It was a man, but it was not one of their men, that creeping, maimed, half-cinder and half-human thing that was trying to crawl into the hollow of a rock. It was Bram, and recognition was mutual. Bram dropping, moaning; he was only the shell of a man, and it was incredible how he had managed to survive that ordeal of fire. The remainder of his life, which only his indomitable will had held in that shattered body, was evidently a matter of minutes, but he looked up at Dodd and laughed. "So--you're--here, damn you!" he snarled. "And--you think--you've won. I've--another card--another invasion of the world--beside which this is child's play. It's an invasion--" Bram was going, but he pulled himself together with a supreme effort. "Invasion by--new species of--monotremes," he croaked. "Deep down in--earth. Was saving to--prove you the liar you are. Monotremes--egg-laying platypus big as an elephant--existent long before pleistocene epoch--make you recant, you lying fool!" Bram died, an outburst of bitter laughter on his lips. Dodd stood silent for a while; then reverently he removed his hat. "He was a madman and a devil, but he had the potentialities of a god, Tommy," he said. * * * * * SUCH WELL-KNOW WRITERS AS Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings, Victor Rousseau, R. F. Starzl, A. T. Locke, Capt. S. P. Meek and Arthur J. Burks Write for =ASTOUNDING STORIES= * * * * * Mad Music _By Anthony Pelcher_ The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed Colossus building had mysteriously crashed! What was the connection between this catastrophe and the weird strains of the Mad Musician's violin? [Illustration: _In an inner room they found a diabolical machine._] To the accompaniment of a crashing roar, not unlike rumbling thunder, the proud Colossus Building, which a few minutes before had reared its sixty stories of artistic architecture towards the blue dome of the sky, crashed in a rugged, dusty heap of stone, brick, cement and mortar. The steel framework, like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster, still reared to dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted shape of grotesque outline. No one knew how many lives were snuffed out in the avalanche. As the collapse occurred in the early dawn it was not believed the death list would be large. It was admitted, however, that autos, cabs and surface cars may have been caught under the falling rock. One train was known to have been wrecked in the subway due to a cave-in from the surface under the ragged mountain of debris. The litter fairly filled a part of Times Square, the most congested cross-roads on God's footstool. Straggling brick and rock had rolled across the street to the west and had crashed into windows and doors of innocent small tradesmen's shops.