protected the eyes. The moleculars did not
affect either, but the invisible protective sheet that the _Thought_ was
maintaining in the Ortolian atmosphere became misty as it fought the
slight molecular rebounds.

The _Thought_ went into action. The fort which remained was the point of
attack. The fort had turned its destructive ray on the cosmium ship with
the result that, as before, the cosmium slowly disintegrated into puffs
of cosmic rays. The vapor seemed to boil out, puff suddenly, then was
gone. Arcot put up a wall of artificial matter to test the effect. The
ray went right through the matter, without so much as affecting it. He
tried a sheet of pure energy, an electro-magnetic energy stream of
tremendous power. The ray bent sharply to one side. But in a moment the
Thessians had realigned it.

"It's a photonic stream, but of some type that doesn't affect ordinary
matter, but only artificial matter such as lux, relux, or cosmium. If
the artificial matter would only fight it, I'd be all right." The
thought running through Arcot's mind reached the others.

A tremendous burst of light energy to the rear announced the fact that a
Thessian had crashed against the artificial matter wall that surrounded
the ship. Arcot was throwing the Thessian destructive beam from side to
side now, and twice succeeded in misdirecting it so that it hit the
enemy machines.

The _Thought_ sent out its terrific beam of magnetic energy. The ray was
suddenly killed, and the fort cruised helplessly on. Its driving
apparatus was dead. The diffused cosmic reached out, and as the magnetic
field, the relux and the cosmics interacted, the great fort was suddenly
blue-white--then instantly a dust that scattered before an enormous
blast of air.

From the _Thought_ a great shell of artificial matter went, a visible,
misty wall, that curled forward, and wrapped itself around the Thessian
ships with a motion of tremendous speed, yet deceptive, for it seemed to
billow and flow.

A Thessian warship decided to brush it away--and plowed into
inconceivable strength. The ship crumpled to a mass of broken relux.

The greater part of the Thessian fleet had already fled, but there
remained half a hundred great battleships. And now, within half a
million miles of the planet, there began a battle so weird that
astronomers who watched could not believe it.

From behind the _Thought_, where it hung motionless beyond the misty
wall, a Thing came.

The The