"Well. Oh, hell, Hunt, goodbye!" Andres whirled lithely, and with long strides left the room. "So long!" Frederix called after him; then turned, swept a mass of Starcharts into the safe, locked it, and turned towards the tiny landing outside where rested his one man gyrotomic ... towards the beginning of a strange destiny which would weave together the fates of worlds and stars, and bring to him knowledge of greatness such as man had never known before. II The robot stirred restlessly and moved at length across a room littered with parts of others of its kind. Its blue photocellular eyes peered out into the starshot Martian sky. Could it know that its creator was coming nearer, riding flame through the night? Swiftly the gyrotomic sped beneath the vaulted ceiling of Certagarni, using the air propellers and gyrovanes as local ordinances demanded for the sake of air conservation, slanting above streets thronging with gesticulating, chanting men wearing the bizarre native dress of old Mars. It was no impersonal, cursory glance which Frederix gave that tense mob; rather was it a careful, searching observation. Here and there his keen gray eyes discerned Centaurians, tall, slender men, haranguing the natives. More uneasy grew his anxious heart. Had his words to Andres contained more of the truth than he had realized? Beating down through the thick glassite ceiling, clearly audible above the faint purr of his motors, he heard the roar of many gyrotomics, flashed a glance upward and glimpsed an hundredfold of blasts flashing to the east towards Kaa. With revolt so imminent here, had the Station ships been ordered to Botrodus? Out into the clear cold Martian night through a photocell-actuated lock he raced, his atomics red-flaring now, towards the Spacestation. Ten miles out the great towering structure housing mighty positron guns (anti-spacecraft batteries) rose in the blackness. Dropping down low, he slipped into a small lock behind the hangars and clambered forth beneath the vaulted roof. The tall, blond man paused for a moment, listening for the familiar sounds of men playing poker with virile blasphemy over in Barracks, but, save for the hum of generators in the power plant, all was deathly still. Strange, he thought, that _all_ the men should go to Kaa, even the mechanics, draftsmen and ordinance men! He turned uneasily towards the lighted Communications office, finding it deserted. Now where was Cravens? He should be here at the teletypes, T V P's and radios. He wouldn't have gone to Kaa nor deserted his post wilfully. Advancing to the silent teletype machine Frederix saw that it was cut off all circuits save the direct Certagarni-Calidao band. What he read on the page brought a mounting fury into his brain: "VRON XII DE XIV. CERTAGARNI STATION HELPLESS. SEEDRONA PLANTED. WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS?