"You mean you ... fed it? Allowed it to grow?" Ketrik was aghast, listening to this cold-blooded recital.
"Of course! How else was I to reach Earth with it, across miles of space? That was my ultimate goal."
"But how? It must have taken a tremendous ... surely the Rajecs were not enough?"
Vaajo smiled blandly from the screen. "I told you I worked slowly. I began by communicating with it, telepathically. Yes! It's a highly intelligent entity, and it wishes to remain alive. It seems it came originally from a world in another dimension bordering on ours! It was the creation of a scientist on that world. The Entity became dangerous, threatened to get out of control, and could not be destroyed. The scientists rigged up a contra-dimensional device which hurled it out of that dimension. It landed quite by chance in ours—on Mars, near M'Tonak.
"So we made a sort of pact, the Entity and I. I wished it to grow in size and potential, but not at the sacrifice of my own people. I told it something of my plans. It, in turn, told me how to build a contra-dimensional machine by which to project it back into its own world! I managed this at last, adding a reverse control by which I could always bring it back.
"Fully a dozen times now it has crossed the dimensions. Whenever I brought it back, it had ... fed. You understand? It was satiating itself upon the populace of that other world! Until finally, it revealed to me that ... there was no more. The other-dimensional world was barren of sustenance!
"By this time, however, I was almost ready. It had grown tremendously in size and power. I always added more rays to keep it under control. Then I began testing for Earth, allowing it to reach out. Have you realized what a terrible weapon concentrated and projected thought can be? Several times it touched Earth spacers, absorbed the minds aboard them, and"— Dar Vaajo shrugged—"I had to send my Patrollers out afterwards to destroy the spacers. But never were we quite able to reach Earth! It would take more potential, just a little more, and where was I to find it? Then I thought of the Rajecs. I made treaty with them, built the temple here to attract them ... I guess you know the rest."
Ketrik knew the rest, and more. He knew that Earth would have to capitulate to Vaajo's demands, or face destruction by a mind-destroying, mind-feeding Entity now capable of reaching across space. Venus would undoubtedly be next, leaving Dar Vaajo in control of the inner planets including the colonies recently established on Jupiter's moons.
"So, Ketrik, I shall send you back to Mark Travers," Dar Vaajo was saying. "Four days from now the orbits of our two planets reach their nearest juxtaposition. Then is when the Entity shall reach out again for Earth, to give another sample of my power." Vaajo smiled maddeningly just before he caused the screen to blank out. "And isn't it ironic that you, or rather the mental part of you, shall be an infinitesimal part of it!"