Hopeless! It looked like the end. Hawk Carse's face was in its old, emotionless mold as he waited, his gun sharp on the spot where the hand must reappear if they would fire the deadly projector. He had to get that hand—and any others that took its place. An almost impossible shot. He couldn't rush it and get it too. Not in time.
A moment passed. The hand flashed out; Carse shot and again missed. Then a narrow cone was along the corridor, a blinding orange streak. Instantly, with a rasp of thunder, it was gone, and the air was stifling.
The Hawk was untouched; Friday, too, he saw. The bolt had been taken by the door—and one of the door's two halves was ajar!
At once Hawk Carse acted. "Inside!" he yelled, then was through, the negro right behind. Carse's eyes swept the laboratory. It was a place of shadows, the sole light being a faint gleam from a tiny bulb-tipped surgical tool which glimmered weirdly from the bank of instruments waiting by the operating table. Carse saw no one.
"Hold the door!" he ordered. "I don't think it'll lock!"
Friday obeyed. He found the inner bolt melted and the lock inoperative; and, placing his forearms on either side of the middle crack of the door, he stood bracing it.
A furious pounding shook the door. A heavy pressure bent it inward.
"Quick!" the big black gasped. "Somethin' to wedge it!"
"A minute, Friday," the Hawk answered. "Hold it!"