Otto, one of the drill crew, a great, blond bear of a man, picked Perry up and followed the girl through the throng to her car. In a moment it was speeding away toward Brenton. But it hadn't gone far before the sounds of a fresh disturbance issued from the enclosure it had recently quitted. To the thudding from beneath the Earth, was added a droning note, faint but infinitely far-reaching. It was like the drone of a solitary electric generator in a deserted powerhouse at night. And there was a puffing noise from the direction of the enclosure. Voices waxed to screams. First of plain terror; then some of them changed to yelps of agony. The reviving Perry half rose in the back seat of the speeding car. Then Otto, with all the good intentions in the world followed Murgatroyd's original example, hit Perry on the chin, and told the frightened girl up ahead to drive faster. Meanwhile, safe in a hotel room in Brenton, a man sat at a writing table and waited. Lyman Kerwin had just received a phone call. One couldn't tell, yet, what was happening. But Kerwin's mind was quick and cold and ruthless. And somewhere in all this he saw a lot to his advantage--if he played his cards right. CHAPTER III A War Against Machines It was many hours later before the doctors at the Brenton hospital knew that Wilcox was out of danger. The gas that had burnt him was a little like mustard gas in its action, though more virulent; and it had narcotic properties that could function through a burn. With the danger from poison past, the injury was small. But it was still more hours before Wilcox came out of the daze that had slipped over him. The immediate cause of his awakening from heavy slumber, was the roar of a squadron of airplanes, passing over the hospital roof. He sat up dizzily. In the distance he could hear a muted mutter and clank. Then a series of heavy explosions. He looked about, noticing only subconsciously that he was in a hospital ward. His gaze settled immediately on the nearest window. Weakly he climbed out of bed and limped and staggered toward it. The view extended for miles to the north, across the little city, and across the hills and woods and fields beyond. Everything he could see had the look of a place in close proximity to the no-man's-land of a great war. Lorries, loaded with troops, were moving in the streets. Tanks roared. Supply trucks, most of them pulling guns, moved in a ragged stream. Perry's face went haggard and drawn as he looked for the airplanes he had heard. Far up, he saw three. Huge bombers in the clear air. Clusters of black specks trailed down from them--bombs released from the racks. And in the hills beneath there were geysers of flying earth, followed by dull concussions.