Krimon was able to describe for Blade the effects of the purple ray. Blade concluded that the ray somehow burst every blood vessel in a victim's body. The victim dropped on the spot, dead almost before he hit the ground.

Unfortunately Krimon's account didn't tell Blade anything about his own theory that the machines could distinguish living from nonliving matter. He decided against raising the question now. Why get the poor neuter's hopes up before giving the theory the thorough testing it would need anyway?

The Looter war machines were bad enough. But there were also the great boxlike machines that fired the rockets. The rockets were sometimes used as weapons, but not often. Mostly the big machines used a destructive red ray.

«Could it possibly be that the Looters do not have very many of the rockets?» asked Blade.

Krimon shrugged. «I do not know. I do not think anyone else does either.» It was obvious to Blade that the neuter had never considered the possibility of the Looters having any weaknesses at all. Morale in Tharn seemed to be down lower than a snake's belly. He was going to have some work to do there.

However, being a god was a real asset when it came to getting people to believe in you.

There were the big box machines. They seemed to be in command. There were other kinds of boxlike machines that carried cutting rays, or large metal claws that scooped things up. Finally there were machines that were nothing more than enormous platforms, the size of a village square, with a small cabin in one corner. They carried away the machinery, the stone, the metalwork that the Looters stripped from the cities they attacked.

The Looters had started far to the east of the city where Blade saw them at work. So far they had destroyed five Tharnian cities.

«When the Looters have finished taking from a city everything they can use, they destroy it the way the release of the power destroyed Urcit. A terrible ball of flame rises up, and then a great cloud of smoke soars into the sky, spreading out at the top.»

The mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion. It was hardly surprising that the Looters had the atomic bomb, considering everything else they had.

«And they are moving toward the settled lands of Tharn, Mazda. They know of our existence. Sooner or later they will fly all the way to the settled lands. Their rays will strike, people will die horribly in the metal arms, and then the ball of flame will sweep away what is left. We cannot prevent their coming, and we cannot survive it either.»

Definitely morale in Tharn was down. With good reason, Blade had to admit. To have the Looters come tramping along, murderous, destructive, and utterly mysterious, just when things had started to improve for the people-it would have been demoralizing to any people.

Most of the knowledge that would have helped fight the Looters had been gone for centuries even before Blade arrived. After the destruction of Urcit, the surviving neuters were too busy learning what they needed to save the survivors to have time for anything else.

It looked as if the job of organizing Tharn for battle against the Looters was going to be largely in the hands of Richard Blade.

His hands and his son's, he reminded himself. He was not only father to the people, but father to their King. He had found strange allies in stranger dimensions, but he had never dreamed that he would find one sprung from his own loins.

He shook his head and set his thoughts in order. «Well, Krimon, I have listened as I promised. You have made many things clear. I now say that we must fly to the house of King Rikard, as fast as the machine can take us. We must stop the Looters soon. Who knows what machines and what knowledge they are taking from you in the cities they loot? And those who fear that they will someday soon march upon the people are correct. Beings like the Looters will kill and destroy for the sheer love of killing and destroying, unless they are stopped. For all their science they are like the Pethcines of the Lesser War.»

«But this machine-«

«This machine is now a terrible weapon for us against its masters. We shall take it to King Rikard, and I and the wisest of the people shall study it. We shall find how it may be destroyed. And then we shall march out against the Looters, and destroy the machines one by one until there are no more of them and Tharn is saved.»

Krimon looked impressed. Blade realized he must have made the road ahead sound easy. He sighed.

He very much wished it were as easy as he had made it sound.

Chapter 12

As soon as they finished breakfast, Blade lifted the machine into the air and headed west. Krimon turned pale as he saw the ground drop away beneath them. His prominent knuckles stood out as his hands clenched into fists. But he said nothing, and slowly relaxed as he saw that the war machine would neither fall down nor explode nor run away with them into the empty sky.

Blade stayed low. He had no idea how much of the machine's power supply he had used up. He didn't want to plunge hundreds of feet to the ground if the lift-field suddenly died.

The plain rolled past beneath them, mile after mile of grass and scrawny shrubs and gentle swells and depressions in the ground. Two hours after starting out Blade saw a herd of wild horses on the horizon. When he was certain that there were no Tharnians anywhere around, he sent the machine sweeping in toward the herd. It was an unpleasant job, but it had to be done. He had to test out the purple ray's effects on a live target and see them with his own eyes. Yet he could not reasonably ask the people to sacrifice any of their animals.

The horses began to scatter as the machine swept toward them. Blade activated the controls for the purple ray, but did not unlock and swing the turret. From the air and against a moving target it was easier to aim the whole machine. He sighted in on one young stallion running a little apart from the herd, and held him in the cross-hairs as Krimon watched, pale and wide-eyed.

Two hundred feet. A hundred and fifty. A hundred. Get in close-beam weapons dissipate energy at long ranges. Fifty feet away, and right behind the poor beast. Blade swallowed, and pressed the firing button.

The whole inside of the machine filled with a purple glare. Krimon let out a yell of fright, started so violently that he nearly fell to the floor, and clapped both hands over his eyes. Blade watched the purple ray leap out and envelop the horse. Then it was his turn to let out a yell.

He had made a perfect shot. But the horse was still alive, still on its feet, still galloping like the wind. For all the harm Blade had done the horse, he might as well have hit it with a ping-pong ball!

«Krimon!» he snapped. «Watch what happens when I shoot at the horse this time!»

The neuter forced himself to watch the screen as Blade swung the machine in a wide circle around the horse and swooped to the attack a second time. Again purple light and purple death struck out. Again the horse galloped across the plain without even breaking stride.

Krimon's eyes widened until they seemed to fill his entire face.

«What-that-it cannot be!» he stammered.

«But it looks like it is,» said Blade shortly. «We'll try a third time. If that damned horse keeps running after that «

It did.

Krimon shook his head. «Never has the purple ray failed to bring death wherever it strikes. Mazda, have you-done something-to alter this machine?»

Blade shook his head. «I don't yet know enough about this machine and its weapons to try.» Perhaps it wasn't wise for a god to admit that he didn't know everything. But the people would find out sooner or later that on some things Mazda was as much in the dark as they were.