* * * * * Apparently as unconcerned as though he had not just listened to a scheme for almost total depopulation of the world, the destruction of millions upon millions of lives, Sarka the First had dismissed Dalis--who had straightway used all his offices to arouse the world of science against the first Sarka. But, when the two days of grace given by Dalis had passed, there were no oceans--for Sarka the First had been planning for a century against the time when the earth must of necessity be over-populated, and had worked and slaved in his laboratory against the contingency which had developed. He had smiled, though there was a trace of fear on his face after Dalis had left, for _his_ scheme had been worked out--not to destroy, but to save! And from this same laboratory in which Sarka now sat and pondered on the next step in man's expansion, Sarka the First had, in fear and trembling at first, but with his confidence growing by leaps and bounds, worked his own miracle. Untold millions and billions of rays, whose any portion of which, coming in contact with water, immediately separated its hydrogen and oxygen, thus disintegrating its molecules, were hurled forth from their store-houses beneath the laboratory, across the faces of the mighty oceans of Earth.... And when men saw the miracle, they rushed into the mighty valleys where the oceans had been, and began to build new homes! * * * * * That had been centuries ago--scores of centuries. Now all the earth, all the livable part of the earth, above its surface--and below it to the depths of miles--was filled with people, like bees in a monster hive, like ants of antiquity in their warrened hills. And there was no place now that they could go. So they fought among themselves for the right to live. "But my grandfather was right!" Sarka almost screamed it, speaking aloud in the silence of his laboratory. "My grandfather was right! Dalis was wrong! Science should be the science of Life, not of Death! Yet whither shall we go! Where now shall we find places for our people who are daily being born in myriads, to live, and love and flourish?" But there was no answer. Only the humming of the perpetually revolving Beryl, which showed to the sad eyes of Sarka that the people of his beloved earth were rushing onward to Chaos, unless.... "If only I could be sure about Jaska!" he moaned. "If only my courage were as great as that of which I stand in need! For if I fail, even Dalis, had he succeeded with that scheme of his in grandfather's time, would be less a monster, less a criminal!" CHAPTER III _The Spokesmen of the Gens_