Kyrsis cried: "Now I know you are truly mad, not just a fool, if you think you can fight both my people and Quos Reggar here on Gadar with the crew of a single ship!" Shane said: "We're leaving now," and levered back the hatches. Again he fired a burst from the proton cannon to clear the way ... saw the shaft's walls vibrate with its violence. The _Chonya_ ship hurtled down the huge volcanic pipe like a shooting star. Barely in time, it braked and based upon the ramp. Before she could read his thoughts, Shane snatched up Kyrsis bodily and raced through the smouldering pronic rubble to the _Chonya_ craft. "Blast!" he shouted, and swung aboard; and almost before the hatches were shut, the ship was in the air again, lancing up into the sky. The commander said: "Where now, _Gar_ Shane? What are your orders?" * * * * * The Earthman laughed harshly. "Send out the word to break the Federation fleet into squadrons, each to stay far from the others, and all to strike at Gadar. We'll see how many meteor swarms our friends down there can muster!" "And the rest of us--the _Malyas_, _Chonyas_--?" "You'll follow me," Shane said. He took the jet-globe. "I'll set the course." Kyrsis' eyes were like great violet flames. "Pay him no heed, _Chonya_!" she cried hoarsely. "Kill him! Lock him away! He is of Earth, and he has gone mad with fear for his homeland! He takes you there to try to battle another, greater meteor swarm! It will be the death of all of you!" The _Chonya_ glanced curiously at her in her disarray, then looked into the visiscreen, the jet-globe. "A _Chonya_ holds no fear of death, Silver One," he observed, iron-steady. "Besides, our course is set for Jupiter, not Earth." "Jupiter--!" the woman cried, and now a new note of panic was in her voice. She clutched Shane's arm. "Why Jupiter, Earthman? Why?" "Not Jupiter, Kyrsis, but one of Jupiter's moons," Shane answered thinly. "You see? There it lies in the visiscreen." "Jupiter V--!" the silver woman whispered. "No, Shane! No--!" "Yes, Kyrsis!" the Earthman came back coldly. "Jupiter V, the place where Reggar held me prisoner. And the satellite closest to the planet, a satellite heaped twelve levels deep with power converters." "No, no--" Relentlessly, Shane hammered on: "Who was it wanted all that power? Who built that great Paulsini unit? Not any slaver, surely! No, that took skill and science and years of work. And when it was done, your people had more power than the world had ever known--power drawn from the endless seas of energy of Jupiter's great Red Spot, the heat of oceans of flaming hydrogen, the force that lies congealed in gases held under such pressures that they turn to solids, all turned somehow to your use by those new converters that I saw there."