us.

The grip on my brain suddenly relaxed. The crash had startled It, or had turned Its attention for a moment.

"Back out, Drummond!" Zarias screeched.

He clawed me back through the lab door and slammed it. Instantly, the clutch of It grabbed at my brain again. But through that heavy door, through our helmets, the clutch was not quite so strong. We could fight it, out here in the corridor.

"Burris!" I choked, but the Greek gave me a furious shove back down the corridor toward the Dome.

"No use! He's gone! Another second and we'll be gone too!"

CHAPTER IV

Destructive "Toy"

I believe we would not have got into the Dome if Carew had not heard us coming and had the door open in time. The slam of the heavier Dome door cut that unholy, wondering, alien grasp from our minds instantly.

I stumbled and would have fallen but for Marie's firm arm around me. Zarias' face was livid when he took his helmet off, and I knew then what my own must look like.

"Burris?" said Ramon Varez quietly.

"In there," croaked the Greek. "In there working for It now, with Mathers and Andersen. Soon, maybe, all of us will be!" He got a grip on himself and stopped that. "By heaven, no! No Thing of minerals and rays can conquer men! We'll find a way!"

"The helmets failed, then?" said Cubbison anxiously.

"Too thin," Zarias nodded. "It'll take a foot of beryllium to protect us. That means armor that we can wear into the lab. And we'll have to make it fast."

The Greek was indomitable. In the hours that followed, he sweated with the others as every working facility we had in the Dome was turned to the all-important task of making the foot-thick armor. Beryllium is light, but even so the suits would be heavy and massive. But we wouldn't have to wear them far, if we succeeded.

I'd like to be able to say that I worked as hard as Zarias. I didn't. I was too sick and shaky, for the next hours. Only shame finally made me conquer that and plunge at the job with the others.

"I'll go in this time, and perhaps Carew and Blauner will go with me," Ramon Varez proposed.

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