from Philadelphia, and a shock went through Hoshawk. Something was wrong there. Jeffrey hadn't intended that. Forgacs had used atom bombs and had broken through when the screen was down.

Jeffrey's fingers snatched at the oxygen valve. He tore it off and threw it on the floor. He still held one important advantage. He was ahead of Forgacs by forty seconds.

Philadelphia went out and the golden defensive screen began to fade, but Jeffrey, tensely erect, stayed on the attack. Hundreds of green lights began to rise around Marseilles—great submarines, controlled by electronics and carrying tanks and guns and explosives.

The green lights converged on Marseilles. They got through the screen. Now was the big gamble. Jeffrey guessed that Forgacs would operate from an underground chamber near Marseilles itself.

It wasn't a logical thing to do, and so Forgacs would do it, believing that Jeffrey would pass Marseilles and go inland to find the Chamber.

Jeffrey let him believe that. He sent eight thousand giant electron-controlled bombers through the Marseilles gap and straight for Berlin.

The green lights started winking on the coast of France, showing the submarines were unloading amphibious tanks. Jeffrey started them out across France at high speed. Near Paris they met heavy resistance from Forgacs' tank-killers.

But now Jeffrey had more trouble. Forgacs had slipped a salvo of atom bombs into the Labrador power station, and the entire north quadrant of Jeffrey's screen was down. And just at that instant, the automatic breaker failed and a tube burned out in the Montevideo power station, and the southern half of South America was exposed. Green lights began to wink up at the open spaces.

Jeffrey was grim. It was near the end. Dog eat dog. His flying fingers chose to ignore Forgacs' attack, beyond firing millions of salvos of small rockets which were little better than a delaying action.

There were only two targets in this war—the Chambers.

Jeffrey released his trump—thirty-five hundred flying robot tanks.

They rocketed through the Marseilles screen and came on the city from the land side, firing eight-inch rockets and shooting flames out half a mile ahead.

But this was a feint, too. From the sea 

 Prev. P 8/14 next