The ships were coming in beneath the protection of a cloud-bank, but Colossus spotted them. He flailed a whiplike arm at them as a pettish child might sweep at bothersome flies ... but to no avail. The speedy craft swirled away, but kept their prows pointed at his midriff.
Again Colossus struck at them, and smashed one. Then a new idea struck him. Reaching above his head, by sheer force he tugged from a satellitic course about Titan a rogue rock of tremendous size. A rock which must have been every bit of fifteen hundred feet in diameter, a shard of matter hewn into a perfect sphere by long ages in the Rings of Saturn.
This he clutched and aimed at the spacecraft. Let it be hurled upon them, Rocky knew, and in an instant every spark of life would be dashed from existence as the metal walls of the ships were beaten flat.
But the sphere was not hurled! It was the Colossus who gave way ... not the ships! The cumulative pressure of the repulsor beams caused him to yield, bend, stagger! He tried to regain his balance with a lurching stride forward ... and thus it was that the twin towers, pride of New Boston, were destroyed. Colossus' left foot descended crushingly upon the buildings ... and when it withdrew a moment later, a yawning hole gaped where had been city streets ... a hole partly filled with the crumbled masonry of the once-proud skyscrapers....
But Colossus staggered back one step ... and another ... and still another. Then one foot slipped into the air-and did not descend! After it went the other foot. And Colossus was off the ground! Off the ground and being pressed farther and farther out into space with every passing moment!
A great cheer ... a cheer which had in it half a sob ... rose from the safeway beside the gunnery-pit. Rocky Russell, glancing up at the hordes who had turned to behold this last-moment salvation, felt a moment of pain strike at his heart.
Saved! A world ... and all these ... saved. But the one most important person in this or any world....
And then he saw her! She had been fighting beside him in this very pit ... weary, disheveled, eyes haggard ... but still, to him, beautiful! And it could not have been mere coincidence that she saw him at the same moment. Their eyes met ... and no longer was there need for words. Both knew what the other was thinking ... both accepted the decisions of their hearts gladly. Without a word she turned and fled into the circle of his arms.