"Unpleasant thought! Now the Scythian plan will be modified slightly. We shall wait until we tear our globe away from yours, _far_ away, and then prime movers left behind in your ship here can pull the columns again, all five, this time. Our globe then proceeds into the Terran Confederacy, and the war will be over. But of course, you'll know nothing about that." He regarded her wearily. "I'm sorry Lyn--or is it 'Evelyn Kane'? If you had been of Tharn-blood, or even of the Scythian federacy, I would have married you." She listened to him with only half a mind. Some strange, inaudible thing was trying to reach her. Something she couldn't grasp, but ought to grasp. What had the mentors told her to be ready for? Exhaustion lay like a paralyzing blanket over her inert mind. "You killed your countryman that day," he intoned, "just to ingratiate yourself with me. He was very generous to you. When he saw that you wouldn't shoot him with his eyes open, he closed them. Who was he?" "Gordon, Lord Kane. My father." The _terif_ glass shook, and the man's face became perceptibly paler. He breathed stridently for a while before speaking again. This time he seemed to be calling with earnest finality to the forbidding deity of his own warlike homeland, announcing a newcomer at the dark portals of the god: "_This woman_...!" * * * * * Evelyn Kane did not shriek when the Faeg-bolt tore through her rib and lungs. Even when she sank to the floor, the pain-lines in her own face were much better controlled than those in Perat's. [Illustration: _She did not shriek when the bolt tore through her._] Then as she lay quietly on the thick, gilded carpet, with consciousness rapidly fading and returning with the regularity of her heart beats, she realized what had been calling to her. The piezo crystal in her waist-purse, still hidden in the shadows of her table, had been activated, and had brought into focus within the room the dim, transparent outlines of a small space ship. Perat saw it too, and his eyes widened as they traced it quickly from wall to wall. "It's real ..." whispered Evelyn between clenched lips. "Mentors wanted me ... return in it ... to Terra ... secret of pile...." A strange light was growing over Perat's face. "Of course! So that's why your father tried so hard at the last to break through our blockade and get a ship through! If the secret of the strain-pile had ever reached Terra, all the Tharn suns--indeed, the whole Scythe federation--would be novae by now! By Karos, it was a narrow thing!" There was a soft gurgling in Evelyn's throat. He flung his pistol away and sat down beside her, lifting her head to his chest. "I'll call the physician," he rasped through contorted lips. She slid a cold palm over his hot cheek, caressing it lightly. "No ... we die...." He stiffened. "_We?_" She continued to stroke his cheek dreamily. "Die with you...."