plete. Throwing all the remaining
energy into the coils, they a little more than held the space about
them, and moved away from Thett at a speed of about twice that of light.
For an hour more Arcot worked, while the ship plowed on. Then they were
ready.

As Arcot took over the controls, space reeled once more, and they were
alone, far from Thett. The suns of this space were flashing and glowing
about them, and the unlimited energy of a universe was at Arcot's
command. But all the remaining atmosphere in the ship had either gone
instantaneously in the vacuum, or solidified as the chill of expansion
froze it.

To the amazement of the extra-terrestrians, Arcot's first move was to
create a titanic plane of artificial matter, and neatly bisect the
_Thought_ at the middle! He had thrown all of the controls thus
interrupted into neutral, and in the little more than half of the ship
which contained the control cabin, was also the artificial matter
control. It was busy now. With bewildering speed, with the speed of
thought trained to construct, enormous masses of cosmium were appearing
beside them in space as Arcot created them from pure energy. Cosmium,
relux and some clear cosmium-like lux metal. Ordinary cosmium was
reflective, and he wanted something with cosmium's strength, and the
clearness of lux.

In seconds, under Arcot's flying thought manipulation, a great tube had
been welded to the original hull, and the already gigantic ship
lengthened by more than five hundred feet! Immediately great artificial
matter tools gripped the broken nose-section, clamped it into place, and
welded it with cosmium flowing under the inconceivable pressure till it
was again a single great hull.

Then the Thessian fleet found them. The coils were charged now, and they
could have escaped, but Arcot had to work. The Thessians were attacked
with moleculars, cosmics, and a great twin-ray. Arcot could not use his
magnet, for it had been among those things severed from the control. He
had two ray feeds, and the artificial matter. There were nearly three
thousand ships attacking him with a barrage of energy that was
inconceivably great, but the cosmium walls merely turned it aside. It
took Arcot less than ten seconds to wipe out that fleet of ships! He
created a wall of artificial matter at twenty feet from the ship--and
another at twenty thousand miles. It was thin, yet it was utterly
impenetrable. He swept the two walls together, and forced t