"The atomic bomb struck a torpedo!" he shouted. "It's exploded. And if they think it was we——"
"Perhaps they can't see us, with the rays out," Brand said.
"It is unlikely," Trainor observed, "that the bomb actually struck one of our torpedoes. More likely it was set to be detonated by the gravitational attraction of any object that passed near it."
Still watching the azure globe, Bill saw a sudden flare of orange light against it. A great burst of yellow flame. The blue ball crumpled behind the flame. The orange went out, and the blue vanished with it. Only twisted scraps of white metal were left.
"The second torpedo struck the Martian!" Bill cried.
"And you notice that the blue went out," said Dr. Trainor. "It must be merely a vibratory screen."
The Red Rover hurtled on through space, toward the crimson planet that hour by hour and minute by minute expanded before her. The blue disk was now plainly visible against the red. It was apparently a huge globe of azure, similar to the ships they had met, but at least a mile in diameter. She lay just off the red desert, near an important junction of "canals."
"Some huge machine, screened by the blue wall of vibration," Dr. Trainor suggested.
During the last two days the Prince and Dr. Trainor, and their eager assistant, Paula, had worked steadily in the laboratory, without pause for rest. Bill was with them when the Prince threw down his pencil and announced the result of his last calculation.
"The problem is solved," he said. "And its answer means both success and failure. We have mastered the secret of life. We have unlocked the mystery of the ages! A terrific force is at our command—a force great enough to sweep man to the millennium, or to wipe out a planet! But that force is useless without the apparatus to release it."