Angus clubbed with the ringed barrel and a man fell whimpering at his feet. "Come on!" the pirate roared. "Here's my last stand, here at the edge of the pool! You're done with Red Angus. See how a free man dies." Angus broke off, eyes wide. The pool! One of the black pools of Karr.... * * * * * What was it Stasor had said of those pools? "The pools are nothing more than atomic radiation--sheer energy--bottled up in vast chambers lined with stalahasil. Ready for use at any time." Ready for use. With the savage fury of the barbarian, Angus slammed the ringed barrel at the faces pressing in on him. They wanted him alive and that gave him the precious moment he needed. He whipped the electroray high in the air, swung it so the weighted powercord flailed high and far over the metal rim of the pool's collar. It dropped down and down into the black depths. Angus pressed the stud. A ravening stream of black mist shot from the ringed nozzle. It touched the oncoming soldiers of the Diktor, touched them, and.... Ate them! When the black mist faded the Diktor's soldiers faded, too. They were gone in that desolation of yawning street and crumpled walls. Where the black mist had touched nothing remained. Tandor bellowed. The star-pirates roared their glee. Angus moved the weapon and touched the stud again. The black mist fled outward, up one street, down another. When he was finished there were no soldiers facing them. The streets to the Citadel lay empty, beckoning. They went forward in a ravening wave of fury, the fury of roused fighting men, who had looked the eyeless sockets of Death's skull in the face and lived. The night held no more terrors for them for their nostrils were tasting the fragrance of victory. Other men came up from the Lower City to join them, men who bore home-made weapons, crude clubs and axes. Angus caught a sweat-streaked Tandor by the arm. "This gun! The powercord that fell in the black pool. That's what did it. It's a weapon of the Elders. The pool feeds it, gives it power...." "What matters that?" bellowed Tandor, shaking a new sword in his hand. "It worked!" "But it won't work if I can't keep the powercord inside the pool." Tandor blinked, grunting as understanding came to him. "Huh. That's different. Bask. Gatl. Sonal. At the double, you riff-raff. To me." He gave orders crisply, then swung to Angus. "They'll scour the Lower City for copper wire. We'll couple an extension to the cord so you can take it wherever you want." Angus nodded. "Put a file of men on either side of it. Keep them there. Make them fight for that cord with their lives. If they fail us, we die." Tandor handpicked his men, big men all, with the scars of many battles speaking their experience. The cord was slit and fitted with gleaming copper cable-lengths, insulated, and welded tightly.