Torkine's ironic voice greeted me. He was seated at the control table where the intricate dials, levers and vacuums of the disc's mechanisms were ranged. He stood up as I entered. And beside him I saw Dora. She was still clad in her Earth garments, and her long pale-blonde hair was braided and coiled on her head. I have not spoken of Dora's beauty. Loving her, my own opinion of it possibly was exaggerated; and yet I have never known a man, or a woman either, who differed greatly from me in praising it--a delicate, ethereal beauty. She gave a little cry as she saw me, half started to her feet, and then sank back on the bench beside Torkine. Her face was pallid, but she was trying to smile at me. "Welcome," Torkine said again. "Come sit here with us, Ralston, and I'll show you our new world. You see he did not die, little Dora?" I saw Torkine now as a huge burly giant; six feet four at least. A swaggering, handsome fellow, this escaped convict. In age he could have been thirty odd. He was grinning at me ironically as he shoved a metal chair toward me. "The Supreme One will be glad to have you," he added. "You and Dora Franklin. Especially Dora. We need Earth beauty in our motley little colony of humans. The Supreme One spoke to me of that--there will be several marriages soon after we arrive tonight. The Great Master is deciding now which men and which women of our humans shall be mated." Omnipotence. Torkine's irony was gone now; he spoke casually, as though stating a casual fact. Humans here, who before the power of the Supreme One were no longer individuals to have a will and emotions of their own. Everything to be decided for us. But I saw the pallid hawk-nosed Bragg staring at Dora with a look that made my heart pound. And Torkine himself dropped back on the bench and murmured: "Do not be surprised little Dora, if the Master decides not to give you to this fellow Ralston--" He leered at me, and his arms went around Dora, drawing her to him. She gave a little cry of terror and repugnance. It was too much for me. I jumped up. "Stop that!" I rasped. "You Torkine--take your hands off her!" He turned his head, grinning at me, but he did not move. I would have been upon him in another second. Behind me I heard Johnny Blair give a cry to try and stop me. In the shadows of one of the circular walls, half a dozen of the little box-like Physicals, all identical, were ranged motionless in a line. They were muttering now--weird mutterings that popped from them like tiny explosions. And abruptly acting in unison, they came pouncing at me! * * * * * "Ralston, stand still!" Blair shouted. "Your only chance--stand still!"