and dripped yellow blobs of
light into the darkness. They grew into a great soap bubble that turned
to topaz.

Like something moving in a dream it gained upon The Nebula, until it
was pacing beside them--a little larger now and still growing--dwarfing
them and filling half the screen.

A shadow--no, two shadows--were growing within it, Odin tried to
make them out. But they were dark and wavering. Still, they looked
something like a high priest standing above a prone victim stretched
out upon some sacrificial altar.

Odin was working the screens like mad. Keeping their entire crew before
his and Ato's eyes and at the same time watching the topaz bubble.

The bubble cleared. Over the loudspeakers came Grim Hagen's shriek of
wild laughter.

Odin turned another knob and the bubble loomed larger.

Grim Hagen stood there, one lean hand rubbing his chin as he laughed at
them.

And the figure lying prone upon a couch beside him was swathed by a sheet
which came almost to its eyes. But the shadows were leaving the bubble now.
And Odin saw that it was Maya. Asleep. Statuesque. Like a carving upon a
tomb--but it was Maya.

Then he cried out in alarm. For upon another screen he saw Gunnar and his
crew swing their weapon into action. Shell after shell of greenish fire
burst about the globe. Green flame thrust out tiny rootlets that crawled
over it, outlining it in garish light. Another shell seemed to burst upon
Grim Hagen's chest, tearing the bubble of light apart. And as Jack watched,
horrified and sick, the shards of flame came back together. And there was
the globe again--with Grim Hagen and Maya as whole as ever. And a green
streak of fire--one of Gunnar's misses--went careening off into space until
it shrank to a pinpoint of light and then vanished.

At a signal from Ato, the firing stopped.

Grim Hagen was still laughing.

"You are wasting your energy, Ato. I am only a projection. And so is this
that is with me. I have Maya." He bowed mockingly. "See, Odin. Come and get
her, Odin, so I can kill you. I had thought I was done with you but it is
just as well. Out here, somewhere, somewhen, I can kill you slowly. Look,
she sleeps."

Shrouded there within a bubble of changing light, Maya looked like a
bronze statue. Lying upon her back with her arms folded across her breasts,
and with half of her face covered by the flowing folds of a coverlet, she
was like a bride of death, waiting the end of eternity.

Hagen lau