of
electric force. Your air fleet cannot break in. You know that! Also,
if they were in they could not break out again. So I wait, fery
patiently pretending to be a Martian until all your Fighting Force has
gathered around in readiness to fight me. But I shall not fight. I
shall simply make a new and larger gold-fish globe, outside of this
one. And then I go out and make faces at der Fighting Force of der
United Nations imprisoned between der two of them--and then der
Com-Pub fleet comes ofer!"

He stood up and put his hand on a door-knob.

"Is it not pretty?" he asked blandly. "In two weeks der air fleet will
begin to starfe. In three, there will be cannibalism, unless der
Com-Pubs accept der surrender. Imagine...." He laughed. "But do not
fear, my friendt! I haff profisions for a year. If you are amusing, I
feed you. In any case I exchange food for kisses with der charming
Sylva. It will be amusing to change her from a woman who screams as I
kiss her, to one who weeps for joy. If I do not haff to kill you, you
shall witness it!"

He vanished through a doorway on the farther side of the room.
Instantly Thorn was on his feet. The dead slumber in which Sylva was
sunk was wholly familiar. Electric anesthesia, used not only for
surgery, but to enforce complete rest at any chosen moment. He dragged
her from that couch to his own. He saw her stir, and her eyes were
instantly wide with terror. But Thorn was tearing the couch to pieces.
Cover, pneumatic mattress.... He ripped out a loosely-fitting
frame-piece of steel.

"Quick, now," he said in a low tone, "I'm going to short the
induction-screen. We'll get across it. Then--out the door!"

* * * * *

She struggled to her feet, terrified, but instantly game. Thorn slid
the rod of metal across the stretch of flooring he had previously been
unable to cross. The induced currents in the rod amounted to a
short-circuit of the field. The rod grew hot and its paint blistered
smokily. Thorn leaped across with Sylva in his wake. He pointed to the
door, and she fled through it. He seized a chair, crashed it
frenziedly into the television screen, and had switched on the G.C.
phone when there was a roar of fury from Kreynborg. Instantly there
was the spitting sound of a pocket-gun and in the red room the racking
crash of a hexynitrate pellet. Nothing can stand the instant crash of
hexynitrate. Its concussion-wave is a single pulsation of the air. The