shining sea below.

A great cry of joy went up within the Terran ship, fierce and terrible, as the battle-crews achieved first kill.

But instantly the pyramid shifted globes and closed the gap, and the amethyst-hued net of unimaginable force deepened again until it became almost black. And then a lengthening beam of milky-whiteness shot out of the globe at the apex, probing, relentless ... and wherever it touched, gigantic tongues of flame licked upwards along its length, as it consumed the screen's energy.

Nydron knew how limitless was the power of that white beam. And too, how close their margin was. From every projector he had the Dispersal Beam bathe as many globes as possible, and then the radiant energy bombs lashed out.

Saturn seemed to reel. The pyramid was riven, even as the spacer was tossed like a row-boat on a stormy sea. A deafening crescendo of titanic sound flowed over the planet, and coruscating walls of fire enveloped space, as if the titanic rings of Saturn had spilled over into the stricken world.

And relentlessly, the emerald-tinged yellow vortex of the beams continued to be focused on the Cinnabarian globes, while the unbroken salvos of sound went on endlessly until the last fragment of radiant energy was consumed in its own supernal fire, and globes fell like shooting stars.

"We've never known what galaxy spawned them," Margalida, the Aurean girl said slowly, in a vibrant contralto that was like the deepest tones of a violin. She shuddered as some unnameable horror of the Cinnabarians flowed through her mind. "But ultimately it was we who unknowingly opened the door to them. They must have been waiting for aeons to enter our Universe ... only, they didn't quite know how to manipulate the forces necessary to use hyperspace. We did that for them." The silence in the Juvenal chamber was almost a tangible thing.

"You understand the secrets of hyperspace?" There was a Universe of awe in Bill Nardon's tones. "Our greatest scientists hardly dare experiment with the principles involved as yet!"

"Not I, of course," Margalida gave him a wan smile, "but our scientists ... there are hardly a dozen left, at peace in the deathless sleep. According to your time, this happened over a century ago. I had not come into being then, for I was born in slavery under the rule of the Energasts." She pronounced the strange word conveying a mental picture of the four-tentacled 

 Prev. P 33/41 next