Instantly the darkness was filled with scraping, rending sounds as the car swung crazily across the road, fell into a shallow ravine, and imbedded itself, nose-first, in the opposite embankment. Following the musical aftermath of glass and metal showered on pavement, the ensuing stillness inside the car was almost deafening. Then, Toffee, dropping a broken steering gear daintily out of the window, turned to Marc. "Are you all right?" "I think so," Marc replied, without a trace of conviction. "I don't think your car will go any more," Toffee said regretfully. "We'd better make a run for it. You'll have to get out first. My door is jammed." Simultaneously, as though repeating a well rehearsed routine, they turned toward the door at Marc's side, then froze. Framed in the window, neither the gun nor the hand that held it looked in the least way friendly. "I ... I can explain everything, Sheriff," Marc stammered. "You won't have to explain a thing," a strange voice said softly, and the hand and gun were disconcertingly joined by the pointed, sharp-featured face that Marc had seen on the beach. "All you have to do is get out and follow my instructions as I give them. It's very simple." The face disappeared and the gun waved them out of the car. "What...?" Marc began. "We'll talk later," the man broke in. "Right now, I'll have to ask you to blindfold each other." His hand held out two crude, white bandages. "Gee," Toffee giggled delightedly, accepting one of the strips. "It's just like a game isn't it?" Marc's answering glance effortlessly hurdled years of scientific research and rendered the death ray hopelessly obsolete. His emotions, translated into words, would have required a brief but highly specialized vocabulary which he did not possess. "You may remove your blindfolds now," the man said, and Marc and Toffee lost no time in doing so. For a moment both of them stood gaping incredulously at their new surroundings. They were standing in the center of an enormous dome-shaped room that seemed to be walled entirely with highly polished, unbroken rock; as though a small mountain had somehow been hollowed out. Except for two curved, slit-like doorways, the monotonous smoothness went endlessly on like perpetual motion. One door was directly before them; the other, through which they had obviously come, directly behind. Both were closed with a knobless, metallic panel. A few bits of austere, metal furniture stood here and there, looking lost in the vastness of the place. But the most unusual particular of the room was the way in which it was lighted. High in its ceiling, a fiery, sun-like ball revolved lazily, impossibly held aloft by what appeared to be two rays of strong, white light. The resulting brightness was like that one might expect to find in an unshaded meadow at high noon. Marc glanced at the contrivance and turned away blinking. It was too bright for steady scrutiny.