“Go on,” Tony whispered. “Take it, commander! It’s carbon. You can use it as a bullet. A coal-cartridge will kill a man. This jewel’s much harder than stone. There’s no limit to the power of a carbon gun. You can bring down the pyramid with this—commander!”
Desquer still did not move, and Tony deftly slipped the jewel into the gun’s cup. It rested there in its strange setting, beautiful beyond imagination, holding within its fiery heart fortunes and grandeur and death. A jewel—but it was carbon, too. And Desquer’s eyes did not move from the great gem.
“Shoot,” Tony said. “If you do, you lose the Earth Star. If you don’t—it means death.”
The commander’s face was shining with sweat. He glanced up once to the mob of priests, very close now. His gross frame shook with the agony of indecision. To possess the Earth Star—and to know that its possession meant certain doom! He had only to squeeze the trigger, and his enemies would be blasted out of existence. But if he did that—
He would lose the Earth Star!
He snarled at Tony, “So you were the one! The Merlin—”
“Fire!”
Almost involuntarily Desquer brought up the gun and aimed it. He was whispering curses under his breath, putting off until the last moment the decision that must be made sooner or later. And he dared not wait too long. The priests came closer.
The flickering red glow made Desquer’s features scarlet and black; his eyes burned balefully, tortured and terrible. He said, “Damn you! I—I’ll—”
His finger tightened on the trigger. And—stopped.