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Even to-day there are few Terrestrials or Solarians for that matter who can look at a Nevian, eye to eye, without feeling a creeping of the skin and experiencing a "gone" sensation in the pit of the stomach. The horny, wrinkled, drought-resisting Martian, whom we all know and rather like, is a hideous being indeed. The bat-eyed, colorless, hairless, practically skinless Venerian is worse.
In the midst of the battle, the Solarians began to wonder why the Nigran fleet was decreasing so rapidly certainly they had not caused all that damage! Then suddenly they found the answer. One of their ships then another and another fell victim to a pale red ray that showed up like a ghostly pillar of luminosity coming from nowhere and going nowhere! The answer?
Now, as the monster engines of destruction raced on toward the planets still approximately two billion miles away, they knew that, far behind them, their fliers were engaging the Solarians. They had left their guard but the guard was keeping the enemy occupied while they were free to drive in! Then from nowhere came the counterattack!
"We don't know," Rip sounded tired, beaten. "Meanwhile," he got to his feet, "we'd better set a course home " "Home," Weeks repeated. To him Terra was not his own home he had been born in the polar swamps of Venus. But to All Solarians no matter which planet had nurtured them Terra was home. "You," Rip's big hand fell gently on the little oiler's shoulder, "stay here with Thorson "
The Nigrans had stopped using their rays; and the Solarians followed in armed readiness, not molesting as long as they were not molested. Many days this strange flight lasted, till at last the great yellow sun, Sol, had faded in the distance to an unusually brilliant star.
To their surprise, the forces of the Solarians were dwindling, and no matter how desperately this remnant fought, they could not hold back the entire force of the Nigran fliers. At last it appeared certain that the small ships could completely engage the Solarian fleet!
Meanwhile they amused themselves occasionally by planting a gamma-ray bomb in each of Mars' major cities. They made Mars uninhabitable for Solarians as well as for Mirans, at least until the deadly slow-action atomic explosives wore off, or were removed. Then the Mirans, after a lapse of three weeks while they dug in their toes on Jupiter, prepared to leap. Earth was the next goal.
True, the Nigrans hadn't revealed any especially striking generalship had, in fact, committed some inexcusable blunders but they couldn't be sure. Though they didn't know it, the Solarians had the advantage of thousands of years of planetary warfare to rely on. This stood them in good stead now. The Nigrans were rallying rapidly.
The Nigran fleet had flown blindly into the ambush. There was only one thing left for them to do. They were defeated. They must return to their far-off black star and leave the Solarians in possession of their worlds. For all battle purposes their great force was nearly wiped out, only the fliers remained in force; and these could no longer be carried in the remnant of the great liners.
I followed the Lady Dallona here from our home planet, and when I have rescued her from among you Solarians, I shall, according to our customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the Emperor of Arcturus, that'll be quite a good thing for me." Klarnood chuckled. "You know, you'd only have to tell me that about three or four times and I'd start believing it," he said. "And Dr.
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