hat meant. Neutron beam guns. Then this race was
more intelligent than he had believed. They had not had them before. Had
he perhaps given them too much warning and information?

There was a sudden, deeper note in the thrumming roar of the great
ship. Eagerly Gresth Gkae watched--and sighed in relief. The nearer of
the three enemy ships was crumbling to dust. Now the other two were
beginning to become blurred of outline. They were fleeing--but oh, so
slowly. Easily the greater ship chased them down, till only floating
dust, and a few small pieces of--

Gresth Gkae shrieked in pain, and horror. The destroyed ships had fought
in dying. All space seemed to blossom out with a terrible light, a light
that wrapped around them, and burned into him, and through him. His eyes
were dark and burning lumps in his head, his flesh seemed crawling,
stinging--he was being flayed alive--in shrieking agony he crumpled to
the floor.

Hospital attaches came to him, and injected drugs. Slowly torturing
consciousness left him. The doctors began working over his horribly
burned body, shuddering inwardly as the protective, feather-like
covering of his skin loosened, and dropped from his body. Tenderly they
lowered him into a bath of chemicals--

"The terrible light which caused so much damage to our men," reported a
physicist, "was analyzed, and found to have some extraordinary lines. It
was largely mercury-vapor spectrum, but the spectrum of mercury-atoms in
an impossibly strained condition. I would suggest that great care be
used hereafter, and all men be equipped with protective masks when
observations are needed. This sun is very rich in the infra-X-rays and
ultra-visible light. The explosion of light, we witnessed, was dangerous
in its consisting almost wholly of very short and hard infra-X-rays."

The physicist had a special term for what we know as ultra-violet light.
To him, blue was ultra-violet, and exceedingly dangerous to
red-sensitive eyes. To him, our ultra-violet was a long X-ray, and was
designated by a special term. And to him--the explosion of the atostor
reservoirs was a terrible and mystifying calamity.

To the men in the five tiny scout-ships, it was also a surprise, and a
painful one. Even space-hardened humans were burned by the terrifically
hard ultra-violet from the explosion. But they got some hint of what it
had meant to the Mirans from the confusion that resulted in the fleet.
Several of the nearer ships spun,