at hand below, the turbulent, smoky red surface of 40 Eridani C smouldered against the familiar backdrop of the Milky Way. Already the contraterrene planetoid was plunging toward that sullen sphere. There wasn't much time to get clear.

Strike flung his skeeter through the open hatch close on the exhaust of Cob's boat. Valves hissed shut and Lover-Girl flashed away—homeward.

One week later, and just off Sirius B, Old Aphrodisiac met the Eridan fleet again, but with a difference....

This time the black ships made no move to stop her. Their actions were incoherent, insane. They milled about in a swirling cluster, colliding with their fellows or careening off into the void.

They floundered erratically, their co-ordination shattered. Even any evidence of intelligent guidance was missing.

The Cleopatra flashed by, not even deigning to fire a shot at them.

Strike shuddered as he watched them in the scanners. In his mind he could see the senseless, churning masses of flesh that lived mindlessly within the black hulls. His thoughts flew far afield to an icy world that had turned suddenly into an uninhabitable desert with temperatures soaring past the melting point of lead. He saw a dull red sun pulsating in cosmic agony, blossoming out into a menacing ball of white flame as its internal fires leaped to freedom through its shattered crust. He saw a star spending its failing substance prodigally in one bright carnival of destruction. And he saw its planets writhing as the sudden blast of heat speeded molecular velocities to the speed of escape and sent great clouds of superheated chlorine hissing into the void.

But best of all, he imagined the horrible death of a thing that was the sole co-ordinator and reasoning agent for a race of ugly tentacled creatures. Strykalski saw the death of the Eridan group-mind....

Old Aphrodisiac settled herself wearily onto the ramp of the Hamilton Field Spaceport. Her valves opened with a sighing sound. It was as though the ship herself had given voice to her contentment. She was home.

The lights of the Administration building glittered against the dark backdrop of the California hills, and the field lights flamed against the stillness of the night.

Strike and Ivy stood near the open port. "It's all over, Ivy," he said, "We're safe now."

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