Wessel worked harder than any of them, his eyes agleam with a new excitement. "Look at that stuff," he said once to Conley. "Over fifty per cent pure content, most of it!" It was perhaps an hour later when Spurlin called a halt. "Enough for today. We'll try again tomorrow." Jim didn't need to ask why they must stop. Already he felt that strange tingling in every fiber of his being, which increased as the minutes passed, and he knew that here was a dangerous thing. "We have so little time in which to work up here," Spurlin said as they hurried back. "Do you see now, Jim Landor, why it's taken us close to three years?" Jim saw, indeed. Within him there surged a vast admiration for these men who had persevered in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties, to build their spaceship from the barest resources around them. Yet close upon this there leaped to Jim's mind another thought, unannounced and without reason. It was simply a feeling that there was something _vastly, terribly wrong with what these men were doing_! It was more than a feeling, it was a certainty! It didn't make sense--that they shouldn't escape from M'Tonak--but now Jim knew it! Before he could think long upon it, however, they had come in sight of their building and Jim saw a familiar figure emerge. It was Kaarji, but there seemed something vaguely wrong with him. He looked in their direction but seemed not to see them at all, as he turned and walked away with a long, purposeful stride. Something struck another ominous note in Jim's brain. The men reached their building and entered it, but he did not stop. He hurried after Kaarji. "Landor! You damn fool, come back here!" Spurlin cried after him. But Jim waved a hand, not looking back. He hurried after the Martian. Those emanations were almost unbearable now, but he didn't seem to mind. There was something ominous about them, but something else as well that he could not resist. He had miscalculated Kaarji's distance, however, because somewhere in the maze of streets he lost him. But he knew where the Martian was going--where they were both going. Hours later it seemed, but could only have been minutes, when he came in sight of the imposing edifice where he had last seen Bhruulo disappear. * * * * * Now he hesitated. His mind was crystal clear, clearer than he had ever known it before. But somehow it did not seem to be his own. He struggled a little, but the result was inevitable, he seemed to know it. He gave up almost voluntarily. He continued toward the building and entered its portals that were open wide and waiting.