Duncan got up wearily. He stood above Andrea’s body, watching the still features, the long lashes that would never rise. “It’s done,” he said. “Finished. Earth will get the message—” Earth would get the message. The Varra could not stop the cruiser now, and the radio would continue to send out its signal till the fires of the Sun swallowed the black ship. Duncan knelt. His legs were weak. The radium, of course. His suit could not protect him from the fatal radiations of a pound of the pure ore. But the stuff had served its purpose. It had kept the Varra at a distance till Duncan could fulfill his vengeance. And now it would kill him—unless he replaced it in the leaden casket. But even that might not work now. Duncan shrugged. It was better to die of radium burns than by the power of the Varra. He would be dead long before then. But the Varra would be hunted down, ruthlessly slain, their power broken forever. Earth-science would destroy them, as they themselves had slain so many, as they had killed Andrea. The bellow of the rockets died. The ship held true to its course, plunging on faster and faster toward the sunlit worlds where men knew joy and laughter and happiness. It would go on, to the funeral pyre of the Sun. But it would leave a message in its wake.