The Angel in the House

olor-

a figure clad in a white surgeon's smock emerged. He was a white man, tall, with highly intelligent face but eyes

it r

rd,"-ton

hind them as they stepped inside. "This is my main laboratory.

purpose he could not even guess at; in one place there was a table strewn with tangled shapes of wire, rows of odd-bulging tubes and other apparatus; and conspicuous by one door was an ordinary operating table, with light

work of fine-drawn colored wires. Shimmering, like the gossamer threads of a spider's spinning, they wove up

he eyes of anyone sitting there. Ropes were reeved through pulleys in the ceiling, for raising the wire-ball device to permit en

o the question he curtly a

ations. Nothing harmful, though, however much they may tire you. Now!" He gave a sign; one of his assistants touche

he laboratory then as his bleak gray eyes met and held

I do

ian gestured apologe

our white assistants.... No hope. No chance for anything. He looked at the negro. "Don't move, Friday," h

ou have said that this would not permanently harm me, and, although I know you for the most deadly, vi

did not alter one bit at this. Carse

m some recess a little cone, trailing a wire, like a microphone. A breathless silence hung over the laboratory. The white-clad figures stood like statues, dumb, unfeeling, emotionless. The watching negro trembled, his mouth hal

heir stead was color, every color in the spectrum. Like waves rhythmically rising and falling, the tinted brilliances dissolved back and forth through each other; and the reflected light, car

autiful colors began to float over its face, colors never still but constantly weaving and clouding into an infinity of combinatio

he was being electrocuted, he made a rash rush to destroy the device and free him. He learned discretion when two r

and watched the color-maelstrom. His face was contorted; his cheek muscles stood out weltlike in his sweat-glisten

herefore he attempted to seal his mind. He fastened it on something definite-on Iapetus, satellite of Saturn, and his ranch there-and barred every other t

im, submerged him, fatigued him. He had a

ns. All this.... Continued without c

at drowsiness stole over him; but he fought it off, his brain beating out hundr

excrucia

thoroughly disorganized before it again took up the drone about Iapetus. Recovery ... dullness ...

s Eliot

ant a great deal and sh

b of agony. A

s Eliot

ce could in no way be avoided. It was everywhere about him, over, around, under him; he began to see it. Desperately he

apetus-I have a ranch there-Where is Eliot Leithgow-I have a ranch there-a ranch there-Iape

and ten minutes

s own close concentration on his Iapetus ranch-these were too much for any human body to stand against. He lost his grip on his mind, lost the fine control that had

came from the heart

III-Port o' Porno, Satelli

errupted him;

se is nu

574-5

Eurasian. "Port o

pool of colors faded; the laboratory returned to comparative di

s flaxen head bowed over on his chest, his eyes closed

loor was another u

had f