ns did not
have, and by the fact that they could build more cruisers. In less than
a year Thett was defeated, and beaten back to her world, though Venone
could not overcome Thett, now, for around their planets they had so many
forts projecting the deadly rays, that no ship could approach.

"Then Thett learned how to make the screen, and came again. Venone had
planetoid stations, that projected molecular rays of an intensity I
wonder at, with their system of projecting. It seems these people have
force-power feeds that operate through space, by which an entire solar
system can tie in for power, and they fed these stations in that way.
Lord only knows what tubes they had, but the Thessians couldn't get the
power to fight.

"They've been let alone since then, they did not know why. I told them
what their dear friends had been doing in that time, and the Venonians
were immensely surprised, and very evidently sorry. They begged my
pardon for letting loose such a menace, quite sincerely feeling that it
was their fault. They offered any help they could give, and I told them
that a chart of this system would be of the greatest use. They are going
now to Venone, and we are to go with them, and see what they have to
offer. Also, they want a demonstration of this 'remarkable ship that can
defeat whole fleets of Thessians, and destroy or make planets at will,'"
concluded Arcot.

"I do not in the least blame them for wanting to see this ship in
operation, Arcot, but they are, very evidently, a much older race than
yours," said Torlos, his thoughts coming clear and sharp, as those of a
man who has thought over what he says carefully. "Are you not running
danger that their minds may be more powerful than yours, that this story
they have told you is but a ruse to get this ship on their world where
thousand, millions can concentrate their will against you and capture
the ship by mind where they cannot capture it by force?"

"That," agreed Arcot, "is where 'the rub' comes in as an ancient poet of
Earth put it. I don't know and I did not have a chance to see. Wherefore
I am about to do some work. Let me have the controls, Morey, will you?"

Arcot made a new ship. It was made entirely, perforce, of cosmium, lux
and relux, for those were the only forms of matter he could create in
space permanently from energy. It was equipped with gravity drive, and
time distortion speed apparatus, and his far better trained mind
finished this smaller