not encompass the whole of the fleet, but half
of the lip of the gigantic cone soon disappeared, its component vessels
subsiding into a sluggishly flowing stream of allotropic iron. Instantly
the fleet abandoned the attack upon the planetoid and swung its cone
around, to bring the flame-erupting axis to bear upon the inchoate
something dimly perceptible to the ultra-vision of the Secret Service
observers. Furiously the gigantic composite beam of the massed fleet was
hurled, nor was it alone.

For Roger in his floating citadel had realized at once that something
untoward was happening; something altogether beyond even his knowledge
and experience. He could not see anything--space was apparently
empty--but he took his rays off the battleships and directed his every
force just beyond the point in space where that red stream of
transformed metal was disappearing. Then, for the first time in
Triplanetary history, the forces of law and order joined hands with
those of piracy and banditry against a common foe. Rods, beams, planes,
and stilettoes of unbearable energy the doomed fleet launched, in
addition to its main beam of annihilation, and Roger also hurled out
into space every weapon at his command. Bombs, high-explosive shells,
and deadly radio-dirigible torpedoes--all alike disappeared ineffective
in that redly murky veil of nothingness. And the fleet was being melted.
In quick succession the vessels flamed red, shrank together, gave out
their air, and merged their component iron into the intensely red,
sullenly viscous stream which was flowing through the impenetrable veil
upon which Triplanetarians and pirates alike were directing their every
possible weapon of offense.

The last vessel of the Triplanetary armada converted and the resulting
metal stored away in their capacious reservoirs, the Nevians turned
their attention upon the stronghold of the pirates. There ensued a
battle royal. For this vast planetoid was no feeble warship, depending
solely upon the limited power available in its accumulators. It was the
product of a really mighty brain, a brain re-enforced by the many
perverted but powerful intellects which Roger had won over to his cause.
It was powered by the incalculable force of cosmic radiation, powered to
drive its unimaginable mass through space, against any possible
attractions, for an indefinite number of years. It was armed and
equipped to meet any emergency which Roger's coldly analytical mind had