by John Victor Peterson
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet March 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sweeping from perihelion, the black destroyer curved toward the gibbous
white ball of Venus, its jets stabbing mocking fingers at the majesty
of the sun whose clutching gravity it had cheated. Within the heavily
shielded control cabin, the hard skull-face of the commander split into
a fleshless smile. From his fanged jaws a single word was spat into the
spaceship's intercommunication system:
"_Adrakolarn!_"
Back on dead sea bottoms the word had been but the weak utterance of
a dream of yesteryear's greatness. First a muted whisper in the thin
air of a dying world; then a keening through the faint, dust-driving
wind; at last a clamorous cry banding together the spiritually
reborn remnants of a vanishing race.... _Adrakolarn_--moment of
destiny--moment of _reckoning_!
Throughout the urgently racing ship other skull-faced, chitinous-hided
men thronged to bomb tubes and waited, heavy eyelids nature had
fashioned as protection against the dust storms of the parent world
drooping over eager, glittering eyes.