered by thick forest. The only exceptions were the higher peaks of the Rockies, brilliant white patches against the green carpet. It was a beautiful old planet, this Mother Earth.

Far ahead and to his right, Art finally glimpsed the sparkle of sunlight of the Inland Sea. Once there had been a ghastly blazing hot desert there, called Death Valley, Art remembered from his school 

 Prev. P 7/36 next