And Gary Lane, remembering it was wise to humor the deranged, said in as calm a voice as he could muster, "Now, Dr. Anjers please! Be calm. Rest a while."
"Rest?" Anjers' voice broke almost hysterically. "Yes ... rest. That is good. When the red button is pressed, we will all rest, eternally."
"What do you mean?" demanded Lark O'Day harshly.
"I mean it was an evil day for you, pirate, when you cast your lot with these too-ambitious thwarters of destiny. For this journey is, and has been since its beginning, doomed to failure. I, the Kraedar Borisu, Prae-consul of Magog, have seen to that!"
"Now it's Magog!" cried Muldoon. "A minute ago it was Gog. What's all this double talk—Gog and Magog?"
Gog and Magog! The two names struck a familiar spark in Gary Lane's brain. The ancient legend of Earth, about which they had been talking only the other day. A folk tale of an elder age when giants walked the earth and strove mightily amongst themselves.
The dim beginnings of a horrible conception stirred within him, and he repeated the words. "Gog and Magog. Not two mythical persons, but two worlds. Two ancient worlds embattled."
Anjers' half-mad laughter rang shrill in the tense control turret. "You surpass yourself, Dr. Lane. Sometimes your swift intuition amazes me. Yes, you have guessed the truth. A truth forgotten by man for countless centuries. There are two worlds—two worlds which one time warred. The name of one is Magog. That is the planet whereon I was born, from which I came to Earth. The name of the other was Gog. It was the solar globe which one time circled your sun between Mars and Jupiter. Long ages ago our two great empires strove in bitter conflict. Long ages ago your time, that is. In the Greater Universe—the true universe—of which Magog is still a dominant part, time has passed more slowly. To our people it has been but a score of years since our great weapons crumbled Gog to destruction and hurled your entire solar system into the doom which now approaches its climax."
Nora Powell cried, "Then Gary's theory was right! The cosmic rays are a deliberate force being played upon our solar system to destroy it. And you—you—"