One of the creatures charged him suddenly with huge arms and clawed hands outstretched. * * * * * Desperation and a sense of his own helplessness surged through Guyard. It gave him a mad strength beyond all reason. His balled fist lashed out with all the fury that twelve horrible years of hatred could give it. The flesh and bone of the beast's face fairly exploded into gory pulp as the blow landed. At almost the same instant, another clawed hand grasped Guyard by the shoulder and sent him spinning backward to land with a crash against the table at the far side of the room. It was Zuldi. Guyard stood leaning against the table, dazed and shaken. He heard Marene's scream and saw the two creatures forcing her down through the trap door. They would not harm her. They would let her live for a worse fate. The black ship would be coming in less than two weeks. "We saw you open the window a while ago. That's what brought us up." Zuldi was standing before him, his huge, round mouth with its yellow teeth hanging open in pleasure. "I'm so glad we came. Two examples in the same morning is more than I had hoped for." Guyard's hand closed over a heavy wrench upon the table behind him. He had no hope of winning through; his only desire was to take Zuldi with him in death. One of the guards saw the act, shouted a warning and hastily drew his voltage gun. With a mad cry upon his lips, Guyard sprang forward with wrench swinging. Zuldi's evil face was before him. Guyard wanted to smash it, obliterate it. But the wrench never reached its mark. A crackling flame filled the room. Guyard was spun half way around as the full charge of the voltage gun caught him high in the right side of his chest and filled his whole body with a burning agony. The wrench dropped to the floor. His arms became leaden things that hung heavily at his sides. He stood there gasping for air. Completely burned out inside, he had but a few seconds left. Only his brain seemed to be alive. Zuldi was before him, his hideous face black with anger beneath its smeared green. "So!" he hissed. "You would dare to strike!" His clawed hand flashed out to rake down the face and chest of the helpless man. Guyard felt no pain. His whole body was numb, dying. He stood there while Zuldi tore at him, stood there staring straight into the eyes of the great steel giant. "Zurk!" The thought-wave went out with all the power of his brain. "_Zurk! You've ... you've got to save ... Marene!_" For some reason, he felt closer to that steel-cased brain than he had ever felt before. He saw the light in the giant's eyes change almost imperceptibly. And he felt thought-waves hammering at his own brain. Zurk, even at the last moment, was trying to tell him something. But the message was garbled, incoherent.