Hoshawk watched the screen above. The Atlantic filled with long trains of red lights that arose from their American bases and streamed eastward.

Hoshawk blinked. "You're firing everything. And you've locked the controls."

Wadsworth didn't look up. "In five minutes," he said, "there won't be an ounce of explosive left in any emplacement in America."

"But that's—" Hoshawk started to say "foolish," but he changed it. "That won't help, Sire. Forgacs' equipment is all over here, now."

But Wadsworth leaned back. Their golden explosive screen showed no longer on the Map. Already some of the emplacements had ceased to spew out red lights, and the tail-ends of their trains were disappearing to the east.

Hoshawk shuddered as he saw that now America was completely defenseless.

But Wadsworth spoke into his transmitter. "Radio. Give me special frequency three-hundred-eighty-one thousand, six hundred kilocycles. Clear all air-lines."

"Yes, sire."

The President pressed the scrambler button and then spoke. The words came out of the amplifier. "Three tons of butter unloaded a fast curve day before tomorrow because the baby was yelling for its morning high-ball. The soap-suds are thick enough for whipping but who knows where or when."

The President leaned back and smiled. "That's an order to all sixteen thousand mutants over the country to be on the alert at their predetermined stations."

Hoshawk frowned. "But everybody's been evacuated."

"Not the mutants. You see General, we ourselves haven't trusted Forgacs."

Hoshawk's grim face lighted up. "Do you mean you have secretly made some fighting equipment?"

Wadsworth shook his head. "No. We could have. There's a loophole in the Twenty-one Eighteen Agreement. But we have observed the spirit—ah!"

Up on the ground-glass screen, purple lights had been flashing on at intervals over the United States, until now there were nineteen, and Wadsworth spoke: "Those represent transmitter stations equally spaced over the country. They are all manned by mutants."

Hoshawk actually snorted. "Transmitter stations! You can't fight 

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