Spider Men of Gharr By WILBUR S. PEACOCK Kimball Trent was the last hope of a ravaged Earth, for locked in his mind were secrets that would bring freedom to the Barbs. He lacked but one thing to release the power of those secrets--the key to the riddle of the blue monsters who could not die. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] At first there was only the cold, the Stygian inky iciness that held every muscle of his body in thrall and made his thoughts flow with the turgid slowness of treacly molasses. He could not open his eyes, nor could he move; and his mind slipped back into the darkness time and time again. He tried to think of who he was, or _what_ he was, and there was no knowledge in his brain. And then the heat came through to him, biting into his numbed flesh with the bitter sharpness of a naked yellow flame, drawing life to all his body, pressing back some of the velvet shadows from his mind. "_Kim_," he thought dazedly. "_I'm Kim._" And then his mind blanked out again, for how long, he did not know. But when he came to, he could open his eyes and see the faintest glimmer of sunlight coming through the split and ruptured earth, tiny dust motes floating in the golden streak. "_I'm Kim_," he thought again, and held onto the memory with a frantic desperation, frightened that it was the only reality he had. He moved at last, screaming at the agony that surged with every movement, finally rolled into a sitting position. There was but the barest glint of light from the earth fault, and his eyes grew strained as he peered about. He was in a cave, obviously artificial, for there were shelves loaded with dully-gleaming objects, and man-hewn blocks of stone lay upturned where great strangling roots squirmed into the air like monstrous scaly snakes. He looked at himself. His hands were talons now, for the nails were curled and twisted into tangled knots, and the flesh had not the resiliency or the strength to straighten the fingers. He bent his head, watched fabric disintegrate into dust on his emaciated body, then gasped. Great festoons of the dust had not powdered into nothingness, and he recognized that they were the swirls of beard that hung pendant from his chin. He straightened, mind trying to grasp what had happened, and the hair from his head swirled about his shoulders, rippling in undulant waves into the clump of tangled masses that lay at his side. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, his tongue swollen. The terrible cold was still in him, and he shivered agonizingly for seconds. It was then he heard the sound of rilling water close at hand.