Part 2

"George." She was biting her lips. "You know that I'm not going to be able to live through this."

"You may change your mind, dear."

"No, darling, I can't live with the horrible thoughts that keep running through my mind. You know how much I've always loved and admired you, and now, after what you've done--" She fumbled in her purse and brought out a tiny metal rod. "I'm going to shoot myself."

He stared at her gravely. "Not now. Wait, dear."

"Through this agony? Why prolong it?"

"Because I need you." It was the most effective argument he could have used. "You know that I won't be able to live without you. Wait till I finish my work. And then, if you haven't changed your mind, shoot me along with yourself."

"I couldn't--"

"I can." He took the tiny weapon away from her. "When I have turned the Pleasure Planet finally over to the Hops, and given a few more orders, my work will be done. If you still want to die after that, I'll shoot you and myself." He looked into her eyes. "I promise, you, dear. And even the Hops know that I carry out my promises," he added bitterly.

He took her in his arms and kissed her, the weapon still in his right hand. Then he put it in a drawer of his desk, and returned to his work.

* * * * *

The minutes passed slowly. He looked up, startled, as the excited voice of his secretary came to him, without the warning bell that should have preceded it. "Mr. Everson! There's been a massacre! The Hops--they've slaughtered thousands! It was completely unprovoked--"

The tiny dot of the Pleasure Planet was almost touching the circumference of the Hop stronghold. He sighed, and dropped his pen.

"They're not even waiting," said Ada, in a choked voice.

"I thought we'd be spared this."

"Spared! They meant to slaughter us from the beginning, and you only made things easier for them!"

He tried to put his arm around her, but she shook it off. "You knew what would happen, George. I've seen too much--"

It was only out of a corner of his eye that he saw her hand steal into the desk drawer and come out with the weapon.

He leaped at her, twisting her arm with brutal efficiency. She cried out as she dropped the weapon, and then she covered her eyes, the tears flowing freely at last.

And it was at that moment that everything happened.

A blaze of light spread across the heavens from the Hop planet. It blotted out the moon and dazzled their eyes in one blinding flash. And then it was gone, and when their dazed eyes could see again, they saw that where there had been the Hop planet was nothing.

Everson leaped to his row of visors.

"We were right!" he shouted excitedly. "My God, how right we were!" And his fingers trembled as they swept across one button after another.

"Clayton!" he barked. "Wipe out the Hop occupation troops in your sector. No, I haven't gone crazy. You have the equipment to do it with. Go ahead and do it. They won't get reinforcements. Djervas, get rid of the Hop troops in Sector C. Zalmette, Goran, Halkim--"

He spoke so rapidly that the names became a blur of sound. But the orders were clear enough, and from the reports that began to come in, it was clear also that they were being carried out.

Arthur came into the office. He had been near the Star Building when it happened, and tears were streaming down his face. "The people are crying in the streets," he said huskily. "All the announcers on all the communication systems seem to have gone crazy. But it's hard to believe. What happened, Dad? A nuclear explosion?"

"There wasn't any explosion."

"But we saw it with our own eyes!"

"You don't know what you saw. That wasn't an explosion, it was a collapse. Remember, Arthur, what I told you of Hop science? That they had neglected what they regarded as theoretical and useless branches?"

"You say their planet collapsed?"

"Yes, that's the clue. It was calculated long ago that when the mass of a body exceeded a certain maximum, the force of gravity would overcome those structural forces that tended to maintain the existence of ordinary types of matter. Ordinary molecules would collapse, and even atoms and nuclei, as we know them, would be unable to maintain their separate existence. The whole mass would fall into a single, compact, giant molecule."

"I seem to remember something we were taught in school. Vaguely, though."

"Yes, it's a commonplace to us now. But the twentieth century astrophysicists were tremendously excited by their discovery at first, although their original calculations were considerably off the mark, as far as the mass required was concerned. We've fixed a more accurate figure since then.

"Through the course of millennia, as a result of conquest and loot, the mass of their planet grew. Our astronomers calculated that it wasn't far from its critical collapse mass. And so as we couldn't hope to win in a direct struggle, our own hope was to build up that mass until the collapse actually took place. That's why we were in such a hurry to send them our heaviest equipment."

His wife said painfully, "And you couldn't have let me know--not even hinted--"

"No, dear. We couldn't afford to take any chances. Not even the members of the Council were informed."

Arthur said, in a voice he couldn't control, "And all the time, everyone was calling you a traitor--even I. How can you ever forgive us?"

"No forgiveness is necessary. That was a necessary part of the plan, which helped convince the Hops that we had nothing up our sleeves." He put his arms around his wife, and then said sharply, "Come, Arthur, don't _you_ collapse!"