e thrilled anew at her fragrant
nearness. Give up? Never! Not with Ulana to fight for. Blaine nodded
wordless agreement, silenced by the expression of Dantor's face as the
crystal vibrated to a musically throbbing note.

* * * * *

There in the crystal ball was pictured a vast underground workshop
somewhat like the one in the great dome through which they had entered
the copper-clad world. In place of the telescope there was the butt of
a gigantic cannon-like tube that towered and was lost in the shadows of
the vaulted chamber. Tom Farley, moving jerkily and staring with glazed
unseeing eyes, was working there with a cube of the glittering k-metal.
In the open breech block of the tube was a heaped-up cone of dry soil,
the material they would disintegrate in producing the blast of
electronic forces. Blaine groaned as his friend called for the
equivalent of a milligram of radium. Though his voice was listless and
his movements uncertain, Tommy knew what he was doing and was giving
away the secret, powerless to resist the command Ianito had implanted
in his completely subjective mind.

"Ah," Dantor breathed: "progressive annihilation of energy: a thing we
never have accomplished. You excite ordinary material such as this dry
soil by means of atoms exploded from this k-metal which is in turn
excited by ordinary radium that can be used over and over as the
primary excitant. Am I correct?"

"You are. There are precise ratios of atomic weights to be considered,
of course, but it looks as if my friend is being extremely accurate in
spite of his dazed condition. Man alive! There is enough material there
to provide power for the entire planet Venus for a month!"

"And enough to start Antrid from her orbit," Dantor returned. "Enough
to send her on her fatal journey sunward?"

"Only for the first acceleration. A vast amount of energy is needed,
Carson, since the gravitational attraction of the planet you call
Jupiter is enormous. Antrid will be speeded up in its orbit and the
increased centrifugal force will cause it to take up a new and larger
orbit where the forces will equalize. Several charges will be required
in order to free her entirely from the mother body."

* * * * *

"There's time then!" Blaine exclaimed excitedly. "What can we do to put
a stop to the thing? Something to counteract this control by Ianito; to
cause Tommy to err in h