"Never fear, my sweetness," replies the chieftain of the four hundred and ninety-nine. "We will win out. Earth science shall triumph. The hemisphere is just makeshift, to hold him in one spot for a minute or two. Earth'll really get going in a sec. Earth is insuperable. Classicism he wanted and classicism he'll get. Remember the first Achilles? He had a vulnerable spot. His heel!" The lost look was replaced by a malevolent grin, sage and content. "Achilles Maravain has a heel, too. It couldn't be protected by the force-wall, could it? He doesn't walk on an inch of apparent nothingness does he? No. He's vulnerable, just as his Homeric predecessor. And we don't have to use clumsy poisoned arrows on this"--sneering emphasis--"heel." A wild laugh. "We just throw a shot of good old electricity into him." On the dais, the violent, raging figure of John Smith, alias Achilles Maravain, colossus of the classics, exponent of the ages, Caesar omnipotent, stiffens convulsively as a couple of hundred thousand volts of electricity crisps his flesh. For a long moment, what is left of him remains upright. Then, quietly it falls. Achilles number two seeks out his illustrious predecessor in Elysia.