alone, will you?"

"No fear of that," Wixill hissed, with the Vorkulian equivalent of a
chuckle. "We have abundance of power for all of your projector officers.
But don't waste any of it, or I'll cut you down five ratings!"

"You're welcome. When I shine old Number One on any hexan work, one
flash is all we'll take. See you at supper," and, leaving his superior
at the door of the power room, Kromodeor wriggled away to his station
upon the parallel horizontal bars before his panel.

Making sure that his tail coils were so firmly clamped that no possible
lurch or shock could throw him out of position, he set an eye toward
each of his sighting screens, even though he knew that it would be long
before those comparatively short range instruments would show anything
except friendly vessels. Then, ready for any emergency, he scanned his
one "live" screen--the one upon which were being flashed the pictures
and reports secured by the high-powered instruments of the observers.

* * * * *

With the terrific acceleration employed by the hexan spheres, it
was not long until the leading squadron of fighting globes neared
the Vorkulian war-cone. This advance guard was composed of the new,
high-acceleration vessels. Their crews, with the innate blood-lust
and savagery of their breed, had not even entertained the thought of
accommodating their swifter pace to that of the main body of the fleet.
These vast, slow-moving structures were no more to be feared than those
similar ones whose visits they had been repulsing for twenty long
Jovian years--by the time the slower spheres could arrive upon the scene
there would be nothing left for them to do. Therefore, few in number
as were the vessels of the vanguard, they rushed to the attack. In one
blinding salvo they launched their supposedly irresistible planes of
force--dazzling, scintillating planes under whose fierce power the
studying, questing, scouting fortresses previously encountered had fled
back southward; cut, beaten, and crippled. These spiraling monsters,
however, did not pause or waver in their stolidly ordered motion.
As the hexan planes of force flashed out, the dull green metal walls
broke into a sparkling green radiance, against which the Titanic
bolts spent themselves in vain. Then there leaped out from the weird
brilliance of the walls of the fortresses great shafts of pale green
luminescence--tractor ray after gigantic tractor ray, which