Андервуд

«Мы упустили шанс найти какое-либо супероружие драгборанов, которое мы могли бы найти здесь в руинах», - сказал Андервуд без вступления. «Мы беззащитны - за исключением снаряда - и в меньшинстве. Мы не можем бежать, потому что флот может бежать быстрее, и мы не можем оставаться здесь взаперти навсегда. Я могу придумать только одно, что мы можем сделать».

Остальным не нужно было напоминать о безнадежности их положения, но их глаза загорелись интересом при последней фразе. Затем он вкратце изложил свою идею получения органов и сил, которыми обладал Джандро, и позволил захватить себя и доставить в Демарзуле.

«Звучит неплохо для последнего боя», - сказал Мейсон. «Но вы не объяснили, как мы собираемся вернуться на Луну, чтобы получить эти вещи с Драгбора».

«Это единственный недостающий элемент плана», - сказал Андервуд. Затем он яростно добавил: «И это нужно решить! Вот почему я позвал тебя сюда. У меня нет ответа, но вместе мы должны его найти. Это наш последний шанс остановить Демарзула.

Мейсон вскочил на ноги. - До прибытия флота должно быть еще несколько часов. У нас может быть время установить генератор поля и установить здесь манекен, чтобы Ученики поверили, что мы прячемся под ним, пока мы действительно взлетаем на Луну.

'Это оно!' - воскликнул Андервуд. «Только нам придется передвигаться по планете, чтобы избежать обнаружения местным гарнизоном. Но этого хватит!

Зазвонил домофон. Илия сказал: «Мы закончили, дель Джандро жив, но он будет мертв в течение часа. Если вы хотите его увидеть, вам лучше пойти сейчас.

ГЛАВА ПЯТНАДЦАТАЯ
Андервуд без колебаний направился к двери. - Мы попробуем ваш план, Мейсон. Перенимать. Дрейер, Файф, пожалуйста, пойдем со мной.

Они поспешили в комнату рядом с операцией, где Джандро лежал в постели, неподвижный и невидящий. С ним были только Иллия и Акерс.

При виде этой неподвижной фигуры Андервуд испытал глубину печали и жалости, которая на мгновение стерла все остальные мысли. Он чувствовал, что он единственный из всех землян мог понять глубокое восстание, мечты и надежды, которые были движущей силой в жизни Джандро. И это был подлый конец таких ярких снов - смерть от рук безумных фанатиков в Небесном Мире, который оказался чем угодно, только не этим.

Андервуд подумал о зеленой сияющей луне беженца Драгбора, где люди жили в мире друг с другом. Луна, которую Джандро никогда больше не увидит.

Глаза Джандро медленно открылись, и постепенно они узнали. Дрейер мягко сказал: «Нам очень жаль. Если бы было что-то в наших силах вернуть вас в ваш собственный мир и ваш собственный народ, мы бы это сделали. Надеюсь, ты это знаешь.

«Конечно», - медленно сказал Яндро. «Я бы хотел, чтобы моя мореа-абаса была с моими предками в тот день, когда вернется жизнь. Но я думаю, возможно, этого никогда не будет. Это похоже на наш сон о богах, только заблуждение. Что касается смерти, то это несомненно для каждого человека. Как и когда это произойдет, не важно. Мне странно наблюдать за человеком горе животных. Странный-'

«Разве он не думает, что было время, когда у Драгбора не было материнской плоти и секрета абасы?» - спросил Андервуд, и Дрейер перевел для него.

«Естественно», - ответил Яндро. «Тогда мы были просто животными, как и вы сейчас. Когда вы прибыли на своих металлических кораблях, все мы думали, что боги пришли, чтобы снова вернуть нас в Небесный мир. Вы оказали нам большую услугу, показав, насколько мы ошибались в наших легендах и наших мечтах. Но пока мы не прибыли на эту планету, я все еще думал, что вы превосходные существа, потому что не мог обнаружить вашу эпталию. Ни у кого из нас нет возможности скрыть это друг от друга ».

- Но вы знали это, когда на нас напали? - сказал Дрейер.

«Я не мог понять, почему вы не предприняли действий, чтобы предупредить своих врагов, которые были мне так очевидны. Потом я понял, что это произошло потому, что у тебя вообще не было абасы. Я был напуган, потому что не знал, что делать. Я никогда в жизни не мечтал, что встречусь с существами, которые могли бы быть богами, потому что обладали металлами, но были ниже людей, потому что у них не было абасы. Я не понял.'

«Мы мало что понимаем друг в друге, - сказал Андервуд, - но, возможно, теперь вы понимаете нас достаточно хорошо, чтобы знать, что нам нужна ваша помощь против этих наших - и ваших врагов».

«Много сотен тысяч лет назад существовала раса, называемая сиренианцами, и они были смертельными врагами вашей расы, Драгбора. Как и вы, они обладали абасой, но вместо того, чтобы жить мирно, они намеревались завоевать все миры и Галактики. В конце концов, они потерпели поражение от ваших людей, у которых было какое-то таинственное оружие, которое пробивало каждую защиту сирен. Мы пришли в ваш древний мир, чтобы найти ключ к разгадке этого оружия, потому что одному из сирен удалось выжить и теперь он находится на свободе в нашем собственном мире. Он захватил контроль над нашим народом и намеревается подмести
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"We've lost our chance for any Dragboran super-weapon we might have found in the ruins here," said Underwood without preamble. "We're defenseless—except for the shell—and outnumbered. We can't run because the fleet can run faster, and we can't stay bottled up here forever. I can think of only one thing possible that we can do."

The others did not need to be reminded of the hopelessness of their situation, but their eyes lighted with interest at the last sentence. Then he outlined briefly his idea of obtaining the organs and powers that Jandro possessed and allowing themselves to be captured and taken to Demarzule.

"It sounds good for a last-ditch stand," said Mason. "But you haven't explained how we are going to get back to the moon so that we can obtain these things from the Dragbora."

"That is the one missing element of the plan," said Underwood. Then he added fiercely, "And it's got to be solved! That's why I called you here. I haven't the answer, but together we've got to find it. It's our last chance to stop Demarzule."

Mason jumped to his feet. "There ought to be several hours yet before the fleet arrives. We might have time to rig up a field generator and set up a dummy here to make the Disciples believe we're hiding under it, while we actually take off for the moon."

"That's it!" Underwood exclaimed. "Only we'll have to move around the planet to avoid detection by the local garrison. But that will do it!"

The interphone sounded. Illia said, "We're finished, Del. Jandro is alive, but he'll be dead within an hour. If you want to see him, you'd better come now."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Underwood started for the door without hesitation. "We'll try your plan, Mason. Take over. Dreyer, Phyfe—please come along with me."

They hurried to the room next to surgery where Jandro lay in bed, motionless and unseeing. Only Illia and Akers were with him.

At the sight of that unmoving figure, Underwood experienced a depth of sorrow and pity that wiped out all other thoughts for a moment. He felt that he alone of all the Earthmen could understand the deep rebellion, the dreams and the hopes that had been the driving force in Jandro's life. And this was a mean end for such bright dreams—death at the hands of crazed fanatics on a Heaven World that had proved to be anything but that.

Underwood thought of the green, shining moon of the refugee Dragbora where men lived in peace with one another. The moon that Jandro would never see again.

Jandro's eyes fluttered open slowly and gradual recognition came into them. Dreyer said softly, "We're sorry. If there were anything within our power to get you back to your own world and your own people, we would do it. I hope you know that."

"Of course," said Jandro slowly. "I would like my seaa-abasa to be with those of my ancestors for the day when life will return. But I think perhaps it never will. It is like our dream of the gods, only a delusion. As for death, that is certain for every man. How or when it comes is not important. It is strange for me to observe the grief of animals for a man. Strange—"

"Doesn't he suppose there was a time when the Dragbora never had the mother-flesh and the secret of the abasa?" Asked Underwood, and Dreyer translated for him.

"Naturally," Jandro replied. "We were merely animals then, as you are now. When you came in your ships of metal, all of us thought surely the gods had come to return us to Heaven World again. You did us a great favor in showing us how wrong we were in our legends and our dreams. But until we arrived on this planet, I still thought you were superior beings because I could not detect your epthalia. None of us have the ability to hide it from each other."

"But you knew it when we were attacked?" said Dreyer.

"I could not understand why you did not act to forestall your enemies who were so apparent to me. Then I realized that it was because you did not possess the abasa at all. I was frightened because I did not know what to do. I had never dreamed in all my life that I would meet with creatures who might be gods because they possessed the metals, and yet were lower than men because they did not have the abasa. I did not understand."

"We do not understand many things about each other," said Underwood, "but perhaps you understand us well enough now to know that we need your help against these enemies of ours—and of yours.

"Many hundreds of thousands of years ago, there was a race, called the Sirenians, and they were deadly enemies of your race, the Dragbora. Like you, they possessed the abasa, but instead of living peacefully they set out to conquer all the worlds and the Galaxies. In the end they were defeated by your people who had some mysterious weapon that penetrated every defense of the Sirenians. We came to your ancient world to find a clue to that weapon because one of the Sirenians succeeded in surviving and is now at large upon our own world. He has seized control over our people and is setting out to sweep the Galaxies with conquest and blood. In time he will find even your little world. The civilizations of many Galaxies will suffer centuries of retrogression.

"We didn't find the weapon we came for, and now our chance is gone, for the fleet of Demarzule, the Sirenian, is almost upon us. There is just one hope left to us.

"We believe that his men will capture us alive and take us to him if we permit it. If we could be taken into his presence bearing the power of destruction that lies in the abasa, we might be able to destroy him.

"Can you—will you—make it possible for us to gain that power by grafting the abasa in some of us upon your world?"

Dreyer translated as rapidly as possible the swift spoken words of Underwood while Jandro lay with closed eyes, as if sleeping a dreamless sleep. It was a long time after Dreyer finished that Jandro slowly opened his eyes again.

His voice was so low that Dreyer had to lean forward to catch his words.

"It is a strange story you tell," he said, "but I am impressed that what you say is true. As to your request—no. It would be utterly impossible for you to be given fresh abasa as are the young of our race. Not that I wouldn't make it possible for some of you—a very few—to receive them, if I could, but the abasa can be installed in only the very young.

"The use of the abasa is similar to that of the organs of walking or speaking. The organs must develop from their rudimentary forms through long years of usage, and skill with them comes much more slowly than any of the other common skills. Though they are installed in us in infancy, most of us are well matured before we gain great skill. For this reason alone it would be impossible for you to have the organs."

Across the bed, Underwood's eyes met Illia's and held for an endless moment. In her he sought strength to endure the crushing disappointment. Illia's eyes gave him blind assurance that there would yet be a way.

"Your race will, in time, develop and learn the use of the abasa," Jandro went on, "but not for many hundreds of generations. From what I have seen of your people, I wonder what your world would be like if every one possessed the power to kill at will, silently, and without detection. I do not know the answer to that, but I ask you to answer it for yourselves. The mere fact that you have not yet developed the abasa is proof that you are not ready for it.

"The Dragbora live in peace not because they have such terrible power; they can live with such power because they have first learned how men must live with one another. You cannot understand why the power of death is inherent in the abasa. It is merely one of the inevitable functions that accompany the other greater and more useful powers, most of which you shall, of course, never know. I wonder if you would want the abasa, even if it were possible for you to possess it," Jandro finished.

"For our race? No!" Underwood shuddered at the thought of every man of Earth possessing instant, undetectable powers of death over his neighbor. "You are right in that, Jandro. Whatever the other powers of the abasa may be, we could not live with it. But Demarzule is a totally extraneous factor not considered in our own evolution. We have no defense against him. If the power of death in the abasa could be used to destroy him, it would give our race its one chance of staving off this threat.

"Yet you say it is impossible. It means for us no hope against the barbarism that will destroy our civilization and brutalize our people, not to mention what it means to the other civilizations of the Galaxy—including your own."

There was scarcely the sound of their breathing within the room as the Earthmen avoided each others' eyes now, staring down at the closed ones of Jandro.

"Your people hardly deserve the scourge of Demarzule and the Sirenian demand for supremacy," said Jandro slowly. "And what you say of the rest of the Universe is true. In a way, the Dragbora are responsible. Demarzule is a product of the Sirenian-Dragboran culture. My ancestors should have made more sure of the total extinction of the Sirenian branch. Perhaps there is one way in which we could yet help."

"You can help?" Underwood asked eagerly and incredulously.

"I have little longer to live. It would be worthwhile if, in that hour left to me, I could complete the task of extinction—or at least enable you to do so. If one of you is willing to take the risk, I will do what I can."

"No risk is too great! But what can be done?"

"As far as I know, it has never been attempted, but perhaps my own abasa could be transferred to you."

Dreyer translated the offer, his glance going from Illia to Underwood. Something of hope seemed to come again into his eyes.

Underwood caught his breath sharply. "A set of fully developed abasa transferred to my own body! There would be one of us to meet Demarzule on his own level. Illia—"

Her face was suddenly white. "It's impossible, Del! I couldn't perform such an operation without any previous study with their anatomy. I can't do it!"

"It's got to be done, Illia. I'll take a chance on your skill."

"That's an utterly ridiculous statement. I have no skill in a case like this. Tell him, Dr. Dreyer. He can't expect that much of me."

"I don't know, Illia," said the semanticist. "It seems to me that you are confusing your analysis by your own personal emotions. You cannot be evaluating properly under such conditions."

She bit her lips to hold back a further outburst. Then, at last she said, "Don't ask the impossible of me, Del. I saw the way they split the nerves in the operation we watched. It couldn't be done without long practise. Most of all, I couldn't do it to you."

As if sensing the meaning of their argument, Jandro spoke suddenly. "You will have great difficulty in making a successful installation because you are unfamiliar with the anatomy of the abasa, true, but I can help. I can guide and direct your hands up to the very point of cutting the nerves to the tri-abasa. You shall succeed if you allow me to guide you."

Underwood kept his eyes upon Illia. Her face was as pale as her shining hair.

"I'll try, Del," she said.

News of the projected experiment sped swiftly through the ship, and its significance was greeted with awed incomprehension as if Underwood has suddenly stepped from their midst into a misty realm beyond their reach. And their awe was magnified by the knowledge that it could very well mean death.

Within minutes of the decision, assistants were rolling the tables bearing the white sheeted forms of Underwood and Jandro into the surgery.

A strange peace, a sort of ecstasy, seemed to have come over Jandro. Underwood had seen and heard of resignation in the face of death, but never such serenity as possessed Jandro. It had a calming effect upon Underwood and he shed the thoughts of his own possible death or maiming as a result of the strange operation. He thought only of the mission that would be his once he owned the powers of the Dragbora.

Whatever turmoil possessed Illia had vanished as she faced Underwood. The sterile white of her surgeon's garb masked her personality and her feelings, and left only a nameless agent possessed of science and skill.

Underwood grinned up at her as the anesthetic was injected. "When I wake up I'll let you know how it feels to be a Dragboran."

At the adjacent operating table, Akers was preparing Jandro for the preliminary work of exposing the abasic organs.

Then, to each of them came the unspoken command to abandon their minds by Jandro. It was an incredible, unearthly experience, but they released their senses and gradually the guiding impulses from the Dragboran brain surged into their own.

For just the barest fraction of an instant, Illia's hand trembled as she touched the electronic scalpel to the flesh at the base of Underwood's shaven skull. The skin severed, and her nerves were threads of steel.

With increasing speed, Akers and Illia made the incisions in the bodies before them. Their hands moved surely, as if Jandro were seeing with their eyes and using their hands.

The deep incision was made in Underwood's skull. The pulsing brain lay exposed. Illia concentrated for an instant as waves of instruction flowed from Jandro. Then, swiftly, the scalpel cut a bloodless path through a section of unused tissue.

She moved to the adjacent table and peered into the wound that Akers had made in Jandro's head. She paused as his words came to her.

"This is the final step. I can go no further with you. Attend to my instructions now and you shall succeed."

Flashing, incomprehensible things flooded into her mind, imperishable photographs of the remainder of this operation and the one to follow, in which the two abdominal organs would be transferred. Illia knew that every picture would return in its own time to guide her hands in unfamiliar paths.

"Proceed!" Jandro suddenly commanded. "I retire to the seaa-abasa. Farewell!"

The flowing pictures ceased and Illia felt suddenly alone, like a child lost amid a blinding storm. There was nothing to depend on now but her own skill and the telepathic instructions.

She faltered for an instant and breathed a name, "Del—Del!"

Akers was watching her sharply as she stood staring at the strange, unearthly organ lying in the brain pan of the dead Dragboran.

But it was not strange. She knew its constitution and anatomy and the complex nerve hook-up that connected it with the brain. They were as clear as if she had studied them for many years.

A surge of gladness and confidence filled her. She was alone in this yes, but that did not matter any more. She alone possessed the ability to perform the operation, and a world awaited the results.

Her scalpel entered the incision and touched the flesh with a pinpoint of destruction that sheared away the tissue from the delicate white nerve channels serving the abasic organ.

For a full hour, and then another, Akers watched in un-believing fascination as Illia freed the twelve separate nerve filaments serving it, then cut the artery and filled the vessels with the chemical solution that would feed the cells until Underwood's blood could be sent pouring through it.

At last all that remained was the severing of the connecting tissues that held the organ in place. Illia cut them and plunged her hands into the sterilizing, protecting compound that had been prepared at Jandro's instructions. She salved the organ and lifted it out, then thrust it quickly into the corresponding cavity in Underwood's brain pan.

This phase of the operation was less than half over. Blood vessels had to be prepared to serve the new organ in Underwood's body, and the twelve nerves had to be connected into the Great Sympathetic where no such nerves had ever been connected before.

Another two hours passed before the final sutures closed the wound in Underwood's head.

When at last she laid the needle down, Illia's hand suddenly trembled and she quivered throughout her body.

"Can't we postpone the others for a time?" asked Akers. "You surely can't go on with two more like that."

"I'm afraid the tissues will degenerate too much if we delay. If I were only as fast as those Dragboran surgeons. What men they must be! Get me a shot of neostrene and better have one yourself. We'll go on."

Akers was willing, but he didn't believe that Illia could stand more hours of exacting surgery. After a moment's rest, however, and a shot of the stimulant drug, she stepped back to the operating tables to perform the adbominal operation. Once again, Akers made the preliminary incisions.

In the control room the group leaders waited for news in nerve-racking inactivity. Terry Bernard paced about, his flaming disheveled hair like a signal flare swinging through the room. Phyfe stood at one of the observation panels watching the inexorable approach of Demarzule's fleet. Dawson sat at his Captain's position fingering the inactive switches on the panel before him. Most placid of all, Dreyer simply sat in the navigation chair and smoked cigars so unrelentingly that it taxed the ventilating system of the ship.

Terry glanced at the clock anxiously and stopped his pacing. "It's been over thirteen hours since Underwood went in there. Don't you think we ought to ask Illia—"

"There are only two alternatives," said Dreyer. "Success or failure. Our questioning will not assure success. We had best keep out of the way."

Mason kept anxious watch of the progress of the fleet. No one knew what would happen when the battleships arrived and surrounded the Lavoisier, but they had not long to wait. The ships were hardly more than minutes away from the planet.

As if guided by a single mind, the ships turned slowly in the black sky as their navigators and lookouts spotted and set a course for the luminous bubble that marked the force shell hiding the Lavoisier.

To the crewmen watching from within, it was a fearful sight to witness the sudden plunging flight of those twenty mighty ships. Simultaneously, a score of fearful Atom Streams were turned upon the bubble, apparently not in the futile hope of burning through the protection, but to destroy the minute sensory probes and prevent the ship from navigating away from the planet.

In spatial combat, where the ship was free to wheel and turn and defend itself, it would not have been so easy to destroy the probes. But with the ship motionless upon the surface of the planet, the streams of incomprehensible fire washed over every square millimeter of the surface of the shell, probing, destroying and setting off the multitude of relays within the Lavoisier, closing the hairlike openings in the shell as the probes were burned away.

Mason moved away as one after another of the segments on his plates went dead until there was no vision whatever of the outside world.

He turned to the others and motioned toward the dead plates. "This is it."

The spell that fell upon them was broken minutes later by Illia's abrupt voice on the interphone.

"The operation is finished."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Consciousness came to Underwood as if he were responding to the persistent voice of some unseen speaker. It called him out of the depths of eternal existence into the realm of conflict and reality. Curiously, it sounded like Jandro.

He opened his eyes. Illia was there, her face white and strained. But as he looked at her, her blue eyes glistened and she bent down. "Del! Oh, Del—!"

Terry, Phyfe, Mason and Akers were standing near the bed, watching with anxious faces.

Pain was beginning to show itself in burning streamers, but he managed a quick smile to those about him. "Looks like we made it all right," he said. "I wonder what I can do with these gadgets now. Think they'll work, Illia?"

She raised up, brisk and businesslike once more. "You aren't going to find out for a while. I intend to knock you out for a good, cold twenty-four hours. Give me your arm."

She reached for a hypo needle on the table beside the bed.

It was like stumbling around in the dark at first, trying to run from an unseen pursuer. But all at once, Underwood knew he didn't need to run at all. The hypo was blocking the sensory equipment in other parts of his body, but it couldn't affect the abasic organs if he didn't want it to. He stopped running and watched the ordinary faculties of his body give way while he stood aside in complete immunity. It was as if he could step outside and look at himself.

And, suddenly, that was what he was doing!

He could see the room, the watching scientists, and Illia carefully checking his heartbeat and respiration. He could see himself lying still with eyes closed. Curiously, he could not identify the point of view. He thought for a moment that he was up near the ceiling somewhere, looking down, but that wasn't right, either, because he could see the ceiling just as well as the floor or the four walls. The scene was like a picture taken with a lens having a solid angle of perception of three hundred and sixty degrees.

He wondered if he could go beyond the limits of the room, tried it and found it quite easy to do. There was some clumsiness due to inexperience and conditioning that stopped him at the walls, where he had a moment's claustrophobic fright of being trapped between the metal panels, but it was over in an instant and he was through. He went toward the control room and found it occupied only by Dreyer, who remained placidly smoking a cigar in the navigator's chair.

Underwood wanted to communicate with the semanticist, only he wasn't sure how to go about it. It was like trying to talk with a mouth full of dry crackers.

But Dreyer stared around with a sudden start. He removed the cigar from his mouth and looked agape for an unseen speaker.

"Dreyer, can you hear me?"

"Underwood! You succeeded!"

"After a fashion. So far it's like walking around in deep mud, but I'm getting used to it gradually."

"This is wonderful—wonderful!" Dreyer breathed. "I hadn't dared hope that I would ever hear your voice again. Where are you?"

"That's a tough question. Theoretically, I'm unconscious back in sick bay with a shot of neo-morph that will keep me out for twenty-four hours. Illia and the others are back there watching me. The abasic senses aren't at all affected by the drug. I seem to be able to wander anywhere I wish about the ship. The funny part is that I can't pin down a point of view. I don't seem to be anywhere. Nevertheless, my senses perceive distant sounds and objects—including my own corpus."

"Can you detect my thoughts when I don't speak? Jandro didn't seem able to do that."

Underwood laughed. "I don't know whether I can or not. I try, but all I get is a fuzzy static. I'm sure that these organs have dozens of functions that we haven't even dreamed of yet. I hope that I can learn to use them all."

"What do you plan now? Do you need a period of exercise and study?"

"Some, but not nearly as much as I would have needed if it hadn't been Jandro's mature organs that were grafted into me. There is something that we never thought of before, though."

"What is that?"

"We can still search for the Dragboran weapon we came here for. I can go outside the ship with these new senses. I don't know whether I can cover the whole planet or not, but if not, we can move to keep in range of my powers. It will be slow because I am the only one who can do it, but it may be faster in the end because I can get around more quickly."

"I wonder if it will be possible in the presence of the fleet—or didn't you know that they had arrived?" Dreyer pointed toward the blank viewplates.

"I didn't know. What are they doing there?"

Underwood realized immediately the absurdity of the question. Dreyer could know no more about it than he, since all communication with the outside was destroyed.

With all the strength he could gather, he hurled his new powers beyond the scope of the ship, out into the contrasting heat and cold of the barren planet. It was as if he had hurled himself high into space, for he was viewing the broad expanse of the Dragboran world and the busy fleet of Demarzule.

Underwood's senses revolted at what he saw. Completely surrounding the ship was utter, flaming destruction. The great city of the Dragbora had been turned into molten ruin by the twenty ships, which spiraled slowly, their powerful beams of the Atom Stream turned upon the buildings below. Even as Underwood watched, they completed their work upon that city and traveled toward another great city less than a hundred miles away.

What purpose was behind the wanton ruin, Underwood could not comprehend. Perhaps now that the scientists had been cornered, the Terrestrians hoped to destroy the super-weapon that could unseat Demarzule.

Within hours, the major cities of the planet would be shapeless mounds of frozen lava.

He debated trying to enter those vessels and overpowering members of their crews. At once his reason told him no, for he was still a toddler in the use of the new faculties he possessed. But there was a greater reason, too. If he should expose himself by such attacks, the ships would send word to Earth, and Demarzule would easily identify the methods used against his men and be prepared. Underwood knew how this destruction of archeological treasures would affect Phyfe and Terry, but more important was the loss of any chance to search for the weapon.

He turned his senses toward the bubble of the shell that hid the Lavoisier. Its shining surface was the only thing in all that broad city that did not reek of destruction.

As Underwood regarded it, a shock of comprehension hit him. In the impetuousness of his flight above the planet, he had overlooked the most significant point of all.

He—his senses, at least—had passed through the impenetrable force shell.

Sudden fear mingled with that devastating realization. Could he get back through it? How had he passed the barrier in the first place? It was mathematically impossible for matter or energy to be transferred across it.

Did his senses represent neither one?

He impelled himself toward it, waited for the impact—and felt none. Then he was through, looking at the interior of the shell and the ship within it.

His mind was afire with the significance of his discovery as he burst into the control room. The others had rejoined Dreyer there. Mason and some of his men were struggling to replace some of the probes now that the attack upon the ship had ceased for the moment.

"We've found it!" Underwood shouted. "We've got the weapon that Dragbor turned upon Sirenia!"

Illia screamed at the sudden impact upon her worn nerve cells.

Mason whirled around in horror and cried, "Underwood.