Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 261: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Page’s shoulders sagged. For a moment his features seemed ‘ to blur, then snapped back into rigid lines again. “The answer is that you do the job too well,” said Craig. “Right now you yourself are more Page than Candle, more man than thing of energy.” “We shouldn’t have tried it,” said Page. “We should have waited until there was someone in your place. You were too frank in your opinion of us. You held none of the amused contempt so many of the others held. | told them they Should wait, but a man named Page got caught in a space warp—” Craig nodded. “Il understand. An opportunity you Simply couldn’t miss. Ordinarily we’re pretty hard to get at. You can’t fight photocells. But you should strive for more convincing stories. That yam of yours about capturing Candles—” “But Page came out for that purpose,” insisted the pseudo Page. “Of course, he would Nave failed. But, after all, it was poetic justice.” “It was clever of you,” Craig said softly. “More clever than you thought. Bringing your side-kicks in here, pretending you had captured them, waiting until we were off our guard.” “Look,” said Page, “we know when we are licked. What are you going to do?” “We'll turn loose the one in the refrigerator,” Craig told him. “Then we'll open up the locks and you can go.” “And if we don’t want to go?” “We'd turn loose the liquid oxygen,” said Craig. “We have vats of the stuff upstairs. We can close off this room, you know, turn it into a howling hell. You couldn’t live through it. You’d starve for energy.” From the kitchen came a hideous uproar, a sound that suggested a roll of barbed wire galloping around a tin roof. The bedlam was punctuated by cries from Creepy. CORniclooo SS CO