CHAPTER XV

_Escape_ That _Tarrano_ should thus defy the Earth, when by every law of rational circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was characteristic of the man. He stood there in the instrument room at the peak of the skeleton tower in Venia and rasped out to the Earth Council his defiance. Silence followed--silence unbroken save by the hiss and click of the instruments as the message was sent. And then Tarrano ordered thrown upon himself the lights and sending mirrors so that his own image might be av…