ommitted me! Yet--your will is
my law as you know--though I feel that some day it will involve us in
disaster.... You, Tara, will not be punished, much as you deserve it."
He paused, then said as an afterthought: "You, Jac Hallen, I thank you
for what you tried to do in thwarting the attack. You acted in very
clumsy fashion--but, at least, you doubtless did your best." Gravely he
turned to Wolfgar. "I shall not forget, Wolfgar, that, in an emergency,
you saved the life of Lady Elza.... Enough! These are busy moments. You
chose an awkward time to raise this turmoil. Come with me--all of you."

He summoned Argo and two other guards. Unceremoniously, and with more
haste than I had ever seen in Tarrano, he led us from the building. A
hint of his purpose came to me, as he bade Elza gather up her few
personal belongings, and gave them to a guard to carry.

In a group, he herded us across the spider bridge. It was early evening,
but night had fully fallen. The city was ablaze with its colored lights.
We crossed the bridge, passed through a tunnel-arcade, and came out to a
platform which was at the base of a skeleton tower. Its naked girders
rose some seven hundred feet above us. The highest structure in the
city. A waiting lifting-car was there. We entered, and it shot us
upward.

At the top, the narrowed structure was enclosed into a single room some
thirty feet square. A many-windowed room, with a small metal balcony
surrounding it outside. Immediately above the room, at the very peak of
the tower, was a single, powerful light-beam; its silver searching ray
swept the cloudless, starry sky in a slow circle.

The room was crowded with instruments. Unlighted, save by the reflected
glow of its many image-mirrors, all of which seemed in full operation. A
dozen intent men sat at the tables; a silent room, but for the hum and
click of the instruments.

Tarrano said softly: "We have been very busy while you below were
engaged with your petty hates."

He seated himself at a table apart, upon which was a single mirror, and
he gathered us around him. The mirror was dark. He called:

"Rax--let me see Mars--you have them by relay? The Hill City?"

The mirror flashed on. From an aperture overhead, a tiny beam of the
blue helio-transformer came down to it. In the mirror I saw an image of
the familiar Hill City. A terraced slope, dotted with the cubical
buildings, spires and tunnel mouths. An empty channel[15] curved down
across th