stunned mind at last reeled beneath the hideous concepts and he could look no more. Dumbly, he managed to reach the phones and order the ship thrown into emergency drive to some far and lost point in space and dimension.

And as he waited for the shuddering wrench that signalled interdimensional shift, he tried to forget the horrors they had so narrowly escaped: Creatures who could make themselves invisible, who had mastered space travel, who worked in magic more powerful than that of Law's, who could whiff out entire solar systems, who could survive incredible mishaps and hardships. Creatures who were no less than Gods!

A wave of fear tore at the Commander as the glittering moon faded away. Eternal nothingness of grey enclosed the ship....

The sun was up when Eddie recovered consciousness. Stiff and cold, he sat and looked around sleepily a moment before remembering. Then, as he saw Rags sitting before him, tail wagging happily, it all began to come back: Last night, sometime; humming lights above the tree house, someone moving about up there, himself sneaking up to see, then ... nothing. He must have tripped and knocked himself out, somehow. Eddie snatched up the .22 and aimed it at the tree. "Whoever's up there," he said, getting to his feet, "had better come on out!"

Nothing happened.

Eddie bent down cautiously, his eyes still fixed on the tree house, picked up a rock and hurled it through the shanty's open door. A bird fluttered from the gnarled oak, sailed across the morning meadow chirping angrily.

"This is your last chance. Come on out, or I'm comin' up and get you!" The bird's being there made him quite sure that everything was all right, so after a moment he pulled the knotted rope from its concealment in a cleft of the tree and went up hand over hand.

A strange odor lingered inside the shack. Something like ... Eddie sniffed, frowned ... something like a freshly blown fuse, but outside of that nothing seemed amiss at first. Then he discovered his softball and bat were missing. He found he didn't care too much. The season was over anyway; and besides, hunting and riding and fishing were more fun.

He looked further.

The cigarettes! He hoped the thief wouldn't snitch on him to dad. But that didn't make too much sense, he realized. The thief ... a tramp, probably, was far away by now, maybe at this very minute trying to trade the ball and bat for a 

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