hem, gather all the information you can about
them, and through them keep control of the cubes which pilot the
aircars, for in the cubes, I believe, lies the secret of our possible
victory in the fight to come!"

* * * * *

Sarka scarcely knew why he had spoken the last sentence. It was as
though something deep within him had risen up, commanded him to speak,
and deeper yet, far back in his consciousness, was a mental picture of
the devastation he had witnessed on his flight above the area that had
once housed the Gens of Dalis.

For in that ghastly area, he believed, was embodied an idea greater than
mere wanton destruction, just as there was an idea back of the fiery
lights from Mars greater than mere display. Somehow the two were allied,
and Sarka believed that, between the blue column, and the fiery lights
from Mars, the fate of the world rested.

He could, he believed, by manipulation of the Beryls that yet remained,
maneuver the world away from that blue column--which on the Earth was
invisible. But to have done so would have thwarted the very purpose for
which this mad voyage had been begun. The world had been started on its
mad journey into space for the purpose of attacking and colonizing the
Moon and Mars.

The Moon had been colonized by the Gens of Dalis, already in potential
revolt against the Earth. Mars was next, and by forcing the Earth into
close proximity to Mars the people of the Moon had played into the hands
of Earth-people--if the people of Earth were capable of carrying out the
program of expansion originally proposed by Sarka!

If they were not ... well, Sarka thought somewhat grimly, the resultant
cataclysmic war would at least solve the problem of over-population!
Inasmuch as the Earth was already committed to whatever might transpire,
Sarka believed he should take a philosophic view of the matter!

* * * * *

Sarka turned to an examination of the Master Beryl, and even as he
peered into the depths of it, he thought gratefully how nice it was to
be home again, in his own laboratory, upon the world of his nativity. He
even found it within his heart to feel somewhat sorry for Dalis, and to
feel ashamed that he had, even in his heart, mistreated him.

Then he thought, with a tightening of his jaw muscles, of the casual way
in which Dalis had destroyed Sarka the First, of his forcing his people
to undergo the terrors of the lake