The news was black. Canada, Mexico and Central America were now a part of the armed camp of the invaders. The Greater United States alone had managed to remain independent. Breastworks a quarter of a mile high had been erected on the Canadian and Mexican frontiers.
The only bright spot was the fact that Faggard's "big push" had failed. Often Standish smiled as he listened in on radio messages between the Sirian government and Drum Faggard at his Frisco base.
"The Phantom has been sighted, lurking near Ganymede. Dispatch five cruisers to that satellite immediately."
And again: "The Phantom, it is learned on definite authority, comes from some point in future time. It is able to maintain a speed in excess of light, violating the Fitzgerald contraction, riding the fourth dimensional continuum."
To which Drum Faggard always snarled the same reply. "Whoever Captain Ether is, I'll get him. Give me time."
It was the day of his return from his most successful raid; and Standish and Thalia were walking arm in arm through the palace garden on Lyra. Flowers were in the full bloom of the planet's early summer, and the sun glowed upon them warmly.
"The Phantom is not enough," the Earthman said. "Powerful as she is, she can only plague the Sirians like a single hornet. With all my efforts, I have not halted the war against Earth one iota."
Thalia shook her head. "You've done all one person possibly could do."
"I need an army and a fleet," Standish said. "Yet on all Lyra there will not be sufficiently trained men to furnish either for a long time."