He gazed up into the flaming clouds where the League's Fleet and the Energasts had swept upwards in coruscating swirls of intolerable radiance, and then his gaze came to rest on the golden glory of the Aurean girl. "Margalida," he said softly, as if there were an ineffable magic in that name. "Almond blossom," he murmured softly to himself, as if in those few, last tragic moments, he would stamp forever the imprint of her loveliness in his heart.
There was no sound. The tortured atmosphere of the planet regained a measure of peace. Only the sea remained monstrously convulsed as if striving to spew the shattered Globes and spacers now sunk beneath its waves. And on the windswept shore, only a fraction of the Inter-Planetary League's great ships had come to rest.
Of the Energasts there was no sign—not a single violet globe remained in all that vast expanse, under the blazing glory of the eternal stars. But the victory had been almost a defeat. Countless vessels from all six planets, and still more countless dead would lie forever beneath Saturn's shimmering sea. But the relentless fury of the Energasts had been stilled.
And yet.... It was not over. The enemy was helpless for a while. He must not be given time to strike again.
For beneath those billowing mountains of translucent liquid that seemed to be strewn with flashing stars, cities—immense cities filled with Energasts, what remained of them, had not felt their power as yet. The Absolute only knew what fiendish plans even now were being framed, while the victors strove to recover a measure of strength, and sanity.
In the great central cabin of the spacer, where scientists and experts had collected, to lighten in a measure the awful tension of so many hours, Bill Nardon suddenly looked up from the piano—the only real luxury he had requested for himself—and said softly as if thinking aloud:
"So many cities lie in ruins ... so many nations have been bombed. But this will be the first time in history that a great sea is bombed from shore to distant shore, until not a single shard remains of their structures!"
He looked at Nydron.