In spite of himself, Dane felt a quick-glowing spark of interest. Almost without volition, he spoke aloud: "Not John Dane. Clark Dane."
The rhythm in his brain faltered; broke. In its place came a vague uneasiness, a restless groping: Clark Dane—? Clark Dane? No, no. John Dane. JOHN Dane!
"CLARK Dane," Dane reiterated firmly.
Instantly, the previous uneasiness returned, but multiplied a hundred-fold. Needles of pain shot through his brain. The pale grey emptiness of his prison vanished in a blaze of purple light. Even the gelatinous sea of protoplasm enveloping Dane seemed to transmit a sudden shiver.
Dane opened his eyes.
But the purple light was no pain-born illusion. Rather, it glinted even brighter now than before.
Its source was a crystal ... a strange, radiant crystal that floated before Dane in mid-air.
Now, while he watched, the purple light changed to green; then red; then yellow.
The crystal, too, was changing. Before his eyes, it writhed and stretched until it was a glowing aquamarine ladder, modeled after the one down which Dane had come into the bem-tank.