est."

Under the fierce blast of her projectors the vessel leaped ahead, and
time after time, as Rodebush hurled her mass upon tractor beam or
pressor, the engineers sought in vain for any sign of weakness. The
strange planet half girdled and the severest tests passed flawlessly,
Rodebush reached for his neutralizer switches. Reached and paused,
dumbfounded, for a brilliant purple light had sprung into being upon his
panel and a bell rang out insistently.

"What the hell!" Rodebush shot out an exploring beam along the detector
line and gasped. He stared, mouth open, then yelled:

"_Roger_ is here, rebuilding his planetoid! STATIONS ALL!"

CHAPTER 17

ROGER CARRIES ON

As has been intimated, Gray Roger did not perish in the floods of Nevian
energy which destroyed his planetoid. While those terrific streamers of
force emanating from the crimson obscurity surrounding the amphibians'
space-ship were driving into his defensive screens he sat impassive and
immobile at his desk, his hard gray eyes moving methodically over his
instruments and recorders.

When the clinging mantle of force changed from deep red into shorter and
even shorter wave-lengths, however:

"Baxter, Hartkopf, Chatelier, Anandrusung, Penrose, Nishimura, Mirsky
..." he called off a list of names. "Report to me here at once!"

"The planetoid is lost," he informed his select group of scientists when
they had assembled, "and we must abandon it in exactly fifteen minutes,
which will be the time required for the robots to fill this first
section with our most necessary machinery and instruments. Pack each of
you one box of the things he most wishes to take with him, and report
back here in not more than thirteen minutes. Say nothing to anyone
else."

They filed out calmly, and as they passed out into the hall Baxter,
perhaps a trifle less case-hardened than his fellows, at least voiced a
thought for those they were so brutally deserting.

"I say, it seems a bit thick to dash off this way and leave the rest of
them; but still, I suppose...."

"You suppose correctly." Bland and heartless Nishimura filled in the
pause. "A small part of the planetoid may be able to escape; which, to
me at least, is pleasantly surprising news. It cannot carry all our men
and mechanisms, therefore only the most important of both are saved.
What would you? For the rest it is simply what you call 'the fortune of
war,' no?"

"But the beautiful ..." began the amoro