His feet barely touched the floor as he ran. He flexed his muscles, testing his strength. He was fit and ready from a week of lying in blazing sunlight, from basking under sun-lamps arranged by Katha to aid her in her tests. A guard saw him and yanked at a gun, but Tyr took his face in the palm of his hand and banged his head against the polished steel wall, and left him twitching but alive. Tyr ran swiftly now, heading down and always downward along the ramps, deeper into the earth. The farther he went, the more sullen grew the throb and roar. It pounded at the temples, shook the walls, surging all around. On a lintel before a metal elevator was inscribed an _ardth_ word. Tyr knew it to be the warning of the Glow. But he put out his hand and opened the elevator door and stepped within. He threw the switch. There was a falling sensation for a moment, but that passed as Tyr walked around his little cell, working his arms and legs. He was tense and excited, waiting, waiting. This was to be the test. Katha said if he lived through it, that it would be the most marvelous sensation of his entire life. That it would, in some alchemic way, transmute him. It was warm now. The car was falling faster and faster. Tyr wondered why the _ardth_ bothered to have a car at all. If the Glow was all rumor had it to be, the _ardth_ would have to build a new car every time this journey was taken. But the ritual of the thing! The _ardth_ must maintain their superstitious hold on the Trylla. He smiled. The _ardth_! They were his race, a people that called a planet called Earth their home. It sounded so like the Tryllan word _ardth_, meaning old, that the Trylla had always called them that. Even the Earthmen accepted the term. Hot was the car, like some monstrous bubble of fiery air. The light, yellow and brilliant and blinding, came seeping in through cracks in the jointures of the door. The metal of the car was turning red, deepening to a cherry rose, fading to a cold blue, dawning to a pale white.... * * * * * In the Auditorium of Ancestors, Space Commander Mason sat languidly on the highbacked ivory throne under an arched canopy. Sprayed fanwise before him were gorgeously uniformed _ardth_ officers, stiff-backed as they faced the girl with black hair and black eyes. Fifteen feet from the throne, Katha stood with head flung back, smiling at Commander Mason. "Your men are efficient, Space Commander," she said. "They found me on the street." "There is no one as lovely as Katha among the _ardth_," smiled Mason. "There is no one as treacherous, either." "I fled to Tyr because I felt him to be of help to us. He is--and will be a help. He has gone now to destroy the Glow." Mason was out of his seat in one tremendous explosion of speed. His hands caught her arms. "Destroy the Glow? Are you mad? Is he? Nothing can destroy the Glow! What secret does he know?" "No secret, other than himself. He is Tyr."