were destroyed by the fire columns, I can not see what
good the money would do them."

"Don't believe the first three were destroyed," grunted Hart. "You'll
remember that in these cases the pillars of fire, or whatever you want
to call them, were of a cold light, whereas now they are viciously hot
and leave behind them the terrible destructive fires that spread and
spread and seemingly never are extinguished. No, I think that the force
used is something of the nature of an atom-disrupting triad of beams and
that these set up the column as a veritable tornado, a whirling column
of roaring wind rushing skyward with tremendous velocity. The first
ships, I believe, were carried into the stratosphere and captured intact
by the enemy.

"Since the declaration of war the nature of the column has altered. The
three beams, instead of meeting at or near the surface of the earth, now
join high in the heavens and the column strikes downward instead of
expending its force upward. An added energy is used which produces the
terribly destructive force below. And now we are able to locate
fragments of the ships destroyed above, whereas previously there were no
traces."

* * * * *

"Sounds reasonable," commented George. "But why have they not landed and
waged their war right here without warning, if that is what they now
intend to do?"

"A natural question, George. But I have a hunch that the space flier or
fliers of the enemy are conserving fuel by remaining beyond gravity. You
know, in space flying, the greatest expenditures of energy are in
leaving or landing on a body and, once landed, they might not have
sufficient fuel for a getaway. They know we are not exactly helpless,
once they are in our midst, and are taking this means of reducing us to
the point of complete subjection before risking their precious selves
among us."

The telephone startled us by its insistent ring. It was a call from the
hangar for Hart. The news broadcast announcer was in the midst of a long
dissertation regarding the discovery only this morning that there were
certain apparent discrepancies in the movements of the tides and
unwonted perturbations of the moon's orbit. There flashed on the screen
a view of the great observatory at Mount Wilson, and Professor Laughlin
of that institution stepped into the foreground of the scene to take up
the discussion so mechanically repeated by the announcer.

"Must leave for the hanga