ust then the form on my aching shoulder stirred, sighed, struggled a bit, and suddenly slid down to a standing position. Keston swayed unsteadily a moment, straightened, looked about him in amazement.
"What's happening here?" he demanded.
"Why, you old war horse," I shouted in my relief, "I thought you were out of the picture completely!"
"Not me," he answered indignantly. "I'm all right. But you haven't answered my question."
A terminite bomb exploded not so far away from where we stood. I ducked involuntarily, Keston doing likewise.
"There's the answer," I grinned, "and a rather neat one, too. But I'll explain."
In a few words I sketched what had happened, and showed him the disintegrator spreading its deadly waves of destruction. By now there was a torrent enveloping us up to our knees. We would have to move soon, or be drowned in the slowly rising water.
Then, hesitatingly, I told him of my scheme to keep the search-rays in action. His lean face sobered, but he nodded his head bravely. "Of course, that is the only way to keep them at it. You and I will start at once, in separate directions, so that if they get one, the other will continue to draw the search-rays down on the plain, and into the disintegrator."