His detector rang again, and Guy saw a small Terran ship approaching. Its turrets jerked forward, and Guy's thumb hit the button. The _Loki_ bucked to avoid the discharge of the AutoMacs, but the velocity of the Terran was too high to swerve. It ran into the floating vortex and went dead, at full velocity, on and on into the nothing of the sky. It was picked up later by Ertinians, who added it to their captured fleet. And Guy, knowing that his life might control the future of billions of lives, hardened. Friend or foe, all must fall before him until he had reached the end of this phase of his life. If he fell, the Solar System itself might never recover from the outcome of his failure. For Maynard, knowing his Terrans, his Martians, and also his Ertinians, could have pointed out the moves of the next five years on the fingers of his hand--and no one alive could have denied him. * * * * * From ten thousand miles above, Guy looked at Mephisto III. "Two or three aren't dangerous," muttered Guy, repeating Charalas' statement. "Please God it be three with no danger, for they will have had two!" His thumb pressed the button, and the vortex formed, whirled, and then went racing forward in a boiling toroid of energy. It spread as it went, widening swiftly and encompassing the entire moon before it wrapped itself about the ground, closing like a monstrous blanket on the far side in curlers of lightnings and fire. The vortex died, and Mephisto III was again lifeless. Guy dropped quickly, and landed the _Loki_ on the same spaceport that he had created from the hard ground years ago. He looked about him at the supplies and the ships lying mute, and shuddered at the bodies that lie a-sprawl. Then he smiled wryly and apologized mentally. There were but few of the big guns of the Terran Patrol present--but they would be a good nucleus. For now, though, Guy had work to do. XXI. Maynard looked at the ground, and wondered. It was cold--deathly cold--in spite of the years of the barrier-input. Cold enough to give him hope. Guy set his crowbar into the grave and pried. The dirt came out in lumps--the same lumps blasted long ago to create the shallow trench. The white wrappings were not soiled; the ground was frozen hard enough to prevent bits of grime from working their way into the soft cloth. The body was stiff and utterly cold beneath the wrappings, and it was more like carrying a log than a human being. But Guy took the exhumed one to the _Loki_, removed the white wrappings, and snapped on the battery of heat lamps. Losses made the air grow unbearably hot in the little cabin, but Guy worked woodenly and did not notice. He forced himself to this. The handling of a corpse--for until it showed the sign of life it was a corpse--made Guy's stomach crawl and made his hands feel as though they never would be clean again. Time and again he looked away to keep from screaming aloud.