ct the survivors."

"If there are any of us left by then!" the girl said bitterly. Gerry
suddenly pointed upward.

"Look there! The worst is over now!" he shouted. The _Viking_ was
streaking across the sky in a burst of yellow rocket flame.

The big space-ship dropped down over the beleaguered city, her powerful
ray-tubes flashing. Other murky beams stabbed up to meet her, but her
duralite hull was impervious to the rays and Angus kept her high enough
so that the helicopters were protected by the curve of the hull. One
after another the ray casters and heavy gas-guns of the Scaly Ones went
out of action. When the ship's beams had silenced the artillery and
commenced to rip black holes in the ranks of the Reptilian warriors
themselves, they suddenly broke and fled.

* * * * *

The war drums of the Scaly Ones were silent at last, while the trumpets
of Savissa raised a long-drawn paean of vengeance. Out of the ruined and
flaming city fled the Reptilian men, while troops of swift-footed
Amazons hung on their flanks and rear with twanging bows. Back across
the plains toward the border they fled--and ran squarely into the grim
thousands of the Green People who tore them apart with the savagery of
an oppressed race just finding their souls again. The few that survived,
out of the powerful army that Lansa the mad Earth-man had brought
eastward to attack Savissa, were a handful who fled back across the land
of Giri and vanished into the desolate Vaaka marshes from which their
people had first emerged generations before.

The Golden City was hopelessly afire, past saving, and the survivors
gathered on a level field outside the northern wall. Gerry and Sarnak
and Rupin-Sang were standing together as the _Viking_ dropped down to
land on the edge of the field. McTavish stepped out, red bearded and
jovial but showing the effects of sleepless nights himself.

"Sorry we couldn't get here sooner," he said, "but we've been working
night and day to make proper repairs with that queer metal the people of
Moorn gave us. We got your radio messages, but couldn't reply because
the ship's sending set is broken and I figured the helicopters were more
important repairs."

In a few brief words Gerry told McTavish of the fight in the garden. The
big Scot beamed his pleasure. "An' did they get that slinking she-devil
of an Olga along with the rest of the carrion?" he asked.

Gerry shook his head. "No, she was