Nothing living had been so close before. Long it stretched, from horizon to horizon, a thin stream of living light.
They winged closer. Allyn felt his hands grow clammy on the controls. Inherent terror sat leaden in his stomach. The whispered warnings of the elders, thought lost in childhood, came to weird life in his mind, making him want to turn, even back to the knives of the medics rather than face the strange glow ahead.
He half-turned the ship, and saw, like birds in the distance, the formations of Gyro-Gard.
"Allyn," Marva whispered, her voice a plea.
He turned his head. Her dark eyes begged him, and he moved the controls—straight ahead—to the light....
His communication board glowed. Quickly he answered to see the black and scarlet robed Junior Gard on the visiscreen.
"Surrender!" was the cold command, "or you die in the flame!"
He glanced to the rear view-plate. Their pursuers hung in space, not to follow, but to bar retreat. There was no turning....
He smiled grimly and snapped the switch to cut contact.
They were close now, close enough for Allyn to see the truth. There were no fires, as legend told. Perhaps once there had been a holocaust that pulsed toward the sky and ate of the earth, but now, in the canal, was only the residue, a radiation that reflected upward like heat shimmers.