plane as it lay half wrecked by their dwelling. That makes it about--there." He pointed, and silhouetted in the starlight they could see the outlines of a monoplane. "Type ten," said a transportation engineer, regretfully tightening his grip on an electric drill's ponderous bit. "Shall we kill him first or get the girl to safety?"

"Kill him first, I say," volunteered the historian. "All in favor?" There was a soft chorus of assent. "Well, then," said the historian, "let's get as close as possible before he wakes up."

Stealthily they crept into the clearing and approached the little shack of boughs and trunks which had been flung together.

"Not bad," whispered a structural operator. "Well chinked, ventilated--in a primitive way one couldn't wish for anything better."

The neuro-muscular specialist took a heavy pair of operative forceps from his bandolier, and pushed on the door. It swung open after offering only a slight resistance. The seven others crowded into the large room and distributed themselves strategically. The pianist squinted through the dark and whispered, "There he is. I mean they are." Lying on a sort of semi-permanent bower were the two outlanders, side by side.

"I saw," whispered the transportation engineer, "I hadn't thought it was anything like _that_--"

"He probably threatened her," said the specialist. "That _must_ be it." He raised his forceps and said uncertainly, louder than he had meant to, "Well!"

And Clark Stevens awoke. "Now," he muttered, and his eyes opened. Like a shot from a gun, his lean body snapped into steely action. The specialist he grasped by the wrist, flung away like a rat.

There was a shrill intake of breath in the room, and the men with weapons poised were frozen where they stood. Every man there knew what should be done, what had to be done for the safety of their civilization, and had spent time studying the use of the weapon he carried. But they couldn't do it. The genteel conditioning, in which all thoughts of physical violence had been carefully weeded out from birth, left them helpless before this man.

Stevens rose before them, and, in the gloom of the hut, his eyes blazed like twin embers of a burning city. He uttered one inarticulate roar, and started for them. That galvanized them into action; they were capable of as swift motion as he, but in another direction. They dropped their weapons and fled.

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