ruction. Here
and there a guard, more rapid than his fellows, trained a futile
projector--a projector whose magazine exploded at the touch of that
frightful field of force, liberating instantaneously its thousands upon
thousands of kilowatt-hours of-stored-up energy. Through the delicately
adjusted, complex mechanisms the destroying beams tore. At their touch
armatures burned out, high-tension leads volatilized in crashing,
high-voltage arcs, masses of metal smoked and burned in the path of vast
forces now seeking the easiest path to neutralization, delicate
instruments blew up, copper ran in streams. As the last machine subsided
into a semi-molten mass of metal the two wreckers, each grasping a
brace, felt themselves become weightless and knew that they had
accomplished the first part of their program.

Costigan leaped for the outer door. His the task to go to Clio's
aid--Bradley would follow more slowly, bringing the girl's armor and
taking care of any possible pursuit. As he sailed through the air he
spoke.

"Coming, Clio! All right, girl?" Questioningly, half fearfully.

"All right, Conway." Her voice was almost unrecognizable, broken in
retching agony. "When everything went crazy he ... found out that the
ether-wall was up and ... forgot all about me. He shut it off ... and
seemed to go crazy too ... he is floundering around like a wild man now
... I'm trying to keep ... him from ... going downstairs."

"Good girl--keep him busy one minute more--he's getting all the warnings
at once and wants to get back to his board. But what's the matter with
you? Did he ... hurt you, after all?"

"Oh, no, not that--he didn't do anything but look at me--but that was
bad enough--but I'm sick--horribly sick. I'm falling ... I'm so dizzy
that I can scarcely see ... my head is breaking up into little pieces
... I just _know_ I'm going to die, Conway! Oh ... oh!"

"Oh, is _that_ all!" In his sheer relief that they had been in time,
Costigan did not think of sympathizing with Clio's very real present
distress of mind and body. "I forgot that you're a ground-gripper--that's
just a little touch of space-sickness. It'll wear off directly.... All
right, I'm coming! Let go of him and get as far away from him as you can!"

He was now in the street. Perhaps two hundred feet distant and a hundred
feet above him was the tower room in which were Clio and Roger. He
sprang directly toward its large window, and as he floated "upward" he
cor