on for a space. Then, as though by some magic, they stopped and
exploded in gouts of light.

When space had twisted, seconds before, it was because Arcot had drawn
on the enormous power of space to an extent that had been appreciable
even to it--ten sols. That was forty million tons of matter a second,
and for a hundredth part of a second it had flowed. Before them, in a
vast plane, had been created an infinitesimally thin film of artificial
matter, four hundred thousand tons of it, and into this invisible,
infinitely hard barrier, the Thessian fleet had rammed. And it was gone.

"I think," said Arcot softly, as he took off his headpiece, "that the
beginning of the end is in sight."

"And I," said Morey, "think it is now out of sight. Half a dozen ships
stopped. And they are gone now, to warn the others."

"What warning? What can they tell? Only that their ships were destroyed
by something they couldn't see." Arcot smiled. "I'm going home."

Chapter XX

DESTRUCTION

Some time later, Arcot spoke. "I have just received a message from
Zezdon Fentes that he has an important communication to make, so I will
go down to New York instead of to Chicago, if you gentlemen do not mind.
Morey will take you to Chicago in the tender, and I can find Zezdon
Fentes."

Zezdon Fentes' message was brief. He had discovered from the minds of
several who had been killed by the magnetic field Arcot had used, and
not destroyed, that they had a base in this universe. Thett's base was
somewhere near the center of the galaxy, on a system of unusually large
planets, circling a rather small star. But what star their minds had not
revealed.

"It's up to us then to locate said star," said Arcot, after listening to
Zezdon Fentes' account: "I think the easiest way will be to follow them
home. We can go to your world, Zezdon Fentes, and see what they are
doing there, and drive them off. Then to yours, Stel Felso. I place your
world second as it is far better able to defend itself than is Ortol. It
is agreeable?"

It was, and the ship which had been hanging in the atmosphere over New
York, where Zezdon Afthen, Fentes and Inthel had come to it in a
taxi-ship, signaled for the crowd to clear away above. The enormous bulk
of the shining machine, the savior of Earth, had attracted a very great
amount of attention, naturally, and thousands on thousands of hardy
souls had braved the cold of the fifteen mile height with altitude suits
or in