leeding Earth; the sun dimmed,
and fertile plains were cast in sudden shadow.... The air chilled, the
shadow spread, and there were skeletons reaching upward to a puffy,
leaden sky!

_And Earth was no longer what Men had built!_

Then the horror in his head was gone, and he felt an awful pressure on
each side of it. His hands ... he had been pressing with insane strength
at both sides of his skull as if to crush it with his bare hands.... His
face was wet, and he was breathing, choking, in strangling gulps.

A scanner alarm clanged.

He forced his eyes to focus on the center screen.

"Earthman! Emergency! There has been a flaw discovered in the repair of
your ship! Do not blast off! Do not...."

The other image caught him as his arm was in mid-flight toward the
control bank. Sweet and warm ... the fertile plains mounting their
golden fruits to a mellowed sun, and beyond the distant gently-rolling
hills spread the resplendent city, and there were other cities....

But his arm kept going, its muscles loose, and it fell. Heavily.
Squarely on the stud-complex toward which its fist had been aimed a
split-second before.

The engines roared, and the ship lurched upward from the red sand.

* * * * *

_The command flicked into the Captain's brain like a lash of ice._

"_Slaazar! Converge, sheaf!_"

"_Converging, sir...." It would be no use, of course. If the high brass
had been content to rely on the beams rather than on their own subtlety
in the first place, the Earthman would never have fallen prey to the
Nomads, even for a second. But they had wanted to be as forthright as
possible--force, they said, would only arouse suspicion. Psibeam units
only as a last resort.... The lowliest Patrol Lancer could have told
them the folly of that!_

_Hastily, Slaazar issued orders to his battery crews tracking the
ascending Spaceship, their units already nearing overload potential. But
the desert-scum would see some real psi-power now! They'd see it wasted
completely if they saw it at all.... Because they'd outmaneuvered the
brass again!_

"_Convergence impossible, sir._"

_As he had expected._

"_Colonel Truul, this is Captain Slaazar. Target has passed critical
planetary curvature. Convergence impossible. Standing by, sir._"

_For several moments after that, the thin atmosphere of Mars was warmed
a little...._

* * * * *

Acceleration blackout had not