hed it, the steel disappeared in one
flare of radiance--as he swung the projector in one flashing arc from
the stem to the stern there was nothing left. Loring, swinging the beam,
whistled in amazement.

"Wow! What a difference! And this ship of ours has a skin of arenak six
feet thick!"

"Yes. Now you understand why I didn't want to argue with anybody out
here as long as we were in our steel ship."

"I understand, all right; but I can't understand the power of these
rays. Suppose I had had all twenty of them on instead of only three?"

"In that case, I think that we could have whipped even the short, thick
strangers."

"You and me both. But say, every ship's got to have a name. This new one
of ours is such a sweet, harmless, inoffensive little thing, we'd better
name her the _Violet_, hadn't we?"

* * * * *

DuQuesne started the _Violet_ off in the direction of the solar system
occupied by the warlike strangers, but he did not hurry. He and Loring
practiced incessantly for days at the controls, darting here and there,
putting on terrific acceleration until the indicators showed a velocity
of hundreds of thousand of miles per second, then reversing the
acceleration until the velocity was zero. They studied the controls and
alarm system until each knew perfectly every instrument, every tiny
light, and the tone of each bell. They practiced with the rays, singly
and in combination, with the visiplates, and with the many levers and
dials, until each was so familiar with the complex installation that his
handling of every control had become automatic. Not until then did
DuQuesne give the word to start out in earnest toward their goal, at an
unthinkable distance.

They had not been under way long when an alarm bell sounded its warning
and a brilliant green light began flashing upon the board.

"Hm ... m," DuQuesne frowned as he reversed the bar. "Outside
intra-atomic energy detector. Somebody's using power out here.
Direction, about dead ahead--straight down. Let's see if we can see
anything."

He swung number six, the telescopic visiplate, into connection. After
what seemed to them a long time they saw a sudden sharp flash,
apparently an immense distance ahead, and simultaneously three more
alarm bells rang and three colored lights flashed briefly.

"Somebody got quite a jolt then. Three rays in action at once for three
or four seconds," reported DuQuesne, as he applied still more