d scanned.

"You Arpalones are doing what looks like a mighty good job of fighting.
Can't you win?"

"No, it is too late. It was already too late when they first appeared,
two days ago. When the Dilipics strike in such small force that none of
their--agents?--devices?--whatever they are?--can land against our
beaming, a world can be saved; but such cases are very few."

"But this thought, 'Dilipic'?" Garlock asked, impatiently. "It is merely
a symbol--it doesn't _mean_ anything--to me, at least. What are they?
Where do they come from?"

"No one knows anything about them," came the surprising answer. "Not
even their physical shape--if they have any. Nor where they come from,
or how they do what they do."

"They can't be very common," Garlock pondered. "We have never heard of
them before."

"Fortunately, they are not," the Inspector agreed. "Scarcely one world
in five hundred is ever attacked by them--this is the first Dilipic
invasion I have seen."

"Oh, you Arpalones don't die with your worlds, then?" Lola asked. She
was badly shaken. "But I suppose the Arpales do, of course."

"Practically all of the Arpales will die, of course. Most of us
Arpalones will also die, in the battles now going on. Those of us who
survive, however, will stay aloft until the rehabilitation fleet
arrives, then we will continue our regular work."

"Rehab?" Belle exclaimed. "You mean you can _restore_ planets so badly
ruined that all the people die?"

"Oh, yes. It is a long and difficult work, but the planet is always
re-peopled."

"Let's go down," Garlock said. "I want to get all of this on tape."

They went down, over what had been one of that world's largest cities.
The air, the stratosphere, and all nearby space were full of battling
vessels of all shapes and sizes; ranging from the tremendous globular
spaceships of the invaders down to the tiny, one-man jet-fighters of the
Arpalones.

* * *

The Dilipics were using projectile weapons only--ranging in size,
with the size of the vessels, from heavy machine guns up to
seventy-five-millimeter quick-firing rifles. They were also launching
thousands of guided missiles of fantastic speed and of tremendous
explosive power.

The Arpalones were not using anything solid at all. Each defending
vessel, depending upon its type and class, carried from four up to a
hundred or so burnished-metal reflectors some four feet in diameter;
each with a small black d