s not sufficient, and the storage
coils had been thrown into the operation. Morey looked at the
instruments a moment. They were all up to capacity, save the ammeter
from the coils. That wasn't registering yet. Suddenly it flicked, and
the other instrument dropped to zero. They were in artificial space.

"Come here, will you, Morey," called Arcot. In a moment Morey joined his
much worried friend.

"That artificial matter control won't work through ray screens. The
Thessians never had to protect against moleculars here, and didn't have
them up--hence the destruction wrought. We can't take our screen down,
and we can't use our most deadly weapon with it up. If we had a big
outfit, we might throw a screen around the whole ship, and sail right
in. But we haven't.

"We can't stand ten seconds against that fleet. I'm going to find their
base, and make them yell for help." Arcot snapped a tiny switch one
notch further for the barest instant, then snapped it back. They were
several millions miles from the planet. "Quicker," he explained, "to
simply follow those ships back home--go back in time."

With the telectroscope, he took views at various distances, thus quickly
tracing them back to their base at the pole of the planet. Instantly
Arcot shot down, reaching the pole in less than a second, by carefully
maneuvering of the space device.

A gigantic dome of polished relux rose from rocky, icy plains. The thing
was nearly half a mile high, a mighty rounded roof that covered an area
almost three-quarters of a mile in diameter. Titanic--that was the only
word that described it. About it there was the peculiar shimmer of a
molecular ray screen.

Morey darted to the power room and set his apparatus into operation. He
created a ball of matter outside the ship and hurled it instantly at the
fort. It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of the
ray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion was
terrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen was
opened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, as
Morey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, cracked
the rock beneath. Each energy release disrupted the ray-screen for a
moment, and the concentrated fury of the molecular beams poured through
the opened screen, and struck the relux behind. It glowed opalescent now
in a spot twenty feet across. But the relux was tremendously thick.
Thirty bom