A very human sense of utter failure made Drake stand and tell himself bitterly that there was no use trying to do anything. But the feeling passed. It is instinctive to struggle for life against every most desperate circumstance. Drake became aware that in the wrecked city spread there in the dawn before him, thousands of people were struggling for life. Doing nothing with any rational thought--and yet struggling. Behind him, in the palace, he heard the shouts of the councilmen; the clatter of footsteps. The government, against all these odds, was striving to do something. Nobody was quitting. It stung him into action. "Alt, we must get back to normal size! Help them, Alt. This is death if we stand here." They took the drug. The scene dwindled. The Togaro ship off there on the water seemed rising to new gigantic proportions. Its huge stern was coming toward the city. Projecting above the water now; Drake could see the space between the bottom of its hull and the lake surface. It came, that giant stern, shoving its way forward. The length of its hull extended like a gray wall off for miles to the horizon where it lay balanced, with other miles on beyond, the shape of it blurred by distance against the red sky of dawn. Drake attained normal size. Ahlma clung to him. Alt, too, was struggling to cope with a terror almost overpowering. "Drake--what--what can we do?" They were down in the garden now, at the doorway of the palace. Officials were running in and out. Calling orders, with no one to hear them. Some of the police stood here, inactive, stupefied with terror. "Come inside," said Drake. He pulled at the confused Alt. "Don't you understand? Our ship may be repaired by now. We've got to get it repaired! Herd the people into it! Make it large enough to take us all--all these people. Alt, we've got to send messengers--send them in giant size--to the other cities! The local airships--dispatch them to bring the people here--get them all into our vehicle and get away! You understand? This is the end of the world here! Abandon it! This is--the end!" They ran into the turmoil of the palace. In the chaos of those final hours Drake must have played a leading and a masterful part. He does not tell it so, but I think it is true. Authority--the routine of any official activity--was wholly gone. Of them all, it was Drake who held most of his wits, who gave orders and enforced obedience. The time was very short. There was an hour--or even less--while the red dawn faded into full light of day. The monstrous hull of the Togaro ship projected like a black roof over all the scene. The shadow of it lay black upon the city, the palace and lake. It grew until up there in the sky nothing else could be seen. Then it lifted. It moved up a few miles. It hovered up there. From one horizon to the other it loomed, a solid dark shape like a leaden cloud-bank. Its great pontoons were visible. The rectangles of floor windows showed in its bulging hull.