But by now the patrol man's seething flood of hate had registered. He was within the telepathy kiosk; and if he had ever willed instant destruction for anyone, he willed it now, for Bayley. Under other circumstances he might not have felt so vengeful, but his ebbing pulses blazed with fury. There was a click within that vast, slumberous pyramid, that loomed like a grim god in this shadowy place of enigmas. The automaton that had recently held Harwich captive, seemed to move like a maddened animal, created out of pure lightning. Its tentacles whipped around Bayley long before he could fire again. Harder than steel cable, the tendrils tightened, like the coils of a python. There was a choked cry of terror and anguish, and then a sickening, crunching, squashing sound, as flesh and bone and blood oozed between those constricting metal loops. It was almost the last thing that Evan Harwich saw. He was mortally wounded, a slender hole bored through his side. Harwich's last delirium was a dream. A silly dream, maybe. Clara and he together. A little house. Fancifully he pictured its details. Maybe a mining concession somewhere here among the moons of Jupiter, too. An orderly life. Not all this hectic battling with unknown dangers any more. He was a little tired of adventure, a little tired of being space patrol pilot, too. He could resign. Somewhere, Evan Harwich's fanciful thinking came to an end. * * * * * He awoke suddenly. Paul Arnold was shaking him. "On your feet, you big lug!" the boy was yelling happily. "There's not a thing wrong with you, now! Clara and I have been awake for half an hour." Harwich staggered erect, grumbling confusedly, his stiff, black hair awry. He'd been lying on a divan. The room around him was almost familiarly furnished, except for slightly fantastic details of decoration. The windows were wide, and beyond them there was a sort of yard, with freshly planted trees. Over the whole setup there was a fine crystal airdrome. "What the heck! Where in the name of sense are we?" Harwich burst out in startled pleasure. He looked first at Paul Arnold, and then at Clara, whose amber eyes were twinkling with secretive mischief. It was as though the two had some sort of joke up their sleeves. Harwich glanced again out of the window. Beyond the airdome, glinting and new, was what looked like improved mining equipment. Cropping out of the ground was the grayish, shiny stuff of a rich ore lode. And there was a space ship, too; bright and slender and strange, but it looked plenty serviceable! "Where are we, anyway?" Harwich demanded again, still completely in the dark. "Does either of you two know?" "Still on Io, evidently!" Paul Arnold breezed with a taunting grin. "Same kind of hills and general character of country! When Bayley shot me, I passed out. I didn't know anything more until I woke up here a little while ago!"