An expanding dark cloud. It soon was spread so wide that all across the sky was only one small section of its length--one pontoon, one window. But during that hour Drake was accomplishing things in all the turmoil of people almost stricken of reason by terror. The space-ship was ready at last. The repairs fortunately had been almost finished before the panic began. Messengers were sent into the burning city with orders to herd the crowd to the landing field. Local ships were sent to other cities. Some got started, some did not. But a few, at the very last, came back loaded with refugees. The young men of that army which Drake had expected to lead into smallness against Togaro, were now most useful of all. They understood the drugs and could be trusted with them. In the lower room of the palace Drake stood with the main supply of drugs. He dealt them out to this little army. A hundred or more. They stood, white-faced and silent; but alert, eager to obey. "Alt, tell them--" Drake cursed his inability to speak with any fluency this native language. But Alt, always at his elbow, was swift to interpret. "Alt, tell these ten to get large, very large, and run to the water city." Another ten, somewhere else; and others. In a size gigantic, they could circle this little globe on foot in an hour or so. They were to pick up as many of the people as possible and bring them back. The lower room of the palace was dark now. The brief day was past. Night had come. Stars, and the moon. But the moon had only shown for a moment. The black cloud, the shape of the Togaro vehicle, was up there among the stars. The moon had swung crazily and was gone. Into the palace windows came the mingled sounds of the night of chaos: screams, the roaring of futile orders in the garden, where a crowd was surging over the trampled neglected bodies. Darkness out there, painted by the lurid glare from the burning city. Drake dispatched his men. They turned out into the frantic night, fought their way for space in the milling throngs, and took their drug. Soon they were rising as giants, moving cautiously to the open country, then running. Drake had been to the landing field several times. The vehicle was ready. It lay gigantic, spreading all across the field. Thousands of refugees were in it. Others were momentarily arriving. Ten thousand now, the officials there told Drake. A thousand, hurt in the throngs or crushed by the passing of Togaro's giants, had also been carried here. Drake sent the other men to search the city--to bring back from the littered streets any who seemed still alive. From the palace gardens and the nearest streets, the police were spurred to carry in the maimed.