The Sword and the Atopen
of space to try it in. I was personally present at its debut, being at the time in General Sanford's stationary observing helicopter which, through the agency of the power supplied by a Mernickian transformer, hung motionless as a bee fifteen thousand feet in the air. Only the treble hum of the air turbine could be heard faintly through the transparent walls of the observatory constructed of the annealed clersite, which has taken the place of the unsatisfactory glass used by our forefathers. The toughness and tensile strength of this element, comparable to the best chrome steels, combined with its crystal clarity, made an ideal warfare observation unit. It was practically invisible and likewise quite bullet proof. The great strength of the material in our machine, and the rapidity with which we could rise and fall, indeed made us difficult prey. In addition to this we were hanging behind the great electric field that the Radio Defensive Corps had spread like a screen before our forces, greatly to the embarrassment of the enemy in the use of his anti-gravitational machines.

As we stood at our posts, we saw the great degravitated bombs hurtled against our lines suddenly come into contact with the fan-like electric field, somersault a few times and fall. At the edge of the electric screen the ground was excavated to an enormous depth by the bursting of these intercepted degravitated bombs, most of which had been projected from stationary batteries three or four hundred miles behind the enemy lines. The local batteries bombarding with the old fashioned Sangsi steel shell were still effective. On the whole, however, from our own observation of the local front and from the television reports we were constantly receiving, we judged that the American and Allied Caucasian forces were more than holding their own.

General Sanford, the Chief of the Signal Corps, who stood by my side, grasped my arm, and pointed to the west. Everyone crowded to our side in excitement. Before we could gasp our amazement, the incandescent spot which our Chief had mutely indicated on the distant horizon, zoomed in a blazing arc across our zenith and plunged into the terrain of the English forces which were occupying the little town of Ogallala about six miles to our south. We held our breath. What next?

Only a faint throbbing seemed to pulse in the air above the spot where the missile sank. I was about to pronounce the diagnosis of "a dud," when someone cried, "My God, General, they've turned hell loose this time!" The whole atmosphere for a quarter of a mile radius about the fatal bomb quivered as over a heated griddle. Even as we 
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