it as their relux glowed
instantaneously in the Heaviside layer, then was through before damage
could be done. The screen was up.

Scarcely a minute after they passed, the entire heavens blazed into
light, the roar of tremendous thunders crashing above them, great
lightning bolts rent the upper air for miles as enormous energies
clashed.

"Ah--they are sending everything they have against that screen, and it's
hot. We have ten of our biggest tube stations working on it, and more
coming in, to our total of thirty, but they have two forts, and Lord
knows how many ships.

"I think me I'm going to cause them some worrying."

Arcot turned the ship, and drove up again, now at a speed very low to
them but as they had the time-field up, very great. They passed the
screen, and a tremendous bolt struck the ship. Everything in it was
shielded, but the static was still great enough to cause them some
trouble as the time-field and electric field fought. But the time-field,
because of its very nature, could work faster, and they won through
undamaged, though the enormous current seemed flowing for many minutes
as they drifted slowly past it. Slowly--at fifty miles a second.

Out in space, free of the atmosphere, Arcot shot out to the point where
the Thessians were congregating. The shining dots of their ships and the
discs of the forts were visible from Earth save for the air's
distortion.

They seemed a miniature Milky Way, their deadly beams concentrated on
Earth.

Then the Thessians discovered that the terrestrial fleet was in action.
A ship glowed with the ray, the opalescence of relux under moleculars
visible on its walls. It simply searched for its opponent while its
relux slowly yielded. It found it in time, and the terrestrial ship put
up its screen.

The terrestrial fleet set to work, everything they had flying at the
Thessian giants, but the Thessians had heavier ships, and heavier tubes.
More power was winning for them. Inevitably, when the Sun's interference
somewhat weakened the ray shield--

About that time Arcot arrived. The nearest fort dived toward the further
with an acceleration that smashed it against no less than ten of its own
ships before they could so much as move.

When the way was clear to the other fort--and that fort had moved, the
berserk fort started off a new tack--and garnered six more wrecks on its
side.

Then Thett's emissaries located Arcot. The screen was up, and the
Negrian attract