I caught the hard swift voice of Kel Aran, rapping aside into the ship's phones: "Rogo! Hold the generators ready!" The deep voice boomed on from the telescreen: "But you won't get your grog on this planet! For it is quarantined and condemned, by edict of the Emperor. All intercourse and communication is prohibited, until the planet has been destroyed." "Destroyed?" The voice of Kel Aran held desperate alarm. "The Earth destroyed!" Then he remembered the space-rat's servile whine. "For what cause, sir?" The official voice thumped again: "There is rumor of a secret weapon on the Earth, kept hidden against Malgarth since the Master Robot was made by the scientist Barihorn. There is no truth to it, of course--a million years have proved that Malgarth is truly invulnerable. But the rumor is spread by this renegade Earthman, the Falcon, to incite rebellion. "To end the rumor, therefore, to punish the Falcon, and to remove any possibility that the rebels have a secret base upon the Earth--for those three reasons, the Emperor has decreed the destruction of the planet. You'll get no grog on the Earth! "And more, space-rats--if your little tub is caught within ray-range of the fleet again, you'll be burned on suspicion of piracy, sedition, and rebellion!" The communicator thumped and became silent. I fought the drowsy weakness that had followed my long, long sleep. I tried to follow the last desperate attempt of Kel Aran to reach the doomed Earth. Through strained, hasty words and the sounds that came to my bunk, I traced the outline of events. He retreated, in seeming obedience to the space-commander. He landed the _Barihorn_ upon a tiny asteroid whose orbit would take us to sunward of the Earth; clung hidden in a fissure of stone, waiting to be carried through the space fleet. But the Earth was wrapped again in that puzzling haze--and snatched toward the Sun! Reckless of the guarding fleet, Kel Aran left the asteroid, which was suddenly far behind, and raced after the Earth. From one of the red guarding stars stabbed a narrow lance of blue--a barytron beam whose finger of destruction reached out a million miles. * * * * * Side by side at the controls, Kel Aran and Jeron Roc fought desperately to avoid it. We escaped the core of the ray. But its edge touched the _Barihorn_. A hammer of fiery doom! The impact of terrific energies hurled us backward. The whole ship flamed with blue electric flame; the air stung with ozone. And the whining of our engines ceased. "Power!" I heard the pleading voice of Kel Aran. "We've got to have power--the Earth is almost to the Sun!" "By the livid liver of the Emperor," came the plaintive voice of Rogo Nug from somewhere aft, "the overload burned out the converter circuit. There is no power!" "The Earth!" There was stark, hopeless horror in the voice of Kel Aran. "What can we do?"