bow. The great dark crater-mouth slid under our hull.
But we cleared it; the maw of blackness slid down and away; the whole
lunar world tilted down and dwindled as we mounted again into the
starlight.

Minutes passed while we mounted. Above our upstanding bow was a new
drama. The suddenly-released Grantline ships, almost level with the
ten Wandl vessels when the ray vanished, turned sidewise. The poised
Wandl craft, devoid of velocity, could not pick up the ray to
escape now. Grantline, for those minutes, ignored the frantically
flung discs; it was a desperate encounter, all at close quarters. We
saw the spitting, puffing lights and the silent turmoil, hidden
presently by the spreading clouds of luminous fog.

Then out of it came drifting the wreckage. We plunged through an end
of the glowing fog, encountered nothing but two triumphant Venus
vessels. With them we mounted into the upper starlight.

This was the end of the battle. The victorious Grantline ships one by
one came lunging up: only twelve of them now. No Wandl vessels were
left.

The great spreading cloud drifted down like a shroud to hide the
wreckage, drifted and settled to the lunar surface, a great, radiant
area of fog, gleaming in the Earthlight.

20

There is very little more, pertinent to this narrative, that I need
add of the events on Earth, Venus, and Mars during this momentous
summer. The main facts are history now: the wild storms, the damage
done by outraged nature and the panic among the people--all of it has
been detailed as public news. The strange light-beams planted by Wandl
in Greater New York, Grebhar, and Ferrok-Shahn have not yet burned
themselves away. But they are lessening and scientists say that they
will soon be gone.

The changed calendars call this the New Era. The axis of each of the
three worlds was not appreciably altered; the climates are at last
restoring to normal. But the axial rotations of all three planets were
slowed by that attacking Wandl beam before we wrecked the gravity
station. The Earth day has been lengthened, resulting in the new
calendar, the New Era. Our year, formerly of approximately 365-1/4
days, now contains, but 358.7 days.

Molo and Meka have been returned to Ferrok-Shahn. They were tried
there for piracy and treason and are imprisoned.

And Wandl? With her gravity-controls wrecked, Wandl became subject to
the balancing celestial forces. During those succeeding months of the
summer a