"I wouldn't wonder." Cloud looked around the room as he spoke. "Heavy stuff—semi-portables, perhaps. Well, let's see if we can't find some more junk like that trap-door to stick onto that patchwork. Jackie, you might grab that bucket and throw water. Every little bit helps and it's getting mighty hot. Careful! Don't scald yourself."

The heavy metal of the door was bright-to-dull red over half its area and that area was spreading rapidly. The air of the room grew hot and hotter. Bursts of live steam billowed out and, condensing, fogged the helmets and made the atmosphere even more oppressive.

The glowing metal dulled, brightened, dulled. The prisoners could only guess at the intensity of the battle being waged without. They could follow its progress only by the ever-shifting temperature of the barrier which the zwilniks were so suicidally determined to beam down. Then a blast of bitterly cold air roared from the ventilator, clearing away the gas in seconds, and the speaker came to life.

"Good work, Cloud and you other two," it said chattily. "Glad to see that you're all on deck. The boys have been working on what's left of the air-conditioner, so now we can cool you off a little and I can see what goes on there. Get into this corner over here, so that they can't blast you if they hole through."

The barrier grew hotter, flamed fiercely white. A narrow pencil of energy came sizzlingly through—but only for seconds. It expired. Through the hole there poured the reflection of a beam so brilliant as to pale the noonday sun. The portal cooled; heavy streams of water hissed and steamed. Warm water—almost hot—spurted into and began to fill the room. A cutting torch, water-cooled and carefully operated now, sliced away the upper two-thirds of the fused and battered door. The grotesquely-armored lieutenant peered in.

"Anybody hurt, Cloud?" he shouted. Upon being assured that no one was, he went on: "Good. We'll have to carry you out. Step up here where we can get hold of you."

"I'll walk and I'll carry Jackie myself," Ryder protested, while two of the armored warriors were draping Cloud tastefully around the helmet of a third.

"You'll get boiled to the hips if you try it. The water's deep and hot. Come on!"

The slowly rising water was steaming sullenly; the walls and the ceiling of the corridor gave mute but eloquent testimony of the appalling forces which had been unleashed. Wood, 

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