Still there was no movement among all the arrased, girdered, pillared hosts.
There came a little wailing; far away it was and far. Nearer it drew. Was that a tremor that passed through the crowded crater? A quick pulse of—eagerness?
“Hungry!” whispered Drake. “They're HUNGRY!”
Closer was the wailing; again that faint tremor quivered over the place. And now I caught it—a quick and avid pulsing.
“Hungry,” whispered Drake again. “Like a lot of lions with the keeper coming along with meat.”
The wailing was below us. I felt, not a quiver this time, but an unmistakable shock pass through the Horde. It throbbed—and passed.
Into the field of our vision, up to the flaming Disk rushed an immense cube.
Thrice the height of a tall man—as I think I have noted before—when it unfolded its radiance was that shape of mingled beauty and power I call the Metal Emperor.
Yet this Thing eclipsed it. Black, uncompromising, in some indefinable way BRUTAL, its square bulk blotted out the Disk's effulgence; shrouded it. And a shadow seemed to fall upon the crater. The violet fires of the flanking stars pulsed out—watchfully, threateningly.
For only an instant the darkening block loomed against the Disk; blackened it.