"You have no choice," Frane replied in cold, unhuman tones. "Every man here is part and substance of the great Zemmd. Just as the sum and total of all that is in your brains will become a part of him." He turned his gaze upon Rikert. "Even this one, who sought to defy the Zemmd, will become a part." "Yeah? We'll see about that!" Rikert laughed unpleasantly. They were silent then, under the watchful guidance of Frane and his men. Once more they were taken below the level of the compound, then ushered into a plainly furnished room. "You will not lack for comfort," Frane said, "but you must remain here until time for the transition. I promise it will be soon!" There was pride in his tone, as though conferring a great honor upon them. He employed a metal device in the arched doorway. A sheet of crackling color passed across it, effectively barring the entrance. Rikert leaped forward in a last effort, but a searing heat from the barrier stopped him. Bitterly he turned back. "Fine thing, Emmons! If you'd let me blast that hunk of brain-trust when I had the chance--" "You'd be dead now, and the rest of us with you! Can't you ungroove that brain of yours, Rikert?" Rikert surged forward, fists clenched, but Jeffers stepped between the men. "I don't know, Emmons," Jeffers said slowly. "I think Rikert had the thing scared there for a minute. Didn't you notice the way it moved back from the electro--" "It was a darn fool thing to try, and this kind of talk isn't helping us!" Curt turned abruptly, began examining the room. Walls, floor and ceiling seemed to be of solid-hewed stone with no break of any kind. The arched doorway failed to reveal the source of the radiant barrier; it was electronic, Curt was sure. Lorine was a pitiful figure, despair making an unreal mask of her face. All the fine courage that had carried her this far, seemed to fail her now. Once more Tor hummed the high-pitched aria which Curt hadn't heard since they left Mercury. The tune seemed to sustain the little Martian in times of trouble. Jeffers and Rikert were aimless automatons pacing the room. Curt sank down and let despair wash over him. Yet a thought, half-formed, struggled to emerge from the recesses of his mind; something he had noticed about that entity, Zemmd; an idea that danced away as he sought to remember. He couldn't quite grasp it. It was maddening. Such a weariness of body and mind came upon Curt that he fell into a fitful sleep. His last conscious thought was of the sentient entity, of which they were to become a part. All would be over then. * * * * * Curt dreamed. A great arctic wind, alive as if with a snapping intelligence, seemed to roar about his huddled carcass. Far away a door whispered open and closed with a sigh. A stranger seemed to have entered the room, a great towering figure with silvery hair, who stood looking down at them and then paced away in the gloom like the going of a breeze.