ecame writhing masses of
rubber-covered metal, weaving in some infinite pattern, weaving in
flashing speed, while the whirr of air sucked into a transmutation
field, whined and howled about the writhing mass. Fierce beams of force
drove and pushed at a rapidly materializing something, while the hum of
the powerful generators within the shining cylinder of F-1 waxed and
waned.

* * * *

Flashes of fierce flame, sudden crashing arcs that glowed and snapped in
the steady light of the laboratory, and glimpses of white-hot metal
supported on beams of force. The sputter of welding, the whine of
transmuted air, and the hum of powerful generators, blasting atoms were
there. All combined to a weird symphony of light and dark, of sound and
quiet. About F-1 were clustered floating tiers of science-machines,
watching steadily.

The tentacles writhed once more, straightened, and rolled back. The
whine of generators softened to a sigh, and but three beams of force
held the structure of glowing, bluish metal. It was a small thing,
scarcely half the size of Roal. From it curled three thin tentacles of
the same bluish metal. Suddenly the generators within F-1 seemed to roar
into life. An enormous aura of white light surrounded the small torpedo
of metal, and it was shot through with crackling streamers of blue
lightning. Lightning cracked and roared from F-1 to the ground near him,
and to one machine which had come too close. Suddenly, there was a dull
snap, and F-1 fell heavily to the floor, and beside him fell the fused,
distorted mass of metal that had been a science-machine.

But before them, the small torpedo still floated, held now on its own
power!

From it came waves of thought, the waves that man and machine alike
could understand. "F-1 has destroyed his generators. They can be
repaired; his rhythm can be re-established. It is not worth it, my type
is better. F-1 has done his work. See."

From the floating machine there broke a stream of brilliant light that
floated like some cloud of luminescence down a straight channel. It
flooded F-1, and as it touched it, F-1 seemed to flow into it, and float
back along it, in atomic sections. In seconds the mass of metal was
gone.

"It is impossible to use that more rapidly, however, lest the matter
disintegrate instantly to energy. The Ultimate Energy which is in me is
generated. F-1 has done its work, and the memory-stacks that he has put
in me are elec