Under a feeble shielded light a THRUSH soldier snapped to attention.

Illya's mind raced. Was Solo alive? Or was the hour already too late?

Illya held the door. They stepped into a foyer walled in stainless steel. His heart hammered in his chest. The first peril was past.

But how many more lay ahead?

FOUR

Napoleon Solo had the eerie feeling that he had been here before. And indeed he had been, for he was again strapped down to Herr Doktor Klaus Bauer's thickly padded table.

More than twelve hours had passed since Bauer's assistants manhandled him onto the table. He was no closer now to a way of escape from this devil's den of goose-steppers and THRUSH agents than he had been then. If anything, he was further away.

"Patience, patience, Solo," Bauer said as he came within Solo's range of vision, bustling from one control console to another. "Don't writhe so. It's useless."

Bauer paused long enough to peer down at Solo. His eyes rolled behind his rimless glasses. His round pate shone like a new egg under the fluorescent glare of the ceiling lights. A thin film of spittle appeared on his up-curled lip as he contemplated his victim.

Solo was now clad in loose, over-starched gray prison trousers and shirt, black socks and clumsy ankle-high prisoner's boots.

As Bauer's face swam close, Solo realized again that the man, though brilliant, was certainly unbalanced. He recalled Bauer's almost womanish sobs this morning, when the transmitter had overloaded and blown out, thus granting Solo his brief reprieve.

"I trust the day-long wait has not aggravated your nerves, Solo?" Bauer clucked.

"Not much," Solo barked back. Cold perspiration trickled down his right cheek. In truth the day of anticipation had done just that, tightened his nerves almost unbearably.

After being removed from the table that morning in the smoke and confusion following the power failure, Solo had been stripped, searched—a formality neglected on his arrival, due to Bauer's extreme haste—and then given his prisoner's garb. He was thrown into a cheerless, windowless cement cell. There, without a weapon or, seemingly, a prayer of getting out, he had languished throughout the day until THRUSH soldiers fetched him at ten before seven this evening.

"We won't have to wait much longer now," Bauer grinned.

"There's no need to fake a lot of civilized behaviour, Herr Doktor. I know you too well."

Bauer's eyebrows shot up. "But this is nothing personal, Herr Solo!"

"Maybe with you it's not."

"This is all in the cause of science!"

"Or the cause of a little Bavarian madman who butchered women and children?"

Dr. Bauer's face lost its comic-opera look. He leaned down and very nearly spat in Napoleon Solo's face.

"For that filthy remark, I hope the process reduces you to a boneless, witless lump of—" He lapsed into a stream of vile German words.

One of his assistants tugged his sleeve, nervously indicating the clock high up on the wall. Bauer flushed and recovered himself. With a last hateful glance at Solo he rushed off.

Click-click.

Snap-snick.

The deep hummings began.

Overhead, the black lens in the center of the stainless steel ball glowed and pulsed, glowed and pulsed -

"Power drain, Hermann?" Bauer called somewhere.

"Normal, Herr Doktor."

"Splendid, splendid! Throw the lever. Increase to the third increment—"

A low metal spang indicated that the lever had been thrown over. Solo's extremities began to tingle oddly. The pulsing blue halation which surrounded the steel ball hurt his eyes. This was unforgivable! He shouldn't be trapped this way, giving up his life without even having had the chance to notify U.N.C.L.E.. If only Illya had somehow gotten through—

"Increase to the fifth increment!" Dr. Bauer called above the rising dynamo hum.

The bluish light began to make Solo's eyes dance with painful colored dots. His entire body gave a violent spasm, as though some strange transformation were taking place within his cellular structure. A second spasm followed. He would have fallen off the table and been injured had not the restraining straps been so tight.

Solo clenched his teeth. Another peculiar pain started, this one seeming to come from the deepest marrow of his bones. He bit down on his lower lip to choke back a cry of agony as the bluish light blazed, blazed—

Sensations smacked against his eyes and ears in confusing, overlapping sequence:

A heavy metal door hissed and rocked open with a clang.

At the same time a girl squeaked out a frightened yell which ended with a sudden gasp of breath, as though her warning cry had been aborted by a quick, ungentlemanly punch in the ribs.

Then, through a chorus of German cursing, Solo heard a voice he recognized:

"Napoleon? Napoleon—"

"Illya!" Solo was unable to twist his head and see his friend.

"I will kill anyone in this chamber who moves," Illya called.

The bluish light blinded Solo. Even the stainless steel ball directly above him was hidden. The ache in the marrow of his bones intensified to a point of near-unbearable agony. Somehow he managed to summon strength to yell in a croaking voice:

"Illya? Make them—turn the machine off."

"Turn it off," Illya ordered.

"Nein, nein!" Bauer exclaimed hoarsely. "Manfred, throw the alarm switch—"

Footsteps hammered. Illya shouted another warning. Evidently it was disobeyed. Illya's pistol cracked flatly once. A man screamed.

As Solo remembered, there were no THRUSH soldiers stationed in the laboratory chamber, only research men. Evidently Illya had them under the gun and they were not of a mind to disobey his orders. Silence fell.

But Bauer wasn't happy with the situation.

"Do not touch the power-down control, Wolfgang! If you value your life, do not—"

"Wolfgang—" Illya said harshly.

Wolfgang apparently had a different view of his life's worth. There came the solid ka-thunk of a large control being slammed home. At once the power hum of the dynamo receded. The bluish light began to fade.

The marrow-hurting pain in Solo's bones waned. In a moment, after a flurry of footfalls, Illya's face appeared just above his, white, anxious. A knife blade flickered. Illya slashed at the straps. Seconds later Solo sat up and stretched his creaking muscles.

He wasted no words of thanks. They were in a serious situation and he had to move fast. Solo's eyes swept the chamber.

Dr. Bauer and his technicians were grouped around the control-board consoles, tense with fear. On the low balcony other THRUSH lab men had frozen by their instruments.

Near wide open double doors leading to a stainless steel corridor, Helene Bauer was just picking herself up. She shook her head groggily.

"I am not quite certain as to what is happening here, Napoleon," Illya whispered.

Dr. Bauer stared hatefully at the pistol in Illya's fist. "You can't escape."

"That remains to be seen, sir." From the corner of his mouth, Illya hissed at his friend, "I had to hit the girl when she screamed. If we reach her before she recovers, we can use her as I used her to get in here—for cover."

Solo nodded. He pointed overhead at the stainless steel ball. "First we've got to wreck that thing. It's Bauer's ray for making supermen—"

Illya grasped the situation instantly. He raised the pistol over his head. "Watch them, Napoleon. Here's my knife. Take it." With his gun turned toward the stainless steel ball he squinted up the muzzle over the sight—