It had come, then, thought Aram heavily. The cosmic wheels were beginning to turn. A provincial governor rebelled and across light years of space forces of mind-defying magnitude began to gather. Thousands of mighty battleships, millions of men! Planet-smashing weapons! Far away, on Terminus, government bureaus shifted ponderously from peaceful administration to War. Clerks and department heads, councilmen and executives--all shifting their attentions from peacetime routines to wartime expedients. And within hours, those wartime expedients would become routine. Fixed, immutable. Routines impossible to change without painful, _time-consuming_, effort. Jerrold spun the radio dials, searching for the government station on Kaidor V. He needed information. He needed to know what Santane was telling his population. "... _the Thirty Suns merchant vessel, Star Cluster, has fallen into our hands. The passengers and crew, sabotage agents of the Tetrarchy, have been imprisoned and will be executed_ ..." The voice of the Kaidor announcer echoed menacingly through the still control room of the Serpent. "Aram! They've got Kant Mikal and the others!" cried Deve. "Sabotage agents!" Aram spat. "... _it is expected that the worker population will conduct itself with courage and resourcefulness under the threatened attack_," continued the announcer smoothly. "_Our newly organized armed forces are even now taking measures against the tyrants' home worlds_ ..." Aram shuddered, thinking about the "measures" Santane had devised for use against the Tetrarchy. The brutalizing virus.... "... _it is not to be expected that the war will be of long duration. Our scientists have developed a weapon that will make active resistance on the part of the tyrants impossible. They will not dare to attack us_ ..." Confirmation, thought Aram bleakly, of Santane's dream of winning power by threats. A savage, terrible blunder! "_Generalissimo Santane has struck the shackles of the Tetrarchy from the people of Kaidor! Work and fight for victory!_" The announcement was followed by the playing of martial music. Jerrold snapped the radio off with a curse. Kant Mikal a prisoner--very likely dead already. The Fleet converging on Kaidor. Santane, drunk with power, brandishing his awful weapon over the heads of the mute billions of the Thirty Suns! "What now, Aram?" asked Deve quietly. "We must go to Kaidor V ... now!" he replied. In space again, Aram tried to shake off his forebodings and failed miserably. They were speeding into a tempest of stellar magnitude, and they were but two--a man and a woman--against a war-mad galaxy. The tiny Serpent pointed for the fifth planet of the Kaidor Sun and drew its mantle of invisibility around itself, as though to hide from the fiery stars. * * * * *