nto a harmless substance. He urges them to gas
Earth humanity out of existence, call upon the other cities of this
world, and presently move through the Tube to Earth. They'll carry
their food-plants, rebuild their cities, and abandon this planet to
the jungles and the Ragged Men. And the hell of it is, they can do
it!"

A sudden approving buzz went through the Council hall.

CHAPTER VII

_The Fleet from Rahn_

The approval of the citizens of Yugna was not enthusiastic. It was
desperate. Their faces were weary. Their lives were warped. They had
been fighting since birth against the encroachment of the jungle,
which until the days of their grandparents had been no menace at all.
But for two generations these people had been foredoomed, and they
knew it. Nearly half the cities of their race were overwhelmed and
their inhabitants reduced to savage hunters in the victorious jungles.
Now the people of Yugna saw a chance to escape from the jungle. They
were offered rest. Peace. Relaxation from the desperate need to serve
insatiable machines. Sheer desperation impelled them. In their
situation, the people of Earth would annihilate a solar system for
relief, let alone the inhabitants of a single planet.

Shouts began to be heard above the uproar in the Council
hall--approving shouts, demands that one be appointed to conduct the
operation which was to give them a new planet on which to live, where
their food-plants would thrive in the open, where jungles would no
longer press on them.

Tommy's face went savage and desperate, itself. He clenched and
unclenched his hands, struggling among his meagre supply of words for
promises of help from Earth, which promises would tip the scales for
peace again. He raised his voice in a shout for attention. He was
unheard. The Council hall was in an uproar of desperate approval. The
orator stood flushed and triumphant. The Council members looked from
eye to eye, and slowly the old, white-bearded Keeper of Foodstuffs
placed a golden box upon the table. He touched it in a certain
fashion, and handed it to the next man. That second man touched it,
and passed it to a third. And that man....

* * * * *

A hush fell instantly. Tommy understood. The measure was being decided
by solemn vote. The voting device had reached the fifth man when there
was a frantic clatter of footsteps, a door burst in, and babbling men
stood in the opening, white-faced and