“Can you fellows and your ships keep them off of my flitter while I take my readings?”
“We can,” the natives radiated happily.
Four of the armored boneheads were wearing the semi-portable. They had them perched lightly atop their feeding heads, held immovably in place by two arms apiece. One hand sufficed to operate the controls, leaving two hands free to do whatever else might prove in order.
“Let us out!”
The lock opened, the Dhilian warriors sprang out and splashed away to meet the enemy, who were already dashing into the lagoon.
Cloud watched pure carnage. He hoped—yes, there they were! The loyalists, seeing that their cause was not lost, after all, had armed themselves and were smashing into the fray.
The Blaster broke out his flitter then, set it down near the vortex, and made his observations. Everything was normal. He selected three bombs from his vast stock, loaded them into the tubes, and lofted. He set his screens, adjusted his goggles, and waited; while far above him and wide around him his guardian Dhilian war-vessels toured watchfully, their drumming blasts a reassuring thunder.
He waited, eyeing the sigma curve as it flowed backward from the recording pen, until he got a ten-second prediction. He shot the flitter forward, solving instantaneously the problems of velocity and trajectory. At exactly the correct instant he released a bomb. He cut his drive and went free.
The bomb sped truly, striking the vortex dead center. It penetrated deeply enough. The carefully-weighed charge of duodec exploded; its energy and that of the vortex combining in a detonation whose like no inhabitant of that solar system had ever even dimly imagined.
The noxious gases and the pall of smoke and pulverized debris blew aside; the frightful waves of lava quieted down. The vortex was out and would remain out. The Blaster drove back to the cruiser and put his flitter away.