was
black around them, the sunlit world was gone.

"Wonder what they thought of _that_!" grinned Arcot. Wade smiled grimly.

"It's not what they thought, but what they'll do, that counts."

Arcot came back to normal space, just in time to see the Thessian ship
spin in a quick turn, under an acceleration that would have crushed a
human to a pulp. Again the pilot dived at the terrestrian ship. Again it
vanished. Twice more he tried these fruitless tactics, seeing the ship
loom before him--bracing for the crash--then it was gone
instantaneously, and though he sailed through the spot he knew it to
have occupied, it was not there. Yet an instant later, as he turned, it
was floating, unharmed, exactly where his ship had passed!

Rushing was useless. He stood, and prepared to give battle. A molecular
ray reached out--and disappeared in flaring ions on a shield utterly
impenetrable in the ionizing atmosphere.

Arcot meanwhile watched the instrument of his shield. The Thessian
shield would have been impenetrable, but his shield, fed by less
efficient tubes, was not, and he knew it. Already the terrific energy of
the Thessian ray was noticeably heating the copper plates of the tube.
The seal would break soon.

Another ray reached out, a ray of flaring light. Arcot, watching through
the "eyes" of his telectroscope viewplates, saw it for but an instant,
then the "eyes" were blasted, and the screen went blank.

"He won't do anything with that but burn out eyes," muttered the
terrestrian. He pushed a small button when his instruments told him the
rays were off. Another scanner came into action, and the viewplate was
alive again.

Arcot shot out a cosmic ray himself, and swept the Thessian with it
thoroughly. For the instant he needed the enemy ship was blinded.
Immediately the _Ancient Mariner_ dove, and the automatic ray-finders
could no longer hold the rays on his ship. As soon as he was out of the
deadly molecular ray he shut off his screen, and turned on all his
molecular rays. The Thessian ship, their own ray on, had been unable to
put up their screen, as Arcot was unable to use his ray with the enemy's
ray forcing him to cover with a shield.

Almost at once the relux covering of the Thessian ship shone with
characteristic iridescence as it changed swiftly to lux metal. The
molecular ray blinked out, and a ray screen flashed out instead. The
Thessians were covering up. Their own rays were useless now. Though
Arcot co