Nardon directed. "And, cut all screens, we'll need every ounce of power." His face was gray, for he needed no experts to tell him what the battle had cost them in energy output. Still, they were alive. Horribly battered and drained to the point of exhaustion, but alive ... that was the miracle! But now, he had the horrible feeling of a Commander whose base has been destroyed. Where refuel? Where obtain the precious energy to withstand another assault? Bill knew this was not the end. What Cinnabarians still remained in those fathomless depths would never rest until the spacer and all within it was erased from Saturn's face.

Bill thought with a grimace of all those inter-planetary spacers that had vanished without trace. "Without Energon Screens, without the invulnerable Vulcanite or the Dispersal Beam, they never had the ghost of a chance...!" he exclaimed inwardly, and his long, vise-like hands slowly knotted at his sides. Beads of perspiration rolled down his cheeks as he concentrated on finding a solution to their problem.

The staccato sound of the landing signal swept through the ship as they prepared to make contact. In the near distance the great city shone under the illumination of the rings, enveloped in the sepulchral silence of its cataleptic legions.

Bill's eyes widened as the thought slowly evolved into ordered processes in his mind. "The Aureans...." Involuntarily he spoke aloud. "Hyperspace!" If he could awaken even one of those remaining ancients who knew the secret of hyperspace, he might contact Terra, or one of the inhabited planets. Hope rose like an exultant flame, and he hurried to the Juvenal chamber where Margalida recovered.

At the doorway of the control room, he almost collided with Freml, the Panadur, and it suddenly occurred to Bill he had not seen the silvery Psycho-synthetist for some time.

"Where have you been? Under the treatment?" Bill inquired.

"Of course not!" Freml telepathed disdainfully. "What need have I of such crude methods? As soon as I awoke I left the chamber ... my people supplied some energy, I needed nothing else. But you're hurrying...."

"To the Juvenal Chamber. We have no time to waste!" Bill flashed. "If we can awaken one of those cataleptic Aurean scientists, we may get from him the necessary equations to use hyperspace, Freml.... It means we can contact our worlds ... obtain aid!"

"Perhaps I can help," the Panadur thought slowly. "It should not be 

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