Part 2

Soon those evil monsters would be ferreting out the healthy youth of the city.

Zurk, powerless to stop them or to shout a warning, watched Zuldi and his men come quickly up into the laboratory through the trap door.

Neither Bob nor Marene saw their danger. Marene was staring fearfully out at the black ship and Bob was working frantically with the gun.

"If we can blast the ship out of the sky," Bob was saying. "If we can kill the creatures already in the city, get their voltage guns...."

Bob never finished his hopes. A giant, clawed hand clutched him by the shoulder at that moment and spun him back and away from the gun, spun him back and away until he nearly collided with Zurk's steel frame.

Zurk felt the strain and horror of it all driving him deeper into blackness.

Zuldi's hideous face was twisted into an anticipatory smirk. He took a slow, deliberate step closer to the young man.

"You Earthians will never learn," he hissed. His clawed fingers were writhing nervously. "But one more example will not hurt. You know the penalty."

Bob's jaws were clamped tightly. His whole body was trembling with pent rage and hate. He stood there looking steadily into the beast's eyes, waiting.

"One less youth in the shipment to the other side will make little difference," Zuldi smirked. "The blood we have taken in the past is nearly enough for our needs. The transfusions have rendered my people almost immune from the ravages of heat and light rays."

His red eyes were glowing behind their protective glasses. His heavy lips were twisting gloatingly. "Soon we shall be able to leave the Land of Darkness. Soon we shall conquer new lands."

His eyes narrowed and he took a sudden step forward, clawed hands extended. "And we shall have no further use for Earthians!"

"Damn you!" Bob's set face was livid with emotion. "Damn you!" he shouted again. "You'll never live to kill another Earthian!"

His hand swept into the open front of his shirt and came out again with one of the hand guns Zurk--or Guyard--had made in the secret furnace. In one swift motion, he leveled the gun at Zuldi's huge chest and squeezed the trigger.

The crash of the explosion jarred against Zurk's ears with a shattering force that drove some of the blackness from his brain. He saw immediately that the charge had not reached its intended mark.

One of the other creatures, at sight of the gun, had leaped suddenly forward--to receive the heavy slug in his own chest.

The bullet did not stop him. His momentum carried his dead body forward to crash into Bob, to knock the gun from his hand and to send him spinning and stumbling backward.

Zuldi laughed, and drew his voltage gun.

During that split second, a thousand other vibrations smashed into Zurk's hot brain. He heard bedlam break loose in the streets below. The Earthians were fighting!

Mingled with the crash of the hand guns and the slithering vibrations of the voltage weapons were cries, groans, shouts and curses. And over it all came the sudden, high-pitched whine of the black ship's radio, a whine to the far side of the moon for help.

Soon there would be other black ships.

Marene was standing there looking at him, her eyes staring into his own, pleading with him! Then she turned and made a dash for the long-snouted gun upon the table, only to be dragged away from it by two of the monsters.

Zurk knew that the last, insane episode had come. This was to be the last of the Earthians! And if he were ever going to come to their aid, he must do it now.

* * * * *

He threw all the power of his giant frame into the will to stand, into the will to rise up and to slay these evil creatures about him.

He tried to ignore the stabbing pain at his back, tried to believe it did not exist. He hurled forth his energy in wave after wave until the flame became a consuming thing that ate deep within him and filled his brain with the shadows of dark despair.

Through that creeping blackness, he saw Bob Simms frantically try to evade the sweep of Zuldi's weapon. He felt the young man stumble over one of his helpless, steel feet, felt him stagger against his metal knee and fall.

And at almost the same instant the blast from Zuldi's voltage gun went crashing through the room.

Zurk saw the streak of the charge as it passed just above the fallen youth and felt the full, deadly shock of it strike squarely into his own huge chest of steel with a force that quaked the whole of his giant frame.

Then came deep silence. It seemed that all time had suddenly stopped.

Zuldi and the other creatures were standing there staring at him, their bulging eyes terror-stricken.

The vibration of Marene's sudden cry swept against his ears. "_Zurk! You are free!_"

He realized then what had happened. His steel frame had taken the full stock of Zuldi's voltage gun. And that shock had burned off the wire that had been shorting his energy at the back of his neck!

He was standing there on his own two feet! He was moving his head! He was free!

Withering blasts from a half dozen voltage guns tore suddenly into his steel body, rocking him on his feet. But he didn't care. He was free!

A savage cry came from his steel throat as he brushed aside the creatures and their guns. He went directly to the opening in the floor, put his heavy foot against the trap door and kicked it shut with a splintering crash that wedged it tightly home.

Then he turned slowly about to face Zuldi and the creatures. There was no escape for them now!

From outside, came the sound of successive, powerful blasts. The black ship was bringing its heavy guns into action, was bombarding the city.

Zurk caught two of the creatures as a great cat would catch mice. Their gibbering death-cries filled his ears with pleasure as he smashed their heads together and flung their lifeless bodies against the wall.

"The disintegrator!" he shouted to Bob. "Knock that ship out of the sky! This will be a fight they will remember!"

His steel fist crashed into the evil brain of another.

Then came a roaring bolt of destruction more powerful than all the others. It struck the corner of the attic, quaked the building to its foundations and sent one wall of the laboratory swirling away in a burst of flying debris.

Two of the trapped creatures sprang out of the opening, screaming. Zuldi would have followed had not Zurk clutched him up in his huge hands. Slowly, the man of steel twisted the evil creature's head about in a complete circle. Then he raised the lifeless body high into the air and cast it down into the dust of the street below.

He turned to find Marene and Bob standing beside the gun. Marene was sobbing quietly. Bob was staring bewilderedly at the dangling end of one of the electrodes he held in his hands.

"The blast from the ship!" he cried. "The blast from the ship carried away one of the electrodes! We are without power for the disintegrator!"

Zurk took the severed cable into his own hands. He saw immediately that repairs were out of the question. A long section had been blasted away between the floor and the gun. And the disintegrator was useless without power!

Another blast from the black ship shuddered the laboratory and brought answering sparks from Zurk's steel shell.

Then he knew! The solution came startlingly clear to his brain. He would make the connection with his own metal body!

* * * * *

Grasping the cable tighter in his hand, he set his foot down heavily upon the other end that lay upon the floor.

His eyes glowed as he wheeled the snout of the gun about with his free hand, wheeled it directly toward the heart of the black ship and pressed the release with his thumb.

The burning wave of hot power that surged through him nearly blinded him. But he saw the great ship shudder as the disintegrating force smashed into it, saw it lose form in a shapeless cloud of nothingness as its neutralized atoms went spinning away.

A great cry of triumph rang out from the fighting men of the city. The hand guns redoubled their fury.

"They've got the creatures on the run!" It was Marene. She was looking down into the street from the broken wall of the laboratory.

But there were more ships coming. Zurk saw the tiny black specks that had leaped above the far horizon.

He stopped two of them while they were still but specks, saw a third wheel back toward the dark side, its radio whining. The others came hurtling on.

Methodically, one by one, he began blasting them from the sky. The hot charges of power that coursed through his body bleared his eyes and jarred his senses.

Only two of the ships remained. He sent one of them into oblivion; missed the other. Twice more, the ravishing shudders of power racked his body before the black ship and its evil crew vanished into nothingness before his burning eyes.

But there was no time for rest. Other black ships were coming.

Zurk, now a glowing, burning thing, felt himself moving the gun slowly from one to another of the ships.

Zurk was surprised to find so few ships left. He must have gotten more of them than he had thought. If he had been able to hang on a moment or two longer....

A wave of blackness began to spread over him.

The great surges of energy pounding devastatingly through his heat-ridden body jarred him back again into consciousness. Through a black and red mist, he saw the youth bending over the gun. The young man's eyes were afire with the light of battle and his face was grim as he worked the weapon deliberately and methodically.

Zurk felt an overwhelming desire for peace creep over him. He knew what that meant.

But he didn't care. His steel body was solidly fused to the ends of the cable. Even in death, his body would continue to hold the connection while Bob Simms rid the city of the demons for all time. Never again would the black ships dare to attack. And the Earthians could rebuild their own spaceship.

His heavy head slumped slowly forward to rest upon his hot arm. The wild, triumphant shouts of the people in the street came but dimly to his ears as he felt himself swimming away into a warm, red mist.

Then came the last vibration of all. It was an infinitely sweet vibration that caressed his tired brain and gave to him the peace he needed.

He knew it was Marene--_his Marene_--who had set that vibration into motion with her lips as close to his ear as she dared.

"Thank you, Zurk," came that last vibration. "Thank you, _Father_!"