Explore "The Skylark of Valeron" by E.E. Smith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Valeron was making her last stand. Her back was against the wall. The steadily contracting ring of Chloran force had been driven inward until only one thin line of fortified works lay between it and the great dome covering the city itself. Within a week at most, perhaps within days, that voracious flood of lava would lick into and would dissolve that last line of defense. Then what of Valeron?
All the scientists of the planet had toiled and had studied, day and night, but to no avail. Each new device developed to halt the march of the encroaching constricting band of destruction had been nullified in the instant of its first trial.