* * * * * When he had come, dragging himself like a wounded stag up the rock shelf, they stared at him in silence for a long minute. Lady Nirea at last said, "But you are dying, Revel!" "Not for a good many years," he grinned. Jerran said, "Aye, cut him a thousand times and he'll make fresh blood from that valiant heart!" John called, "Look there, Mink!" Down the dawn wind rode half a dozen golden orbs, high enough to be out of reach of their picks, low enough to observe them. Revel gritted, "Blast 'em!" "You can always shoot later, son. Let's hear what they want." Reluctantly Revel waved a crimsoned hand to stop his gunmen. The globes halted a few feet above the machine. Fingers of thought pried into the Mink's head, and automatically up went his screen. Then the cerebral prying ceased. John murmured, "They're talking to me." Revel watched the silent exchange of thoughts. What if the obscene things got hold of John's mind. Anxiously he scanned the strong face for signs of fading will. At last he could stand it no longer, and was about to order a volley, when John said, "I think that's it, Mink." "What happened?" they all asked eagerly. "The things parleyed. They see they can't get close enough to smash the machine--that last explosion was a desperate try at crashing a saucer with a bomb ready to trip, and it didn't work--so they want to talk. I gave 'em a skinful." He chuckled. "Told 'em there were men of my time wakening all over the world, with machines to defeat them totally; they know whom they're dealing with now, and they're going to talk it over. Mink, that's the end of the gods, with luck! They won't face a force of twenty-first century scientists. They haven't got it, they just haven't got it." "But they'll discover that you lied," said Nirea. "They'll get the thrower, sooner or later, and then we're at their mercy again." "I didn't lie, girl. All over this hemisphere there are caves like the one I came from, with scientists held in suspension, plenty of machines from our time, and knowledge that will bring your world out of these Dark Ages into another Renaissance! I have the locations in the papers that were interred in the casket under me, and we'll send parties out today to find 'em. This is a new world dawning this morning." He leaned over and kissed her enthusiastically, and Revel, who would have split another man down the brisket for that, did not mind at all. "Your globes are done, Mink. The gentry and the priests will be easy prey. You can probably scare them into surrender after last night." Jerran said, "Here be men on horses, Mink." Revel turned and saw a great cavalcade of stallioned men sweep down the valley, and in a moment of great joy saw that they were all ruckers, carrying dead gods on pikes and singing the Ballad of the Mink as they came.