Russ found his pipe was dead. Snapping his lighter, he applied flame to the blackened tobacco. Walking slowly to the wall cabinet, he lifted two other boxes out, set them on the table and took from them two other mechanical shadows. He turned them on and leaned close, watching the spinning dials, the quivering needles.
"Greg,” he whispered, “Chambers and Stutsman are there in that ship with Craven! Look, their shadows register identical with the one that spotted Craven."
"I suspected as much,” Greg replied. “We got the whole pack cornered out here. If we can just get rid of them, the whole war would be won in one stroke."
Russ lifted a stricken face from the row of tiny mechanisms. “This is our big chance. We may never get it again. The next hour could decide who is going to win."
Greg rose from the chair and stood before the control board. Grimly he punched a series of keys. The engines howled again. Greg twisted a dial and the howl rose into a shrill scream.
From the Invincible another beam lashed out… another and another Space was speared with beam after beam hurtling from the great ship.
Swiftly the beams went through the range of radiation, through radio and short radio, infra-red, visible light, ultra-violet, X-ray, the gammas and the cosmics-a terrific flood of billions of horsepower.
Craven's ship buckled and careened under the lashing impacts of the bombardment, but it seemed unhurt!
Greg's face was bleaker than usual as he turned from the board to look at Russ.
"We've used everything we have,” he said, “and he's stopped them all. We can't touch him."