His mind was afire with the significance of his discovery as he burst into the control room. The others had rejoined Dreyer there. Mason and some of his men were struggling to replace some of the probes now that the attack upon the ship had ceased for the moment.
"We've found it!" Underwood shouted. "We've got the weapon that Dragbor turned upon Sirenia!"
Illia screamed at the sudden impact upon her worn nerve cells.
Mason whirled around in horror and cried, "Underwood! Where are you?"
"We can hit them wherever they try to hide," said Underwood, "No matter where Demarzule tries to flee, I'll find him. There's no place in the Universe he can hide from me!"
[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN]
Underwood's physical body recovered slowly from the severe shock of the operation. He was immune to the pain of it, however, for having the abasic senses was like possessing another body. He could close all the normal channels of perception and exist with his consciousness operating only through the abasic senses.
While the fleet sped about the planet on its path of useless destruction, Underwood spent his hours practising the use of his new powers.
Gradually, he obtained an understanding of their properties and some of their functions. The tri-abasa was the sensory organ, located at the base of his brain, which could pick up distant, focusable sensations which any of his normal five senses could detect. They were controllable in their subjective effects, however, as he had found when going beyond the limits of the ship. Though he had been unaware of the interstellar cold, it had no subjective effect upon his body or his sensory apparatus.