Still there was no sound or sign from Vannevan. The amplifiers were silent. In the distance were noises made by people going away. One of the men, impatient, sprang up and into the open aisle between the machines. "Hell," he said, "they must have gone. We'd better--" He died between words, and suddenly from where they had crept close seven or eight men sprang out and rushed, firing. Vannevan led them. There would be no peace, no surrender, no flight for Vannevan. He saw Birrel with Thile and Kara and he smiled and flung his weapon up, and Birrel shot him just before his finger touched the firing-stud. Those of the seven or eight who were still alive threw their weapons down. Shannock said, "I guess we can go now." They followed the captive soldiers to the far entrance of the cavern, leaving Vannevan where he had fallen among the machines. An hour later, Birrel stood with the others in the forefront of a close-packed crowd outside the city, and watched the great Ruunite ships position over a particular spot. Mighty lightnings crashed downward from their bellies. Smoke and dust and shattered rock rose in a vast cloud, and settled again, and there was a huge gaping hole in the ground, and still the lightnings pounded at it until there was nothing left of the cavern or anything it had contained. Shannock and his men cheered mightily. The bulk of the Irrian crowd watched silently, not used yet to the idea of peace. Birrel, oddly enough, was not thinking of Ruun or Ir, but of Earth. CHAPTER X The ship swept in toward the night side of Earth in a great curve, and first of all Earthmen that had ever lived, Birrel felt the sharp, nostalgic emotion of coming back to the world that would always be "the" world. He was in the bridge with Thile and Kara. Kara was very silent, looking at the shadowed planet-face ahead, not looking at Birrel at all. But Thile was busy, and vocal about it. "It's hard enough to make a landing on a strange planet," he said. "But to have to do it secretly, without being seen--well, I'm glad this will be the last time." The last time, Birrel thought. The last ship that would come from the stars to Earth--at least, for a long, long time. He didn't like that thought. He had argued against it, back there at the other system, at Ruun. The men who governed Ruun were wise and well-meaning men--but obstinate. They had welcomed Birrel. They had been grateful to him. They had agreed to return him to his own world. But on one thing, they were adamant. There would be no sudden opening up of the starways, no open contact between Ruun and Earth. Birrel, his head full of visions of a sudden leap into the stars by the men of Earth, had pleaded. But in vain.