it is first collected.
Then it is led to the big condenser downstairs, where the final power is
added, and the condensed light is stored.

"Quartz conducts light just as copper conducts electricity--those are
bus bars we saw running around there.

"The bombs we've been meeting recently are, of course, little knots of
this light energy thrown out by that projector mechanism we saw. When
they hit anything, the object absorbs their energy--and is very promptly
volatilized by the heat of the absorption.

"Do you remember that column of hissing radiance we saw shooting out of
the wrecked plane just before it blew up? That was the motor connection,
broken, and discharging free energy. That would ordinarily have
supplied all fifty motors at about full speed. Naturally, when it cut
loose, it was rather violent.

"The main generator had been damaged, no doubt, so it stopped working,
and the gravitational attraction of the photons wasn't enough, without
its influence to hold them bound too long. All those floods of energy
were released instantaneously, of course.

"Look--there come the Lanorians now. I want to go back to Sonor and
think over this problem. Perhaps we can find something that will release
all that energy--though honestly, I doubt it."

Arcot seemed depressed, overawed perhaps, by the sheer magnitude of the
force that lay bound up in the Kaxorian ship. It seemed inconceivable
that the little _Solarite_ could in any way be effective against the
incredible machine.

The Lanorian planes were landing almost like a flock of birds, on the
wings, the fuselage, the ground all about the gigantic ship. Arcot
dropped into a chair, gazing moodily into emptiness, his thoughts on the
mighty giant, stricken now, but only sleeping. In its vast hulk lay such
energies as intelligence had never before controlled; within it he knew
there were locked the powers of the sun itself. What could the
_Solarite_ do against it?

"Oh, I almost forgot to mention it." Arcot spoke slowly, dejectedly. "In
the heat of the attack back there it went practically unnoticed. Our
only weapon beside the gas is useless now. Do you remember how the ship
seemed to lose its invisibility for an instant? I learned why when we
investigated the ship. Those men are physicists of the highest order. We
must realize the terrible forces, both physical and mental that we are
to meet. They've solved the secret of our invisibility, and now they can
neutralize it.