The little folk shrilled at one another in a terrible joy. Their leader trembled with his satisfaction as he savagely threw the switch which sent a beam of utter deadliness into the captive enemy.
It was a trivial payment for the millions upon millions of their fellows but the small people were filled with impassioned joy. They felt—they felt!—the murderers of their race blasted out of life.
"The answer," said Rod, seeing Kit's expression, "is that their power-supply only works in normal space. We ought to know that. So when I snatched them out of the natural universe into this one their power went, their weapons were useless and I think that even the gadget that destroys their star-maps failed to work. At least, that's what I'm after!"
He went to the air-lock, in which were mounted tractor and pressor-beams and a powerful mounted light. With tractors the enemy ship was brought alongside the Stellaris. The two airlocks were lined up.
And—this was the ticklish part—while tractors again kept air from escaping Rod and a welder cut through into the pyramid-ship and went into the revolting reek which was its atmosphere.
With hand-flashes Rod and those who would help him made their way to where only molten metal and charred paper had remained on the other ship they'd searched. But here—here were shining unfamiliar instruments and infinitely ingenious star-maps and all that could be needed to navigate a pyramid-ship the length and breadth of the galaxy.
Rod had Joe and two others load themselves down. He himself carried precious maps. They returned to the Stellaris. A dozen of the small men followed them back to the ship from the blasted enemy, but it was significant that not one of the round men carried a single object as a trophy. Their hatred of the killers of their race was too great to let them look at even a memento without rage.
The Stellaris headed back through dark-space for the asteroid of dark-space matter. Rod and the colony mathematicians pored over the maps and astrogaticn instruments. But they knew the principles by which such things must work and the secrets came easily.
By the time they were near the asteroid the matter was settled. Rod returned to normal space and checked his observations. The colony power-technician by then had worked out a field-flow instrument to detect the power-field of the enemy and to locate its center. His observation checked with the star-maps. Everything checked.
The ship was filled with fluting sounds. The round small colonists were strangely moved. They knew that their dead cities, their dead world, their dead race would soon be avenged. But Rod, touching hands for technical reasons, heard distressed discussions in the back-ground.
The small people had craved vengeance with a fierceness close to insanity, as long as they had little hope of it. But now they had savored it. They had known fully the helpless, screaming panic of the crew which had had to be killed.
It could not be spared.
Descriptions of either of the two races in the Stellaris could not be allowed to go back to the leaders of the pyramid-folk. So the pyramid-ship's crew had to die. But a discussion went on in the Earth-ship with mounting distress.
To destroy a race because it had destroyed one's own might be just and proper—but it made one a murderer too.
And the small people were an inherently gentle folk.
The preparations for moving the dark asteroid to normal space were almost complete when something like a deputation of the colonists came to Rod. The round men were very unhappy, but very much in earnest Rod touched hands and the shrill sounds about him were somehow very solemn.
"We ask," said the leader unhappily, "that we be taken to a near planet we find on the alien's star-maps. As we read the maps, we should be able to live there. We owe you our lives and any hope our race can have of surviving through us and our children.
"If you ask it, we will remain and help you even to the destruction of the murderers of our kin. But unless you ask we prefer to try to build up a new civilization without protection. We have tasted revenge—and we do not like it."
Rod regarded them steadily. "I don't like killing, either," he said grimly. "I weakened just now. I gave the task to one of you. But I am wondering now if a fleet may not be going through one solar system after another, wiping out the life to be found there.
"I am wondering if such a fleet has reached my home planet yet I am wondering if the fifteen of us humans on this ship are the only human beings still alive—as you are the only living members of your race. I don't want to leave my race in danger for one instant if it's living.
"And if it's dead," he added harshly, "I want it to be avenged before I find out! I don't want to keep on living while I hate creatures I have spared. But I'll take you to the planet you've chosen. We need some fresh observations anyhow."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nova!
EVERYTHING was quite ready when the Stellaris went a bare thousand miles from the strange thing it had made of an asteroid, and returned to normal space. Then, with the jet-drive to set its course and establish a velocity, it dived back to darkness to increase that velocity, and came out yet again into the space where suns flamed grandly, surrounded by their families of planets. They were near their destination.
This also was a sol-type sun and it had seven planets. The nearest was red-hot from its proximity to its sun. The second was an arid waste, the third a small and pock-harked cinder. But the fourth was green, with great oceans and clouds floating above its continents and ice-caps at its poles.
"There is a race here," said apologetic twitterings in Rod's ear. "It is still barbarous, knowing metals but using no power, according to the markings we deciphered on the star-map. It will be long before it should cause the pyramid-people concern. Perhaps we may help and guide the people."
Rod said nothing. He made a planetary approach with something approaching professional skill. In hardly more than minutes the Stellaris settled down into atmosphere.
"Rod!" cried Kit. "A city!"
She pointed and Rod swung the ship—so unwieldy in air—into a near approach. It reached the city. It hovered over the city. It was a city, past question. Its ways were paved with quarried stone, its buildings were of massive, cyclopean architecture and it was barbarously magnificent.
But it was definitely barbarous. The great buildings were palaces and temples. The people lived in small structures, most of which plainly had gardens attached to them. There were cultivated fields and pasture-lands outside it. There were crude wooden ships tied to the wharves where a river wandered through it.
As the Stellaris descended Rod saw half-furled sails. Sails had not been used on Earth except for sport in two hundred years. But he saw no movement.
There was no movement
The Stellaris touched ground. Very grim indeed, Rod led the way to the airlock. He opened it.
There was a smell in the air. It was the smell of death. "These people were hardly more than savages," said Rod very quietly, "and they were alive no more than two or three days ago. They haven't even motors! By what we can see they must have lighted their homes with flames, burning the fat of animals, or petroleum.
"They had no fliers, no ground-vehicles except—" he pointed—"that was a vehicle, with an animal pulling it. And these people were killed because some day they might have made a space-ship. The pyramid-folk are frightened. We've frightened them.