r forces. Material energy gave the
power that was released. And only material energy could have stood up
before it. Thirty thousand miles away, a Miran ship flamed
instantaneously into inconceivable incandescence, vanishing almost in
blue-violet light of terrific intensity. The ship reeled away, a
half-molten wreck.

The beam spotted two more ships before it winked out. Then Kendall began
sending bombs. He moved up to within 2000 miles that his aim might be
accurate. They were bombs of "Uncertainty of the Third Degree," the
Uncertainty of atomic law in bomb form. One hit the nose of the nearest
ship, and a sphere five feet in diameter glowed mistily blue for a
moment. Then very easily, the matter that formed the wall of the cruiser
began to run and change, and presently there was only a hole, and an
expanding cloud of gas. Three more flowed toward it--and the hole
enlarged, and another hole appeared in a bulkhead behind.

Kendall made a change. For the first time there came the staccato bark
of the material engine under strain, as it fashioned the terrific fields
of "Uncertainty of the Ultimate Degree." Abruptly they leapt out,
invisible till they entered a magnetic screen, then run over with
opalescent light as the energy of the field was sucked into them and
released.

It struck the nose of a ship--a field no larger than an apple--

A titanic gout of energy burst out that was soundless in space. The ship
suddenly opened back, opened like the peel of a banana, till a little
nub remained at the further end, and the metal flaps dropped back across
and behind it dejectedly. A second ship was struck, and it was struck on
one side, so that it was shattered like a spent firecracker.

Then the Miran fleet vanished in speed.

Kendall followed them. "I think," he said with a grin, "they tried to
use their radio beam, but it spread too much to do anything at that
distance. And they used their rotating magnetic field, which we couldn't
feel. And their crumbler ray too, of course. I wonder--are they headed
only for Jupiter? No--no, they've passed it!"

Faster than light, faster than energy could follow through space, or
Uncertainty Bombs pursue, the Mirans were fleeing for home. They knew
now that only in speed lay safety. Already they knew that a similar ship
had appeared off Jupiter, and, after wiping out the Phobos and Mars
stations with one bomb each, had cleared the Jovian Satellites with
equal terrible efficiency.