eemed to remain in plain,
challenging, insolent view, without ceasing to exist at the spots where
it had appeared previously. In much less than a minute, the seeming of a
sizable squadron of small human ships had popped out of emptiness and
lay off the Huk home world at distances ranging from eighty thousand
miles to three times as much.

Suddenly, light flashed intolerably in emptiness. It was in contact with
one of the seeming squad ships, which ceased to be. But immediately two
more ships appeared at widely different spots. A second flash--giant and
terrible nearby--a pin point of light among the stars. Another
ostensible human ship vanished in atomic flame--but still another
appeared magically from nowhere. A third and then a fourth flash. Three
more within successive seconds.

Squad ships continued to appear as if by necromancy, and space near the
planet was streaked by flarings of white vapor as eighty-gee rockets
hurled themselves to destruction against the invading objects. As each
bomb went off, its light was brighter than the sun. But each was a mere
flicker in enormousness. They flashed, and flashed--Each was a bomb
turning forty kilograms of matter into pure, raw, raging destruction.
Each was devastation sufficient to destroy the greatest city the galaxy
ever knew.

But in that appalling emptiness they were mere scintillations. In the
background of a solar system's vastness they made all the doings of men
and Huks alike seem ludicrous.

For a long time--perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten--the flashings which
were the most terrible of all weapons continued. Each flash destroyed
something which, in scale, was less than a dust mote. But more motes
appeared, and more and more and more.

And presently the flashes grew infrequent. The threads of vapor which
led to each grew longer. In a little while they came from halfway around
the planet. Then squad ships appeared even there. And immediately pin
points of intolerable brilliance destroyed them--yet never as fast as
they appeared.

Finally there came ten seconds in which no atomic flame ravened in
emptiness. One more glitter. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty seconds
without a flashing of atomic explosive--

The surviving objects which appeared to be squad ships hung in space.
They moved without plan. They swam through space without destination.
Presently the most unobservant of watches must have perceived that their
movement was random. That they were not d