His hands groped forward, governed by an instinctive motion, to catch the falling flask. But, amazingly, they met and clutched nothing! More frightening still, the muscles of his well-knit, athletic body flamed with sudden agony, racked in protest as if they had been welded for months in a plaster cast. Over straining sinews and bones that ached horribly, Lieutenant Stephen Duane had no more control than has a month old baby. With a gasp more of shock than of fear, he pitched headlong to his knees, his chest, his elbows. He tried to roll, that his shoulders might break his fall, and succeeded in a measure, but concrete grated against one cheek painfully. The jolt shook him like the impact of a sledgehammer. He spat dry dust flavored with the warm, salty taste of blood and cried again: "Chuck! Chuck, what--?" Then the paralysis which had held him lessened; with an effort he lifted his head and stared about him, eyes stark with incomprehension. The laboratory was gone! The bright-gleaming lights had vanished, as had the rows upon rows of glistening beakers and retorts ... the work-benches and hooded range ... the centrifuge and tubes and hissing Bunsens ... the vast intricate array of chemical paraphernalia that should be here ... all were gone! There was only this dingy, windowless room, bare and musty, lighted by the feeble flames of candles guttering upon worn wall-sconces. A sense of panic fear tugged at Steve Duane's heart. He cried yet again, "Chuck! Chuck Lafferty! Where are you?" The answer came from behind him. Drowsily at first, as if the speaker were wakening to respond from the depths of drug-numbed slumber, then more coherently, the answer gaining speed like the disc of a hand-started phonograph. "--grab it, Steve! It slipped! _Look out! The gas is escap_--" Steve turned just in time to see his subordinate and lab assistant strain frozen muscles forward in futile attempt to stay the fall of a non-existent bottle. Chuck's eyes were open, but their blankness mirrored nothing. He was toppling, as grotesquely as had Duane a moment before, to the floor. Clenching his lips against the pain that flooded him with every motion, Steve inched forward to cushion his chum's fall. Chuck's body, locked as if in _rigor mortis_, was a dead weight. Not only that, but--a sudden realization heightened Steve's sense of eerie--cold! Chuck's body was cold! Not with the soft clamminess of a drugged or shellshocked invalid, but with the all-pervading iciness of carven marble! But stiff or limber, cold or quick, Lafferty's white lips were moving. And they framed Steve's own query. "Steve--what happened? Where are we? And what are we doing _here_?" Steve said, "Flex your fingers, chum. That's right; work 'em. Yeah, I know it hurts, but it unfreezes 'em. Now, try moving those knees and elbows." * * * * *