"Be that as it may. We have lost and you have won. I can show myself more generous than you would have been, and thus can gain a victory over you. If you would escape, follow the car-track straight on to where it forks; then take the left-hand turning. If you would be restored to your former and imperfect and repulsive form (though I cannot conceive why you should, being permanently fixed in beautiful and immortal metal), do not run away, but await the coming of the substance of life in the outer hall or passage, being careful not to approach it too closely or to touch it, so that you may receive the emanation only. It is this emanation, surrounding our space ship that produced your present form, which we changed to machinery by our surgery; and it so acts on the metal of which you are composed that it will reverse the case. As for me I am old and tired; already the walls of this place tremble to the coming of my doom. Leave me, before I regret what I have told you." * * * * * He reached his trunk up and disconnected the thought-helmet, and standing up, with a certain high dignity, pointed to the door. Relieved of the helmet Sherman could hear a confused roaring like that on the day when Marta Lami and he had short-circuited the mining machine. "Come on," he called to the rest, dropping the helmet. "Hell's let loose. We've got to hurry." Outside the roaring was perceptibly louder and seemed to be approaching. As they leaped down to the track a faint glow was borne to them redly along the rail. The ape-men in the cage-room they had escaped from were howling and beating the bars of their cages, with no blue lights to forbid them. The track was slippery--Marta Lami and the three they had released from the cage room, unshod. Sherman gripped her by the hand. "Hurry, oh, hurry," he panted, pulling her along. They passed another passage, down which a door stood open. The soft light that normally illuminated the place was flickering wildly, they caught a glimpse of three or four Lassans within, stirring wildly, rushing from place to place, trying this connection and that. The dull sound behind them increased; the track grew steeper. "What about the rest?" gasped Gloria, running by his side. "Don't know," he answered. "They did something. The whole place is coming down." As they rounded a corner the track forked before them. Remembering the Lassan's parting instructions, Sherman led them to the left, passed another passage mouth, and they found themselves in a small blue-domed hall, empty save for a single car that stood on the track. There was just room to squeeze past it where the passage began again at the other end. And as they made it the roaring sound changed to a series of explosions, sharp and clear. The ground trembled, seemed to tilt; the car slid backward into the passage they had just vacated.