The lightning guns. Kortha came up short on that. He cursed softly, brows furrowed. Aye, he remembered the lightning guns, psychoanalyser or no psychoanalyser! With them it would be as Ilse said. Guantra would break their power; land men, and take over the city.
"The laboratories," he grated. "Get me to your laboratories. There may still be a way to stop those lightning guns."
Ilse looked at him; gasped suddenly at the old, flaring lights in his green eyes. She laughed softly, gladly, and turned and ran ahead of him.
The ceiling lights were blue and bright, flooding the long laboratory chambers where chrome and steelite glistened and glass fittings refracted rainbows of color against the scalloped walls. Black, short shadows flickered where men stood at their places, staring.
"This is Kortha," said Ilse, head flung back, eyes blazing with azure fire. "If anyone can stop Guantra, he can."
A sullen giant hulked forward from a bench, arms dangling, scowling, "Surrender to him, I say. We have no chance against the fleet. The rest of you—Guantra has no fight with us. Why do we do what one girl and one man tell us?"
Kortha uncoiled, springing. His fist shot out like a flatheaded piston, cracking the sullen man on the jaw. The splat of the blow was loud in the silence broken only by the brrring of the ceiling reflectors lazily rotating.
Over the body of the unconscious man, Kortha snarled, "Anyone else advise surrender?"
They looked at him, and dropped their eyes. Heads shook.
"Good. Get me blueprint papers, and diagrams of your ultraviolet radiator batteries. I want relayed batteries set up, and I must know how many I have to work with."