It was a promise like other promises Norden had made, Taylor thought. Norden once had promised to help Taylor fight the spheres. "I will call the others!" The sphere floated upward toward the hole in the roof. It circled the factory and moved away, toward the town, where a score of other majestic, glowing globes floated like bubbles of fire. Norden watched, a smile cracking his jutting jaw. There was still a whispering sound. A single shrill hiss came from the casting room. "Why do you claim superiority, Norden?" Taylor spoke. The spy turned. For the first time he saw Taylor. "_Himmel_!" Norden's eyes looked beyond Taylor and rested on Masters, who was emerging from the tunnel. "Is it because you pose the doctrine of slavery and destruction? Is it because your cultural contributions are keyed to military conquest? Is it because of your lies and broken promises? Is it because you are more skillful in butchery? It is because you have refined the art of terrorism?" Taylor was advancing, half crouching, toward Norden. Norden's arm swished in a swift motion. He drew an automatic pistol from his pocket and leveled it at Taylor and Masters. "Because I am the stronger!" Norden said. Taylor had not expected Norden to be armed. He had overlooked the possibility that the spy might have an extra weapon hidden in the tunnel. CHAPTER VII HUMANITY'S ARMY Taylor and Masters raised their arms. They were caught. "There is nothing you can do now to save yourself, or your country," Norden said. "Nothing. The spheres will destroy you and your people. They will destroy every living creature who does not surrender to my nation. Might will come into its own." "Are you sure the spheres are so invincible?" Taylor asked. "Remember, they were expelled from the sun. They must have been checked on the sun many times, otherwise they would have destroyed the creatures who opposed them." "They are greater than anything on the earth," Norden said. "The spheres are not for the earth. Our battles are not theirs. By betraying your world to these creatures, you are betraying the whole human race." "This is not so!" Norden said, thickly. "I know how to handle them. Orkins told me. He said he imitated their whistle and they spared him, while they killed the others in the plant. He didn't realize the value of his discovery. He was too much of a coward." Norden beckoned his prisoners to him and disarmed them. He pointed to the door of the casting room. "Look!" In the center of the room was a metal pot used for small castings. It was filled with molten, glowing metal. Beside it sat a single orange sphere, spraying the pot with bolts of heat to keep the contents warm, for the electrical energy that had supplied the melting pot had long-since been cut off. In the center of the pot an orange-red bubble was rising from the metal. A sphere was forming on the surface of the metal.