“Not at all, not at all,” the Vairking suavely replied. “I was merely stating that, even if I knew where this ‘plane,’ as you call it, is—” “For Builder’s sake, man!” Cabot cut in. “This is no time to quibble over words! Give us the plane, if you would save Theoph, yourself, and Arkilu.” “It’s hardly necessary,” Jud asserted, unruffled. “Don’t get so excited! If Att wants Arkilu, he certainly won’t drop things on the palace. And we can defend the palace against all the Roies in Vairkingi.” “But not against magic slingshots,” replied the earth-man. “Perhaps not,” the noble said with a crafty smile; “but we shall see. Now I go to prepare the defense. You are at liberty to come with us, if you will, or putter around your tubes if you had rather. Good-by.” “Shift for yourselves then!” Myles shouted after him, and frantically resumed his work. His attempt to get the plane by stratagem had failed. Perhaps Jud did not know anything about the plane after all. It would be typical of him. Myles had plenty of sets of grids, plates, and filaments all prepared. Also plenty of long tubes of pyrex glass. All that remained necessary was to coat the platinum elements with magnesium, fuse them into the tube, exhaust the air by the water method as before, seal the tube, and his radio set would be complete. “Where is Quivven?” he wrote to Doggo. “She ought to be here helping with this.” “On her way from the palace,” the ant-man replied. “I radio-phoned her there.” Presently she entered, and jauntily inquired what all the excitement was about. Myles explained as briefly as possible. Her only answer was to shrug her golden shoulders and remark, “Tipi is a little fool. He can have me if he can get me.” Then she took her seat at the workbench. After a while she inquired, “Why the rush with the radio set, when Vairkingi is in peril?” Myles replied, “Our only hope now is to get Cupia on the air, and persuade my followers there to send across the boiling seas enough aerial wagons to defeat the beasts of the south, or ‘Formians,’ as we call them.” “And will you talk with your Lilla?” she asked innocently. “Yes, if the Builder wills,” he eagerly and reverently replied. To his surprise, Quivven jumped to her feet with flashing eyes, and, seizing a small iron anvil from the workbench, she held it over the precious pile of platinum elements. “And if I drop this anvil, you will _not_ talk to her. Is not that so?” Myles, horrified, sat rooted to his seat, unable to move. XVII THE BATTLE FOR VAIRKINGI But the flaming Quivven did not drop the anvil on the precious tube elements. Instead she flung it from her to the floor and sank limply into her seat, her golden head on her arms on the workbench. “I couldn’t do it,” she moaned between sobs, “for I too know what it is to love. Talk to her, Myles, and I will help you.”