w me off, but they
will most certainly send back a ship to call the fleets here to the
defense of Thett.

"I think that is the best plan. Do you agree?"

"Arcot," asked Morey slowly, "if this race attempts to settle another
Universe, what would that indicate of their own?"

"Hmmm--that it was either populated by their own race or that another
race held the parts they did not, and that the other race was stronger,"
replied Arcot. "The thought idea in their minds has always been a single
world, single solar system as their home, however."

"And single solar systems cannot originate in this Space," replied
Morey, referring to the fact that in the primeval gas from which all
matter in this Universe and all others came, no condensation of mass
less than thousands of millions of times that of a sun could form and
continue.

"We can only investigate--and hope that they do not inhabit the whole
system, for I am determined that, unpleasant as the idea may be, there
is one race that we cannot afford to have visiting us, and it is going
to be permanently restrained in one way or another. I will first have a
conference with their leaders and if they will not be peaceful--the
_Thought_ can destroy or make a Universe! But I think that a second race
holds part of that Universe, for several times we have read in their
minds the thought of the 'Mighty Warless Ones of Venone.'"

"And how do you plan to destroy so large a planet as these are?" asked
Morey, indicating the telectroscope screen.

"Watch and see!" said Arcot.

They shot suddenly toward the distant sun, and as it expanded, planets
came into view. Moving ever slower on the time control, Arcot drove the
ship toward a gigantic planet at a distance of approximately 300,000,000
miles from its primary, the sun of this system.

Arcot fell into step with the planet as it moved about in its orbit, and
watched the speed indicator carefully.

"What's the orbital speed, Morey?" asked Arcot.

"About twelve and a half miles per second," replied the somewhat
mystified Morey.

"Excellent, my dear Watson," replied Arcot. "And now does my dear friend
know the average molecular velocity of ordinary air?"

"Why, about one-third of a mile a second, average."

"And if that planet as a whole should stop moving, and the individual
molecules be given the entire energy, what would their average velocity
be? And what temperature would that represent?" asked Arcot.

"Good--Why, they wo