Father murmured, "It is bringing the Infra-red nearer to us. Or swinging us nearer to it--all the same. Bringing the two planes closer together. That ray permeates the whole of Xenephrene. Like a broadcasted radio wave on earth--it goes everywhere! If it persisted--a day--an hour--the Infra-red would be let loose upon us! Possessing us--" The scientist was saying, "Let one of them try it. This is very weak--" "Try it, Peter." Father drew me forward. "Stand, there in the red glow--just a moment. When you--feel too queer--come back out." Every instinct in me revolted, but I yielded to him as he shoved me gently into the red glow. It bathed me with a tingling warmth. Or was it burning? The red things were howling around me. One came up--a great crimson shadow. It seemed condensing into the form of a man. Suddenly I heard myself laughing. Why, this was funny! It looked like me! A crimson shadow of Peter! Or was it my evil spirit? Its face, malignant, like some diabolical travesty of my own, came close and leered at me. I was trying to get into my body. I laughed; but I was thinking, "Why, this is madness--" [Illustration: "As I stood in the Ray, the red things were howling around me, and their faces and actions were so grotesque that I laughed aloud. But I thought mirthlessly, 'Why, this is madness'"] Father's hands jerked me back into the darkness. I stood trembling; my face and hands were flushed, as though inflamed. "Madness indeed," said father, and then I knew that I had shouted the words aloud. "They think that the Infra-red is perhaps the evil nature of man held submerged. A greater intensity of the crimson sound would have burned you." I recalled how Freddie and Dan had been burned in their fight with the intruder that night the cylinder arrived. "And a still greater intensity would reduce you to the plane of the Infra-red--dissolve you into Nothingness--the fate of Davis and Robinson, when they attacked the crimson sound. Near New York, with their aeros--remember?" I did indeed. The scientist moved back the switch; the red glow faded. Father said, "On earth we have no such condition. Here on Xenephrene, the sub-world is always striving for mastery. The purple glow from Pyrena is nature's adjustment; it holds in check, banishes the sub-red world. But since Xenephrene came into our sunlight, things are changing. Our sunlight seems favorable to the Infra-red. So an artificial adjustment has to be made. The purple haze you see in Xenephrene's air--it all comes from this little globe." The purple globe now was active--the beam deepened. Around me the red things seemed vanishing. A great peace, a stillness came to the vaulted room. I had not realized under what subconscious strain I had been laboring until it was removed. Freddie said, "Why use the crimson ray at all? Why not just the purple ray, and banish the red things completely?"