For two days and two nights Deve and Aram waited by the restless sea of Kaidor III. They wandered over the green hills and through the wooded glades hand in hand, caught up in the wonder and beauty of the silent planet.

Aram was able to patch some of the breaks in the Serpent's hull, and together he and Deve planned what moves they must make next. Each time they left the ship, the recorders were set so that any possible word from the Star Cluster would be caught; but only the endless stream of reports and routine messages of the Thirty Suns Naval Intelligence Bureau marred the wire of the recording device when they sought the shelter of the ship again.

Together, they swam in the warm sea and rested in the sunlight on the white beach, listening to the restless sound of the ocean. It was an idyll of happiness made more poignant by the pressing nearness of danger coming ever closer.

It was on the evening of the third day on Kaidor III that the subspace radio shattered their faint hopes for the success of the Star Cluster's mission. The information came not from the Group and Kant Mikal, but viciously, shockingly, from the announcer in the Naval Intelligence sending station back on Terminus. It came, smashing the peaceful stillness of the evening calm.

"ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ALL FLEET UNITS OF THE TWENTY EIGHTH, TWENTY NINTH, AND THIRTIETH DECANT SQUADRONS! RENDEZVOUS CHECK POINT 45223 KAIDOR PROVINCE ACCORDING TO PLAN 5-25 DIRECTIVE 19-A-9! TASK FORCE COMMANDER WILL NEUTRALIZE PLANET KAIDOR FIVE FOR THE SAFETY OF THE TETRARCHY!"

Deve's face was pale. "Santane has done it at last!"

It had come, then, thought Aram heavily. The cosmic wheels were beginning to turn. A provincial governor rebelled and across light years of space forces of mind-defying magnitude began to gather. Thousands of mighty battleships, millions of men! Planet-smashing weapons! Far away, on Terminus, government bureaus shifted ponderously from peaceful administration to War. Clerks and department heads, councilmen and executives—all shifting their attentions from peacetime routines to wartime expedients. And within hours, those wartime expedients would become routine. Fixed, immutable. Routines impossible to change without painful, time-consuming, effort.

Jerrold spun the radio dials, searching for the government station on Kaidor V. He needed information. He needed to know what Santane was telling his population.

"... the Thirty Suns merchant vessel, Star Cluster, has fallen into our hands. The passengers and crew, sabotage agents of the Tetrarchy, have been imprisoned and will be executed ..."

The voice of the Kaidor announcer echoed menacingly through the still control room of the Serpent.

"Aram! They've got Kant Mikal and the others!" cried Deve.

"Sabotage agents!" Aram spat.

"... it is expected that the worker population will conduct itself with courage and resourcefulness under the threatened attack," continued the announcer smoothly. "Our newly organized armed forces are even now taking measures against the tyrants' home worlds ..."

Aram shuddered, thinking about the "measures" Santane had devised for use against the Tetrarchy. The brutalizing virus....

"... it is not to be expected that the war will be of long duration. Our scientists have developed a weapon that will make active resistance on the part of the tyrants impossible. They will not dare to attack us ..."

Confirmation, thought Aram bleakly, of Santane's dream of winning power by threats. A savage, terrible blunder!

"Generalissimo Santane has struck the shackles of the Tetrarchy from the people of Kaidor! Work and fight for victory!" The announcement was followed by the playing of martial music.

Jerrold snapped the radio off with a curse. Kant Mikal a prisoner—very likely dead already. The Fleet converging on Kaidor. Santane, drunk with power, brandishing his awful weapon over the heads of the mute billions of the Thirty Suns!

"What now, Aram?" asked Deve quietly.

"We must go to Kaidor V ... now!" he replied.

In space again, Aram tried to shake off his forebodings and failed miserably. They were speeding into a tempest of stellar magnitude, and they were but two—a man and a woman—against a war-mad galaxy.

The tiny Serpent pointed for the fifth planet of the Kaidor Sun and drew its mantle of invisibility around itself, as though to hide from the fiery stars.

Far beneath the starship, Kaidor V lay like a bright scimitar. With the energy shield momentarily off, they approached the planet's night side, deep in the global penumbra. No lights marked the populous factory cities—the world rested dark, poised to lash out against the stars, falsely confident in its possession of frightful weapons.

Carefully, Jerrold lowered the Serpent toward the spot he had marked on the planetary chart—a deep valley near Santane's capital city of Astrel. Once course and rate of descent were computed, he reactivated the energy shield and groped his way downward through the sullen night of Kaidor V.

After what seemed an eternity of waiting, Deve and Jerrold felt their ship's keel touch the ground. Aram stood by the jets, alert for the sudden tipping that would warn them that the Serpent had landed on a steep slope or crag. The deck assumed a slight angle—no more. Aram cut the power and listened to the descending whine of the gyroscopes as they coasted to a halt. Then there was silence. Only the faint hum of the energy shield broke the stillness.

Jerrold and Deve studied the chart of Kaidor V carefully. Aram had no desire to have the Serpent meet with the same fate as the ill-starred Star Cluster. Concealment and secrecy were paramount.

On the gridded chart of the planet, the dark city of Astrel lay like a blot of ink. "There is a conveyor running near here, Deve," Aram said. "It must carry ores from the mines here—" he pointed out the shafts on the map, "—to the foundries in the city. They won't be able to guard the conveyor all along its length. We can get into Astrel that way, I think."

"And what then?" asked the girl.

Jerrold shrugged. "I'm a space officer—not a spy. I know that we must try to reach Santane and help Mikal and the others if we can—"

"We had some agents still in the city," said Deve thoughtfully. "Perhaps they haven't been discovered. We can try and reach them ... they might be able to help us."

"It will be risky, Deve, now that the fight is in the open."

"I don't see how we can possibly reach Santane alone," she said.

Deve was right, of course, Aram realized. Without help they would never be able to penetrate the barriers of security the Provincial Governor must have erected between himself and the population of his planet.

Cutting the shield, Aram searched the dark landscape beyond the ports. The night was black and still. The stars made an unfamiliar pattern across the sky. A thin band of nebulosity showed the edge of the Galactic Lens in a peculiarly distorted perspective. Here, in the heart of the Thirtieth Decant, they were far from the populous worlds of the galaxy's center—farther even than they had been in Atmion Province. But this barren, cold world would be for the next few hours the center of the Thirty Suns. Here, on the metallic soil of Kaidor V, the fate of an interstellar civilization would be decided....

There were many deadly weapons in the lockers, but Jerrold decided to take only two plastic energy pistols. Such weapons would be less likely to be found by the weapons alarms that were standard street fixtures on all the planets of the Thirty Suns.

With a sigh, the valve slid open and Aram and the girl dropped to the frozen volcanic soil. The air smelled bitter, and the cold was intense. Kaidor V was more than twenty-four light-minutes from its primary, and warmth was slight. It had been chosen for the center of Kaidor Province rather than a more hospitable world because of the richness of its radioactive ores and immense nitrogen yielding deposits.

The starship had landed in a small ravine, and there, Aram decided, it could stay relatively safe from discovery. Aram marked the spot on his chart and etched it into his brain. It was hard to leave the tiny Serpent. It represented all the security they could expect on this unfriendly world.

They climbed to the crest of the ridge and dropped down onto a flat plateau, striking out across it toward the spot where Jerrold estimated they would intercept the line of the conveyor.

They walked along in silence under a canopy of oddly unfriendly stars. Presently the faint sound of machinery warned that the conveyor was near. In the darkness, they almost ran headlong into it. The light of Deve's small pocket torch revealed two belts. One bounced along empty, speeding back toward the mines in the hills; the other groaned under a heavy loading of metallic ores bound for the smelters and steel converters of Astrel.

"It's moving fast, but we'll have to jump it anyway," Aram said softly.

"Don't worry about me," replied Deve stoutly. "Just give me a hand."

Aram grinned in spite of himself. Deve's courage and resolution were a boon on this quixotic mission.

He picked her up and began to run along the uneven soil parallel to the racing conveyor. With an effort he heaved her up on to the pile of ore. He heard her give a little cry of pain as she landed among the sharp shards, and then she was gone into the blackness. Without pause, he leaped onto the belt himself, skinning his hands and legs on the rocky cargo.

For a moment he stopped to catch his breath, and then began to crawl forward toward Deve Jennet. It took him a long while to reach her, and when he did, they found that she had dropped her gun in the scramble to board the conveyor.

The thought of facing a hostile city with one small pistol did not please; but Aram realized that under no circumstances could he have hoped to out-gun the combined forces of the Thirtieth Decant, so the loss of a gun really made little difference. The whole of the Serpent's armory would do them no good if concealment failed.

"We'll have to get clear of this thing before it reaches its destination, Deve," Jerrold shouted above the roar of the belt.

"I only hope the marshalling yards and ore stockpiles aren't too well guarded!" Deve replied—and Aram silently echoed her hope.

In the near distance, coming ever nearer, were the periodic flares of the great steel converters of Astrel. The city itself seemed blacked-out, but apparently Santane—the "Generalissimo," thought Jerrold wryly—was keeping his workers busy on weapons production right up until the last moment of danger ... another proof to Aram's mind that Santane did not believe the Tetrarchy would dare to actually attack. He must already have warned the Thirty Suns Government, perhaps sending specimens of his handiwork to impress the Supreme Council of the power of his virus weapons. Yet the Fleet would attack—Jerrold felt sure of it. The very nature of the Thirty Suns Government made any other course unthinkable. Bureaucracies, Aram knew, reacted like headless beasts to the things that threatened them, unable to make fine distinctions or true evaluations. Defiance brought reprisal. It was as simple as that.

It was difficult to see anything in the darkness, and Jerrold began to fear that they might be catapulted into the furnaces themselves. The flares in the sky seemed very close now.

A tiny blue light flashed by that Aram thought must mark the entrance to the stockpiling yards. He scrambled to his feet and pulled Deve up beside him.

"Get ready to jump clear!" he shouted in her ear.

Wind snatched at his words, and the swaying conveyor made standing difficult—almost impossible. Deve clutched at him, trying to keep her balance. And then, without warning, the belt slammed abruptly into a flat right-angle turn, pitching them off into darkness filled with hurtling chunks of ore.

Aram clung to the girl as they spilled off the belt and banged hard into a great pile of ore. More of the stuff continued to flood down on them from the conveyor above, burying them under an oppressive weight. Desperately, Jerrold clawed his way out into the open, and still clinging to Deve, rolled precipitously down the steep slope of the stockpile. They struck the bottom with bone-jarring force and lay there gasping.

A brilliant beam of light sliced through the dusty darkness, pinning them to the ore pile. Motes danced wildly in the gleaming cone. And in one awful flash of insight Aram knew what had happened ... understood the meaning of that tiny blue light he had seen. A dark-light scanner!

Floodlights came on, and the intruders found themselves blinking into a semi-circle of energy rifle muzzles in the hands of grim-faced, black-clad guards.

Aram Jerrold felt his heart sink. They were captured....

Between two files of guards, Deve and Jerrold walked into the city they had hoped to strip of its weapons. The bitterness of their failure rode hard on Jerrold's shoulders. He kept hearing again and again the phrase that Kant Mikal had used: "To save something from the wreckage...." It seemed impossible now. The giants and the furies were gathering. The might of the Thirty Suns would descend like a rain of fire on Kaidor V, and the mindless death nurtured here would sweep the inhabited worlds like a plague. The forces Jerrold had hoped to chain were free now, and threatening, like some ghastly cosmic storm. The teeming cities would crumble, the spaceways would be deserted. Night would fall on man's imperfect, but highest achievement, and he would return to the primeval muck.

Aram searched the faces of the streams of workers they passed. They were sullen, whipped men. From the tyranny of the Tetrarchy they had slipped into the clutches of Santane. For them, there was no hope, no dignity, and only the release of death could change their lot.

The black guards herded Deve and Jerrold onto a small air-sled, and the tiny craft nosed upward and into the streams of aerial traffic above the darkened city. Ahead lay the black bulk of a towering skylon. This, Aram realized, must be Santane's citadel.

The air-sled was sinking slowly to a landing on one of the many landing platforms that marred the flanks of the mighty skylon when the first alarm sirens began to wail. Aram turned his eyes to the night sky automatically. He could not hope to see the Fleet, for they must still be beyond the orbit of Kaidor X, but he did see the red streaks of the first interceptor rockets taking off. The sky in the east was greying; the attack would come by day.

The air-sled touched the landing stage, and the guards hurried Jerrold and Deve Jennet into the citadel. Through a maze of halls thronging with white-faced officers in new and unfamiliar uniforms they went, past guards and armored doorways. At last they stood in a vaulted, oblong room that hummed with activity.

It was a Combat Center. In the center of the room lay a huge, three-dimensional chart of the Thirtieth Decant and the Kaidor system. Jerrold recognized the red blips that indicated the approaching Fleet, fully ten thousand strong ... and he recognized something else too. He had felt this kind of tension in ships of the Navy. It was fear—universal, jittery fear. These people, Aram knew suddenly, were terribly, desperately afraid of that advancing armada. Their leader had told them that it would not dare attack, yet it came on inexorably and they were afraid.

Yellow streaks in the chart showed the track of interceptors, already fanning out from Kaidor V, seeking targets in the huge, onrushing formation of mighty battleships that spread across light-minutes of space. The tiny weapons had already taken a small toll of the slower Fleet vessels, but the rest continued sunward, their losses unfelt.

This was what Aram feared Santane would not or could not realize ... that no matter how dreadful his virus weapon, forces of such magnitude could not be halted by threats once they were put in motion.

Now Santane's secretly built fleet was blasting into space. Jerrold estimated that it consisted of perhaps five hundred large starships—torpedo launchers mainly, built for defense.

Near Kaidor VII, the ringed giant, the two Fleets made first contact. The battle of the Thirtieth Decant had begun.

The guards shoved at Jerrold, and he was led away from the chart and its fascinating picture of battle. He and Deve were taken up a spiralling staircase to the balcony that overlooked the Combat Center and through a heavily guarded door.

The chamber in which they now found themselves was strangely quiet after the fear-tinged confusion of the Combat Center. All but one of their guards withdrew, and Aram faced a tall, powerfully built man who stood engrossed in a bank of scanner-views of the battle.

Presently the man looked up to scowl at his prisoners. Aram Jerrold knew at once that it was—at last—Santane.