Roal glanced up hopefully. Alayna was familiar with these things. She
must know the secret of their vulnerability. If that were the case,
then perhaps she still lived unharmed within the mass of force and
tenuous substance that formed the monster.
But if that were true, he wondered why it had been able to attack her
at all. Perhaps it was because it represented the mightiest efforts of
the Martians, or she had allowed a moment's fright to enter her mind.
The monster head was dwindling fast as the mental forces of the
remaining Martians was insufficient to support it. The thing shrank
and dropped down to the floor. Less than a hundred of the dry Martians
remained and they were vanishing rapidly in the flames of the remaining
starmen.
Then abruptly, the head was gone, and from out of that mass of horror
fell the unconscious form of Alayna. The few remaining Martians came to
life. They leaped from their seats and began running--straight into
the flames of the starmen where they died.
Amid the shambles Roal slowly and tenderly lifted Alayna in his arms.
She was miraculously alive and apparently unharmed. Her own knowledge
of the monster and her refusal to believe in its ability to harm her
had saved her life.
Within an hour a dozen SBI guards arrived at Roal's call. Then Shorty
let Roal have the patrol ship to take Alayna to Heliopolis. Calvin
exploded all over the place when he arrived. But his wrath finally died
to a stammer as the truth was unfolded to him.
In the small patrol ship, Alayna sat beside Roal watching the sunrise
on the desert. Her eyes were dew-bright and she seemed at once glad and
shy.
"I've found out one thing that made me glad," she said.
"What's that?"
"My father was not a dope addict as I had believed. The Martians could
never force it upon him and so they had to change his brain instead. I
know that what I did was not under compulsion of the Thousand Minds."
Roal smiled down at her. She must be reading his thoughts, he supposed.
"Your father was a great man," he said. "He tried to solve a problem
that the human race has muffed for ten thousand years, the problem of
how to make it possible for incompatible races to live together."
"Perhaps he accomplished something. This conflict will bring the
problem to light. I think Earth will find a solution."
"The Martians will go the way of the Indian. Perhaps we may eventually
find some worthless, barren planet and put a few hundred of them there
on a reservation. But the problem is as old as man. There can be no
solution. The strong overcomes the weak and man calls it progress."
"Some day there'll be a solution."
"You're a dreamer like your father. Don't ever lose sight of your
dreams. That's the only thing that makes life worth while."
"Dreams sometimes come true, don't they?"
Roal drew her tight, drinking in her loveliness with his eyes. "I think
mine is going to," he said slowly.