y are," said McGuire grimly. "Those are Althora's people who had
forgotten how to fight; they are recapturing something that they lost
some centuries ago. But can they ever destroy the rest of that swarm?
I don't think they have the heart to do it."

"They do not need." It was Althora speaking. "My people are sickened
with the slaughter. But the red ones will go back into the earth, and
we will seal them in!--it is Djorn who tells me--and the world will be
ours forevermore."

* * * * *

A matter of two short days, crammed to the uttermost with the
realization of the astounding turn of events--and McGuire and Althora
stood with Blake and Djorn, the ruler, undisputed, of the beautiful
world of Venus. A fleet of great ships was roaring high in air. One
only, the flagship, was waiting where their little group stood.

The bodies of the fallen had been recovered; they were at rest now in
the ships that waited above. McGuire looked about in final wonder at
the sparkling city bathed in a flood of gold. A kindly city
now--beautiful; the terrors it had held were fading from his mind. He
turned to Althora.

"We are going home," he said softly, "you and I."

"Home?" Althora's voice was vibrant with dismay.

"We need you here, friend Mack Guire," the voice of Djorn broke in, in
protest. "You have something that we lack--a force and vision--something
we have lost."

"We will be back," the flyer assured him. "You befriended me: anything
I can do in return--" The grip of his hand completed the sentence.

"But there is a grave to be made on the summit of Mount Lawson," he
added quietly. "I think he would have preferred to lie there--at the
end of his journey--and I must return to the service where I have not
yet been mustered out."

"But you said--you were going home," faltered Althora. "Will that
always be home to you, Tommy?"

"Home, my dear," he whispered in words that reached her only, "is just
where you are." His arm went about her to draw her toward the waiting
ship. "There or here--what matter? We will be content."

Her eyes were misty as they smiled an answer. Within the ship that was
lifting them, they turned to watch a city of opal light grow faintly
luminous in the distance ... an L-shaped continent shrunk to tiny size ...
and the nebulous vapors of the cloudland that enclosed this world folded
softly about.

"We will lead," the voice of Blake was saying to an aide: "same
format