of light came flickering toward the attacking
Brons. Like blue-white ripples they went across the fore-running Kalis.
The ripples of light went on expanding. The shotgun in the hands of the
old Bron suddenly burst to pieces. The old rifles fell apart. The newer
machine-guns talked briefly, and then disappeared in a burst of flame that
took their masters with them.

The first coil of light struck Odin. There was a tingling sensation,
neither painful nor pleasant. But it went through his body like a mild
opiate. He did not want to sleep. He merely wanted to relax and forget
this slaughter. He fought against it. Gunnar leaned against him, suddenly
weak and shaken.

* * * * *

More widening circles of light swept out upon them. Ato's and Maya's
troops fell back. Those who had been armed with explosive weapons had died.
Odin was almost too weak to lift his sword. From the stairway below came
a scrabbling sound, as men pulled the corpses away from the stairs.

Nea's Kalis reeled back. She urged them on and they advanced like corks
bobbing on ripples of light. Three moved slowly toward Grim Hagen's
machine. A fourth faltered and fell back.

The Kalis were no longer screaming their frightful song. The purr of
victory was gone. Instead they yowled a savage, tormented scream as
though they had been cornered by an enemy they could not understand.

But the three moved forward, while the fourth hesitated behind them. As
though struggling against a heavy flood they came on. The gun-crew died
defending their whirling weapon. The three Kalis swarmed over it--like
bees smothering the enemy, Odin thought. The pulsing coiling light died.
There was a burst of flame. The weapon and the three Kalis suddenly
became one immense sardonyx that blazed huge and grand for a brief
moment. Then the jewel-blaze burned out, and a handful of ashes sifted
to the ground.

The fourth Kali was undone. It tried to go forward against that jewel-fire.
Then it hesitated and darted back. With a shrill cry of fear it flung
itself into Nea's arms, its coppery tentacles holding her close in a last
effort to escape destruction.

* * * * *

She had said before that the Kalis were the nearest things to human that
could be made. She had been the poor relation, the daughter of a dreaming
failure. Perhaps something of the fear and doubt which Nea had known all
her life had gone into the making of the