nized
from their pictures. The Supreme Council. They were plenty worried.
Strogoff was chewing his mustache; Vargas drummed nervously with thick
fingers. Cunningham and Osborn were pacing the floor.

"Thank heaven for one thing," Osborn said. Vargas looked up at him
quickly, his dark eyes slits in his swarthy face.

"For what?" Vargas asked bitterly.

"That there has been no panic. Urban evacuations are proceeding
quietly."

"I still think it could have been some natural phenomenon," Case
interrupted. "Even a terrific bolt of lightning."

Cranly's big shoulders lifted as a recorder was wheeled into the room.
He indicated where the machine was to be set down.

"We've wasted a little time in letting you make these guesses," he told
Case. "All for a reason. We want you to realize fully what sort of
weapon we are up against. Now listen to this message that was beamed
onto the Council's private line a few minutes after the blast."

He went to the recorder and tripped a lever. The instrument settled to a
low whine that soon disappeared as the recording tape entered the
converter. The voice might have been in the room with them.

"To the Supreme Council of the Planet Earth: What happened to New York
was only a token of what can be done to your entire planet. Our terms
are complete and unconditional surrender, to be telecast within one
week. To hasten your decision, there will be other tokens at twelve-hour
intervals."

"Now you know," Cranly said heavily. "Either give up or be destroyed.
And that ultimatum from an enemy which has no compunction about
murdering ten million people to prove its power."

A thousand questions jumped to Case Damon's mind. The horror of the
thing stilled most of them. He checked over possibilities quickly.

"You say many people outside of New York saw the flash. What about
skyports, observatories, the fleet base on the Moon? Did they try to get
a triangulation?"

"I can see why Cranly wanted you here," Vargas said, smiling faintly.
His own people had been the last to join the Unified Council. He had
held out to the last, had demanded and received concessions, but he was
considered one of the Council's ablest men.

"Naturally there were attempts at fixing the source of the flash," he
continued. "Had those attempts met with success the fleet would already
be on its way."

"I don't get it," Case said bluntly. "If they attempted triangulation,
they must have got it."

"Precisely," Cra