
Part 1
Part 2
Bob Winslow should be celebrating a breakthrough—his work on the newly discovered Decka light stream has just earned him a promotion—when a violent storm forces him and his carefree roommate Jim Kenley into a terrifying encounter. As lightning splits the night, an unseen force hurls them from their car, plunging Bob into a frozen instant that ends with a glimpse of alien figures and a strange, gleaming craft.
Bob awakens in a surreal, translucent-walled chamber that feels more like a high‑tech infirmary than a hospital. The room hums with silent machines, and Jim, equally disoriented, stumbles in beside him, both plagued by strange pains and a lingering sense of dread. As the mysterious apparatus whirs to life, a lone figure materializes, hinting at an otherworldly purpose behind their abrupt removal from Earth.
The opening sets a tense, atmospheric tone, blending hard‑science intrigue with an uncanny alien presence, and leaves listeners wondering what the “Three Brains of Taval” demand and how Bob and Jim will confront a fate that seems to stretch far beyond ordinary science.
Language
en
Duration
~53 minutes (51K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-04-05
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

A mid-20th-century science fiction writer, this author is remembered for imaginative short stories that appeared in pulp magazines from the late 1930s into the 1950s. The work still circulates today in anthologies and public-domain collections.
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