"Strange! Strange! This creature of an inferior race says that our world has joined hands with his; that his is greater; that our own world, Rajj, is now a satellite of his world that he calls by the strange name of 'Earth.'" * * * * * To Chet it seemed that this one mysterious thinker, this "Master" of an unknown realm, was explaining his findings to other mysterious beings. There followed a babel of released thoughts from which Chet got only a confused impression of conflicting emotions: curiosity, rage, hate, and a cold ferocity that bound them into one powerful, vindictive whole. Again the leader quieted the rest; again he laid open the minds of Walt and Diane for his exploring questions, while Chet mentally listened and tried to picture what manner of thing this was that held two Earth-folk helpless, that called them "creatures of an inferior race." Super-men? No? Super-beasts, these must be. Chet was chilled with a nameless horror as he sensed the cold deadliness and implacable hate in the traces of emotion that clung and came to him with the thoughts. And his imagination balked at trying to picture thinking creatures so abominably vile as these thinkers must be. The questions went on and on. Chet lost all sense of time. He had the feeling that the two helpless prisoners were being mentally flayed. No thought, no hidden emotion, but was stripped from them and displayed before the mental gaze of these inhuman inquisitors. No physical torture could have been more revolting. And at list the ordeal was ended. Chet had forgotten Schwartzmann's men until the "Master's" order recalled them to his mind. "Bring the other captives!" the unspoken thought commanded. * * * * * Chet crouched low to see from under the hanging leather. Naked feet shuffled aimlessly; they were raised and put down again in the same position, until the dazed and hypnotized blacks received their orders and drew Diane and Harkness to one side. Then other leather-shod feet came into view as Max and his companions were brought forward. But there was no more questioning. "Perhaps another day we shall amuse ourselves with them," a thinker said. Chet, for the first time was paying no attention. A slit in the leather--it might bare been where a spear had entered to slay a dinosaur in some earlier age--served now as a peep-hole from which Chet saw two gray and lifeless faces that were expressionless as stone. And, as if their bodies, too, were carved from granite, Diane and Harkness stood motionless. He saw the blacks, saw that all eyes were on the other prisoners. Only Harkness and Diane stood with lowered gaze, staring stonily at the floor where the leather hung. And through Chet's mind flashed a quick impulse that set his nerves thrilling and quivering, though he checked the emotion in an instant lest some other mind should sense it.