The building was still untouched by the force field's encroaching maw. Curt Wing stood by the window staring out at the blue night scene. Finally he answered the men who sat at the long narrow table behind him.
"I don't know what we can do. My experiments with such a field taught me only that I could not control it once it was set in motion," he said quietly.
He turned then to face the men—the governors of the seven divisions of earth. "You have flattered me because of an experiment that ended in failure," he went on. "But even if we had a solution, a way to overcome this impossibility, we must not forget that is only one problem. We have this unknown to lick, yes; but meanwhile the Mercurians we left out by the moon can punch us to Stardust."
Jan Eliel, senior governor, shook his white head quickly. "No, we have only this force field with which to contend. We have nothing to worry about from the Mercurians. We gave them Earth's unconditional surrender only minutes after you were ordered back."
"Huh?" The exclamation, shot through with amazement, exploded from the shadows in the corner where Dead-Eye had buried himself. "Why, you!"
"Quiet, Dead-Eye!" Wing barked. Dead-Eye subsided, grumbling.
Wing's face had drained of color, the sharp planes of his face came into sharper relief, the muscles in his throat were working pulsating as if he could not catch a full breath.
His mind was shrieking. It's gone, Curt Wing! The loveliest world in the galaxy no longer belongs to Earthmen. It is owned by strangers, by Mercurians, by an alien people who will grind its beauty into a molten crucible so that it may support their hell-hot lives.
Gone! Everything worth fighting for, living for, dying for! Earth, who had flung her minions to the stars, first beings in the galaxy to solve space travel, first to probe across eternity in rickety ships, spanning the vast distances with blood and broken lives. Earth, who had struggled to bring her peoples together in peaceful harmony, finally succeeding in it, lifting them toward their destiny.