The next instant, it seemed, he awakened, all the horror fresh in his mind, the stinging sensation at the nape of his neck changed to a dull throbbing pain. Nadine had led him into this. But she was like the rest, a zombie unable to think for herself. He shook his head slowly in pained bewilderment. She hadn't been that way the first time he met her. She had been--_herself. What could have created this nightmare?_ A voice somewhere sounded in deep resonant tones. "So you are awake," it said. Earl rolled onto his side and searched for the source of the voice. There was no one in view. He was in a room whose walls and ceiling were heavy glass. He looked through the ceiling and saw the familiar maze of steel catwalks inside the dome. Outside his glass prison a pair of video cameras were trained on him. Their lenses seemed somehow sentient, so that their motionlessness partook of the quality of a fixed stare. "I've always wanted to meet you," the voice said, and it seemed to come from a small case atop the camera frames. It was a dream, Earl decided. He had been hit on the head. In his delirium he had conjured up the Brain, activated and intelligent as it was designed to be in theory, possessed of a mind of its own. "Of course," the voice went on, "I've seen film shots of you. You are the discoverer of the nerve fluid that made me possible." Earl sat up abruptly. "Who are you? And where--" "I am the _Cyberene_. This is the year 3042 A. D., in the old calendar. I had you brought here through what might be called a time tube from your own period. Shortly you will return through that tube to your own time--as many hours ahead from the time you left as you spend here before you go back." Earl got to his feet slowly, watching the glistening lenses. "Now it begins to fit together," he said. "You're behind Nadine and Ladd. You say _I'm_ the discoverer of the nerve fluid. You're mistaken. It hasn't been found yet--and there are ten of us looking for it. One of the others may be the one to find it." "History says you found it." "And you just wanted to see me because of that?" Earl asked. "Watch," the voice said. The plate glass wall in front of Earl changed suddenly, to become apparently a giant window over-looking a huge sprawling city. There were buildings that reached thousands of feet into the sky, with fragile looking networks of bridges spanning the spaces among them. There were giant aircraft in the sky. In the distance was a trail of fire that might be from an inter-planetary rocket ship departing spaceward. And abruptly the elfin city was blotted out by a blinding sun. Seconds later the blinding sun was gone, and Earl could see the city again. But now it was only the skeleton of what it had been. Its spiderweb design of bridges was torn and twisted. Many of its tall buildings were even now toppling toward the ground. Fire shot skyward in a pyrotechnic display of havoc. * * * * *