There were vats here, too, vaster than any Ed had ever seen from any viewpoint and webbed with their attendant apparatus. Beneath the glossy surface of the fluid, like smooth oceans in the floor, various shapes were visible--all devilish but half transparent in their undeveloped state, their smooth plates of vitaplasm muscle and scale showing, but already alive and in slight, undulating motion. And no doubt these things were only in the embryonic state. They could grow much huger after being set free to hide and kill. Here, then, was the devil's brewpot of creation. Here the first slithering synthetic monsters must have been blueprinted and created. It was Ronald Payten's work--the product of his skill and his secret quirks. Madness in vitaplasm, to help build hate between android and man and bring the conflict to a climax. And there was more. Against one wall was the plunder of Mitchell Prell's laboratory on Mars--or most of it. The tanks were empty. But on a table stood the larger microscope, as if what could be seen through its eye-piece had been under examination. Perhaps the doll-like shape, the other vats, the machine shop and that tiny electron microscope were still there. And what lay at a still lower size level. Across such a void of distance, Ed Dukas could not see such detail. But he felt the mingling of hope and frustration. No path back to normal circumstances was here, yet. And the time was certainly not ripe--if it would ever come. Besides, did all of him really want to return, even if part of him fairly ached for it? Carter Loman, or Ronald Payten, bent close to Les, his pronged helmet and wide face, beyond the curve of plastic and radiation shielding, like an ugly world in the sky. But if you had the mind to notice, perhaps Loman's expression was almost gentle just then. His voice came to Ed's senses as a subdued and modulated quake: "Lester! Wake up! I didn't hit you that hard." Les seemed to have been lowered onto a couch of some kind. Perhaps he had already regained consciousness moments ago and had since been bent on quiet scrutiny of his surroundings, seeking out comprehension and the core of his own feelings. Ed could guess at some of this: an enigma revealed; Ronald Payten--creator of monsters; Les Payten's pseudo-father. Then, for Les, horror, shame, fury. For Ed, the world seemed to rock as Les leaped. Les was not strong now and was still in his convalescence. And maybe he had been wavering and unsure, or even wrong in his past choices. But at this moment he was not at all in doubt, though the attack he made could have been pure, wild fright. "Father, indeed! I'll kill you--_Phony!_" he screamed. Then he was grappling with Loman with all the strength that muscle and emotion could muster. For that moment at least, he was Ed Dukas's ally, willing or otherwise. For he held Loman's attention diverted. And because of Les's attack Loman's neutronic aura remained turned off.