e
call, but there was no other assistance. Only the three, McGuire,
Althora and Sykes. There were some who would agree to pilot the
submarine that was being outfitted, but they would have no part in the
venture beyond transporting the participants.

More than once McGuire paused to curse silently at the complaisance of
this people. What could he not do if they would help. Ten companies of
trained men, armed with their deadly electronic projectors that
disintegrated any living thing they reached--and he would clutch at
his tousled hair and realize that they were only three, and go grimly
back to work.

"I don't know what we can do till we get there," he told Sykes. "Here
we are, and there is the gun: that is all we know, except that the
thing must be tremendous and our only hope is that there is some
firing mechanism that we can destroy. The gun itself is a great
drilling in the solid rock, lined with one of their steel alloys, and
with a big barrel extending up into the air: Althora has learned that.

"They went deep into the rock and set the firing chamber there; it's
heavy enough to stand the stress. They use a gas-powder, as Althora
calls it, for the charge, and the same stuff but deadlier is in the
shell. But they must have underground workings for loading and firing.
Is there a chance for us to get in there, I wonder! There's the big
barrel that projects. We might ... but no!--that's too big for us to
tackle, I'm afraid."

"How about that electronic projector on the submarine?" Sykes
suggested. "Remember how it melted out the heart of that big ship? We
could do a lot with that."

"Not a chance! Djorn and the others have strictly forbidden the men to
turn it on the enemy since they have given no offense.

"No offense!" he repeated, and added a few explosive remarks.

"No, it looks like a case of get there and do what dirty work we can
to their mechanism before they pot us--and that's that!"

* * * * *

But Sykes was directing his thoughts along another path.

"I wonder ..." he mused; "it might be done: they have laboratories."

"What are you talking about? For the love of heaven, man, if you're
got an idea, let's have it. I'm desperate."

"Nitrators!" said the scientist. "I have been getting on pretty good
terms with the scientific crowd here, and I've seen some mighty pretty
manufacturing laboratories. And they have equipment that was never
meant for the manufacture of