know. I'm gambling on his being right."
"This is no time for a gamble!" barked Gorman. "We'll take the surest way."
East's bearded jaws showed the working of his muscles.
"Hasn't this whole thing been a gamble—a seventy-five year gamble? We've won so far because the Leaders held all the cards. We've got only one card, now, and that's Benchley's notes. But I'm willing to stake everything that he was right!"
He turned to Brooke.
"We won't forget our debt to you, Brooke—dragging us into the elevator and hauling the six of us to safety. Here's the last request we'll ask of you. Come back for us at midnight. Have food for a couple of weeks. We're going to break out one of the ships hidden back in the hills."
"What are you going to do, East? What's your plan?"
East let a smile turn up the corners of his hard lips.
"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?" he said.
CHAPTER XIII
Cataclysm
IT was not a pleasant one, that return voyage of the Valiant. Nile Vanz was sour with worrying over the fate of his countrymen; Margo worried about that and Kris' jealousy; and Dane fumed under Kris' unjustifiably sarcastic attitude.
Dane held mostly to his room. He tried to keep his mind off Margo by thinking of the situation on Earth. There was plenty to disturb the most placid mind.
Then, after four tedious days, came a more immediate worry. Jupiter was in the sky before them, floating serenely through space! Io came rocketing above the horizon, and with the sight of it, all was forgotten but the fate of the little colony they were racing to save.
Crowding the ports, they stared ahead as Kris put the ship into a long, sloping drop. Behind the Valiant wallowed the hundred-odd huge transports, empty of all save a few dozen sailors. Io was no more than a barren chunk of rock. Of landmarks, there were almost none.
Crags and scarps had been levelled with the surrounding plains, plains composed of giant black rocks that looked as if they had been smashed in a sack like ice cream for a freezer, and then shaken far and wide. Here and there were seen deep rifts across the terrain. In a few weeks the planet would be spliting through and through. Then Jupiter would fling off the fragments and number one less moon among her satellites.
Across the night-side of the planet the fleet swept, lights questing downward, sweeping, sweeping over the wastelands. The watchers' eyes ached with searching. Back and forth the Valiant moved, scouring the dead world. But no trace of life was raised. There came a time when Kris grunted impatiently and turned the ship toward the other side of the globe.
At Margo's side, Dane could feel the trembling she tried to conceal. Unconsciously, his hand brushed hers, and the girl's fingers swiftly seized it. She leaned against him as if deathly weary, her golden hair soft against his cheek.
"Do you think we'll ever find them?" she whispered.
"Of course we will! We've hardly started looking."
Nile Vanz' rumbling tones broke through the cabin.
