Tako appeared from around the balcony, rolling the projector. Its beam was off. He flung a glance of warning at the two guards to watch us. He left the projector, flushed, triumphant, all his senses perhaps reeling with the realization of what he had done. He saw the two girls huddled in the moonlight of the balcony floor. He stooped and pushed Tolla roughly away. "Jane! Jane, did you see it? My triumph! Tako, master of everything! Even of you--is it not so?" Did some instinct impel her not to repulse him? Some intuition giving her strength to flash him a single alluring moonlit glance? But suddenly he had enwrapped her in his arms. Kissing her, murmuring love and lust.... This was our chance. But we did not know it then. A very chaos of diverse action so suddenly was precipitated upon this balcony! Don and I cried out and heedlessly leaped forward. The tiny beams of the guards swung up. But they did not reach us, for the guards themselves were stricken into horror. The shot from a far-distant warship screamed past. But that went almost unheeded. Tako had shouted, and the guards impulsively turned so that their beams missed Don and me. Tolla had flung herself upon Tako and Jane. Screaming, she tore at them and all in an instant rose to her feet. Tako's cylinder, which she had snatched, was in her hand. She flashed it on as Don and I reached her. * * * * * The guards for that instant could not fire for we were all intermingled. Don stumbled in his rush and fell upon Tako and Jane, and in a moment rose as the giant Tako lifted him and tried to cast him off. My rush flung me against Tolla. She was babbling, mouthing frenzied laughs of hysteria. Her beam pointed downward, but as she reeled from the impact of my rush, the beam swung up; missed me, narrowly missed the swaying bodies of Tako and Don, and struck one of the guards who was standing, undecided what to do. It clung to him for a second or two, and then swung to the other guard. The guards in a puff of spectral light were gone. Tolla stood wavering; then swung her light toward Tako and Don. But I was upon her. "Tolla! Good God--" "Get back from me! Back, I tell you." I heard Jane's agonized warning from the floor. "Bob!" Tolla's light missed my shoulder. Tako had cast Don off and stood alone as he turned toward us. Then Tolla's light-beam swung on him. I heard her eery maddened laugh as it struck him. A wraith of Tako was there, stricken as though numbed by surprise.... Then nothingness.... Shots from the distant warships were screaming around us. One struck the base of the building. I clung to my scattering senses. I gripped Tolla. "That projector--what was it you almost told Jane?" * * * * * She stood stupidly babbling. "Told Jane? That projector--" She laughed wildly, and like a tigress, cast me off. "Fools of men! Tako--the fool!"