ame results. Slowly he
looked up from the brief expression with which he had ended.

It was not the formula that astonished him--it was its physical
significance.

"Arcot--do you think we can make it?"

There was a new expression in Arcot's eyes, a tightness about his mouth.

"I hope so, Morey. If we don't, Lanor is lost beyond a doubt--and
probably Earth is, too. Wade--come here a minute, will you? Let Fuller
take the controls, and tell him to push it. We have to get to work on
this."

Rapidly Arcot explained their calculations--and the proof he had gotten.

"Our beam of molecular motion-controlling energy directs all molecular
motion to go at right angles to it. The mechanism so far has been a
field inside a coil really, but if these figures are right, it means
that we can project that field to a considerable distance even in air.
It'll be a beam of power that will cause all molecules in its path to
move at right angles to it, and in the direction we choose, by reversing
the power in the projector. That means that no matter how big the thing
is, we can tear it to pieces; we'll use its own powers, its own
energies, to rip it, or crush it.

"Imagine what would happen if we directed this against the side of a
mountain--the entire mass of rock would at once fly off at unimaginable
speed, crashing ahead with terrific power, as all the molecules suddenly
moved in the same direction. Nothing in all the Universe could hold
together against it! It's a disintegration ray of a sort--a ray that
will tear, or crush, for we can either make one half move away from the
other--or we can reverse the power, and make one half drive toward the
other with all the terrific power of its molecules! It is
omnipotent--hmmm--" Arcot paused, narrowing his eyes in thought.

"It has one limitation. Will it reach far in the air? In vacuum it
should have an infinite range--in the atmosphere all the molecules of
the air will be affected, and it will cause a terrific blast of icy
wind, a gale at temperatures far below zero! This will be even more
effective here on Venus!

"But we must start designing the thing at once! Take some of the
Immorpho and give me some, and we can let the sleep accumulate till we
have more time! Look--we're in Sonor already! Land us, Fuller--right
where we were, and then come back here. We're going to need you!"

The gorgeous display of a Venerian dawn was already coloring the east as
the great buildings seemed to