hen, with bewildering rapidity, he
went into action; face glued to the visiplate, hands moving faster than
the eye could follow--the left closing and opening the switch
controlling the zone of force, the right swinging the steering controls
to all points of the sphere. The mighty vessel staggered this way and
that, jerking and straining terribly as the zone was thrown on and off,
lurching sickeningly about the central bearing as the gigantic power of
the driving bar was exerted, now in one direction, now in another. After
a second or two of this mad gyration, Seaton shut off the power. He then
released the zone, after assuring himself that both inner and outer
screens were operating at the highest possible rating.

"There, that'll hold 'em for a while, I guess. This battle was even
shorter than the other one--and a lot more decisive. Let's turn on the
flood-lights and see what the pieces look like."

The lights revealed that the zone of force had indeed sliced the enemy
vessel into pieces. No fragment was large enough to be navigable or
dangerous and each was sharply cut, as though sheared from its neighbor
by some gigantic curved blade. Dorothy sobbed with relief in Seaton's
arms as Crane, with one arm around his wife, grasped his hand.

"That was flawless, Dick. As an exhibition of perfect co-ordination and
instantaneous timing under extreme physical difficulties, I have never
seen its equal."

"You certainly saved all our lives," Margaret added.

"Only fifty-fifty, Peg," Seaton protested, and blushed vividly. "Mart
did most of it, you know. I'd have gummed up everything back there if he
had let me. Let's see what we can find out about them."

He touched the lever and the _Skylark_ moved slowly toward the wreckage,
the scattered fragments of which were beginning to move toward and
around each other because of their mutual gravitational forces. Snapping
on a searchlight, he swung its beam around, and as it settled upon one
of the larger sections he saw a group of hooded figures; some of them
upon the metal, others floating slowly toward it through space.

"Poor devils--they didn't have a chance," he remarked regretfully.
"However, it was either they or we--look out! Sweet spirits of niter!"

He leaped back to the controls and the others were hurled bodily to the
floor as he applied the power--for at a signal each of the hooded
figures had leveled a tube and once more the outer screen had flamed
into incandescen