Part 6

When the thunderous response had died down in waves of overpowering sound, Aladdian stood in silence for several moments; in silence, too, the Venusian multitude remained with upturned faces. Mark had an eerie feeling that a _Planet_ was in tune with the fragile, winged figure.

When the connection had been broken, and once more the laboratory had reverted to semi-gloom, Mark turned to Carston and removed his weapons from him. "I can't take any chances with you now," he said coldly, "after what you've done. You wanted to become a hero in the eyes of the Earth Council. Well, from now on you'll dance to my tune."

"But not for long!" Carston sneered openly, recovering his poise and confidence. "The game's up, Denning; you're a renegade to Earth and shall be treated as such. It'll be child's play for Earth's fleet to burn Luhor and his asteroid to a crisp. After that--" He stopped and grinned contemptuously.

"After that, we'll be taken care of?" It was Aladdian who spoke, and her voice was soft like dark molten gold. "Careful, Mark," she interposed quickly, placing her hand on Mark's arm as his grip tightened on the electro.

"_I_ don't deserve any lenience," Cynthia said dully. "I've been a fool."

Aladdian gazed at the Earth-girl with a universe of pity in her eyes, and a great understanding. "No, my dear," she said softly, "not a fool. Only a girl in love."

"But you!" she lashed at Carston. "You shall reap the whirlwind; and I assure you, a Venusian whirlwind is beyond your ken!"

XI

"No sign of the asteroid!" Mark Denning's voice was harsh as he addressed the restless group of men milling in front of the laboratory. "We've picked up Earth's fleet, that is all; it's now proceeding beyond the orbit of Mars. Come in and watch if you wish, but it may be hours yet."

The clang and clamor of the furnaces had long ago ceased, as Vulcan awaited the outcome of the space struggle that would mean so much to them all. Since Carston's betrayal had become known, the men had discussed the situation from every angle. Paradoxically they hoped for Luhor's victory, so that _they_ could deal with the Martian half-breed. At the very worst, death was better than Paradim, which surely awaited them again if Earth won in this crisis.

As Earth's fleet in awesome array, advanced toward the asteroid's position which Cynthia had given, Aladdian kept a ceaseless vigil at the televise. In far off N'Vaarl, the palace grounds were a sea of upturned Venusian faces intent upon their screen. Dar Vaajo sat brooding on his barbaric throne on Mars, his craggy face dark with passion, thinking of the upstart Luhor who had wrecked his plans. Within the austere Council chamber of Earth, the Coordinator paced to and fro before the screen, while the awed Council didn't dare to stir. It hadn't been hard for the ethero-screens of each world to pick out the flaming majesty of Earth's fleet, and they had followed its progress for hours. The meteoric speed seemed a snail's pace, across the respective televise panels.

"Look!" Aladdian cried, spilling the cup of hot concentrate Cynthia had brought to her.

With electrifying suddenness, the scene in the panel had leaped to vivid life. Concentric whorls of green, disintegrating light flashed from all units of Earth's fleet simultaneously, merging into a single appalling cloud that preceded the fleet itself. To the watchers, the spread of the light seemed slow, but it must have encompassed thousands of miles.

"But why?" Aladdian breathed, even as she twisted the dials trying to center the scene more perfectly. "They're not within hours of the asteroid belt, and they will only give their position away to Luhor!"

Carston, Mark and the others had come crowding into the room to watch the scene. Carston whispered, exultantly, "That green light is radio-active disintegrating energy! It merges with whatever it touches, unbalancing the atomic structure of metal. Wait'll they envelop Luhor's asteroid in that!"

"Yes, I know it well," Aladdian murmured. "They used it in the long war against Venus. But there is a neutralizing force now, which even Earth does not know. George Marnik developed it, right here on Vulcan Base."

Carston's lips curled, but he said nothing. The sight of Earth's mighty armada sweeping forward on its mission had instilled him with a swaggering confidence. They continued to watch the scene in silence, even as the Earth Council and the people of Venus and Dar Vaajo on Mars were watching.

Still the Fleet swept forward. Minutes passed. The greenish half-circle of light preceded it, beating back the darkness, expanding unimaginable distances as though reaching out greedy hands.

Then suddenly Aladdian's words came true.

* * * * *

From a point in space far in advance of the Fleet, a tiny white beam of light became visible. It reached out like a slashing saber, swiftly expanding and closing the gap of darkness. It came from the asteroid itself, now revealed to the watchers for the first time--merely a tiny dark mass that seemed to move forward with infinite caution against the Fleet.

"There it is!" Mark breathed. "Luhor's carried his plan through! He's made a rogue asteroid of it, moved it clear out of the belt--"

Words ceased, as they watched the preliminary maneuvers. The asteroid's slashing saber of white touched the disintegrating power of the green. But it was the green that disintegrated! Slowly, almost carressingly, the pale beam moved across the advancing blanket of light. Where it touched, the green dissolved magically as though it had never been.

"That's what I meant. The etheric inertia ray!" Aladdian's murmur was tinged with exultation, as she sensed Carston standing beside her taut with surprise.

Still the Earth Fleet moved forward in battle formation, in staggered horizontal tiers. Impelled by the terrific momentum, it depended upon maneuverability to escape the impending danger. But, inexorably, the asteroid moved forward also, as if hungry to meet its enemy. Limned behind its own ghastly light, it was revealed as a leisurely rotating mass of rock and mineral, with jagged pinnacles reaching out and deep black gullies agape.

A blinding lance of electric blue lashed from Earth's Flagship, like a probing finger searching for a weak point. It stabbed Luhor's white ray and ended in a corruscating upheaval of incandescent light. The asteroid was very close now; it seemed as if nothing could prevent that sidereal mass, some ten miles in diameter, from plowing through the tiers of Earth Spacers.

But in that veritable moment when disaster seemed certain, Earth's massed fleet executed one of the most spectacular feats of navigation the Universe had ever witnessed. The units literally _broke apart_ and moved outward into a perfect cone-like formation, with the base, or open end, toward the asteroid. Again the green radiance, from all sides now, went out to envelop the asteroid in a glaucous sheath, as the dark mass drifted into the trap.

"This is it!" Carston gloated hoarsely. "Now watch your asteroid crumble!" The others said nothing. All were tense, as the tiny ten-mile world entered the open end of the cone to what seemed certain destruction. Now the white etheric inertia ray lashed out savagely again, sweeping in swift arcs, but failed to dispel the concentrated waves of green fire.

Then from the surface of the dark world, Luhor's own space fleet arose--six cruisers only, dwarfed in size by some of Earth's larger ships. With blinding speed, the six allotropic cruisers headed for the closing jaws of the trap.

* * * * *

The Earth Commander was not prepared for such acceleration. It was unbelievable. He had little time to think, as Luhor's cruisers blasted with the raking fire of electro-cannon at close range. Three Earth ships went hurtling end over end through the void, ripped from stern to bow. Impervious to the wild fire of Earth's Fleet, the allotropic cruisers plowed on. Two Earth cruisers at the jaws of the trap were unable to maneuver in time. Luhor's ships in a straight line hit them head-on, plowed through them and out again, leaving behind a tangled wreck of twisted girders and scattered debris.

Luhor's six ships were out of the trap now, and they wheeled in a mighty arc, hung chain-poised as though to watch.

Behind, the now glowing asteroid erupted the real destruction. This had been Luhor's plan from the first. The balance of men taken from Paradim Swamp, left on the bleak little world to fight for their lives, now released hidden rocket tubes that blasted in perfectly spaced rotation. The rocky world began to spin, as it plunged ponderously forward. Bank upon bank of electro-cannon lashed out like uncurled blue lightning. Atomite bombs burst among Earth's fleet which surrounded this deadly pinwheel. In less than a minute Earth's vast armada was completely disorganized, space became a shambles of ripped metal plates, twisted rocket tubes and blasted hulls.

Like a livid, craggy corner of hell running rampant, the rogue asteroid spun faster and faster, spewing annihilation. But this was its death throes. The concentrated disintegrating glow had taken effect, and could not now be stopped. The craggy world began to crumble in great masses of rock and metal like a leprous organism. The few remaining units of the Earthian fleet tried desperately to escape the disintegrating lethal mass--but behind them now, at a safe distance from it all, Luhor's ships barred the way. Pitilessly his electro-cannon raked them, impervious to their erratic salvos. His Flagship with its impossible speed darted among them like a cosmic scimitar, until barely half a dozen of Earth's former armada were able to flee in scattered disarray.

Half a dozen, out of more than a hundred. Contemptuously, Luhor did not even deign to pursue.

Where an immense battle fleet and a dwarf world had battled for supremacy in space, now only shattered metal fragments and a disintegrated rain of mineral and rock remained veiled by cosmic darkness.

XII

It had been too much and too sudden for speech. Aladdian was on her feet now, even she was still gripped by the awe of the vast debacle. Mark watched Ernest Carston stumble dazedly from the Laboratory room, the appalling horror in his eyes betraying how intimately Earth's tragedy was his. He'd sent them out there to conquer, and they had remained to die. No one spoke. The crowding men who'd hoped for a victory by Luhor, even turned away before the magnitude of his power.

The laboratory on Vulcan reflected in miniature the shocked silence of four worlds. They'd seen the mightiest armada of all time reduced to nothing in a space of minutes.

Aladdian was the first to act. With the same beam, through which they'd watched the holocaust, she contacted Earth. She tuned the Council chamber where gray faces looked to the Coordinator in bewilderment and fear. But the Coordinator, stricken to the depths of his narrow soul, was incapable of speech. In the oppressive silence Aladdian's winged figure materialized on the screen.

"I greet you, Earthians, for the last time." Her molten voice had overtones of sadness. "You have seen your mighty fleet destroyed. Earth is defenseless. Luhor is on his way to Earth."

"How--how do you know?" The Coordinator was moved to speech now, galvanized into life by a more immediate fear!

"How? Because I am right now in telepathic contact with Luhor's mind."

"We shall fight to the end!"

"Yes, I expected that of you. You would condemn Earth to the same fate as your Fleet. Awaken, Earthmen! No weapon that you have can destroy allotropic metal. You have seen Luhor's ships slice through your vessels as if they were paper. You're at his mercy now."

Aladdian allowed her words to sink while she widened the beam to include Mars and Venus as well as Earth, that her voice might carry to the entire Federation.

"I am not speaking to you only, now, but to three worlds whose fate depends on your decision. Agree to what I ask, and the danger from Luhor will be eliminated."

"What do you ask?" The Coordinator's voice came through as a mere whisper.

"Three things only. Absolute liberation of Venus and Mars, which means equal representation at the Tri-Planetary Federation Council. Complete abolishment of the inhuman Swamp of Paradim. And Venus to retain Vulcan with its allotropic metal as a measure of final safety. Agree to these points before the assembled peoples of the inhabited planets who are listening now, and Luhor shall never reach Earth."

On Mars and Earth and Venus her winged figures were reflected, while her voice cadenced in the ears of untold millions.

"First," came the Coordinator's voice, "how are _you_ to prevent that fiend Luhor from pursuing his course? And second, what guarantees will we have that Venus will not build more of the allotropic cruisers to attack?" Although white and shaken, the Coordinator could still snarl.

"I will answer your second question first. As you well know, Venus has never in all her history resorted to war. Rather than kill," her voice became bitter, "we submitted to Earth's cruel domination. We saw the inhuman Prison Swamp spring into being, for greed of the Josmian pearls; death and persecution for the sake of power. I even personally suffered this!" She held up her wings whose tendons had been cut. "Yet despite it all, history does not record murder by Venusians. _That_, Earthian, is your guarantee that we shall keep the peace. As to Luhor, I and I alone can stop him now. This is an offered chance you may take or leave. Remember, Luhor's fleet has ten times the speed of Earth's fastest vessel, and will be there sooner than you suppose. Think fast, Earthian!"

"Think also," Mark interposed in a voice of steel, "that here on Vulcan we have the allotropic metal, the means to work it, and the men to build our own cruisers if we so desire!"

"I accept," the Coordinator said sullenly. Despite his fear and helpless rage, he could only envisage defeat and destruction should Luhor arrive at Earth. As for Aladdian on Vulcan stopping the mad half-breed, he did not see how it was possible; but he had nothing further to lose by agreeing. With a gesture, he ordered the Council to draw up a pact.

Four worlds watched the signatures grow one by one. Then, and not until then, did Aladdian play her last card as she brought Venus into focus.

"_NOW!_"

* * * * *

The single word was the last she uttered as she opened her arms. Her people were ready. They knew the sacrifice.

Millions of miles away an entire _Planet_, as if it had been a single cosmic mind, concentrated on Luhor's fleet. A mighty stream of thought flowed out, vast but intangible. Wave upon wave, directed by Aladdian, the accumulated thought-vibrations beat ceaselessly upon the minds of Luhor and his men. And on Venus, slowly, here and there a winged figure fell and lay still, its mind sapped by the prodigious effort that knew no bounds. But the knowledge that Aladdian, their Princess, who directed the combined flow, was under an infinitely greater mental strain than any of them individually, gave them added inspiration.

Aladdian had long since made all the others, even Mark, leave the Laboratory. She maintained her vigil and efforts alone. On her magnum screen, which had shifted to cosmic space, the six invulnerable vessels continued their purposeful route toward Earth. Serenely they sped.

But suddenly, with an odd twist, one of the Spacers plunged headlong without warning into a sister ship. Both exploded into a cataract of flame. Another wavered, wheeled, then plunged toward outer space at vertiginous speed, to disappear in a dwindling dot of silver. Of the remaining three, one began to fire broadsides against the others, then rotated over and over out of control, while air-locks opened and figures leaped out to instantaneous death in the frigidity of space. It was a scene of silent horror.

But while scores died in space, hundreds died on Venus at the magnitude of the effort. Still the Venusian populace of millions concentrated in purposeful silence.

A sense of madness unleashed stole into the laboratory room where Aladdian stood alone, motionless and white-faced. She scarcely breathed. Her blue eyes were dilated. On the screen now only one cruiser remained. Not until then did Aladdian move, her hand reaching out automatically to the dials. A second later the interior of Luhor's cruiser lay revealed.

The huge half-breed had held out to the last. He'd realized what was happening, knew that the thought-power of an entire telepathic nation was reaching out across vast distances of space, the ghastly vibration of madness battering against the brains of his men. Now even Luhor began to succumb, his brutal face contorted by spasms of demoniac evil. His crew of men around him were already insane. A few sobbed monotonously on their knees, rocking from side to side. Others were already dead. One crewman was absorbed in daintily flaying another with a bright, keen penknife, while the rest were systematically destroying the ship and each other.

In the midst of the scene, Luhor's face went suddenly grey and blank. He drew his electro-pistol and like a man possessed, used it methodically about him until only he remained alive. It was then that Aladdian used her last remaining strength, directing Luhor like an automaton to the controls, where he remained frozen. The vessel heeled in space and changed course, heading away from Earth now, speeding directly sunward toward Vulcan Base.

Within the laboratory room, Aladdian swayed, her face whiter than death; she grasped at the instrument panel for support, but her fingers closed on air, as she crumpled to the floor.

XIII

She was barely conscious of Mark and Cynthia and Carston seconds later, bursting into the room. And of Mark's face mirroring his anxiety as he hurried to her.

In the same instant she knew that her people's accumulative vibration had reached an apex of power, and like an avenging fury was turning _their way--centering on one person in that laboratory room_! Desperately Aladdian tried to stop it, but she was too near exhaustion and too late.

Like a concentrated, cosmic javelin of death, that stream of madness reached Carston alone. He shrieked but once, and leaped wildly, hands clutching at his temples; then he crumpled to the floor. He had been blasted to death as suddenly as if a gigantic atom-blast had drilled him between the eyes.

Not until then, could Aladdian rise wearily to her feet, assisted by Mark. Sorrowfully she looked at the figure of Carston. Already on Venus, she knew, thousands lay dead, and perhaps hundreds more had died in this final vengeful effort.

"They could not forget," she said sadly, "that it was Carston who hounded me throughout the System to result in my imprisonment at Paradim; and that it was he who cut the tendons of my wings."

She still clung to Mark's arm, half-supported by him. But despite her utter weariness and all she had gone through, Aladdian still had eyes for Cynthia, who stood there, a forlorn, shattered figure, staring down at the body of Carston.

"Do not mind too much, my dear." Aladdian's voice and heart went out in pity to the Earth girl. "In a short time you will forget all that has happened here. Come with us to Venus, I know you will find happiness there."

"With us?" It was Mark who spoke, his voice a bare whisper of hope.

"Yes, Mark." Aladdian smiled at him, the impish smile he had known in Paradim. Then from the recesses of her tunic she drew forth a gleaming, iridescent pearl.

"The purple Josmian!" Mark gasped. "The one I found in the Swamp. I'd forgotten about it!"

"I kept it for you, Mark, knowing I would need it for this moment. From lower species to middle order," her smile was impish again, "is not bad for an Earthman. Take the Josmian now, it's yours; with it I elevate you to the highest order and--"

But she said no more, for within Mark's arms she was deciding he wasn't much taller than the average Venusian; no, not a great deal taller, at all.