He, himself took over the Electro-Flash, Neptune's gift to the Expedition. In a way, it was the ultimate weapon, disrupting as it did the very electronic balances of organic and inorganic matter.

And then, as abruptly as it had come, the terrible grandeur of the living curtain was withdrawn, receding into the far distance like a vast nebula of microscopic stars.

Bill shook himself. This must be telekinesis, a nightmare instilled into their minds, it couldn't be real! But the white-faced Venusian that fluttered in, flashing incoherent messages as he tried to telepath, dispelled that thought.

"Commander ... I have checked the graph of power intake of automatic absorber P-6, set to absorb cosmic rays for auxiliary power.... I...." He passed a tiny, weary hand over his smooth brow, and his azure wings hung limp, "I can't believe it ... we have more power, more atomic power than when we began this trip! It is as if we had tapped an incredible source of radio-active energy!"

Silently, a Terran scientist handed Nardon a developed electro-photo of a small segment of the "curtain" of fire. Unmistakably outlined were myriad tiny insect bodies, unquestionably composed of some living radio-active substance.

"The Absolute be praised!" Bill breathed fervently. "No known ship—not even Vulcanite could possibly withstand a radio-active bombardment of such scope!" He turned slowly to where the Martian scientists stood silent in a group. "I salute you," he telepathed gravely. "Your Multi-Energon screen is the greatest defensive weapon in our Universe." Embarrassedly, the tall, violet-eyed Martians stirred uncomfortably; they had a deep distaste for any emotions and suppressed them ruthlessly. Other findings began to trickle in. The nameless inter-stellar spacer that had emerged from the combined ingenuity of half a dozen worlds, spurred by the ultimate incentive of a brooding and catastrophic peril, all the more terrible because it was unknown, literally swarmed with specialists in every known science. It remained for the special mind of Bill Nardon to correlate all the scientific details and weld them into a final complete knowledge, behind which it was his task to find and solve the primum mobile—the motivating factor that they sought.

One thing emerged beyond the shadow of a doubt. Each attack had been characterized by a complete absence of a known presence. The individual attempt on Bill's life on earth had been carried out by a creature acting outside its own volition; the magnetic force that had drawn their ship into Saturn itself, 

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