great boards in the enemy's fort, to one of his
friends. "And I think he has lost his science-knowledge. Any power-man
could tell what happened. They tried to use their own big rays against
us, and their screen stopped them from going out, just as it stopped
ours on the way in. Ours had been working at it for seconds, and hadn't
bothered them. Then for a bare instant their ray touched it--and they
retired. That shield of blackness is absolutely new."

"They have many men on that ship of theirs," replied his friend, helping
to lift the three hundred ton load of a vacuum tube into place, "for it
is evident that they built new apparatus, and it is evident their ship
was increased in size to contain it. Also the nose was repaired. They
probably worked under a time field, for they accomplished an impossible
amount of work in the period they were gone."

Ranstud had come up behind them, and overheard the later part of this
conversation. "And what," he asked suddenly, "did your meters tell you
when our ray opened his ship?"

"Councilor of Science-wisdom, they told us that our power diminished,
and our generators gave off but little power when his power was
exceedingly little, we still had much."

"Have you heard the myth of the source of his power, in the story that
he gets it from all the stars of the Island?"

"We have, Great Councilor. And I for one believe it, for he sucked the
power from our generators. So might he suck the power from the
inconceivably greater generators of the Suns. I believe that we should
treat with them, for if they be like the peace-loving fools of Venone,
we might win a respite in which to learn their secret."

Ranstud walked away slowly. He agreed, in his heart, but he loved life
too well to tell the Sthanto what to do, and he had no intention of
sacrificing himself for the possible good of the race.

So they prepared for another attack of the _Thought_, and waited.

Chapter XXVI

MAN, CREATOR AND DESTROYER

"What we must find," said Arcot, between contented puffs, for he had
slept well, and his breakfast had been good, "is some weapon which will
attack them, but won't attack us. The question is, what is it? And I
think, I think--I know." His eyes were dreamy, his thoughts so
cryptically abbreviated that not even Morey could follow them.

"Fine--what is it?" asked Morey after vainly striving to deduce some
sense from the formulas that were chasing through Arcot's thoughts. Here