their chambers. Then we can use the emergency-charges to explode the chambers and so destroy It."

He looked at Marie and Burris. "We'll need shields to keep that radiation off our brains. What will hold it out best?"

"Beryllium, I think," Burris answered. "It seems to be the foot of beryllium in the Dome's walls that's shielding it out now. But you can't make protective helmets of foot-thick beryllium."

"We'll plate anti-rad helmets as thickly with beryllium as we can," Zarias retorted, "and take our chances."

Cubbison finally got a chance to speak. He spoke as fussily as though all this were some annoying ordinary accident.

"This is all very upsetting! I shall have to report to New York at once. In the mean-time, I leave you in charge of the problem, Doctor Zarias."

He hurried off, and Burris laughed sourly.

"If the universe was about to come to an end, he'd get in a report to New York."

We left Marie to watch the telltales and report to us what Andersen and Mathers were doing in the lab. It was a hideous thing to have in our thoughts as we worked on the helmets—the knowledge that those two were puppets working in the uncanny Thing's grip.

The whole Station was seething with excitement, of course. Everyone swarmed around the improvised workshop where we and the technics sweated to cover three anti-rad helmets with extra-thick layers of beryllium.

Everyone knew there had been some kind of a blow-up in Main Physics, but the truth was still too incredible for them. The idea of a new birth of transuranic life, a thing of radiation and unearthly new elements that was a sudden terrible enemy in our midst, was too much for them yet. They thought it was just a crack-up on Andersen's part.

"They may protect us long enough to get at the chamber-controls in there," Zarias muttered, eyeing our clumsy helmets when we finished.

Cubbison came stalking back to us as we returned to the lab corridor entrance. His spectacles glittered worriedly at us.

"I've talked to New York and have arranged with the Commission against any mishap here," he announced.

"What do you mean, mishap?" snapped Zarias. "We've already had 

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