hurled against it their bombs and torpedoes--and still it held.
But Roger's fiercest blasts and heaviest projectiles were equally
impotent against the force-shields of the super-ship. The adept, having
no liking for a battle upon anything like equal terms, sought safety in
flight, only to be brought to a crashing, stunning halt by a massive
tractor beam.

"That must be that sixth-phase polycyclic screen that Conway reported
on," Cleveland frowned in thought. "I've been doing a lot of work on
that, and I think I've calculated an opener for it, Fred, but I'll have
to have number ten projector and the whole output of number ten power
room. Can you let me play with that much juice for a while? All right,
Blake, tune her up to fifty-five thousand--there, hold it! Now, you
other fellows, listen! I'm going to try to drill a hole through that
screen with a hollow, quasi-solid beam: like a diamond drill cutting out
a core. You won't be able to shove anything into the hole from outside
the beam, so you'll have to steer your cans out through the central
orifice of number ten projector--that'll be cold, since I'm going to use
only the edge. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold the hole open,
though so shoot them along as fast as you can. Ready? Here goes!"

He pressed a series of contacts. Far below, in number ten converter
room, massive switches drove home and the enormous mass of the vessel
quivered under the terrific reaction of the newly-calculated,
semi-material beam of energy that was hurled out, backed by the
mightiest of all the mighty converters and generators of Triplanetary's
super-dreadnaught. That beam, a pipe-like hollow cylinder of intolerable
energy, flashed out, and there was a rending, tearing crash as it struck
Roger's hitherto impenetrable wall. Struck and clung, grinding, boring
in, while from the raging inferno that marked the circle of contact of
cylinder and shield the pirates' screen radiated scintillating torrents
of cracking, streaming sparks, lightning-like in length and in
intensity.

Deeper and deeper the gigantic drill was driven. It was through! Pierced
Roger's polycyclic screen; exposed the bare metal of Roger's walls! And
now, concentrated upon one point, flamed out in seemingly redoubled fury
Triplanetary's raging rays--in vain. For even as they could not
penetrate the screen, neither could they penetrate the wall of
Cleveland's drill, but rebounded from it in the cascaded brilliance of
t