arrier beam without incident; then spoke to Westfall, at his side, with
a grin.

"Nice layout the kid's got down there, Quince. It's too bad--don't look
like we're going to get any action for our money a-tall. 'Sa shame,
too--what's the use of wasting it, now that we've got it all made?"

"We are not done yet," cautioned Westfall, and even as he spoke an alarm
bell burst into strident clamor--one of their far-flung detector screens
was telling the world that it had encountered a dangerous frequency.
The new ultra-lights flared instantly along the line automatically laid
down by the detector, and upon the closely ruled micrometer screen of
Brandon's desk there glowed in natural color the image of a globular
space-ship, approaching them with terrific speed.

"Men all stationed, of course, Crown?"

"Stationed and ready." Crowninshield, phones at his ears and microphone
at his lips, was staring intently into his own plate.

"Kinda think I'll do most of it from here, but you can't always tell. If
they get inside my guard you all know what to do."

"All x."

Expecting another such hollow victory as the other Hexan vessel had won
over the defenseless _Arcturus_, the small stranger flashed nearer and
nearer that huge and featureless football of armor steel. Within range,
she launched her flaming plane of energy, but this time that Jovian
sheet of force did not encounter unprotected and non-resisting steel.
Upon the outer ray-screen, flaming white into incandescent defense,
the furious bolt spent itself, and in the instant of the launching of
the searing blade of flame, Brandon had gone into action. Switch after
switch drove home, and one after another those frightful fields of
force, those products of the mightiest minds of three planets, were
hurled out against the tiny Jovian sphere. Driven as they were by the
millions upon millions of horsepower stored in the accumulators of the
_Sirius_ they formed a coruscating spherical shell of intolerable energy
all around the enemy vessel, but even their prodigious force was held
at bay by the powerful defensive screens of the smaller space-ship.
But attack the Jovian could not, every resource at her command being
necessary to fend off the terrific counter-attack of her intended prey,
and she turned in flight. Small and agile as she was, the enormous
mass of the _Sirius_ precluded any possibility of maneuvering with
the Jovian, but Brandon had no intention of maneuvering. Rapid