men of Talso met the terrestrians outside the ship.

"Welcome, Men of another world, and to you go our thanks for the
destruction of one of our enemies." The clear thoughts of the spokesman
evinced his ability to concentrate.

"And to your world must go our thanks for saving of our lives, and more
important, our ship," replied Arcot. "For the ship represents a thing of
enormous value to this entire star-system."

"I see--understand--your--thoughts that you wish to learn more of this
weapon we use. You understand that it is a question among us as to
whether it is undefeatable, uncontrollable or just un-understandable. We
have had fair success with it. It is not a weapon, was not developed as
such; it was an experiment in the line of electric-waves. How it works,
what it is, what happens--we do not know.

"But men who can create so marvelous a ship as this of yours, capable of
destroying a ship of the Thessians with their own weapons must certainly
be able to understand any machine we may make--and you have power?" he
finished eagerly.

"Practically infinite power. I will throw into any power line you
suggest, all the direct current you wish." Arcot's thoughts were pure
reflection, but the Talsonian brightened at once.

"I feared it might be alternating--but we can handle direct current. All
our transmission is done at high voltage direct current. What potential
do you generate? Will we have to install changers?"

"We generate D.C. at any voltage up to fifty million, any power up to
that needed to lift ten trillion men through their own height in this
time a second." The power represented approximately twenty trillion
horsepower.

The Talsonian's face went blank with amazement as he looked at the ship.
"In that tiny thing you generate such power?" he asked in amazement.

"In that tiny ship we generate more than one million times that power,"
Arcot said.

"Our power troubles are over," declared the military man emphatically.

"Our troubles are not over," replied a civilian who had joined the
party, with equal emphasis. "As a matter of fact, they are worse than
ever. More tantalizing. What he says means that we have a tremendous
power source, but it is in one spot. How are you going to transmit the
power? We can't possibly move any power anywhere near that amount. We
couldn't touch it to our lines without having them all go up in one
instantaneous blaze of glory.

"We cannot drain such a lake of power through