om the earth millenniums ago!
Then listen to me, Sarka! I know how to do this thing about which I have
told you. I can halt, for a brief moment only, the whirl of the earth
about its axis. And by so doing I can flood the earth with the waters of
the oceans! If you will not listen to me, I shall do it myself! You
shall have two days in which to give me an answer, for I admit that I
need you, who would balance me, make sure I made no fatal mistakes! But
if you do not, I will act ... along the lines I have hinted!"

* * * * *

Apparently as unconcerned as though he had not just listened to a scheme
for almost total depopulation of the world, the destruction of millions
upon millions of lives, Sarka the First had dismissed Dalis--who had
straightway used all his offices to arouse the world of science against
the first Sarka.

But, when the two days of grace given by Dalis had passed, there were no
oceans--for Sarka the First had been planning for a century against the
time when the earth must of necessity be over-populated, and had worked
and slaved in his laboratory against the contingency which had
developed.

He had smiled, though there was a trace of fear on his face after Dalis
had left, for _his_ scheme had been worked out--not to destroy, but to
save!

And from this same laboratory in which Sarka now sat and pondered on the
next step in man's expansion, Sarka the First had, in fear and trembling
at first, but with his confidence growing by leaps and bounds, worked
his own miracle. Untold millions and billions of rays, whose any portion
of which, coming in contact with water, immediately separated its
hydrogen and oxygen, thus disintegrating its molecules, were hurled
forth from their store-houses beneath the laboratory, across the faces
of the mighty oceans of Earth....

And when men saw the miracle, they rushed into the mighty valleys where
the oceans had been, and began to build new homes!

* * * * *

That had been centuries ago--scores of centuries.

Now all the earth, all the livable part of the earth, above its
surface--and below it to the depths of miles--was filled with people,
like bees in a monster hive, like ants of antiquity in their warrened
hills. And there was no place now that they could go.

So they fought among themselves for the right to live.

"But my grandfather was right!" Sarka almost screamed it, speaking aloud
in the s