"They didn't. They pointed them and died," Thorndyke explained, grimly. "They traded one projector and its crew for one cruiser and its crew—a good trade from their viewpoint."
"There will be no more such trades," Haynes declared.
Nor were there. The Patrol had maulers enough to englobe the enemy craft at a distance greater even than the effective range of those suicidal beams, and it did so.
Shielding screens cut off the Boskonians' intake of cosmic power and the relentless beaming of the bulldog maulers began. For hour after hour it continued, the cordon ever tightening as the victims' power lessened. And finally even the Gargantuan accumulators of the immense fortresses were drained. Their screens went down under the hellish fury of the maulers' incessant attack, and in a space of minutes thereafter the structures and their contents ceased to exist save as atomic detritus.
The Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol remade its formation after a fashion and set off toward the Galaxy at touring blast.
And in the control room of the flagship three Lensmen brought a very serious conference to a close.
"You saw what happened to Helmuth's planet," Kinnison's voice was oddly hard, "and I gave you all I could get of the thought about the destruction of all life upon Sol III. A big-enough duodec bomb in the bottom of an ocean would do it. I don't really know anything except that we hadn't better let them catch us asleep at the switch again—we've got to be up on our toes every second."
And the Gray Lensman, face set and stern, strode off to his quarters.
II.