"I don't know whether you can hear me, fella," he grated. "But this thing is tuned to _our_ bodies now, not yours. We want that block--" jerking his head toward the shimmering white square, "--to take with us. If you don't step aside--you die!" "Kill him anyhow," whispered Nichols. "Yes, you soft fool," snarled Mussdorf through swollen, cut lips from the floor. "Pull the lever and do away with him." Emerson shook his head, still looking at the thing that stood so still in the doorway, staring back at him. "That would be murder. He's an intelligent being. If he doesn't interfere, he stays alive." The black monster turned, and moved off down the corridor. Emerson exhaled with relief, found his palm wet and sticky. He rubbed it on his thigh, turning to the others. "Snap into it," he barked. "Get off the floor, Mussdorf, and give Nichols a hand. Lug that leaden box between the cones, beneath the block. I'm going to release the pressure that keeps it suspended. We want that block. We need it. We can build the cones and the rings back on Earth, but there isn't anything like that block anywhere else in all the Universe!" * * * * * They worked feverishly, sliding the box across the floor. Emerson studied the control panels, sweat beading his brow with the effort of his concentration. He summoned the years of his tutelage under the world's greatest physicists at Earth University, the years of knowledge acquired in laboratory and spaceship on Earth and in the great red city of New Mars. He only had one chance here. It had to be successful. If he made a mistake, he was like to draw on them the concentrated fury of a billion annihilating atoms. He touched levers hesitantly, frowning; striving to remember the diagrams etched in metal on the box. Here, this one. This should be it. He wrapped his fingers carefully about the gleaming white knob, turned it with infinitesimal slowness, looking at the great white block. He saw it quiver, settle slowly floorwards. "It's in," yelled Nichols, slamming the leaden cover down and locking it. It took the three of them to budge it, to slide it across the floor. "Hell," panted Mussdorf. "We'll never make it. Once we get it into the corridor, that black fiend'll be on top of us again." Somehow they got it out of the Chamber, and scraped it along the corridor. Luckily, the way was level, and the ramp that lead from the Chamber of the Cones to the great square was smooth. But in the square they ran into an unsurmountable difficulty. There was no way to lift it into the spaceship. "We can't do it," acknowledged Emerson glumly. "It would take a crane to lift that." Mussdorf kicked at the box, and swore. Nichols ran quivering fingers through his hair, trembling. Then Emerson started to grin. "A crane, sure. We have one here, if we can only make it work. The thing, the black thing. He's as strong as any crane I ever saw!" "Think he'll do it?" asked Mussdorf.