way.

It was beyond this, evidently far beyond it, that the scene of the
action was located, for nothing showed on the plate but a misty haze
permeated by indefinite and continuous pulsations of light, and against
which the low mountain ridge stood out in bold relief.

Somewhere on the floor of the Observation room, of course, was a Sector
Observer who was looking beyond that ridge, probably through a
projectoscope station in the second or third "circle," located perhaps
on that ridge or beyond it.

At the very moment I was wishing for his facilities the Executive
Marshal leaned over to a microphone and gave an order in a low tone.
The hemispherical view dissolved, and another took its place, from the
third circle. And the view was now that which would be seen by a man
standing on the low distant ridge.

There was another broad valley, a wide and deep canyon, in fact, and
beyond this still another ridge, the outlines of which were already
beginning to fade into the on-creeping haze of the barrage. The flashes
of the great detonating rockets were momentarily becoming more vivid.

"That's the Gok-Man ridge," mused the Han officer beside me in the
apartment, "and the Forest Men must be more than fifty miles beyond
that."

"How do you figure that?" I asked curiously.

"Because obviously they have not penetrated our scout lines. See that
line of observers nearest the dome itself. They're all busy with their
desk plates. They're in communication with the scout line. The scout
line broadcast is still in operation. It looks as though the line is
still unpierced, but the tribesmen's rockets are sailing over and
falling this side of it."

All through the night the barrage continued. At times it seemed to creep
closer and then recede again. Finally it withdrew, pulling back to the
American lines, to alternately advance and recede. At last I went to
sleep. The Han officer seemed to be a relatively good-natured fellow,
for one of his race, and he promised to awake me if anything further of
interest took place.

He didn't though. When I awoke in the morning, he gave me a brief
outline of what had happened.

It was pieced together from his own observations and the public news
broadcast.

CHAPTER XII

The Mysterious "Air Balls"

The American barrage had been a long distance bombardment, designed,
apparently, to draw the Han disintegrator ray batteries into operation
and so reveal their positions on the mountai