The heavens were visibly rotating. We clung to Mita, so that the rotating planet carried us around. We were a monstrous weight, larger than the planet now, but still gravitationally attached to it. I could fancy the planet lurching. Its axial rotation lurching wildly. Its orbital swing about its little sun suddenly altered. We rose presently and swung away from Mita. The sun was over my head--I could not see it. But beneath me I saw the planet. A ball--like a ball of steel magnetized, following a monstrous magnet. It followed us. It clung to our giant bulk, with the force of gravity irresistibly drawing it after us. Now all my vague understanding of Togaro's purpose burst upon me with full realization. We were swooping toward Mita's little sun! A moment, and then the ship echoed with Togaro's vehement commands. We swung away from the sun. With speed and size gigantic, we swooped sidewise and darted away. My window showed celestial space. But I saw how small it was! Distant tiny stars, all disturbed, chaotic with this giant bulk of our ship come among them! The sun and Mita were close to us, directly before my window. A ball of yellow-red blazing gases, and a little lurching planet! We had shaken Mita off, flung it like a pitched ball. Upon that side of our hull we were repulsive now to gravity. Mita's orbital revolution about its sun was checked. It staggered--and then began falling. A slow movement at first. I stared. Then I could see the movement: a crazily spinning little ball, lurching, falling-- Doomed little planet, falling toward its flaming sun! CHAPTER XXIV _The End of a World_ I have from Drake his impressions of those last hours on Mita. A wild, chaotic picture his memory holds. Jumbled impressions--yet as I record them in that fashion, doubtless I will approximate the truth, for they were jumbled, frantic scenes of panic--millions of people struggling upon a doomed world! Upon Drake there was a sense of despair; his own futility was so clearly shown, and the futility of his plans! He had sent Alt to have me come into the atom with automatics. He stood before Dianne's palace, gazing at a world gone mad. An automatic was in his hand, as futile as a cap pistol in the hands of a child. By nature Drake was resourceful; cautious, but reckless too, when he thought reckless daring was necessary. He stood, there as a giant with Ahlma and Alt, and saw in the blood-red dawn Togaro's monstrous vehicle expanding into the sky. It did not need Alt's horrified words to bring realization to Drake; nor the wrecked city--the turmoil of the panic-stricken throngs--to make Drake realize that this was the end. He knew it.