He took his hand-rocket and with its flame carefully seared every square inch of the outside of her metal suit. Lalla Dee did the same for him. The last germs of the deadly culture had been destroyed.
'Before I laid the fuse, I used the cruiser's radio to call the Vulcan,' Crane told her. 'They're turning around to come back and pick us up.'
'And Doctor Alph's brain perished in that explosion too?' Lalla Dee cried. 'No one else will ever find the secret of that culture?'
'No one else, thank God!' said Crane. 'It's a power too great for any world to have.'
'I'm glad that neither of us won this game, man of the TSS!' she exclaimed. 'And I'll give the Vulcan's officers an explanation that will satisfy them, without letting them know the truth.'
'Look, there comes the ship now!' he said, pointing.
Far off against the solemn stars, the lights of the returning Vulcan were showing. But Rab Crane was gazing past them, toward the distant green light-speck of his own world. No one there but his Chief would ever know the danger that had threatened that smiling world — and that had been averted.
Only the Chief would ever know, and all the reward that Rab Crane would ever get from him would be a little longer, stronger handshake than usual.
But that was reward enough for a man of the TSS.
