The Lightening Men

The Lightning Men

JOHN COLEMAN BURROUGHS and HULBERT BURROUGHS

Authors of “The Man Without a World ”

THE TARZAN-TEAM AGAIN

Lightning strikes twice — at least in the case of John Coleman Burroughs and Hulbert Burroughs. In the first story by the Tarzan-team, “The Man Without A World,” published in our Tenth Anniversary Issue, the descendants of Earth’s sole survivors discovered a new habitable world — but a world perpetually bombarded with lightning bolts.

So here’s the sequel, THE LIGHTNING MEN, a complete novelet in itself, wherein Mai Mandark II and the founders of Nova Terra combat the electrical elements. The story sparkles with scientific speculations, so let’s have a few flashes from you readers as to its possibilities. And here’s a word from the duo:

---Editor Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb. 1940

THE LIGHTNING MEN, of course, is little more than a chronicle of events that took place upon Nova Terra as flashed to us upon our magni-corpuscular telescopic visiscreen. As interstellar static occasionally interfered with our reception, and since the events had not yet actually taken place, it was necessary for us to draw liberally at times upon our imaginations to furnish a scientific explanation of what we were witnessing.

When our audiophones hummed and sizzled and the Lightning Men appeared on our screen we felt certain they would be the natural inhabitants of a planet whose atmosphere fairly bubbled with electrical potential.

We saw immediately how inevitable it was that the Lightning Men should evolve condenser accumulators of high dielectric capacity to store the vast potential which they pulled from the supercharged atmosphere of Nova Terra. Armed with the power of lightning, what wonders could they evolve! First of all we knew they would create great transformers that would furnish mechanical power and operate machinery to alleviate their chores of living.

To lessen further the tasks accompanying the maintenance and operation of the machinery the Lightning Men would make use of slaves. Being inclined toward labor saving anyway, we thought the Lightning Men would naturally make use of their powers to transform their slaves into shapes best suited for specific functions.

Now this we knew they could do only by shooting highly accelerated electronic beams at the protons within the living tissue cells and thereby stimulate a change of growth or shrinkage according to any preconceived pattern. Thus, for example, when a slave was needed to turn a crank, he would be transformed into a single living hand and all extraneous limbs and energy consuming parts would be eliminated.

With the capture and enslavement of other human beings to serve their every want the Lightning Men would become the acme of indolence. And therein, we felt certain, lay the plot of the story; for when our visiscreen showed us that Mai Mandark II and his Arkian people had been captured we knew things would begin to hum for the lazy Lightning Men.

To find out just what did hum, we humbly beg you to read our story. Then see if you wouldn’t like to be a big mouth and sit around all day and have someone feed you salted peanuts.

---John Coleman and Hulbert Burroughs Feb 1940

CHAPTER I - Son of the Stars

A mystery ship drifted silently through the dark clouds above the purple planet. The triple moons of Nova Terra bathed the giant craft in eerie light as she flew into open spaces across the sullen sky.

On the ground below two men watched the sombre vessel through powerful telectroscopic binoculars. Here was an airship that could not be — yet was! A moment later it vanished, consumed by gloomy night and darker clouds.

Impulsively, the older, white-bearded man flung a powerful rifle to his shoulder. Three fiery blasts ripped out from his Zuick gun toward the spot where the vessel had disappeared. The echoes came back from the clouds and the hills, reverberating above the noise of the everlasting thunder.

“It’s no use, Rador!” cried the other, a clear-eyed youth with jet-black hair and fighting shoulders. “They’ve gone, who or whatever they are!” He broke into a run, covering with long easy strides the smooth and jagged surfaces of glass that composed the ground beneath his feet.

“Let’s hope our men at that outpost are safe!” the youth flung back to Rador.

The older man took out after the other.

“Death rides in that ship, Mai, every time it cruises out of the clouds near Arkadia — death descending closer to us every time. Heaven knows what happens to others of our people who vanish!”

In spite of his years Rador kept close to the flying metal-shod heels of Mai Mandarck, II, as they raced toward the outpost buildings of Lightning Shaft 13. The great hollow metal rod rose majestically out of its massive concrete base and shot straight up into the clouds for two thousand feet. Down the lightning shaft’s outer surfaces flowed continually the deadly charges that it lured from the supercharged atmosphere of the purple planet. Charges that forever threatened the lives of the Arkians — descendants of the only survivors of a lost Earth.

SightT of that shaft still standing pumped hope into Mai; but the lonely dark outbuildings filled him with dread.

“It’s there yet, boy! By God, it’s still up!” shouted Rador as the outlines of the shaft grew clearer.

“That ship hasn’t molested one of these rods in two months, Rador,” said Mai. “That means we’ll be two months older when they finally decide to crumble our last shaft and the lightning blows us into atomic bits!”

The outpost was still several hundred yards away. Unconsciously they slowed down their pace, some queer sense warning them that all was not well. Mechanically Rador jerked fresh shells into his rifle. Mai’s hand crept to the handle of his father’s gold-mounted space gun.

Like his father before him, the man without a world, Mai Mandark had lived for his people. It was a Mandark who had led that little band of scientists and picked youth away from the doomed Earth in the great Ark of Space. After two hundred and twenty years the Ark had found a planet in the system of the giant sun Sirius. But to land meant death — death from titanic bolts of lightning that constantly struck the planet.

Mai’s father had made it possible for the Ark to land. He had anchored a giant lightning conductor chain upon Nova Terra’s surface, a chain held aloft by a great mechanical kite. Through this conductor unequal static charges found release, rendering safe a small area surrounding the chain. The Ark landed, but Mai’s father was electrocuted while anchoring the chain. He had been born in space and died in space — a man without a world.

Under Rador’s leadership the Arkians had built permanent lightning rods that insulated the air and ground for a considerable area around each one. With shafts erected at suitable distances so that their protective areas partly overlapped, the Arkians were able to live and work in perfect safety from the deadly blasts of lightning that continually shot from the electrically super-charged storm clouds enveloping the entire planet.

Beyond the precious zones of safety no Arkian dared venture. Their uninsulated planes forbade exploring the surface of Nova Terra. What lay beyond their boundaries no one knew. The unusual penetrating power of Nova Terra’s lightning had thus far been too much for Arkadia’s learned scientist, Professor Mapeswitch. His failure to perfect suitable insulation for their planes had kept them well within the insulated air close to home.

Their gardens and livestock, carefully brought from Earth, kept them well fed. There had been few worries. As the years went by only the more curious speculated about what lay beyond Arkadian boundaries. Life was too peaceful and happy to ponder much over such things,

But one day seven of their huge lightning rods thundered to the ground, demolished. Caretakers at the shafts had vanished. Farmers nearby told of seeing a giant aircraft disappear in the clouds following the crash.

Mai Mandark, II was assigned command of a company detailed to guard the remaining shafts. Fighting planes patrolled within the insulated bound

Tonight Mai and Rador had been far afield with a cosmic ray miner-alogiflector seeking more of the precious Nova metal to replace the fallen shafts, for Nova metal could not be re-smelted or re-cast a second time. As usual their search was fruitless. They were returning toward Arkadia when the mystery ship disappeared in the black clouds above Lightning Shaft 13.

“They’re gone, Mai,” said Rador as they reached the dark lightning rod outpost. “Vanished, like the others!” Old Rador’s voice was tense and weary.

“Look here, Rador!” Mai was down, his face close to the ground. Tracks of the guards showed plainly in the soft powdered glass.

“Great Galaxies, boy, it can’t be!” exclaimed Rador, kneeling down, “All these footprints just stop—in the middle of smooth, flat ground! That can mean only one thing —”

“Right!” snapped Mai, grimly. “It means that Major Roto, Professor Mapeswitch and the other men were snatched into space!”

Mai felt a helplessness for a moment, standing there in the ever-moving shadow of the giant lightning shaft. He came from a fighting race. But how could he fight against a power that could crumble ships, demolish lightning rods, scoop up his soldiers into space?

Across the plain to the southeast Mai could see the twinkling lights of Arkadia.

When all the lightning shafts had crumbled, this last little group of Earth-race descendants would vanish forever.

Mai heard Rador speak softly.

“In ten years, Mai, our people, and you and I, will all be gone — regardless of the mystery ship.”

Mai looked up, puzzled, as the old engineer continued.

“I’ve never told our people,” he said, “but my continued analyses have shown me that the metal composing the lightning rods is gradually disintegrating. The tremendous electrical charges that flow down the shafts from the supercharged atmosphere are slowly carrying away ions and changing the atomic structure within the metallic molecules. My calculations give the Arkians only ten years before their lightning shafts become entirely useless.”

At these last words Mai’s hand shot out, jerked Rador back into the protecting shade of the great shaft. On the ground ahead the moonlight was suddenly blotted.

Toward them across the plain moved a gigantic shadow.

“It’s coming back!” whispered the young Arkian, peering into the sky.

Motionless as the shaft above them, the two men stood watching the sombre hulk of a huge airship moving toward them.

“It’s coming back to finish the job!” said Rador tensely. “They’re after this shaft! And if they destroy it we’ll be killed by the lightning!”

Mai’s thoughts were racing. A grim, daring idea had seized his fancy.

“The lightning shafts on all sides of this one have been crumbled—remember, Rador?” he reminded. The old scientist nodded as Mai snapped out his next words.

“Less than a mile away on either side are Shafts Eleven and Fifteen. We have a slight chance to reach those zones of safety before this shaft goes down. If we set out in opposite directions, one of us might make it!”

“You’re right, Mai,” agreed Rador, “but if only one of us gets through, I hope it’s you. I’m getting too old—”

“The ship’s dropping lower,” said Mai, “we’d better be off. You hoof it for Eleven — I’ll take the other.”

For a long second the two Arkians gripped hands. Then Mai turned and ran, loosening his gun in its holster. Rador set out in the opposite direction.

One hundred yards away Mai halted behind a massive outcropping of emerald glass that jutted its grotesque head out of the purple plain. He scrambled to the top of the jagged crag.

The craft was nosing down toward the middle of the lightning shaft. Mai knew that in a few seconds the shaft would crumble. One hundred thousand tons of metal would collapse in a thundering heap. The surrounding air and ground, no longer insulated, would be open targets for the lightning blasts that would follow. He and Rador would be snuffed out in no time.

Mai pulled the gun at his hip. Steadily, he poured a solid stream of electronic ether rays into the giant hulk of the mystery vessel. He hoped only to delay it and give Rador time to reach the safety of the next lightning shaft.

His other idea was part of a bold plan.

The youth sheathed his gun and smiled. The bow of the craft was turning slowly in his direction. Then things began happening uncannily fast!

Lightning Shaft 13 began to crumble from the top downward, like a melting candle speeded up a thousand times! With a deafening, groundshaking roar the once solid shaft settled down on itself to form a truncated cone of metallic dust.

The outpost buildings were completely buried.

The concussion hurled Mai off his glass perch, spun him over the ground. For a second he lay there in the deathly, ominous silence, gasping, trying to breathe.

The first blast of lightning struck one hundred feet from Mai on the pinnacle where he had been standing. It sent whistling boulders of glass and jagged crags of silicate shrieking by his ears. When the frightened air rushed in to fill the gaping hole in its side, Mai was sucked along the ground, rolling and bouncing like a piece of cork in a cyclone. The thunder pounded at his ears, shook him until his bones rattled.

Two more searing blasts cracked in rapid succession, fifty feet away. And then Mai opened his eyes to see the ground speeding away from him a hundred feet below.

Dully he realized his body was hurtling upward blasted high by the uprushing cyclone of air. In a second he would be starting down again. Mai closed his eyes.

For horrible seconds he waited. Would his body never stop in that dizzy rise? If he could only lose consciousness! That would make the descent much easier. He relaxed and, unwittingly, let his father’s gun slip from his fingers.

Suddenly Mai knew he was either dead or dreaming, that he would never start downward. A tremendous unseen force had caught him in mid-air, settled down over his limbs. Like an electric shock, it enveloped his entire body. He was being pulled into space! So his plan had worked. The mystery ship had spotted him — and he was “vanishing,” as his friends had vanished.

Mai opened his eyes to see utter darkness. He felt extreme cold, and then he shot out of the dark void into a dimly lighted chamber.

Something slammed beneath him and he once more stood upon his own feet.

The vacuous eye of a gigantic rifle stared at him out of the gloom—a foot from his face!

CHAPTER II - Invisible Power

Instictively Mai ducked, leaped to one side; but the cavernous muzzle clung to him like a shadow. He thought he saw a ghostly face in the slit of the domed gun-turret. Again that unseen force shackled his muscles. It thrust him irresistibly into a narrow doorway through a long cylindrical corridor of gleaming copper walls. Tiny openings in the tunnel-like walls gave Mai the feeling that unseen eyes were watching him. Once he shot a glance over his shoulder. The gun was still on him.

At the far end of the long corridor the blank wall slid noiselessly upward. Beyond was gloomy darkness. Moving forms sprang into the shadows.

A sudden increase of the force at his back sent Mai sprawling into the room. The heavy door dropped behind him. He was left alone in a deathly black silence.

Shakily, out of the darkness, came a familiar voice.

“Who’s there?”

“Professor!” Mai exclaimed.

“Great Scott, Captain Mandark! Have they got you too?”

“They’ve got me all right,” replied Mai. “Whoever they are!”

“Hm-m,” commented Professor Mapeswitch. “Extremely interesting.” The room suddenly glowed with a soft weak light.

Arkadia’s learned Professor Mapeswitch, thin, bald, stooped, had struck a match. The entire crew of the wrecked lightning rod outpost was there — fifteen of them.

“Where’s Roto?” exclaimed Mai.

“We think another craft got him, Captain,” replied thin, haggard little Corporal McWeety. “Two mystery ships were circling above our outpost.” Mai noted that all the guards had been disarmed.

“Have you seen our captors yet?” he asked.

The professor frowned, scratched his bald head with an index finger.

“We have been captured and disarmed without once seeing a single living creature other than ourselves. Extremely interesting.”

“I could have sworn I saw a face in that gun-turret,” exclaimed Mai.

“There’s mystery and evil aboard this ship, Captain,” whispered the little corporal, “and I don’t like it!”

“I think that rifle we were caught with,” said Mai, “is a powerful high frequency charger and electromagnet combined. In some remarkable way it is able to attract living flesh like a magnet attracts metal.”

“You’re right, my boy!” exclaimed the professor. Lighting another match and adjusting his glasses he drew a crude diagram in the dust on the floor. “With a rifle here, consisting of two condensers, it would be possible, in the supercharged atmosphere of Nova Terra, to aim a positive electrical charge at a body on the ground. This positive charge could be of very high frequency and high voltage, but of low enough amperage so as not to electrocute. With the living body on the ground thus charged positively, the strong negative charge in the other condenser on the rifle would simply pull the living flesh up to it.”

“That must be it,” agreed Mai. “And the whole set-up depends on the remarkable harnessing of Nova Terra’s lighting.”

After hours of waiting in that tiny windowless room the heavy door opened. Instantly the men were on their feet.

Once more the invisible magnetic force shackled them. They were forced through dark tubular passages, across great rooms housing the intricate control mechanism of the ship.

They came to an abrupt halt in the center of a large well-lighted chamber. On every side was still further machinery, great glass cylinders, huge storage batteries. Overhead was a web-like maze of wires. Massive cables jutted out of walls, ran to the huge square and cylindrical glass condensers that loomed above their heads.

“With an arrangement like this,” breathed the myopic professor, “with condenser accumulators of unbelievably high dielectric capacity, they can pull in and actually store the unthinkable power of Nova Terra’s lightning.”

“Lightning Men!” mused Mai. “No wonder they could crumble our lightning shafts into sandpiles.”

“That high-static ultra-short wave machine could do it!” cried the professor. “And Mai,” he exclaimed, “look at that hook-up over there! See how they’ve insulated the ship against lightning blasts.”

“Try to remember it,” said Mai. “So you can use it for our ships. They could certainly use some insulation.” “Extremely interesting,” mused the professor. “I’ll make a note of this.” “Notes won’t do any good now!” gulped McWeety. “If you ask me, we're done for! I don’t like — ”

A section of the metal floor in front of them suddenly rolled aside. The Arkians gasped.

They were standing on the edge of space. Two thousand feet below on the shore of a red sea rose the giant copper domes of twin cities. Sirius, the rising sun, sent down crimson shafts of light to mingle with the myriad reflections of distant lightning blasts that danced over the domes.

Spearlike minarets of varying heights rose from the hemispheres into the turbulent clouds above, giving the cities the appearance of two giant sea-urchins washed from the restless ocean. It was awe-inspiring in its sheer beauty.

“Look out!” came Mai’s instinctive shout of warning as he felt the floor give way beneath his feet. For a horrible clammy moment they seemed suspended in mid-air. Then they hurtled down through cold space — toward the twin domes two thousand feet below!

Once again Mai felt that invisible power tug at his body, slow down his dizzy descent. That diabolical magnet gun was controlling their fall, delivering them to a fate he could not even guess.

As they fell, Mai studied the twin domes and the long slender minarets shooting from them. The later were apparently a form of lightning rod.

Each dome, obviously solid metal, must be for further insulation and for the purpose of grounding the charges on all sides of the city beneath it. Mai was certain they were composed of the precious Nova metal.

“What vast mines of ore must lie beneath those domes,” thought Mai. “And what a haven for the doomed Arkians.”

A moment later the falling Arkians shot through an opening in the nearer hemisphere and found themselves standing on solid ground within the city. Immediately another magnetic source gripped them, raised them a few inches above the ground, and sped them forward.

About them towered buildings of weird and fantastic design. Through winding deserted streets they moved, into dark, dismally lighted corridors and empty rooms. The dust of ages had settled over all. Several times they caught fleeting glimpses of moving distorted things in the denser gloom. It was a city through which moved ancient memories. All was mystery and utter silence.

“An amazing innovation, these magnetic avenues,” commented the professor, observing his legs dangling beneath him as they sped along. “Makes city travel quite effortless and a pleasure. Very ingenious.”

Ahead loomed a dark tunnel opening. The corporal gasped.

“If we go in that opening we’re done for — I feel it in my bones!” McWeety sought to break free from the invisible bonds that held him. But it was like fighting the onward sweep of a raging torrent.

Once into the black opening the men could see nothing. Mai sensed a winding, twisting route. Several times they passed faintly luminous branches to the dark tunnel.

“These magnetic ‘avenues,’ ” commented the professor, “are obviously laid out to comply generally with the lines of force flowing between the poles of a very large magnet.”

Suddenly they burst into a brilliantly lighted room.

“Great Void!” gasped Mai when he could adjust his eyes to the brilliant light that almost blinded him.

Before them was a gigantic laboratory and auditorium combined. The electrical mechanism on the mystery ship was as nothing compared to this intricate maze of wires, conduits, batteries, dynamos, and insulators. A fantastic assortment of other weird apparatus challenging the wildest dreams occupied every foot of the stagelike floor at one end of the auditorium. The rest of the huge chamber was given over to tier upon tier of seats — thousands of them.

Occupying central positions in the vast array of scientific equipment were two gunlike pieces that towered considerably above the others. It was toward one of these two instruments that the Arkians were being led.

Below the gunlike instrument along a massive control panel several rectangular glass chambers stood upright in line against the wall.

“Glass coffins!” murmured McWeety, gazing wide-eyed at the chambers.

“That control board,” whispered Mai to the professor, “and all those dials and levers — that means there must be someone or something to operate —”

“Great Sirius — look!” cried the corporal.

Out of the shadows behind the stage came an astounding swarm of living things. Grotesquely distorted creatures they were, like the brain spawn of a surrealist’s nightmare. Living, animated “hands” tottered along on tiny, shrunken legs.

Mai rubbed his eyes. It was as if someone had cut off a human hand, enlarged it to the size of a man, given it a couple of inadequate legs, and then imbued it with life. But no two of the creatures were of the same shape. Some had two massive arms and hands with no visible body, head or legs. They swung along on their knuckles. Others were all legs with no arms or heads.

Like a swarm of insects they climbed, swung, and leaped to what were apparently prearranged positions at the various levers and wheels of the control mechanism. In specially designed seats the misshapen horde commenced their work. As they manipulated the mechanism in startling efficient manner, the professor leaned over to Mai.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “These things can’t be the — er, Lightning Men!”

“No, I think not,” whispered Mai. “It’s my guess we haven’t met the rulers of the city yet.”

“It’s amazing the way those creatures work,” gasped the professor. “It looks as if they’d been specially created as ‘hands’ for a specific function. An astounding example, no doubt, of evolutionary over-specialization.”

One at a time the Arkians were placed before a large apparatus that immediately caught the professor’s fancy.

“It’s some form of ultra-short ray machine,” he whispered to Mai. “Unless I’m greatly mistaken they’re either studying us or photographing us by short wave.”

The next moment each of the Arkians was magnetically thrust into one of the coffinlike glass chambers standing upright against the wall. Mai heard the bolt slip into place and he was locked in his crypt. Quickly his eyes wandered to the glass chamber next to his. He caught his breath at the astonishing sight.

“Lord!” he exclaimed half aloud. “It can’t be!”

CHAPTER III - Maid of Nova Terra

A girl was studying Mai with wide, puzzled eyes. A mass of lustrous black hair fell down on well-rounded shoulders. She was dressed not as the women of Arkadia, but in strange trappings of blue silver. Her tiny feet were shod in sandals of gold.

It was incredible — another race of human beings on a planet fifty-two trillion miles from the lost Earth! Could it be, thought Mai, that upon any planet in the Universe wherever life exists, evolution has but a single goal — man?

He smiled and the girl returned it warmly. Then her body suddenly stiffened. Mai’s eyes flashed to the great funnel-shaped gun towering above them. A group of human “hands” had manned the huge machine, whatever it was, aiming the device straight at the girl’s glass cell. A heavy dynamo at its base thrummed dismally. Red sparks spat from the armatures. The girl flung a brave, fleeting look to Mai. Then her body became rigid.

The huge gun poured forth a shimmering, miragelike stream of waves. The girl’s arms raised slowly above her head, stretched horribly—grew to three times their normal length, moving around to grow from the back of her neck.

The beautiful face wrinkled, the soft skin grew furrowed. Her head was actually shrinking! Suddenly it collapsed, shriveled to the size of an orange. The arms slowly fused together, sagged forward over the tiny cranium like the drooping branches of a tree.

Where the hands had been was now a single rakelike appendage with fifty tentacular fingers. Heavy muscles swelled upon the back to support this great arching arm. Relentlessly the stream of quivering waves poured from the gun, moved over the girl’s entire body until there vanished all resemblance to the beautiful woman she had been.

As suddenly as it commenced, the ordeal ended. The creature that had been the girl relaxed, a living, utterly transformed thing.

Mai’s body tensed spasmodically. An electric shock seared through his body.

The great gun was aiming at him!

A sensation of alternate swelling and shrinking tore at his flesh. Every cell in his body and brain was being bombarded, seemingly ripped from its structure.

How clearly his mind was working, thought Mai. No pain. Diabolically clever fiends, those Lightning Men. They were master electrical wizards, tearing protons and electrons from their orbits, fitting them into some ghastly preconceived pattern, half human, half monster. Yes, that was it — a pattern from that ultra-short ray machine.

Mai’s head was shrinking. His arms grew longer and stouter, his shoulders hunched forward, and his legs swelled. Finally his hands and feet changed, developed huge suction discs on palms and soles.

In a moment his metamorphosis was complete. The distorted creatures operating the transformation device swung the huge gun toward the next glass cell.

In the thick glass of the chamber Mai saw his reflection — a long-armed, massive-legged creature with a saddlelike hump on his back. Instinctively now he had the urge to walk on all fours, as if he were a beast of burden. Suddenly he realized that all those distorted, misshapen creatures — the living “hands,” the “legs,” the “arms,” all had once been normal human beings like himself and that girl.

MAL looked quickly to the adjoining cell. But the girl was gone.

Hours later, the electromagnetism force gripped him again. He was deposited into a cold dismally lighted dungeon. Dark shapeless things stirred in the gloom. Something was coming toward him from the pulsing, distorted mass of shadows.

Mai clenched his fists. Straight toward him came a massive “hand,” advancing on tiny legs.

“Mai!” came a small voice. “Mai!” it sounded again. “Don’t you recognize me?” It stood before him, a living “hand” whose tiny face just below the “wrist” and above the inadequate legs peered up at Mai. The Arkian commander gasped.

“Great Sirius — Roto! You?”

“Galactic goose-pimples! But I’m glad you’re here, Mai!” exclaimed the faithful little Arkian major.

“Void, what a nightmare!” breathed Mai.

Hopping along on one splay-footed leg, a single arm growing from the top of its head, came another creature.

“Quite ingenious — q u i t e ingenious !” came a familiar voice from the pogo-stick, one-legged man-thing.

“I don’t like this,” whimpered the corporal, rolling along.

And so they came out of the shadows, pitifully, and surrounded Mai — all the former Arkians that had been captured and transformed.

“It’s unbelievable!” breathed Mai, stunned.

“It’s true all right,” piped Roto. “But wait’ll you see the real brains of this city.”

“You’ve seen them, Roto — the Lightning Men?”

“Yeah — they’re horrible!” Roto shuddered. “But smart as whips — world’s champion work-dodgers is what they are. They hate work so much that they spend their lives catching other Nova Terrans and changing them into slaves to do all their work for them. Every slave is transformed into a shape that’ll make him the most efficient possible ‘machine’ for his particular job. You, Mai, are a ‘horse,’ made to carry a Lightning Man in that saddle hump on your back. Those suction discs on your hands and feet keep you from falling down; they cling to any kind of surface. I’m made especially as a ‘hand’ to operate more efficiently one of their smaller airships.” “And I’m to dust the king’s books!” exclaimed the professor, scratching with a single dust-mop hand all that remained of his learned brow.

Mai surveyed the pitifully distorted creatures that were his friends. Slashing into his mind was the horrible realization that a similar fate awaited all his people in Arkadia.

“Professor, we’ve got to get out of here! We can’t let this happen to Rador and the rest. Do you think there’s any chance of our bodies being changed back again into our original forms?”

“I have little doubt the process can be reversed,” said the professor. “It merely consists of electromagnetically increasing or decreasing tissue growth in specific areas of the body. After photographing our cellular arrangements by some type of short wave device, and with the resulting photographic plates as guides, each of us was transformed according to a predesigned pattern.

“The funnel-shaped gun in the laboratory fired an electromagnetic beam of controlled wave length at certain portions of our bodies. The effect of this beam is to increase or decrease the valence or attractive force of the carbon atoms within the organic compounds comprising the tissue cells of our bodies. Thus the other atoms held in the organic chain or ring assume greater or lesser distances from the central carbon atom. Inasmuch as molecules compose each tissue cell, then the consequent result of the beam is expansion or contraction of tissue cells. It’s really quite ingenious.”

Out of the dark shadows came a strangely formed slave. Mai instantly recognized the girl he had seen transformed. Her soft, fluid voice, its tones familiar, spoke to him.

“She’s warning you against trying to escape from the city of Sangorong,” interpreted Roto. “It’s death to try.”

Mai looked his amazement and Roto grinned.

“I learned the language last night,” he said. “I can understand and speak it, but I’m damned if I know why. Like everything else on this planet it’s got something to do with electromagnetism or electricity. All you do is relax and think of the idea you want to put across. For some reason the exactly correct words or noises come to your tongue and you simply say them.”

“That’s been one of Rador’s pet theories,” murmured Mai. “That there are certain phonetically natural sounds for the ideas that are common to all thinking creatures.”

The girl spoke again. Inexplicably, Mai now understood her.

“Since I was very young,” she was saying, “my people have said that no one escapes who is once captured by the Lightning Men.”

“Who are you?” asked Mai. “And where do you come from?” Uncannily Mai voiced the strange words.

Her shriveled lips parted in a smile. Somehow Mai could think only of the lovely woman she had been before that awful transformation.

“My name is Noovia, and my country lies within a protecting crater, far beyond the big ocean. Six days ago a terrific storm swept me to sea in my insulated flier. My fuel was gone and I came down to drift. Next morning I washed up on a strange shore where no lightning struck. I hid my ship and set out to find where I was. I soon beheld these twin cities, just as the Lightning Men discovered me. I was captured and brought here. That lazy beast Thego loves music. He had me recreated with these fifty fingers just to play his quintachord — it has fifty keys.”

She was studying Mai.

“No, strange man, you cannot escape Sangorong. The walls, the tunnels — everywhere they have eyes and ears.

They know everything you say and think!”

“What do you mean?” asked Mai, puzzled.

“When you meet their ruler, King Thego, you’ll find out. You’ll see that these slaves are used for more than just work. What they really want is — ”

A sound at the far side of the vault brought every eye to the heavy prison door. It had risen. A distorted slave was being pulled out of the room. Then the door closed.

“He’ll soon know what the Lightning Men seek,” whispered Noovia.

The only break in the following hours of intense silence and waiting was the occasional opening of the great door as a luckless slave was withdrawn into the blackness of the tunnel. As the heavy portal closed behind the last slave, Mai rose to his four legs.

Most of the slaves were asleep. Casually he moved to the wall next to the great portal and lay down. In two hours the door again opened. One of the slaves was being returned to the prison. As the gate slid downward Mai slipped quickly into the blackness beyond.

Immediately he felt the tug of magnetism upon him. He felt himself being transported through Stygian blackness. As he approached a faintly luminous tunnel intersection he thrust out a long arm. His suction cup hands clung tenaciously to the smooth metal surface. With an effort he pulled himself into the intersecting tunnel. He was out of the magnetic avenue. Ahead loomed an opening.

Cautiously, Mai peered into a cavernous dungeon. As far as he could see into the greenish luminosity, there were visible row upon row of coffinlike cells. Glass coffins, each with a man within it! But what men they were. Fully eight feet tall, perfectly proportioned. It just couldn’t be! First Noovia, then these Earthlike creatures, identical except for size to a race that once lived upon a dead planet trillions of miles away. Yet here they were before his very eyes — apparently dead, yet their breathing chests told him they were not dead.

No other sign of life, no other sound relieved the awful stillness. It was a tomb of the living dead. Awed, Mai moved toward the nearest cell. The man in it was a handsome creature. Suddenly he realized that they were all identical in appearance. As the electric shock tensed his muscles, instinctively he drew back. And in that same instant from somewhere above a loud voice shattered the deathly silence.

“Stop, slave! Touch nothing!”

Mai leaped backward. Instantly that cursed electromagnetism had him. A door slid open. With a sickening rush he shot out of the cavernous ghost chamber. This time the current was far stronger. He was unable to combat it. Total darkness. A sudden glare of lights nearly blinded him.

It was the gigantic laboratory-auditorium where he and the others had been transformed. But now upon the great dais before the control panel sat an amazing creature. Thin, haggard, hardly real at all, the man’s atrophied muscles clung to shrunken bones. Mai gasped. The wraithlike creature was actually translucent.

Under the black leather trappings that hung from the otherwise naked chest, pulsed the dim outlines of the man’s internal organs. Mai could see the heart beating, the lungs expanding and contracting. Wide, coldly staring half-luminous green eyes glowed deep within hollow sockets. Veins and arteries beneath the translucent skin in the neck and face gave the sallow physiognomy an etched, half-dissected appearance. Weak, spindly legs dangled down from the massive chair that must once have held a giant of a man.

Here, then, must be King Thego, ruler of the Lightning Men of Sangorong!

CHAPTER IV - The Memory Machine

At Thego’s side sat many lesser Lightning Men officials, all of the same disconcerting, colorless translucency. Innumerable slaves of all manner of forms hovered in the background. Some were shaped like Mai — beasts of burden — actually carrying Lightning Men upon their backs. Other slaves tended their masters in different ways. One was scratching an official’s back. Another reached into his master’s pocket for some trivial object. Still another poor beast helped blow an official’s nose.

“Lord!” thought Mai. “World’s champion work-dodgers is right!”

Thego was studying Mai with his green, luminous eyes. Presently he spoke in a cold, hollow voice, and Mai could see the king’s larynx within his throat move up and down with each word.

“For a slave to be apprehended within the sacred chamber of our ancestors,” hissed Thego, “usually means death. But I want you for another purpose.” Thego glanced at something a slave held up beside him.

“Your lightning-ray plate, showing the cellular arrangements within your mind and body,” said Thego, “has just been brought to my attention. You may have what I’ve been looking for — may even contribute something to the greatness of the mighty Thego!”

“I am honored,” replied Mai coldly.

“Ages ago,” continued Thego, “our race consisted of both men and women, active and well muscled. But our women died off when we learned to incubate artificially only the males of our race. Then our scholars decided that material things have no value. They thought that true worth is found only in pure thought—in mind. We knew that natural evolution was developing man’s mind, but at a pitifully slow rate. So we perfected a way to accelerate the evolutionary process.

“We are no longer shackled to the material world. Our specialized slaves perform all our gross material duties for the body. Thus were we launched well toward the realm of pure thought by the invention of the Micro-macro Cell Transformation machine, with which you are already familiar,” said Thego, indicating Mai’s specialized body.

“With this machine we can now acquire from various sources the Four Qualities necessary to carry out man’s evolution to a state of pure thought. Those men you saw encased in the sacred chamber are all great Lightning Men who have, after thousands of years, finally acquired all the Four Qualities. They have retired forever to the realm of infinite thought. That is their paradise. There they are able to project their minds at will throughout space. They are free to soar to unknown heights of pure thought, they can do and see and have anything their minds desire!” A wild, fanatical light shone in Thego’s green eyes.

“But those men in the dungeon?” asked Mai. “They weren’t like you. They are all well developed physically, not translucent.”

“For ages our bodies were never touched by the sun,” Thego explained. “All pigmentation vanished. Under the continual experimentation with cell transformation our body cells lost some of their electrical charge, ceased to be so closely knit. We became translucent. So now, before we begin the quest for infinite thought, we transform our bodies to the most perfect form possible.”

“The Four Qualities you desire,” asked Mai, engrossed by Thego’s words, “what are they?”

No man normally possesses all,” replied Thego. “We have found them in both Lightning Men and in rodents. Our search for the Four Qualities we want is relentless. We look for, first, Will Power — absolute control of mind and body; second, Control Over Death — Agelessness; third, Mental Telepathy; and fourth, Cosmic Vision — the ability to look forward and backward in time and space—to see the past, foretell the future.

“Whenever we capture a man we first tabulate him by means of the photo-molecucellular lightning-ray machine which clearly shows every cell and molecule in the body — even to the protons and electrons. With these lightning-ray plates as a guide we can alter a man’s cellular arrangement to comply with any shape we wish. We merely improve on Nature’s tendency toward over-specialization. We can transform him into a monstrosity, and even back to his original shape.”

“You mean,” interrupted Mai, “that you could transform me back again, to my normal shape?”

“Quite easily,” replied Thego. “But that will be unnecessary.” And Thego’s eyes clung to Mai. “We have found that men possessing any one of these Four Qualities show this fact in their cellular arrangement and the strength of the minute electrical charges holding the body cells together.

“When we have carefully studied each lightning-ray plate in our files we know which of our captives is worth more to us than a mere slave. By means of the transformation machine and the instinct memory screen, we are able to take from the slaves who have it, the quality we want and incorporate it into one of our own people. Thus another Lightning Man advances a step further toward his long awaited paradise.”

“And what happens to the slave?” said Mai tensely.

“He dies, of course,” replied Thego calmly. “But what of it? A slave is nothing to the onward sweep of our evolution. We are supreme beings! All other life is made but to serve us! Just as you shall, Earthman, for we believe you possess the Fourth Quality that I need for my own Great Journey — Cosmic Vision! But to make absolutely certain that you have it,” exclaimed Thego eagerly, “I shall put you through the instinct memory machine.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mai, instantly wary.

Thego pointed to a large rectangular screen. “That’s the instinct memory machine. It’s one of our greatest inventions. With that we can retrace a man’s memory, even trace the course of human evolution and show it in three-dimensional picture form on that screen.” Thego paused. “Earthman, did you know that a portion of the human brain is composed of tiny microscopic brain cells arranged in specific memory patterns, each inherited from an ancestor?

“Yes, and each cell group retains the actual memory of the ancestor from whom it was acquired. In other words, one portion of your brain is made up of connected nerve synopses that are an accumulation of the inherited cell arrangements throughout the entire course of evolution from the beginning of life on your planet. The memory screen is able to pick up and amplify the tiny currents of electricity oscillating from each brain cell and projects an image on the screen.

“We remember past events in our lifetimes because our brains can coordinate the minute electrical charges that each past event registers on our memory cell pattern. A few men with extremely powerful wills are able to control their thoughts and memories better than others. It usually shows on the screen. But the brain cannot — unaided — pick up the even more minute charges emanating from a more remote past — before our births. Our machine can do that!”

At the king’s signal a swarm of slaves surrounded Mai. Electrodes were fastened to his wrists and temples. An electrical current surged through his body. Instantly, strangely, his memory became astoundingly vivid. Upon the instinct memory screen a three-dimensional scene suddenly flashed. It was a reflection of the very scene in the room. Mai saw himself, Thego, and the others. At first he thought it was a mirror. But in a moment the scene swiftly changed like the fading out and in of a motion picture image. Successively now flashed scenes of Mai’s own life, in reverse sequence, back to the very time of his youth.

But there the astounding kaleidoscope did not stop. Events in his father’s life, his grandfather’s — back through the very take-off of the great Ark of Space from the Earth those 235 long years ago. And still the scenes kept coming as early Earth history unfolded itself.

“Enough!” cried Thego as he turned off the switch. A fanatical gleam of pleasure shone in the luminous green eyes. “You’re the man for whom I’ve waited five hundred years! Never have I seen the Fourth so marvelously incorporated in one man. Now I shall be able to make the Great Journey!”

Thego's eyes gleamed brightly as he went on.

“Make no attempt to escape, Earth-man. It is impossible. The rest of your race will be captured for they, too, may possess some of the Qualities. And tomorrow, before all the Lightning Men and slaves of Sangorong, I shall take from your brain the Fourth Quality that will set me free. Guards, take him away!”

Back within the prison again, Noovia, Roto, the professor and the Arkians eagerly approached Mai.

“Quickly!” said Mai. “There’s no time to lose!”

Briefly he outlined what had happened to him and what was in store for them all in the morning.

“Thego is no madman,” he told them. “He’ll capture everyone in Arkadia unless we can thwart him before it’s too late. But I’ve got a plan. It all hinges on the fact that the Lighning Men have been dependent on slaves for so long that they’d be absolutely helpless without them. Thego said that all the slaves would be in the ceremony chamber tomorrow. If we can deprive the Lightning Men of the services of their slaves — ” “I’ve got you!” shouted Roto enthusiastically. “We must get the slaves to revolt!”

“That’s it,” said Mai. “And to do it—” Noovia’s hand suddenly pressed against Mai’s lips.

“The walls,” she whispered. “They hear.” She handed Mai some paper and a writing implement. “It’s safer to write than to speak.”.

And in the breathless silence of the cold prison cell, Mai hastily scribbled the plans that would spell either salvation or doom for the last remnants of the race of Earthmen.

“Because you and McWeety work in their ship hangar at night,” wrote Mai to Roto, “you may have a chance to seize a ship tonight. If luck stays with you, try to fly back to Arkadia and Rador. Bring the entire Arkadian fleet back here. Have our ships fly within the insulated area surrounding the Lightning Men’s craft that you’ll be operating. We’ll do our part in the meantime. Tell Rador that it’s our last chance, for in Sangorong our people will never have to fear the lightning again.”

“Jiggers!” whispered Roto. “The door’s opening—it’s time for the night shift to go to the hangar. Come on, McWeety”

“Remember,” Mai whispered as they started to leave, “we must succeed. Under the protection of this copper-domed city is the very home Arkadia has long wanted. It’s our last chance!” As the door closed behind Roto and McWeety, Mai turned to Noovia.

“If it works they’ll be back in twelve hours to help us. Otherwise—” He shrugged, hopelessly.

Far into the night Mai, Noovia and the professor scribbled the plans for the revolt of the slaves of Sangorong. While Mai and the girl whispered until the late hours, Mai learned of her courage and deep belief in human freedom. His mind kept returning to that first moment he had seen her—a woman more beautiful than he had ever dreamed. Strangely now he wanted more than ever to make the revolt a success.

Early the next morning they were led into the great laboratory-ceremonial chamber. Thousands of Lightning Men and their slaves were there.

For nearly an hour they kept coming. Soon there was not an empty seat in the vast auditorium. At a signal from a Lightning Man on the stagelike dais the entire assemblage rose. From a side door, mounted upon a slave whose proportions were similar to Mai’s, rode King Thego. The slaves deposited the ruler upon a magnificently decorated throne.

MalL grew tense. The time was at hand. All the slaves of the city were there. He glanced at the huge skylight high overhead.

“We can’t wait for Roto,” he whispered to Noovia. “It’s now or never.” His eyes were upon the thousands of slaves. “Now remember, after I grab Thego and leap to the throne with him, I’ll yell to the slaves to revolt and threaten to kill Thego if the Lightning Men oppose us. But I want you, Noovia, as one of their own Nova Terrans, to support my words. They’ll be more apt to follow if they know you believe in me.”

Noovia suddenly grabbed Mai’s arm. “Look!” she gasped. Thego was signaling to the slaves manning the giant electro-magnet gun. Every other slave in the auditorium was suddenly jerked from his place beside his master and jammed into a small area at the far side of the laboratory. They were all held fast and helpless by the invisible bonds of electro-magnetism. Mai felt his own muscles stiffen to the shock. Something had gone wrong. Noovia shot him a puzzled, desperate glance.

A diabolical grin twisted Thego’s cold, sallow face.

“I told you once, Earthman, . that no one could escape Sangorong.”

The coldness of lost hope, impending doom, gripped Mai. Thego had learned their plans. The walls did have ears—had overheard Roto’s one spoken word — “revolt” — before they had taken to writing their plans.

Like a cornered animal Mai’s eyes groped for some last avenue of escape. The professor, and Noovia, too, were helplessly shackled.

CHAPTER V - Earthman's Lightning

Two husky slaves led Mai quickly to the foot of the great transformation mechanism. His mind raced madly. There had to be a way out before it would be too late. Once subjected to that ghastly process he knew he would be dead. Again his eyes sought the skylight. If only Rador would come. He was not afraid to die as his own father had done—sacrificing his life for his people. But to die uselessly, his friends still unprotected, their future hopeless — that was what he dreaded most.

Mai’s eyes clung to the king. Pompously Thego took his place in the adjoining glass cell. There was much ritual. The ceremony seemed very sacred. A fanatical fervor shook Thego’s body. Mai could see the king’s heart beating faster.

Slave attendants fastened Mai to a slab in the glass cell. Electrodes were applied securely to his wrists and temples. He lay on his back. Thego and his cell were a scant five feet from Mai’s. The king’s was ornately designed. Overhead beyond the vast skylight were storm clouds and an occasional patch of the blue lightning - slashed sky he had learned to love so well. And in that same instant he recognized several tiny specks in the distance — a fleet of trim fighting ships!

Roto had got through! Rador was coming!

Thego must have seen them at the same moment. Quickly he issued orders to the attendant preparing him for the ceremony.

A crew of slaves swarmed over the giant electro-magnet gun towering above the stage. Its muzzle pointed toward an opening in the skylight. What ghastly trick could they be up to now, wondered Mai.

One of the advance ships of the Arkian fleet passed directly over the city, a swift two-man craft. The great magnet gun swung into action. Suddenly the Arkian ship faltered in midair, rose abruptly in elevation, out of control. Hurtling upward at terrific speed, spiraling, twisting, it gained altitude until it was lost from sight in the clouds — catapulted away from the planet.

Mai was appalled. He realized what those fiendish Lightning Men were doing. They were inducing a repellent charge of electricity in the Arkian ships that would make them hurl away from the similarly charged planet, hurtle far out into the chasm of interstellar space.

And now the second Arkian ship zoomed over the city. Again the magnet gun vibrated. As if caught in a Gargantuan cyclonic updraft the tiny ship whirled upward into the clouds of the upper atmosphere and disappeared forever from sight. Mai tugged at the bonds that held him. In the distance he could see the main body of Rador’s fleet. As the last ship hurled into space, Rador swung his fleet about and retreated from view.

Thego scoffed at their efforts.

“Fools! I told you the Sangorongy are supreme beings.” He waved his hand. “On with the ceremony!” he commanded.

Thego was quickly sealed into the glass coffinlike cell in which he would spend the rest of eternity. Wires connecting Mai and Thego were carefully adjusted. They led to the great three-dimensional instinct memory screen that would be used to check the progress of the transmission of Mai’s “evolutionary memory” into the brain of Thego himself.

Mai looked at the slaves. Noovia was crying. The professor seemed lost in the maze of interesting scientific procedure attendant to the ceremony. Even in the face of death Mai could not suppress a wan smile at his old friend.

An electric tremor again gripped his body. A scene flashed upon the screen, a three-dimensional picture of the laboratory, all that Mai himself had just seen in the room. Mai could feel Thego’s mind controlling the process. His brain worked frantically. Pounding in his head were words Thego had spoken yesterday: “Some men — powerful wills — control thoughts — control — control!” Great beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. The veins on his neck and temples bulged. He must concentrate on his plan, control the thoughts of his mind.

Slowly the screen image changed. A startled murmur arose from the huge audience. Upon the screen they saw an image of the Earthman rising from the glass cell in which he was but just sealed. But yet they could see him still actually inside the glass cell. They were completely awed. No longer could their eyes leave the screen.

The televised figure of the Earthman bounded to the top of the king’s dais.

“Slaves of Sangorong!” shouted Mai’s voice from the screen image. “Would you fight to gain freedom, to have again the bodies with which you were born? Revolt and you can return to your own countries! Your masters are helpless if you refuse to serve them. Follow me! Watch!”

Upon the screen they saw Mai hurl Thego bodily from his throne. They saw images of themselves taking up the cry, turning upon their masters. They saw themselves finally free, their masters lying helpless upon the floor. The revolt was complete. Mai’s image leaped forward, started to re-transform them all back into their own original shapes.

It was extremely realistic, that screen image of Mai’s controlled thoughts. Shouts arose from the distorted mass of humanity.

“The Earthman is right!” Noovia shouted. “He has shown you what we can do — that we can be free again! Let’s follow a great leader!”

A mighty cry arose from the slave ranks. The crew of the magnet gun swung from their positions. In a great forward surge they walked, crawled, leaped and rolled toward Mai. Noovia’s fingers worked rapidly as she freed Mai from his cell.

“Thank Sirius you’re safe!” she breathed.

“Look!” cried Mai pointing upward. “Rador!”

“Spawn of filth!” bellowed a voice from the screen. There stood Thego’s own image — flashed from his own brain. “Go back where you belong or I’ll annihilate you! Will you never learn your lowly places?” Quickly his image turned toward the great control panel where Lightning Men assistants sat in mortal terror.

“Quick, Ponsto!” shouted Thego. “The seventh lever on panel ten!”

Mai bounded toward the control board. But he was too late. The fellow had already pulled the lever.

Instantly a heavy door swung open at the far side of the room. The interior of the opening was dismally black. For a minute that seemed endless they waited, all eyes riveted upon that opening.

Faintly at first, then heavily, came the pounding of many feet. Mai’s hopes raised. Could that sound be Rador and his own men running to their aid? Instantly those hopes faded.

Through the doorway bounded a veritable stream of magnificently built fighting men — eight and nine-foot giants. They were armed with great broadswords. Mai grabbed Noovia’s arm.

“The men from the sacred chamber!

I can’t believe it — they’ve brought them back to life.” Quickly he shoved Noovia to a place of safety. “Keep this knife,” he ordered, “and stay here out of danger.” For a brief moment their eyes clung to one another.

“Surrender, slaves!” Thego shrieked. “Surrender or you die!”

“Never!” shouted Mai as he bounded forward toward the slaves. “Single them out!” he shouted. “Four slaves to every giant! Down with the Lightning Men!”

In a rising crescendo of screams and shouts the slaves surged forward. The laboratory was a bedlam. Never before in history had such a battle raged. Legless human “arms,” practically helpless alone, suddenly swung to the backs and shoulders of massive-legged “mounts” that were armless and headless. But together they made a powerful fighting combination, rode riot among eight and nine-foot giants resurrected from the dead.

Mighty “arms” swung like pile-drivers. Riderless “mounts” leaped and kicked. Long broadswords hewed a bloody swath through slave ranks.

BUT the Gargantuan size and strength of the giant Lightning Men was taking heavy toll among Mai’s warriors. Those two hundred supermen were more than a match for even the thousands of distorted, crippled slaves.

With a broadsword from the hands of a fallen giant Mai leaped among the ranks of the enemy. Time and again his blade sank deep into living flesh. But still his own men fell before the merciless onslaught of those cold, ruthless killers from the dungeons of Sangorong.

Above the roar of screaming men came another sound. Rador was again trying for a landing.

In that same instant Mai saw Thego. Borne on the shoulders of a giant, the king was mounting the magnet gun. In a moment the heavy machine swung toward the onrushing Arkian ships.

To Mai Mandark those fast moving seconds were the longest of his life. The revolt was failing. His crippled slaves were being slaughtered. Overhead the Arkian ships were facing inevitable doom at the mercy of that diabolical electromagnet, to be sent whirling into space. Mai could never hope to reach Thego’s side against the giant standing above with waiting sword.

“Mai!” came the professor’s familiar voice. “I’ve been studying that transformation apparatus — it has very interesting possibilities. If put to humanitarian uses —”

“Transformation gun!” echoed Mai. “Come on, Professor!”

With all the speed his elongated arms and legs would give him he leaped toward the transformation machine. He clambered up the scaffolding. Thego was aiming the magnet gun carefully, deliberately at Rador and the fleet, ready to send them careening into the void of space.

Mai had watched the slaves operate the transformation mechanism. But he wondered if he could do it now — alone. The coldness of space shot through him.

“That rod!” gasped the professor as he came to a breathless stop. “Back of the sighting coordinate —I think it should be pushed forward — throws the dynamo into action. Quite an ingenious idea. I’ve already made some notes of it.”

Mai swung the ponderous mechanism about on its huge universal joint. What havoc he could deal out to Thego he did not know. It was but a wild hope. The sights came to rest on Thego’s back. Mai thrust the lever forward to its limit.

Both guns discharged their invisible bolts at the same instant. The drag on the electric plant of Sangorong was tremendous. A throbbing recoil hurled Mai from his feet,

“They’ve stopped fighting!” cried Noovia, “They’re watching Thego!” The king of Sangorong stood rigid in his tracks. Suddenly his body quivered.

“Look, Mai!” gasped Noovia. “He’s — he’s swelling!” The giant guarding Thego had fallen face downward.

Carefully Mai played the sights over Thego’s body.

“You’ve done it!” shouted the professor. “He’s started to expand!” An ominous roar arose from the ranks of the giants as they bounded toward Mai with upraised swords.

Coolly, deliberately, Mai swung the gun first upon one and then another of the onrushing horde.

Instantly they stopped, transfixed by the invisible force. They fell to the floor. Their bodies started swelling.

“Amazing!” gasped the professor. “You’ve pushed the control lever so far forward that you’ve induced a remarkable degree of cellular growth. An astounding mechanism.”

A frightened hush fell over the slaves as they observed the transformation affecting the king.

The fallen monarch had rolled from the gun scaffolding to the floor. He was nearly four times his former size. With each passing second the growth was visibly increased.

The professor clutched Mai’s arm.

“I fear that we may have trouble,” he exclaimed slowly. “He is obviously growing at a rate which is increasing in — er, ah, direct proportion. Now let me see —” The professor closed his eyes making mental calculations.

The fallen giants were swelling at an alarming rate. Their expanding bodies wedged among the scientific equipment of the laboratory. A hissing and spluttering of sparks shot from a broken condenser. With each passing minute their sizes doubled. They crowded one against another like a mass of expanding balloons. Those beneath forced others to the top of the mass.

“What’ll we do, Mai?” cried Noovia, “We’ll be crushed!”

The entire floor of the auditorium was covered by the distending mass of human flesh. Slaves fought for the exits, scrambled over the gangantuan mass of living tissue. They leaped from one huge bloated corpse to the next. It was unbelievable, yet here was an actual threat to the city itself — a threat Mai himself had created,

Noovia clutched Mai’s arm.

“The copper dome!” she exclaimed. “Those horrible bodies will burst the dome. Then we’ll be exposed to the lightning!”

“Quick, Noovia!” Mai shouted as he leaped from the scaffolding. “The magnet gun — it’s our only hope.”

“Er, ah, I estimate,” commented the professor, still making mental calculations, eyes closed, “that the cellular growth in these bodies at the expiration of a period of — say ten minutes, will result in a size that will be — er, ah — an actual hazard to us.” Whereupon his eyes opened. “My word!” he exclaimed. “This is interesting!”

Mai had scrambled to the magnet gun control mechanism. The pressure of the squirming, bulging mass wedged itself tighter and tighter against the gun scaffolding.

Mai swung the muzzle of the gun downward. He knew it was a wild hope — but why wouldn’t it work? If those Arkian ships had been electrically repelled from the planet, why not a human body? There was no time to experiment. The gun upon Thego’s gigantic body, now nearly forty feet long. His finger pushed the nearest button. Thego moved toward the gun. Mai pressed the next button. The body rose slowly from the floor. Instantly Mai shot the current on full. Like a projectile from a catapult Thego, king of Sangorong, shot upward, crashed through the skylight and whirled into the clouds.

“Thank Sirius,” breathed Noovia. “You’ve made it work!” Hurriedly, yet methodically, Mai played the gun over the bodies. It was a race against time. A horrible, gruesome race. One after another, singly, in groups of two, three and four, the bodies floated, twisted into the sky above. They all went whirling into the clouds, to be lost forever in the void of darkness beyond until some oppositely charged celestial sphere would suck them into a lonely grave.

Mal!” came a familiar voice from from the doorway.

“Rador! Roto!” shouted Mai wearily. “Thank God you got through.”

Wearily, the old scientist placed a tired hand on Mai’s shoulder. Tears came to his eyes at the sight of Mai’s misshapen body.

“Don’t worry about that, Rador. That machine over there will fix us all right.” It was several moments before Rador could speak.

“My boy, you’ve done a marvelous piece of work. The fact that I got here with my men and have the rest of the city under control is only a gesture — but what you have done practically single-handed is almost unbelievable. Your father died for us, Mai,” he said, overcome by emotion, “but in you he lives again. You have given us a new life. Again a Mandark has saved his people.”

It was many hours later. Mai, Noovia, and the rest of the deformed slaves, guided by their lightning-ray plates, had been re-transformed to their normal shapes.

“There’s no reason,” Rador was saying, “why we can’t live here in peace with these Lightning Men. There are two cities. We could occupy one, they the other. I’m sure we could each contribute much toward the progress of human life and happiness on Nova Terra.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Rador,” replied Mai. “For though I was determined above all else to find a home for our people, I hated to think of thrusting these Lightning people from their city. I’m sure we can manage it now.”

“I’m so glad,” exclaimed the professor scratching his bald head, “because I’ve wanted to experiment with that transformation mechanism. If properly adjusted, there is no reason why it won’t grow hair.”

A lieutenant approached Mai.

“Sir, Major Roto has just returned with the first load of Arkian settlers.” A few minutes later a beautiful woman walked into the laboratory at Roto’s side. Without a word Mai took her in his arms. At the far end of the hall Noovia saw, and her sparkling eyes clouded with tears. Turning, she ran from the room, pushing her way through stubborn ranks of crowding soldiers.

“Come back, Noovia,” Mai shouted. “I love you!”

Noovia looked back and then ran faster. Her black hair streamed out behind her.

“Come back,” Mai shouted, “or I’ll shoot!”

Noovia gave a little scream, halted. Mai’s arms shot out, caught her quickly to his breast.

“Let me go!” she cried, and her little fists beat upon his broad chest. “Go back to your woman and leave me alone!”

Instantly Mai’s face brightened with joy.

“That was my mother I kissed,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling.

Noovia’s dark, angry eyes suddenly softened. A tiny smile crept to her flushed cheeks. Slowly her arms stole around Mai’s neck and her soft lips parted.

The son of the man without a world had found a mate in a new world.

The End