"She's all right!" he announced. "What's happened outside?"
"Got them on the run!" Vanz grinned wolfishly, "Look at them!"
Dane stared, and the hard set of his square jaw relaxed.
Reminds me of the old Indian fights!" he chuckled. "With the redskins galloping around the wagon train and getting themselves shot down."
"Got the idea from stories Sam Cabot told me," said the Warlord. "Those pioneers of yours must have known how to fight, too."
Dane looked long and with satisfaction. Vanz had brought his ten-ship fleet into a circular formation, exactly like some beleaguered wagon train ringing-up on the prairies. For a pursuit ship to venture inside that ring brought instant, blazing death. A score of them had tried it and been cut down mercilessly. With disruptor-guns blazing incessantly on the outside of the ring, as well as above and below, the Earthcraft could attack only on the upper and lower quarters. And a warship had but to rock gently to bring her guns to bear on ships trying this.
Of the hundred and twenty savage little pursuits that had come rushing to the kill, thirty remained. Their cannons, pitifully futile now, kept roaring and launching steel-jacketed explosive bombs. In all, only four of these bombs had found targets. One was on the Orsis, and of the other three, one alone had destroyed its target. Five thousand men had been lost to the rebels, but no leaders.
At last the attackers drew off. Vanz immediately gave the order to follow. His ships were faster, if more unwieldly. But on a rocket ship's tail, they could keep her in the sights long enough to turn the shining space vessel into a tear-drop of melted steel. Less than an hour after Loren Bayard's vaunted wolves of space attacked, there was not one left to slink back in defeat.
Nile Vanz switched off his microphones, wiped his sweaty palms on a wrinkled handkerchief, and frowned at Kris.
"Resume your former course," he clipped. "Steady as she goes!"
Dane purposely avoided Margo from that time until they raised Eighty-Eight in their fore-ports. He was in the landing party Vanz appointed. The nine Ionian ships found silent resting places within the crater.
A hundred men from each ship emerged on the glass shell, cumbersome in space-suits. Dane led the way to the air-lock. There he was joined by his father. Sam Cabot slapped him on the back, exclaiming something that the helmets muffled. But Dane knew it was his congratulations on the rescue of Princess Margo.
The Cabots headed the column of men that trooped into the caverns. Once again, on the threshold of the barracks, that icy feeling of apprehension crept over Dane. From the white faces about him, he knew that more than one man shared his sensations. Only the older Cabot kept his slight, anticipatory smile.
"A three-quarter century sleep about to end!" he murmured.
He threw the door open—and staggered back. The cry he uttered froze the very heart of Dane.
CHAPTER X
The Man from Hell
OVER his shoulder Dane gaped at a scene of blackest horror. The sleeping army still occupied the cavern; but to a soldier, to a nurse, to the last orderly, they had been destroyed.
They lay in heaps, as farmers gather
