This was what Aram feared Santane would not or could not realize ... that no matter how dreadful his virus weapon, forces of such magnitude could not be halted by threats once they were put in motion. Now Santane's secretly built fleet was blasting into space. Jerrold estimated that it consisted of perhaps five hundred large starships--torpedo launchers mainly, built for defense. Near Kaidor VII, the ringed giant, the two Fleets made first contact. The battle of the Thirtieth Decant had begun. The guards shoved at Jerrold, and he was led away from the chart and its fascinating picture of battle. He and Deve were taken up a spiralling staircase to the balcony that overlooked the Combat Center and through a heavily guarded door. The chamber in which they now found themselves was strangely quiet after the fear-tinged confusion of the Combat Center. All but one of their guards withdrew, and Aram faced a tall, powerfully built man who stood engrossed in a bank of scanner-views of the battle. Presently the man looked up to scowl at his prisoners. Aram Jerrold knew at once that it was--at last--Santane. * * * * * Aram studied the man with interest. Here was the man whose rebellion had catapulted the galaxy into war. Because of Santane, billions faced degradation or extinction. It seemed impossible that one man could cause such a cataclysmic upheaval in a star-spanning culture. But there was more to it than that, of course. Santane--as a man--was simply one more bit of protoplasm in the vast mystery of the cosmos. But Santane--as a symbol--was real and important. He was a living monument to the immutable face that tyranny begets more tyranny, and that the very existence of absolute power results in the two awful corollaries ... ambition and strife. The Tetrarchy had spawned Santane just as surely as night follows day. Santane was the cancer in the body of the despotism of the Thirty Suns that was destined to destroy it ... and, thought Aram grimly, himself with it. Aram Jerrold studied the craggy face and the deep-set, glowing eyes as Santane stood there before the simulacrum of Armageddon in the scanners, and knew there was madness in the man. Santane spoke, and the sound rasped across the senses. "You are Aram Jerrold and Deve Jennet--agents of the Tetrarchy. Spies ... high ranking spies!" His icy gaze searched the faces of the man and woman before him. "Do you deny it?" "We are who you say," replied Jerrold evenly, "but we are not spies. The Tetrarchy has undoubtedly set a price on our heads by now." "You lie! The Tetrarchy sent you here because they are afraid of me." Santane laughed scornfully, "They have seen what I can do."