Two mighty metal globes clung in a murderous
death-struggle, lashing out with flames of poison.
Yet deep in their twisted, radioactive wreckage
the main battle raged—where a girl swayed
sensuously before her conqueror's mocking eyes.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
At first there was only the voice, a monotonous murmur in her ears.
"Die now—die now—die now—"
Evelyn Kane awoke, breathing slowly and painfully. The top of thecubicle was bulging inward on her chest, and it seemed likely that arib or two was broken. How long ago? Years? Minutes? She had no way ofknowing. Her slender right hand found the oxygen valve and turned it.For a long while she lay, hurting and breathing helplessly.
"Die now—die now—die now—"
The votron had awakened her with its heart-breaking code message, andit was her duty to carry out its command. Nine years after the greatbattle globes had crunched together the mentors had sealed her in thistiny cell, dormant, unwaking, to be livened only when it was certainher countrymen had either definitely won—or lost.
The votron's telepathic dirge chronicled the latter fact. She hadexpected nothing else.
She had only to find the relay beside her cot, press the key that wouldset in motion gigantic prime movers in the heart of the great globe,and the conquerors would join the conquered in the wide and namelessgrave of space.
But life, now doled out by the second, was too delicious to abandonimmediately. Her mind, like that of a drowning person, raced hungrilyover the memories of her past.
For twenty years, in company with her great father, she had watchedThe Defender grow from a vast metal skeleton into a planet-sizedbattle globe. But it had not grown fast enough, for when the Scythianglobe, The Invader, sprang out of black space to enslave the buddingTerran Confederacy, The Defender was unfinished, half-equipped, andundermanned.
The Terrans could only fight for time and hope for a miracle.
The Defender, commanded by her father, Gordon, Lord Kane, hurleditself from its orbit around Procyon and met The Invader with giantfission torpedoes.
And then, in an intergalactic proton storm beyond the Lesser MagellanicCloud, the globes lost their bearings and collided. Hordes of brute-menpoured through the crushed outer armor of the stricken Defender.
The prone woman stirred uneasily. Here the images became unrealand terrible, with the recurrent vision of death. It had taken theScythians nine years to conquer The Defender's outer shell. Then hadcome that final interview with her father.
"In half an hour our last space port will be captured," he hadtelepathed curtly. "Only one more messenger ship can leave TheDefender. Be on it."
"No. I shall die here."
His fine tired eyes had studied her face in enigmatic appraisal. "Thendie usefully. The mentors are trying to develop a force that willdestroy both globes in the moment of our inevitable defeat. If they aresuccessful, you will have the task of pressing the final button of thebattle."
"There's an off-chance you may survive," countered a mentor. "We'realso working on a means for your escape—not only because you areGordon's daughter, but because this great proton storm will preventradio contact with Terra for years, and we want someone to escape withour secret if and when our experiments prove successful."
"But you must expect to die," her father had warned w