ith a
grim smile, Tako silenced them. There was a momentary lull.

And then came our chance! Fate, bringing just one unforeseen little
thing to link the chain, to turn the undercurrent of existing
circumstances--and to give us our chance. Or perhaps Jane, guided by
fate, created the opportunity. She does not know. She too was dazed,
numb--but there was within her also the memory of what Tolla had
almost said. And Tolla's frenzy of jealousy....

* * * * *

Tako appeared from around the balcony, rolling the projector. Its
beam was off. He flung a glance of warning at the two guards to
watch us. He left the projector, flushed, triumphant, all his senses
perhaps reeling with the realization of what he had done. He saw the
two girls huddled in the moonlight of the balcony floor. He stooped
and pushed Tolla roughly away.

"Jane! Jane, did you see it? My triumph! Tako, master of everything!
Even of you--is it not so?"

Did some instinct impel her not to repulse him? Some intuition
giving her strength to flash him a single alluring moonlit glance?

But suddenly he had enwrapped her in his arms. Kissing her,
murmuring love and lust....

This was our chance. But we did not know it then. A very chaos of
diverse action so suddenly was precipitated upon this balcony!

Don and I cried out and heedlessly leaped forward. The tiny beams of
the guards swung up. But they did not reach us, for the guards
themselves were stricken into horror. The shot from a far-distant
warship screamed past. But that went almost unheeded. Tako had
shouted, and the guards impulsively turned so that their beams
missed Don and me.

Tolla had flung herself upon Tako and Jane. Screaming, she tore at
them and all in an instant rose to her feet. Tako's cylinder, which
she had snatched, was in her hand. She flashed it on as Don and I
reached her.

* * * * *

The guards for that instant could not fire for we were all
intermingled. Don stumbled in his rush and fell upon Tako and Jane,
and in a moment rose as the giant Tako lifted him and tried to cast
him off.

My rush flung me against Tolla. She was babbling, mouthing frenzied
laughs of hysteria. Her beam pointed downward, but as she reeled
from the impact of my rush, the beam swung up; missed me, narrowly
missed the swaying bodies of Tako and Don, and struck one of the
guards who was standing, undecided what to do. It clung to him for a