Stirred by these thoughts he had built detectors to announce the appearance of any nongravitational forces in the gravity band and had learned that his fears were only too well founded. While the enemy could not project through the open band any forces sufficiently powerful to do any material damage, they were thus in position to forestall any move which the men of Valeron made to ward off their inexorably approaching doom.
Far beneath the surface of the ground, in a room which was not only sealed but was surrounded with every possible safeguard, nine men sat at a long table, the Bardyle at its head.
"—and nothing can be done?" the coördinator was asking. "There is no possible way of protecting the edges of the screens?"
"None." Radnor's voice was flat, his face and body alike were eloquent of utter fatigue. He had driven himself to the point of collapse, and all his labor had proved useless. "Without solid anchorages we cannot hold them—as the ground is fused they give way. When the fused area reaches the dome the end will come. The outlets of our absorbers will also be fused, and with no possible method of dissipating the energy being continuously radiated into the dome we shall all die, practically instantaneously."
"But I judge you are trying something new, from the sudden cutting off of nearly all our weight," stated another.
"Yes. I have closed the gravity band until only enough force can get through to keep us in place on the planet, in a last attempt to block their spy rays so that we can try one last resort—" He broke off as an intense red light suddenly flared into being upon a panel. "No; even that is useless. See that red light? That is the pilot light of a detector upon the gravity band. The Chlorans are still watching us. We can do nothing more, for if we close that band any tighter we shall leave Valeron entirely and shall float away, to die in space."
As that bleak announcement was uttered the councilors sat back limply in their seats. Nothing was said—what was there to say? After all, the now seemingly unavoidable end was not unexpected. Not a man at that table had really in his heart thought it possible for peaceful Valeron to triumph against the superior war craftiness of Chlora.
They sat there, staring unseeing into empty air, when suddenly in that air there materialized Seaton's projection. Since its reception has already been related, nothing need be said of it except that it was the Bardyle himself who was the recipient of that terrific wave of mental force. As soon as the Terrestrial had made clear his intentions and his desires, Radnor leaped to his feet, a man transformed.
"A laboratory of radiation!" he exclaimed, his really profound exhaustion forgotten in a blaze of new hope. "Not only shall I lead him to such a laboratory, but my associates and I shall be only too glad to do his bidding in every possible way."