The thing was far from harmless. The fire of those tongues burned with untold agony. A score of the others must have felt it, too, for their cries of alarm spread through the chamber. One by one they began to fall back, retreating towards the passage as the head swelled. Alayna tugged at Roal's arm. "Down! Over the edge of the balcony before the head swells and fills the chamber. Get down into the midst of them!" Roal saw she was right. He called hoarsely to the spacemen, who turned at his beckoning. He grasped the edge of the railing and leaped over as a tongue of flame reached for him. Alayna called. "Follow him! It's the only way!" Her voice was still magic to them and with shouts of fury they began leaping over to the floor below, scrambling over in a circle that spread about the seated Martians. The Martians still did not move a muscle. They remained as if carved from stone, even as Roal poured his deadly flames into them. He looked up to see what had become of Alayna. He thought that she had followed. But she remained there on the balcony, a symbol to urge the spacemen over its edge. Now that they had almost all come, she was nearly alone, and the fury of the monstrous head seemed to be turned on her alone. Roal gave a hoarse cry. "Alayna! Jump!" She saw the threatening tongue of fire too late. It was as if the fire of all the other tongues had combined in one. It covered her from head to foot. Every spaceman in the chamber ceased firing and stared at the horror of her plight. Her screams rang through the chamber as she was lifted from the balcony and hurled into the air only to fall into the midst of a great, devouring maw that appeared in the side of the head. It closed over her, and the sound of the voice of golden-haired Alayna, Queen of the Silver Stars was heard no more. [Illustration: _Her screams rang through the chamber._] As she vanished from their sight the spacemen turned the unleashed fury of their very souls upon the Martians. How long Alayna could live within that horror hanging in the air above them, they did not know, but they knew the thing would vanish only with the last of the Martians. With wild cries they leaped upon the seated creatures stabbing, burning, slashing a frenzy of killing and slaughter. As for Roal, his own fury congealed into a single bright purpose beside which all else dimmed into insignificance. He selected a path from the outer circle to the center of the assembly and slowly blasted his way forward. A thousand ghastly mental creations of the Martians now beset them. Great lizards slashing with fanged teeth, enormous slugs that dropped from above and encased them in suffocating slime.