matters to the captain, that worthy issued orders, and soon the flagship had in readiness all her weapons, both of defense and of offense.

"Doctor Stone, who knows more about the automatons than does any other human being, will tell us what to do next," the Flight Director said.

"The first thing to do is to locate them," Stone, now temporary commander, stated crisply. "They have taken over at least one of our vessels, probably one close to us, so as to be near the center of the formation. Radio room, put out tracers on wave point oh oh two seven one...." He went on to give exact and highly technical instructions as to the tuning of the detectors.

"We have found them, sir," soon came the welcome report. "One ship, the Dresden, coordinates 42-79-63."

"That makes it bad—very bad," Stone reflected, audibly. "We can't expand the zone to release another ship from the control of the robots without enveloping the Dresden and exposing ourselves. Can't surprise them—they're ready for anything. It's rather long range, too." The vessels of the Fleet were a thousand miles apart, being in open order for high-velocity flight in open space. "Torpedoes would be thrown off by her meteorite deflectors. Only one thing to do, Captain—close in and tear into her with everything you've got."

"But the men in her!" protested Martin.

"Dead long ago," snapped the expert. "Probably been animated corpses for days. Take a look if you want to; won't do any harm now. Radio, put us on as many of the Dresden's television plates as you can—besides, what's the crew of one ship compared to the hundreds of thousands of men in the rest of the Fleet? We can't burn her out at one blast, anyway. They've got real brains and the same armament we have, and will certainly kill the crew at the first blast, if they haven't done it already. Afraid it'll be a near thing, getting away from the sun, even with eleven other ships to help us—"

He broke off as the beam operators succeeded in making connection briefly with the plates of the Dresden. One glimpse, then the visibeams were cut savagely, but that glimpse was enough. They saw that their sister-ship was manned completely by automatons. In her every compartment men, all too plainly dead, lay wherever they had chanced to fall. The captain swore a startled oath, then bellowed orders; and the flagship, driving projectors fiercely aflame, rushed to come to grips with the Dresden.

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