"Why didn't you answer the first time I called to you?" asked the professor. "Didn't you hear me?" "We heard you, and we answered, but you didn't hear us. You see, your brain is different than ours, and though you can send thought waves as far as we can you cannot receive them from such a great distance." "I'm wrecked," said the professor, gazing at his twisted limbs, paralyzed tentacles and jammed body. "We shall repair you," came the reply. "It is your good fortune that your head was not crushed." "What are you going to do with me?" queried the professor. "Will you remove my brains to another machine?" "No, it isn't necessary. We shall merely remove your head and place it upon another machine body." The Zoromes immediately set to work upon the task, and soon had Professor Jameson's metal head removed from the machine which he had wrecked in his fall down the crater. All during the painless operation, the professor kept up a series of thought exchanges in conversation with the Zoromes, and it seemed but a short time before his head surmounted a new machine and he was ready for further exploration. In the course of his operation, the space ship had moved to a new position, and now as they emerged 25X-987 kept company with Professor Jameson. "I must keep an eye on you," he said. "You will be getting into more trouble before you get accustomed to the metal bodies." But Professor Jameson was doing a great deal of thinking. Doubtlessly, these strange machine men who had picked up his rocket in the depths of space and had brought him back to life, were expecting him to travel with them and become adopted into the ranks of the Zoromes. Did he want to go with them? He couldn't decide. He had forgotten that the machine men could read his innermost thoughts. "You wish to remain here alone upon the earth?" asked 25X-987. "It is your privilege if you really want it so." "I don't know," replied Professor Jameson truthfully. * * * * * He gazed at the dust around his feet. It had probably been the composition of men, and had changed from time to time into various other atomic structures--of other queer forms of life which had succeeded mankind. It was the law of the atom which never died. And now he had within his power perpetual existence. He could be immortal if he wished! It would be an immortality of never-ending adventures in the vast, endless Universe among the galaxy of stars and planets.