Norden's eyes looked beyond Taylor and rested on Masters, who was emerging from the tunnel.

"Is it because you pose the doctrine of slavery and destruction?

Is it because your cultural contributions are keyed to military conquest? Is it because of your lies and broken promises? Is it because you are more skillful in butchery? It is because you have refined the art of terrorism?"

Taylor was advancing, half crouching, toward Norden.

Norden's arm swished in a swift motion. He drew an automatic pistol from his pocket and leveled it at Taylor and Masters.

"Because I am the stronger!" Norden said.

Taylor had not expected Norden to be armed. He had overlooked the possibility that the spy might have an extra weapon hidden in the tunnel.

CHAPTER VII

HUMANITY'S ARMY

Taylor and Masters raised their arms. They were caught.

"There is nothing you can do now to save yourself, or your country," Norden said. "Nothing. The spheres will destroy you and your people. They will destroy every living creature who does not surrender to my nation. Might will come into its own."

"Are you sure the spheres are so invincible?" Taylor asked.

"Remember, they were expelled from the sun. They must have been checked on the sun many times, otherwise they would have destroyed the creatures who opposed them."

"They are greater than anything on the earth," Norden said.

"The spheres are not for the earth. Our battles are not theirs.

By betraying your world to these creatures, you are betraying the whole human race."

"This is not so!" Norden said, thickly. "I know how to handle them. Orkins told me. He said he imitated their whistle and they spared him, while they killed the others in the plant. He didn't realize the value of his discovery. He was too much of a coward."

Norden beckoned his prisoners to him and disarmed them. He pointed to the door of the casting room.

"Look!"

In the center of the room was a metal pot used for small castings. It was filled with molten, glowing metal. Beside it sat a single orange sphere, spraying the pot with bolts of heat to keep the contents warm, for the electrical energy that had supplied the melting pot had long-since been cut off.

In the center of the pot an orange-red bubble was rising from the metal. A sphere was forming on the surface of the metal.

"The rise of living energy!" Norden said. "Our own kind of life may have begun ages ago in much the same way. A spore from some far off world may have drifted here through s.p.a.ce, found conditions just right, and taken root. Thus the spore of the sun--the whispering spheres--found a set of conditions fitted for growth. That metal pot is filled with seeds of the spheres. One by one they will hatch and grow into a force that will bring extinction to all men, except those of my race. The spheres do not want the world, they want the sun. We will see that they go back to the sun, after they have had their sport, killing the weaklings of your nation."

Taylor shuddered as he looked at the growing sphere. This deep, intense intelligence, which found sport in killing human beings, already seemed to be pouring from the depths of its half-formed body.

"The fact that I am alive, proves my superiority," Norden said.

"Your people ran in terror at the sight of the spheres, but I bargained with them. I made an alliance."

"You and your superiority!" Masters growled. "If you really were smart, you'd have counted us. Don't you know there are three of us who aren't afraid of the spheres?"

As Masters spoke, the point of Pember's bayonet touched the small of Norden's back. The soldier had crept from the tunnel, un.o.bserved by Norden, who was engrossed in the mental torture of his prisoners.

With a cry of rage Norden whirled and fired.

But Taylor had expected such a move. Even as Norden swung around, the officer sprang, knocking the spy off his feet and spoiling his aim.

A warning whistle came from the sphere heating the cauldron.

"Back! Out of the doorway!" Taylor shouted, grappling with Norden. "I'll take care of him!"

Pember obeyed orders. He jumped back, dragging Masters with him.

Taylor wrenched the gun from Norden's hand, just as the spy landed a jarring blow to the body. Taylor staggered, lost his balance and dropped the gun.

Norden leaped forward to retrieve the weapon, but Taylor blocked the move. He drove Norden back with a hard right. The two men closed in and stood toe to toe, trading blows.

The screaming of the sphere grew louder. The creature by the metal pot seemed to be calling the others over the town. The half-formed sphere in the melting pot joined and the entire building rang with the shrill screams.

Taylor was slowly driving Norden back toward the door of the casting room. A tentacle of flame reached out from the monster by the metal pot, but it only circled the men. Apparently it was afraid to strike, for fear of destroying friend as well as enemy.

Norden's knee came up. Taylor dodged in time to avoid a crippling blow, but the leg caught him on the thigh, sending him back and upsetting him on the floor.

With a cry of triumph, Norden dived toward his foe. But Taylor rolled on his back, doubled his legs and met the hurtling body with a two-footed kick.

Norden grunted with pain. He staggered back, straight toward the sphere by the metal pot.

A whistled warning had no effect. The momentum carried Norden cras.h.i.+ng into the orange nucleus of energy. There was a blinding flash.

A small pile of glowing ashes appeared on the floor.

The whistle of the sphere stopped. It pulsed once. A feeble ray of heat lashed out toward Taylor, but the bolt halted in mid-air.

A _plop_ cracked in Taylor's ear. The sphere disappeared like a bursting soap bubble.

"Cap! Are you all right!"

Masters appeared in the doorway behind Taylor.

"Gos.h.!.+" His eyes settled on the pile of ashes, the remains of Norden. He turned to Taylor. "Are you all right, Cap?"

Taylor nodded.

"Where's the sphere?" asked Masters.

"He died of frustration--or sorrow--over having killed the wrong man," Taylor said grimly. Taylor indicated the half-formed monster in the pot. "Now we've got to get rid of that one and all the unhatched spores."

"If that metal pot hatches 'em, we will," said Masters. "We'll dump the metal."