star-spanning culture. But there was more to it than that, of course. Santane—as a man—was simply one more bit of protoplasm in the vast mystery of the cosmos. But Santane—as a symbol—was real and important. He was a living monument to the immutable face that tyranny begets more tyranny, and that the very existence of absolute power results in the two awful corollaries ... ambition and strife.

The Tetrarchy had spawned Santane just as surely as night follows day. Santane was the cancer in the body of the despotism of the Thirty Suns that was destined to destroy it ... and, thought Aram grimly, himself with it.

Aram Jerrold studied the craggy face and the deep-set, glowing eyes as Santane stood there before the simulacrum of Armageddon in the scanners, and knew there was madness in the man.

Santane spoke, and the sound rasped across the senses.

"You are Aram Jerrold and Deve Jennet—agents of the Tetrarchy. Spies ... high ranking spies!" His icy gaze searched the faces of the man and woman before him. "Do you deny it?"

"We are who you say," replied Jerrold evenly, "but we are not spies. The Tetrarchy has undoubtedly set a price on our heads by now."

"You lie! The Tetrarchy sent you here because they are afraid of me." Santane laughed scornfully, "They have seen what I can do."

"Don't be a fool, Santane," Jerrold said softly. "The Tetrarchy is not afraid of you. It can't be. It hasn't the ability to fear you or anything else. Can't you see that?" He indicated the scanners. The Fleet was bearing ever closer to Kaidor V, slashing through the cordons of defensive craft doggedly, impervious to losses and dying ships and men.

Fear touched Santane's face ... but for just an instant. Aram knew with sinking heart that the man's madness would not let him believe the truth.

"No," said Santane tensely. "They are afraid of me—or you wouldn't have been sent here."

Aram was struck with a sudden, grotesque pity for the man. All the weeks he had spent in danger and in preparation for this mission that had failed, he had thought of Santane as the living incarnation of crafty evil. What he saw before him now was a insane man—frightened by the mighty forces he had unleashed and could not now turn or control. In that moment, Aram felt that Kant Mikal's injunction to save something from the ruins was truly impossible, for nothing could come right when a 

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