The Earthman was drawn into the alcove. Stood there, while azure seas washed higher and higher about him. Through that glassy veil his face glared, stiff with alien fear....
The sacrifices went on.
There was no alcove, no symbol for Earth. The Aesir had forgotten the world that had been their place of birth.
"Mars! Red star of madness! Ruler of man's passion, lord of the bloody seas! Where scarlet sands run through Time's hourglass—Mars, third in the Long Orbit!"
The crimson glow of a dusty ruby ... the face of a Venusian, strained, twisted in agony ... the hunger of the Aesir....
"The Little Worlds! The Great Belt that girdles the Inner System! The Broken Planet—"
Tiny goblin lights, dancing and flickering, blue and sapphire and dull orange, wine-red and dawn-yellow—
The hunger of the Aesir.
"Jupiter! Titan! Colossus of the Spaceroads! Jupiter, whose mighty hands seize the ships of man and drag them to his boiling heart! The Great One-fifth in the Long Orbit!"
The hunger of the Aesir.