* * * * * Hale staggered back. "No! You don't mean it, do you?" Unani Assu turned the rat over with a contemptuous toe. "Yes, I mean it. Behold Aimu, the man who thought himself creator and destroyer--the man who said that a human being was no higher than a rat! Perhaps he was right, for see this thing that was once a man!" Hale buried his face in his hands. "Kill it, Unani Assu! Kill it!" Unani Assu's low laugh was metallic. "You kill it." Hale uncovered his face. "Open the disintegrator." Gingerly he reached for the rat's tail. But his hand never touched the animal. The hairless face turned for a second, and the little, beady eyes blinked up at Hale with an expression that his fevered imagination thought almost human. Then, like a dark shadow, the rat dashed away. Once around the room it scampered, hunting for an exit. Hale started in pursuit. He was almost upon the animal again, when, leaping up from his grasp, it landed on a low shelf where chemicals were stored. Several bottles fell, filling the room with fumes. Another bottle fell, and, suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, the ceiling and walls began falling. Some highly explosive chemical had been stored in one of the bottles. Hale was thrown violently against the couch. His hand touched Ana's body. One last shred of consciousness enabled him to pick her up and drag her out. In the open, he fell, aware, before blackness descended, that flames leaped high over the laboratory building and that Unani Assu lay dead within. * * * * * Hale and Ana, leaning over the deck-rail of a small steam launch, gazed into the dark waters of the Amazon. "We ought to reach Para by morning," said Hale, "and then, dearest, we're off for New York!" Ana, wearing one of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned, and looking as smart as any debutante, slipped her little hand into her husband's. "Isn't it a shame, Hale," she moaned, "that the fire burned all the animals and insects, the machinery, and even your notes?" Her beautiful face saddened. "Just one or two specimens might have been proof enough for your What-You-Call-It Club!" "The Nescience Club, darling. No, I can't expect to win the Woolman prize, but I've won a prize worth far more." He squeezed her little hand and looked devotedly into her blue eyes. "And, Ana, I've reasoned out something concerning mind-electrons which even Sir Basil overlooked." "What is it, Hale?" "He maintained that matter seeks always to enslave mind-electrons, but I am convinced that mind-electrons seek to enslave matter. Understand? It's creation, Ana! Had Sir Basil succeeded in broadcasting death throughout the world, the freed mind-electrons, as in the beginning, would have started again to vitalize inorganic atoms. And, in a few million years, which is no time to the Mind, the world would be humming with a new civilization. Large thought, eh, sweetheart?" A SIGNAL TO THE MOON