There confronted him the hugest figure of a man he had ever seen. Hilary was not lacking in inches himself he was well over six feet; but the giant staring quizzically down at him was nearer seven, with shoulders to match. The features of his face were gargantuan in their ruggedness, yet singularly open, while a pair of mild blue eyes, childlike in expression, looked in perpetual wonder out upon the world.

In spite of his annoyance, Hilary instinctively liked the giant.

“What do you want?” he inquired gruffly.

The Colossus surveyed him with his child’s eyes.

“Man, you are crazy.” He spoke in a deep bass rumble, without emotion or inflection. He was simply stating a fact.

A surge of annoyance swept over the returned wanderer from the far spaces. This was the last straw.

“I may be,” he admitted coldly, “but I like my particular form of craziness.”

“You know the penalty of course for what you are doing?” the big man inquired unemotionally.

Hilary swore deeply. “Damn the penalties, whatever you mean by that. Here’s a man who has been tortured unmercifully chained like a dog. I intend to free him.”

The mild blue eyes contained the hint of a gleam.

“But you know the penalties,” he repeated. His murmur sounded like the rumble of a distant earthquake.

Hilary straightened sharply, poked his finger at the midriff of the giant.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he stabbed. “What is the meaning of all this? Who is this unfortunate, and why did everyone disappear as though I had the plague when I sat next to him?”

A look of bewilderment swept over the massive face, bewilderment tinged with a dawning suspicion of the questioner’s sanity.

“You mean to say you don’t know?” The tone held incredulity.

“I’ve just told you so,” Hilary pointed out. He felt a growing unease.

The giant eyed him closely. “Man, where on earth have you been these last three years?”

Hilary grinned. “I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?” echoed the other. Suspicion hardened the childlike eyes into cold flame. The man was dangerous when aroused. He thrust his jaw down at Hilary. “If you are jesting with me....” He left the sentence unfinished, but the clenching of a huge fist left no doubt as to his intention.

“I am not jesting,” Hilary assured him grimly. “I have been away from the Earth for five years. I’ve just returned.”

The great hand clenched tighter. “Now I know you are crazy, or Who are you?” he ended abruptly.

“Hilary Grendon.”

“Hilary Grendon Hilary Grendon,” rumbled the other in manifest perplexity. It was evident the name meant nothing to him.

This then was the homecoming he had dreamed of in the unfathomable reaches of space. Hilary thought bitterly. Five short years and he was already forgotten. Then the irony of it struck him, and he laughed aloud.

“Yes,” he said. “Five years ago I led the Grendon Expedition to explore interplanetary space in the space-ship I had invented. I’ve come back alone.”

It was amazing to watch long-overlaid memories struggling up through the subconscious. At last the giant spoke.

“Oh, yes,” he said meditatively, “I seem to remember something about it.” He surveyed Hilary with a new interest. “So you were one of those chaps, eh?”

The explorer admitted it, humbly. Of such are the uses of fame.

“Well, now,” said the giant, “that might explain it. Though it sure beats all.” And he shook his head as though he still did not understand.

“Who is that man?” Hilary stabbed a forefinger at the blind man, who sat immobile as before, his worn etched face ever to the front. “It’s monstrous. Amos Peabody shall hear of it.”

The Colossus looked at him mildly.

“That,” he said, “is Amos Peabody!”

Silence lay like a live thing between them. Hilary whirled in a kaleidoscope of emotion. Was this wasted, tortured being the portly, dignified President of the United States who had bade him Godspeed at the start of his tremendous journey five years before? His pitying eyes searched the linéaments of the poor wretch. There was no doubt of it now; it was Amos Peabody.

Hilary gripped his informant’s arm. His voice was deadly calm. “I want the truth about this, and I want it fast.”

“The truth,” echoed the big man with strange laughter; “now that is something ”

His eyes widened over Hilary’s shoulder. With a swiftness remarkable in one of his bulk he shook off Hilary’s restraining grip, caught him by the shoulder and thrust him, all in one motion, into a chair several removed from Peabody. In a trice his huge bulk was safely ensconced in the adjoining one.

Hilary’s hand went to the butt of the automatic within his blouse. The giant saw the movement. He leaned forward.

“Don’t make a move,” he warned, “the guard is coming.”

“What guard?”

“You’ll see fast enough. Appear unconcerned if you value your life. Don’t look back.”

Hilary complied. His face became an expressionless mask as he lounged in his chair, but his thoughts seethed and boiled. What terrible mystery had enveloped the Earth during his absence? Why was Amos Peabody tortured and made into a public mockery?

There was a slight whirring noise behind him. Heedful of his companion’s admonition he relaxed in apparent unconcern, but his hand stole once more to the fold in his blouse. His long fingers rested caressingly upon the butt of his automatic. There were still three good Earth bullets in the chamber.

The whirring ceased. There was a slight jar as of something landing on the speeding conveyor. Yet Hilary did not look back, though his grip tightened. A heavy body stumbled toward them, cursing in strange phrases. It passed from behind, came to a halt before the giant. Hilary shot a sharp glance upward from under veiled lids. An exclamation sprang full-throated to his lips, died unheard under a tremendous effort of his will.

Before them stood a being it could not be called a man. He was no denizen of the Earth, that was evident, yet Hilary had visited all the planets outward from our own without encountering such a monster.

He hulked before them like a behemoth, even dwarfing Hilary’s companion with his enormous stature; but it was noticeable that he supported his weight ill, as if Earth’s gravitation was too strong for him. Manlike he was in every essential, but the skin of his face was a pasty dull gray, and ridged and furrowed with warty excrescences. Two enormous pink eyes, unlidded, but capable of being sheathed with a filmy membrane, stared down at them with manifest suspicion. A gray, three-fingered hand held an angled tube significantly. A lens gleamed transparent in the sunlight from the open end.

Hilary did not move under the stare, nor did his companion. The mild blue eyes were childlike as ever. The guard’s gaze shifted from them to the trembling figure of Amos Peabody. He bent over him, thrust at him with ungentle hand. The automatic under Hilary’s fingers crept farther out from the blouse, but a warning gesture from his companion stopped him.

The guard amused himself with shaking the blind man; then he bent suddenly. He had seen the broken links. With ominous deliberation he turned his vast weight upon them. His baleful pink eyes fastened upon Hilary’s companion.

“You!” he growled throatily, “what do you know about this?” He spoke in English, but it was obviously not his native tongue.

Mildly innocent was the giant’s face.

“I know nothing, Magnificent,” he said humbly. “I am on my way to Great New York on my own insignificant affairs, and I bother my head with nothing else.”

“The bonds of this dog, Peabody, have been severed,” the guard insisted, “and recently, too. Speak up, Earthman, or you know the penalty.”

“I know the penalty,” he answered respectfully, “but I have been seated here only five minutes, and I know nothing of this Peabody.”

The guard fingered his tube.

“Let me see your tag,” he said suddenly.

The other opened his blouse obediently and exposed a thin copper disk suspended on his chest. The guard tugged at it brutally to bring it within range of his vision. The pull jerked the giant’s head forward, and the thin metal strand cut cruelly into the back of his neck. Hilary saw a flush of red sweep like a wave up to his forehead, and the mild blue eyes turned hard like glinting blue pebbles. But not a word escaped his lips.

“Grim Morgan,” the guard read, “A46823 Great New York. Pah, what barbarous names you Earthmen have.” He shoved the giant back heavily into his seat, and turned his baleful glare upon Hilary.

“You, what do you know about this?”

Grim Morgan interposed hastily. “Nothing, Magnificent. He came on the express conveyor after I did.”

The guard’s free hand went back. Very deliberately he struck him across the face with three ridged fingers. An angry welt raised.

“That will teach you to keep your mouth shut when not spoken to.”

The big man’s eyes were mild, but his hands tensed as though they were curled around a throat. He said nothing.

The guard turned to Hilary again. “Answer me,” he barked.

“My friend told the truth,” Grendon said simply.

“Your tag?”

“I have none.”

Suspicion flared openly in the pink eyes.

“Where is it?”

“I never had one.”

“Ah!” There was a world of meaning to the exhalation. “You know of course that every Earthman must be registered. The penalty for non-obedience is death.”

The angled tube came up with the swiftness of light. Grim Morgan cried out sharply, lunged out of his seat. Hilary tore at his gun, knowing sickeningly that the draw would be slower than the action of the strange weapon in the guard’s hand.

There was a sneer on the monster as he pressed something on the tube. Hilary’s automatic was only half out of his blouse. Grim’s lunge would never reach in time. He was too far away.