"Carladin," Guerlan's voice was vibrant with pent-up emotion, "you've brought with you eight-hundred atomo-spacers better than anything the Inner Circle has, if the speed and strength of Perlac's atomo-spacer is a sample. There is _your_ task!" * * * * * "Not mine, Commander!" There was an edge of keen delight in the superb baritone voice of the tiny, winged figure. "I also brought with me a great warrior of space to lead my fleet. I have another task I shall relish even more! In one of my spacers, the flag-ship, are the hounds of Mother Venus, with which we hunt in the great virgin forests. One to each member of a battalion of my people ... on a fragile leash! I shall communicate with my fleet immediately, may I take one of the emergency planes?" And as Guerlan nodded assent, Carladin was gone. Guerlan wondered what the Venusian had meant by the hounds of Venus, but he was too preoccupied with the battle to care, all that mattered was that he was willing to use his fleet in accordance with the plan. "Gloriana calling.... Gloriana calling Commander Guerlan...." The monotonous iteration and reiteration of the announcer demanded attention. Perlac touched a bank of jet black keys as Guerlan said: "Come in Gloriana, report, we're listening!" "Gloriana reports a stalemate. We have gained second level, almost took the first, but the fleet is above the first level, we can't combat it. All levels cleared but the first. Gloriana sounding off." Other reports came in, but still Guerlan waited for the one thing that was imperative. And at last, through an eternity of waiting, Columbia came on the Ethero-Magnum, then like bursting flowers of fire, the atomic flashes from the emerging atomo-spacers of Venus as they launched themselves straight up into the heavens through the vertical funnel-like channel that rose from the caverns, straight up into the upper reaches of the first level. Spacer after spacer soared aloft and disappeared in the direction of Plastica. All but the last. It rose majestically upward and then, describing a parabola in midair, began to lose altitude, its atomic flashes like falling stars. And then began the most bizarre attack in the history of six planets, for as the fleet attacked the swarm of atomo-fighters and aero-tanks of the Inner Circle, the last Venusian spacer had landed outside Plastica, and a multitude of Venusians each one leading a gigantic _Calamar_, the dreaded, armored tiger of Venus, launched themselves upon the besieging Scientists of the Inner Circle that awaited the propitious moment to enter Plastica during the battle and destroy the Irreconcilables by an attack from their rear.