electrifying other bodies, but in holding space open, in keeping it from
closing in about that concentrated matter, just as it does about a
single proton, except that here the entire field energy is so absorbed.

"Arcot was tired, and forgot. He turned his magnet and his heat against
it. The heat fought the solid matter with the same energy that created
it, and with an energy that had resources as great. The magnet curved
space about it, and about us. The result was the terrific energy release
you saw, and the hole in the wall. All Thett couldn't make any
impression on it. One of the rays blasted a hole in it," said Morey with
a laugh. For he, too, loved this mighty thing, the almost living ideas
of his friend's brain.

"But it is as bad as the space defense. It works both ways. We can't
send through it but neither can they. Any thing we use that attacks
them, attacks it, and so destroys it--and it fights."

"We're worse off than ever!" said Morey gloomily.

"My friend, you, too, are tired. Sleep, sleep soundly, sleep till I
call--sleep!" And Morey slept under Zezdon Afthen's will, till Torlos
carried him gently to his room. Then Afthen let the sleep relax to a
natural one. Wade decided he might as well follow under his own power,
for now he knew he was tired, and could not overcome Zezdon Afthen, who
was not.

* * * * *

On Thett, the fort was undestroyed, and now floating on its power units
in a sea of blazing lava. Within, men were working quickly to install a
second set of the new tubes in the molecular motion ray screen, and
other men were transmitting the orders of the Sthanto who had come here
as the place of actually greatest safety.

"Order all battleships to the nearest power-feed station, and command
that all power available be transmitted to the station attacked. I
believe it will be this one. There is no limit on the power transmission
lines, and we need all possible power," he commanded his son, now in
charge of all land and spatial forces.

"And Ranstud, what happened to that molecular ray screen?"

"I do not know. I cannot understand such power.

"But what most worries me is his wall of darkness," said Ranstud
seriously.

"But he was forced to retire for all his wall of darkness, as you saw.

"He can maintain it but a short time, and it was full of holes when he
fled."

"Old Sthanto is much too confident, I believe," said an assistant
working at one of the