He had an atomic-cannon mounted on his ship, _New Frontiers_, but what good was it? He could not get to it--the Beast People surrounded the valley and would nail him the moment he appeared over the rim. A small platform extended from the ego-transposer, midway up, and to this he climbed via a ladder depending from it. A bucket seat was anchored to the flooring. He dropped in it and began studying the instruments before him. Outside of two silver-beaded screens, the fixtures were simple ones and quite easy to understand. Yet, his manipulations brought no results. Long after night fell, he worked with the machine, and when done, he left with the knowledge that he was its master. The troublemaker turned out to be a broken wire; simple, yet it had stumped the Wronged Ones. The plainest things are often the hardest to see. The other machine defied solution. Kac had told him that it, too, had been captured from the Beast People, who avowed that it generated rays beneficial to vegetable and animal life. Gene learned definitely, though, that it was the cause of Earth's plight. The working of it was beyond him, but this much he knew. This, then, was the traitorous Beast People's way of exacting vengeance--by deliberately misinforming their captors as to the machine's purpose. Too, they had tampered with some vital part, making it impossible to shut off the power. There was no guessing how long it had been sending that deadly ray through space, slowly disintegrating all metallic matter in its path. In a few years, maybe months, metal molecules would be drawn so far apart that every structure on Earth would collapse under its own weight. He thought his brain would burst, so many troubles did it hold. To add to them, Kac brought word that the Beast People were massing for another attack. This would be the final battle, with no surcease till one or the other of the clashing forces fell in decisive defeat--and Gene knew with dread that it could only be the Wrong Ones who would go down. V The onslaught came the next day. Hundreds of the Beast People poured into the valley--screaming, gibbering, eager to taste blood. They moved over the rocky surface like some evil blight cast up from the uttermost depths of Hell. Gene's oil trick would not work now, for there was no oil with which to carry it through. The plants from which it was obtained grew outside the valley, and no one had dared venture forth to pluck them. The tribe would not be in misery much longer. The warriors had thrown up a stone barricade in front of the caves, and from behind this they looked out upon the fast-approaching horde. Not a man among them looked with fear, but with contempt and detestation for the vermin that came to crush them.