"Now this is going to be difficult," warned Sherman. "Throw that connecting bar, Ben. It holds the power switch and the beam switch together so they're both turned on at once. Otherwise the recoil we'd get on this end of the beam would tumble us over backward. Hold it, while I set the controls. We've got to take a jump as soon as we fire, or we'll pop right into the mess we make.... Ready? All right, Gloria, go ahead with your searchlight."
The beam of the searchlight shot out, pale in the daylight, wavered a second, then outlined the crest of the cliff.
"Shoot!" cried Sherman.
There was a terrific report; a shock; the Monitor leaped, quivering in every part, and as they spiralled down to see what damage they had done, they beheld no cliff at all, but a rounded cup at the tip of the mountain in which a mass of molten rock boiled and simmered.
"Fair enough," said Ben. "I guess that will do for the Lassans, all right. Home, James?"
"Right," answered Sherman. "We've found out all we want to know this trip."
The homeward journey was accomplished even more swiftly than the trip northward as Sherman gained in experience at the controls of the machine. As it glided slowly to earth at the airport a little group of officers was waiting to meet them.
"What in thunder have you been doing?" one of them greeted the Americans. "Your static, or whatever it was you let loose, burned out all the tubes in half the army radio sets in New Jersey."
"By the nine gods of Clusium!" said Sherman. "I never thought of that. We're reducing matter pretty much to its lowest terms, and it's all a good deal alike on that scale—vibrations that may be electricity, magnetism, light or matter. Of course, when we let go that shot there was enough radiation to be picked up on Mars. I'll have to figure out a way to get around that. Those Lassans are no bums as electricians and after we've been at them once or twice, they'll be able to pick up our radiation whenever we're coming and duck us."
"There's another thing," said Ben. "I thought the Monitor vibrated a good deal when you let that shot go."