Chapter VI

For a full moment as their eyes met, man and girl stared speechless. To Standish, who a few short weeks ago had thought himself cut off forever from his people, she was a vision of loveliness. Her hair was dark, and her face was a delicate one of natural beauty.

"This is Thalia," the Emperor said, "born on your planet, but brought here as a child. Perhaps you recall a liner, the Colossus, which was lost and never reached port some twenty years ago?"

"Glory, yes!" exclaimed Standish.

"The Colossus was destroyed by the Sirians. It was their first attack on an Earth craft, and I believe the initial act which led them on. Thalia was the only survivor when we came upon the ship, drifting, a derelict."

The girl stepped forward now shyly. "My greetings," she said.

Standish took her hand, and a strange thrill shot through him. Then the Emperor leaned back in his chair, lit a short metal pipe and began his story....

Thousands of years before, the Sirians had come to raid this planet, Lyra, attracted by the wealth of minerals: coronium, thanium, margon, gold and silver. They had destroyed the libraries, the laboratories, the schools. They had killed the scientists and all men suspected of higher intelligence. For generations, the people of Lyra had been held in bondage.

Then an Emperor had come into power, gifted with a scientific reasoning far in advance of his time. He had constructed a warp in space on three sides of the planet. This alteration of the space-time coordinates served as an impregnable defense.

Until Drum Faggard had come upon the scene. With but one desire--to continue his war on Earth and the solar system, Faggard had broken through the space warp and destroyed the time machine that operated it.

"And so," concluded the Emperor, "we of Lyra today are but ghosts of our past. Our heritage has been stolen from us. We are far removed in space, so have been unable to obtain allies. Even your planet, Earth, does not know of our presence. The Sirians have told us that your observers believe Lyra unfit to support life. And the few rocket ships we have left are not capable of crossing that immense distance."

Standish sat in thoughtful silence. Abruptly the girl, Thalia, moved to his side.

"Will you help us?" she said. "You have knowledge, and knowledge is power. Will you aid Lyra in its fight for freedom?"

Standish stood up slowly, face a grim line of determination. "Yes," he said. "I'll do all I can."

* * * * *

He began with a survey of the city of Calthedra. With Ga-Marr answering his many questions, Standish passed from street to street, building to building, no detail missing his sharp eyes. He saw the wreckage of the space warp machine, broken ray cannon, the debris-choked lower levels where once light-hearted Lyrians had their libraries and laboratories.

Then Standish spent two days devising an intelligence test as he remembered them from his Earth studies. The test, he instructed Ga-Marr, was to be given to every able-bodied man in Calthedra.

He spent a week more checking the results. But at length from the mass of papers he selected twenty-four Lyrians whose IQ rating and general scientific aptitude seemed in advance of their fellows. The Earthman then revealed his plan to Ga-Marr.

"We're going to build a space ship," he said, "a super destroyer with the most powerful atomic motors I've ever designed. We're going to take this war into our own hands--attack, rather than wait to be attacked."

A call for workmen was broadcast. The response was overwhelming. All Calthedra, all Lyra wanted to help the man from Earth in the struggle to free them from bondage.

With the twenty-four picked men as overseers, the work began. A flat space was selected beyond the outskirts of the city. Food depots were thrown up, together with temporary housing quarters. Like a colony of ants, the workmen labored in three shifts. At night, the work went on by the light of solar-condensor lamps mounted on towers at every point of vantage.

The ship began to take form. A long cigar-shaped blue-black hull was fashioned out of "_feloranium_", a metal peculiar to Lyra which Standish toughened by the addition of five alloys. At intermittent spaces along that hull, disappearing ray guns were swivel-mounted, operated and loaded by remote control.

The Earthman personally supervised the installation of the atomic motors. Each he had given the most strenuous block tests. Switched on, they purred like six gargantuan cats, alive with effortless strength.

Finally Ga-Marr climbed out of the huge cabin and smiled.

"It is completed," he said. "Only the heat units remain to be tested. What now?"

"Now," said Standish.... But his words were never finished. From the roof of the palace the warning siren burst into a wailing clamor. Ga-Marr's face blanched.

"The Sirians!" he cried. "They'll destroy all we've done."

With a single leap Standish was across to the microphone of the field amplifying system.

"Wait!" his voice boomed out. "If you run, all your work will be for nothing. We still have a chance, but we must hide this ship. I want each of you to bring here every movable object you can find. Do you understand? Every movable object!"

The field saw strange activity then. While the siren continued to scream out its warning, an endless procession of Lyrians raced in and out of Calthedra, carrying stone blocks, furniture, doors, articles of every description.

"Looks like moving day back on Earth," Standish said to Ga-Marr with a lightness he didn't feel. His fists clenched. "We'll beat them yet."

He ran for the palace. Even as he raced up the inclined ramp of the rear entrance, he saw five Sirian battle cruisers land with a roar in the central square. Inside, Standish moved swiftly to the quarters of the Emperor. The old man was leaning weakly against a chair, eyes smoldering.

Without preamble the Earthman explained what he had done. Then he had barely time to leap through the doorway into the adjoining room.

* * * * *

Heavy steps sounded in the hall. A moment later six men entered the chamber and strode belligerently to the Emperor. Five of them were Sirians. The sixth was a man of Earth--a tall broad shouldered man with a bullet head and a cruel predatory face. This was Drum Faggard.

He wore the Sirian uniform and a flowing scarlet cloak hung from his shoulders. At his waist were holstered two long barreled genithode pistols.

"Your mines are lying idle," Faggard snarled. "Why?"

Through the crevice between the partially closed door Standish saw the Emperor shrug eloquently. "We have had troubles."

"What troubles?"

The Emperor hesitated. "Labor," he said. "My workers refuse to toil further when the results of their work are stolen from them. They see no reason to struggle for the benefit of murdering raiders."

Blunt anger crimsoned Faggard's face. He struck the Emperor hard across the face. "Watch your tongue, fool!"

Standish made fists of his hands. He had an overpowering desire to leap into the room and seize the renegade. To do that, however, he knew, would mean failure for his plans.

Drum Faggard paced to a window.

"What is the meaning of all that material piled outside the city?"

Quietly the Emperor continued to play his part. "We are moving to new grounds," he explained, "moving higher into the hills. The weather on Lyra is changing, growing warmer due to the planet's gradual approach to our sun. Surely your observers must have noticed it."

For a long moment the renegade stood there motionless, digesting this information. Then he crossed back to the table, slammed a mailed fist down upon it.

"Old man, I give you one more chance. Either those mines are worked and a double amount of ore made ready for us, or we level Calthedra to the ground. Do you understand? We will return later."

He turned on his heel, and the five Sirians followed puppet-like into the corridor. Darting across to the window, Standish saw them march pompously across the square and enter the space cruisers. A moment later, with a roar of rocket exhaust, the six armored vessels shot upward.

Standish turned and ran out the door, heading for the landing field. Half way he met Ga-Marr.

"The ruse worked," the Emperor's son exulted. "They've gone."

"Order the ship cleared!" Standish commanded. "We take off at once."

Quickly the screen of material was torn from the new ship. A vat of necessary water and a case of food concentrate were hastily carried into the storage chamber. The twenty-four chosen Lyrians took their places. In the pilot cuddy, Standish nodded to Ga-Marr and pulled down the microphone of the ship address-system.

"Close stern hatch!" he ordered.

A dial flicked on the panel before him, and from the loudspeaker a voice answered:

"Hatch closed, sir."

"Close midships-tower."

"Midships-tower closed."

"Gunner's mate!" Standish called. "Test all gun swivels, air locks and automatic loaders."

There was a moment's pause. Then:

"All guns tested, sir."

Standish motioned Ga-Marr to shut the pilot cuddy hatch. But before Ga-Marr could swing the hermetic barrier into position, a lithe figure leaped down the ladder. It was the Earth girl--Thalia.

"I'm going with you," she said. "This is my battle as well as yours."

Standish looked into her defiant black eyes and frowned. But the refusal that rose to his lips died unsounded. He nodded and motioned her to the settee on the far side of the cuddy.

In rotation then, he snapped on the six atomic motors. A dull tremor of life and power shook the ship. Then Standish seized an electro-welder left behind by some workman, flung open the hatch and ran outside to the stern of the ship.

Roughly, while Ga-Marr watched bewildered, he seared the name, _Phantom_, on the _feloranium_ hull. He leaped back to the cuddy, slammed shut the hatch and threw over the acceleration lever.

The huge ship lifted from the field of its birth and roared up into the stratosphere.