The platform was almost over the valley. Sonya sent out another pink disk. The girls bent over the grid, staring at the tiny movement image; a dim, starlit valley. At the bottom of it, a group of busy figures and a giant projector muzzle pointing vertically upward.
The girls watched the grid breathlessly. Its image, moving with constantly changing viewpoint, was clearly etched, but dim and very small: a cliff ledge with three figures upon it. From the ledge suddenly a small red ring of fire leaped out. It sped downward, struck a rock, and vanished with a puff.
It was Altho firing the weapon Jim had taken from the giant; in a moment the still distant girls heard a report, like a tiny clap of thunder, the sound of the red ring striking the rock. Down in the valley the giant muzzle of the vertical projector began issuing a stream of green light.
It mounted a hundred feet, sprayed out like a fountain column of water. From the ground, huge black figures tossed a balloon head into the column of light. The head rose, surged upward, until at the top it hung in the light spray, balancing itself like a ball held at the top of a jet of water.
It was all very swift, a moment or two while the girls stared at the glowing grid. The head was nearly level with the ledge. In the green light Altho’s figure showed plainly; he was standing at the ledge, firing his red rings of flame.
But they were futile now. They floated slowly, and from below, some hidden marksman was catching each of them with an upflung pencil point of black light, a narrow beam, so dead black that it showed clearly in the night. It caught the red fire rings; its rays exploded them harmlessly in the air.
The grid went dark; the second lens disk had burned out. But the platform itself now swept over the valley. The reality of the image scene was spread beneath the girls. Sonya saw the ledge was large enough to land upon; she guided the birds toward it.
She raised the electronic needle projector, fired it with a futile aim and then cast it away. There was no time for her to attempt to use it further. Her birds were swooping for the ledge, and they needed her guidance. A moment, and they would be there.
But too late! The head in the fountain of green light held something in his hands. A hum rose over the valley. Altho, standing on the ledge, suddenly flung up his arms. His weapon fell from him. He toppled, seemed trying to draw himself backward. But could not.
And then, forward from the ledge his struggling figure floated into the air. On the ledge, Ren and Jim were frantically clinging to avoid being drawn after him. The hum rose to a shrill whine.