again the tele-transport had reached out, wrapped
its fingers around the men who stepped from the little ship. In less
than the flash of a strobe light, they had been snatched back to the
_Invincible_, through a million miles of space, through the very walls
of the ship itself. One second they had been on Earth, the next second
they were in the control room of the _Invincible_, grinning, saluting
Greg Manning, trotting back to their quarters in the engine rooms.

* * * * *

Russ stared out at space, puffed at his pipe, considering.

A thousand years ago men had held what they called tournaments. Armored
knights rode out into the jousting grounds and broke their lances to
prove which was the better man. Today there was to be another
tournament. This ship was to be their charger, and the gauntlet had been
flung to Spencer Chambers and Interplanetary Power. And all of space was
to be the jousting grounds.

This was war. War without trappings, without fanfare, but bitter war
upon which depended the future of the Solar System. A war to break the
grip of steel that Interplanetary accumulators had gained upon the
planets, to shatter the grim dream of empire held by one man, a war for
the right to give to the people of the worlds a source of power that
would forever unshackle them.

Back in those days, a thousand years ago, men had built a system of
government that historians called the feudal system. By this system
certain men were called lords or barons and other titles. They held the
power of life and death over the men "under" them.

This was what Spencer Chambers was trying to do with the Solar
System ... what he would do if someone did not stop him.

* * * * *

Russ bit viciously on his pipe-stem.

The Earth, the Solar System, never could revert to that ancient way of
government. The proud people spawned on the Earth, swarming outward to
the other planets, must never have to bow their heads as minions to an
overlord.

The thrum of power was beating in his brain, the droning, humming power
from the engine rooms that would blast, once and forever, the last
threat of dictatorship upon any world. The power that would free a
people, that would help them on and up and outward to the great destiny
that was theirs.

And this had come because, wondering, groping, curiously, he had sought
to heat a slender thread of imperm wire within Force Field 348, becaus