ng it in a veritable storm
against the Tellurian visitor.

"Those?" asked Rodebush, calmly. The detonating balls of destruction
were literally annihilating even the atmosphere beyond the polycyclic
screen, but that barrier was scarcely affected.

"No. That." Costigan pointed out a hemispherical dome which, redly
translucent, surrounded a group of buildings towering high above their
neighbors. "Neither those high towers nor those screens were there the
last time I was in this town. Nerado _was_ stalling for time, and that's
what they're doing down there--that's all those fire-balls are for. Good
sign, too--they aren't ready for us yet. We'd better take 'em while the
taking's good. If they _were_ ready for us, our play would be to get out
of here while we're all in one piece."

Nerado had been in touch with the scientists of his city; he had been
instructing them in the construction of converters and generators of
such weight and power that they could crush even the defenses of the
super-ship. The mechanisms were not, however, ready; the entirely
unsuspected possibilities of speed inherent in absolute inertialessness
had not entered into Nerado's calculations.

"Better drop a few cans down onto that dome, fellows," Rodebush
suggested to his gunners.

"We can't," came Adlington's instant reply. "No use trying it--that's a
polycyclic screen. Can you drill it? If you can, I've got a real bomb
here--that special we built--that will do the trick if you can protect
it from them until it gets down into the water."

"I'll try it," Cleveland answered, at a nod from the physicist. "I
couldn't drill Nerado's polycyclics, but I couldn't use any momentum on
him. Couldn't ram him--he fell back with my thrust. But that screen down
there can't back away from us, so maybe I can work on it. Get your
special ready. Hang on, everybody!"

The _Boise_ looped upward, and from an altitude of miles dove straight
down through a storm of force-balls, beams, and shells; a dive checked
abruptly as the hollow tube of energy which was Cleveland's drill
snarled savagely down ahead of her and struck the shielding hemisphere
with a grinding, lightning-spitting shock. As it struck, backed by all
the enormous momentum of the plunging space-ship and driven by the full
power of her prodigious generators it bored in, clawing and gouging
viciously through the tissues of that rigid and unyielding barrier of
pure energy. Then, mighty drill and plunging ma