It was a warm afternoon in August. His wife had gone to visit her sister, giving him temporary respite from her nagging, and there was no sound in the apartment except the steady hum of the electric fan and the sporadic clacking of the ancient typewriter. Altogether it was one of those rare moments when it was possible for his imagination to take over completely. It was, in fact, though he was not yet aware of it, the climactic moment in his career as a creative writer. The Tark horde was rapidly closing in, and Thon Carther/Harold Worthington Smith decided it was high time he drew his sword. _Clackety-clack-clack._ The blond princess, who hailed from the triple cities of Hydrogen and whose name was Thejah Doris, moved closer to him, and her golden shoulder brushed his sinewy arm. A tingling phalanx of thrills charged up and down his backbone. _Clack-clackety-clack. Clack!_ "Fear not, my princess," he said. "This noble sword has tasted the blood of many a Tark and is keen for the taste of the blood of many more!" "My chieftain," she breathed, moving even closer. He hefted the big sword, and the rays of the declining sun danced brightly on its burnished surface. For all its size, it was as light as a yardstick in his big brown masculine hand. The foremost Tark rider was very close now. Startlingly close, Thon-Smith realized with a start--and startlingly realistic. The malevolent green features stood out with dismaying clarity, and the tusks of the elongated eyeteeth gleamed with terrifying vividness. Wildly Thon-Smith felt for his typewriter. Next he felt for his desk. Finally he looked around him for the familiar walls of the apartment. They, too, had disappeared. A shudder shot through his tall, tanned body. Something awful had happened. Something even more awful was going to happen if he didn't do something and do it soon, for the Tarks, looming building-tall astride their six-legged mounts, were almost upon them. He remembered the plot just in time, and seizing Thejah Doris around her slender waist, he gave a mighty leap that carried them--thanks to the tenuous Martian gravity--over the entire green horde to a resilient section of the dead-sea bottom a hundred feet behind the rearmost rider. It was, he reflected, somewhat of a _deus ex machina_ stratagem now that he came to think of it; but now was no time to be hyper-critical. * * * * *