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of charred logs and ashes. Even if the two enemy bombers had circled the spreading inferno,

keeping watch, they would have departed by now, confident they had destroyed their quarry.

With the last vestiges of the blaze still shimmering against the purple night, Jommy

activated his engines again, cleared the front screens, and slowly crunched their way through

the live coals, emerging with a spray of sparks like an orange blizzard. As they drove out of the

now devastated woods, the car smoked, covered with soot and ash, but it made it out to the

fields, across the bumpy ground, and back to the paved road.

Jommy raced forward again, back on their way, this time under the cover of a starry night.

The car’s sharp headlights sent lances ahead of them.

“I told you Jommy could do it,” Kathleen said.

From the back of the vehicle, John Petty began to laugh with relief and delight.

By morning, they had reached open country far from Centropolis, passing over a line of

hills and into a broad and beautiful river valley. The landscape was green and peaceful, with a

smattering of widely separated ranch houses and farms.

“It’s lovely.” Kathleen rubbed weariness from her red eyes as she watched the

buttery-yellow sunrise come over the hills. One of the larger mountains was distorted, half

collapsed, as if a great force had smashed it down.

This valley had always been a sheltered place where he and a hypnotically modified Granny

had built a sanctuary for themselves. Jommy explained to his companions that he had spent

four years building underground laboratories, an arsenal, even turning the interior of a nearby

mountain into a fortress. But the tendrilless had already struck here, using a gigantic attack

vessel to melt part of his mountain fortress in search of his underground laboratories and

industries.

“I don’t recall hearing about any tendrilless attack,” Petty said, looking at Gray. “How could

something like this be kept quiet, especially from my secret police?”

“The tendrilless controlled the news media, and they
wanted
to keep it a secret,” the

President said.

“I first bumped into one of the tendrilless when I was just a boy, not long after my mother

was murdered.” Jommy pointedly looked behind him at the slan hunter. “At the time I was

thrilled, since I’d been looking for other slans. I knew I couldn’t be the only one. I naïvely

assumed the tendrilless would be happy to see me. Instead, they tried to kill me.”

Petty said, “So, even the great Jommy Cross can make a mistake.”

Kathleen glared at him. “The more I’m around you, Mr. Petty, the more I wonder why

exactly we’ve taken you with us.”

“You need me. I still control a sizeable force of the secret police, if I ever get in touch with

them.”

“We need a lot of things, but I’ve learned to live without them,” Gray said. Petty became

quiet.

Jommy continued, “When the tendrilless tracked me to this valley, I boobytrapped my

extensive laboratories so the enemy couldn’t get their hands on my technology. It was the only

way. I left everything behind … everything and everyone.” He had sent Granny to safety in

their armored ranch house while he fled in his ship, luring the tendrilless after him.

He hoped that at least some of his notes and equipment were intact at whatever remained

of the old ranch. He’d already begun to imagine how he might rebuild what he needed. Once

he got a transmitting station up, President Gray could make world-wide broadcasts, rally the

surviving humans, even establish a government in exile. And Jommy could create the arsenal

they needed to fight back in an outright war.

As he drove down the narrow country lanes past other houses, farmers and ranchers

looked up and waved congenially. He felt warm inside as he remembered how much he had

loved this valley.

“It certainly seems a friendly place,” Kathleen said. “Isolated, peaceful.”

“I helped that along a little bit. In the years I lived here, I used my mental skills and

hypnosis crystals to gently guide my neighbors in their thinking.”

Petty seemed indignant. “So you used your mind powers to brainwash them.”

Jommy frowned back at him. “On the contrary, after generations of propaganda and lies, I

used my powers to
un
-brainwash them.”

Driving smoothly along a lane and then up a gravel drive lined by maple trees, they arrived

at a ranch house. It was a small affair, painted red with white trimming, but Jommy knew that

the walls, roof, and floors were made of reinforced steel. The decorative shingles on the roof

had been patched. The familiarity of the place made Jommy grin.

He parked the car on the gravel pad in front of the house’s big garage. The potted

geraniums by the front porch were overflowing with bright coral-red flowers. Tulips planted

along the front of the house blossomed in bright colors, and a small vegetable garden sported

rows of beans, corn, potatoes, onions, and carrots—just enough for one person. Several

feral-looking chickens squawked and ran along the front of the house, pecking at insects.

Jommy climbed out of the car with Kathleen beside him and saw how the vehicle had been

battered and scraped. Considering what it had been through, though, it seemed in good shape.

Petty and Gray stretched their legs, taking deep breaths of the fresh, clean valley air. The slan

hunter rubbed his finger along the hood, smearing a long track in the soot. He wiped his

blackened finger on his dark jacket.

Jommy took one step toward the front door of the house when someone yanked it open. A

rail-thin old woman stepped onto the porch. Her skin was wrinkled and leathery, her gray hair

pulled back. She wore an apron and a drab work dress. Her eyes were like a crow’s, black but

bright, flickering from side to side.

He grinned, raising a hand. “Granny!”

Without acknowledging, the old woman reached inside the door and came back out with a

loaded shotgun. She raised the barrel, glaring at Jommy, glaring at them all, and aimed directly

at him.

«
^
»

Joanna Hillory’s ultra-fast ship soared across interplanetary space from Mars to Earth. She

would cover the distance in a fraction of the time that the lumbering occupation fleet required.

She had only a few days to complete her mission—to find Jommy and make an emergency

plan—before the main tendrilless forces reached their target.

As she streaked past them in space, Joanna gazed at the impressive armada of tendrilless

battleships: giant wheel-shaped vessels powered by internal cyclotrons, bristling with

atomic-powered weapons. Each gigantic craft was loaded with ground assault vehicles and the

bulky equipment needed to crush any remaining resistance and establish an invincible

presence. The heavy vessels carried most of the population of Cimmerium in a great exodus to

occupy conquered Earth.

As she sped past the occupation fleet, Joanna transmitted the special signal that verified her

business for the Tendrilless Authority. In a flurry of messages, the captains of the giant vessels

wished her luck while making brave claims about how much damage they intended to wreak

upon human civilization. She sent a gruff acknowledgment, feeling a knot in her chest, and

flew onward.

When she made her final approach to Earth, she encountered a treacherous debris zone in

the orbital lanes. A great battle had taken place here. Had the humans found some way to

mount a space defense?

She saw blackened ships hanging dead in space, their hulls ripped open, cockpits and

propulsion engines torn away by explosions—either from the tense dogfights or from

detonation of the space mines. Hazardous shrapnel consisted of drifting hull plates, globules of

molten metal that had solidified in the frozen vacuum.

Using the sensitive detectors aboard her scout ship, Joanna scanned and then projected a

three-dimensional map of all the obstacles, including the remaining tendrilless space mines in

orbit. Carefully avoiding collisions, she studied patterns among the wreckage, trying to piece

together what had happened. When she studied the ruined hulks more closely, she could not

identify the ship design. One hull fragment, though, had colors painted on it and she

recognized the insignia. A secret human fleet. Astonishing!

For the past century, humans had made only minimal attempts at resurrecting their space

program, which had once flourished during the First Golden Age of mankind. The very idea of

President Gray building enough ships to pose a threat to the tendrilless was absurd. And yet

the humans had indeed managed to launch their own space defensive fleet. The brashness and

bravado amazed her.

For a long time now, tendrilless had controlled the airways, industries, and

communications centers on Earth. Somehow Kier Gray had managed to create a significant

space force without anyone—not even her—knowing about it. Did the humans have

unexpected help? Slan collaborators, perhaps?

Joanna knew that the Tendrilless Authority was far more worried about the true slans.

Jommy Cross had proved how frightfully talented others like him could be. Now that she had

thrown her lot in with Jommy, she needed to reconcile her loyalties—and in the middle of a

war.

Looking at the wreckage all around her, thousands of shards glinting in slow revolutions as

they caught the light from the sun, she admitted that the human space fleet had failed, but

they had caused great damage to the tendrilless ships.

Finalizing her approach, Joanna spotted a few spaceships from the vanguard fleet still

cruising around the battle zone. While bombers and small fighters continued to pound the

cities below, vanguard scouts patrolled the orbital zone, waiting for the main occupation force

to arrive, hunting down any last human spaceships, alert for any last-ditch tricks.

Unexpectedly, her communications apparatus picked up the steady, rhythmic beacon of an

S.O.S. signal. As she maneuvered her ship toward the source of the beacon, Joanna realized

that it was a distress call from a lifepod.

One of the human defenders had somehow managed to eject an escape pod! As the lifepod

drifted along, the lone survivor aboard begged for assistance, but all of his comrades were

eradicated. He had no chance for rescue, with Earth completely under fire.

Uncertain what to do, Joanna followed the signal, homing in on a small ellipsoidal

container. The automated beacon droned on, calling attention, pleading for someone to come

and help.

Joanna imagined the bravery of this soldier. She had seen enough of human society to

know that the man would have been terrified of the inhuman slans, but he would not have

known any difference between the tendrilless ones and the “snakes.” Even so, when his planet

was in danger, he had climbed aboard one of the Earth spaceships—far inferior to the

advanced tendrilless vanguard fleet—and launched into orbit to fight against the enemy. What

folly! The soldier was either a hero, she decided, or a fool.

“Is anyone still alive there?” she transmitted, closing in on the drifting lifepod.

“Yes, I’m here!” came a shrill voice, a young man’s. “Captain Byron Campbell, sole survivor

of my ship. Gunner and navigator both killed in the explosion. Please, I need help.”

“How is your oxygen?”

“My recyclers are still operating. I can last for another day or two. Please bring me back to

Centropolis. The fight must still be going on down there.” Joanna couldn’t believe his naïveté.

“My squadron flew up to engage the enemy, but the dirty slans had planted mines throughout

orbit. Booby-trapped our whole planet! Most of my fellow ships were destroyed. Filthy

cowards.”

Around her in space the drifting debris could not convey the scope of the massacre.

“Captain Campbell, Earth has already fallen. No one will rescue you.”

“But there’s you.”

A lump formed in her throat. Before Joanna could respond, another ship streaked in, one of

the sharklike vanguard scouts. “Commander Hillory, I apologize for not intercepting you

sooner! Welcome to Earth. You’ll find that everything is in order. We have taken care of most

of the distractions. I’m sorry for this one. Just a loose end to tie up.”