Inside the room was the large sphere of metalloy. It had lost its original gleam and was stained and battered, standing silent, closed, enigmatic. "Where's the door?" called the first reporter. The sphere rested on a number of metal stilts, reaching out from the lower hemisphere, which held it about three feet from the floor, like a great pincushion turned upside down. Slowly, a round section of the sphere's wall swung outward and steps descended. As they touched the floor, both reporters, caught by the same idea, sprinted for it and fought to see which would climb it first. "Wait!" shouted Stern. The reporters stopped their scuffling and followed Stern's gaze. * * * * * Something old and leathery and horrible was emerging from the circular doorway. Several tentacles, like so many snakes, slid around the hand rail which ran down the steps. Then, at the top, it paused. Stern felt an immediate and unreasoning hate for the thing, whatever it was, a hate so strong that he forgot to feel fear. It seemed to him to combine the repulsive qualities of a spider and a toad. The body, fat and repugnant, was covered by a loose skin, dull and leathery, and the fatness seemed to be pulled downward below the lower tentacles like an insect's body, until it was wider at the bottom than at the top. Like a salt shaker, Stern thought. It turned its head--it had no neck; the loose skin of the body just turned with it--and looked back inside the sphere. The head resembled a toad's, but a long trident tongue slid in and out quickly, changing the resemblance to that of a malformed snake. From the interior, Dr. Curtis appeared beside the creature and stood there vaguely for a moment. Stern noticed that his clothes seemed just as new as when he had left, but he had grown a long, untrimmed beard, and his face had a vacant expression, as if he were hypnotized. The creature looked upward at Curtis, who was head and shoulders taller, and its resemblance changed again in Stern's mind, so that now it looked like a dog, at least in attitude. From its mouth came a low hissing noise. [Illustration: Illustrated by WILLER] Curtis looked down at the dog-spider-toad, his eyes slowly beginning to focus. The creature wiggled like a seal with a fish in sight, then slid and bumped down the steps, with Curtis following him. "Clyde!" cried Beryl and rushed toward Curtis. The outstretched tentacles of the beast stopped her, but at a touch from Curtis they fell away and Beryl was in his arms. Stern watched the scene sourly and with rage in his heart. Why hadn't Clyde waited another year? Then nothing could have changed things. Now he would lose not only Beryl, but the management of the money that was left, and the marketing of new patents on the machine. Curtis did not approve of speculation, especially when it lost money. "You've changed, Clyde," Beryl was saying as she hugged him. "What is the matter--do you need a doctor?"