Cube Root of Conquest

Jan is a hunter living in a world his people lost to conquerors generations ago. When he discovers a strange glowing square capable of making things vanish, he stumbles into a confrontation with Generalissimo Hute Hitle, a grotesque alien warlord prepare to unleash destruction on Earth. Through Hitle's scientist, Jan learns of a sophisticated mathematical device that can traverse time and space, built on theories the conquerors call the cube root of conquest. But the novella's twist cuts deeper than any battle: Hitle's great campaign of annihilation is happening in an imaginary universe, rendering his ambitions hollow. What remains when conquest has no reality to claim? Phillips poses this question with the strange, economical logic of wartime pulp SF, wrapping philosophical inquiry in a hunter's survival story and an alien warlord's grotesque ambition. The result is a weird, brief meditation on power that asks whether any destruction matters if it occurs nowhere real.