From beneath the machines a dozen men had silently entered the room.
They were unarmed, except for the nets they carried--nets that flowed
as if woven of fire.
"Magna-webs!" gasped Lorine. "Back, _back_ Curt!"
But she was too late. Before Curt and the others could react to her
panicked words, the strange men flung the nets at them. They only
lifted their arms and released the magna-webs, which floated through
the air with deceptive swiftness.
Curt grabbed Lorine to hurl her back. And then the glowing nets settled
over their shoulders, the fiery strands sending numbing tingles deep
into their flesh. Curt tried to reach his electro, but his hand was
nerveless. Scalpels of fire sliced through his brain. He felt a vast
tiredness in the instant before a rushing darkness came.
* * * * *
It could only have been minutes. Curt found himself struggling up,
fighting against a numbness that clung to his limbs. He saw Lorine and
the others stagger erect. Frane's men were confiscating the weapons.
"I hope you will not make this necessary again," Frane said without
emotion. "Believe me, it could be fatal."
Curt believed him. He set his lips grimly. Without further ado, the
newcomers were hurried through one of the secret exits. Tor Ekkov gave
a last, longing look at the Tele-Magnum device.
They passed through a long, illuminated corridor with walls of shining
substance, leading directly away from the prow of the alien spaceship.
Curt forced his way ahead to walk beside Frane.
"You're Robert Frane, all right," Curt glanced at the man's face. "Sure
you don't remember me, Frane?"
The man turned colorless eyes upon Curt. A shrug was in his voice. "I
may have known you once."
Curt gave it up. He turned his mind to that terrible combined potential
which had struck them down. These men were possessed of a power that
was more than telepathic. The octopoid creature had been telepathic
too. Curt recalled the strange life-form rising from the mangled body
of the octopoid, and the hundreds of similar life-forms inside the
spacer. A truth was dawning that left Curt numb with horror.
He let his hand brush the bare forearm of the man walking next to him.
He felt a faint tingling through his fingertips that was something more
than electrical.
A car awaited them, its dark blue hull gleaming and translucent. They
crowded in. A propulsion beam hummed, and they rose straight up with
sickening speed.