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The Mirans there looked up at him with drawn faces. "The instruments Gresth Gkae the instruments. The instruments read impossible things, the motors worked without reason, the fields fluctuated the atomic engines stopped and the magnetic shield broke down and gripped part of the ship instead!" reported the bewildered pilot. "I do not know some strange weapon of " began the old scientist.
In her cargo holds lay various items of machinery, mining supplies, foods, and records. And in her log books lay the records of many readings on the nine larger planets of a highly satisfactory planetary system. Gresth Gkae had spent no less than three ultra-wearing years going from one sun to another in a definitely mapped out section of space.
In the meantime all we can do is hold on and hunt, and let's hope better than the Strangers do." Sadly the convalescent Gresth Gkae listened to the reports of his lieutenants. More and more disgraced he felt as he realized how badly he had blundered in reporting the people of this system unable to cope with the attackers' weapons. Gresth Gkae looked up at his old friend and physician, Merth Skahl.
And in three days more, a magnetic bomb streaked dully across the laboratory to a magnetic shield they had set up, and buried itself in it, to explode in brilliant light and heat. From that day Gresth Gkae began to mend.
There was a pause. Then it flashed four times. A long wait. Then three times, a pause and nine times. A wait. Four times, a pause, sixteen times. Then it stopped. A slow smile of ineffable joy spread over Gresth Gkae's face. "Jarth Be Praised. He can destroy, but does not wish to.
The lower, or microscopic eye was adapted to work for which a human being would have required a low power microscope, the upper eye possessed a more normal power of vision, plus considerable telescopic powers. Gresth Gkae was using it now to look ahead in the blank of space to where gigantic Mira appeared.
"Grih is in a descendant stage," said the navigation officer presently. "Sthor will be cold when we arrive." "It will warm quickly enough with our news!" Gresth laughed. "A system a delightful system discovered. A system of many close-grouped planets. Why think from one side of that system to the other is less of a distance than from Ansthat, our first planet's orbit, to Insthor's orbit!
Gradually the thing died out. Then a great field seemed to catch the ship, and hurl it away from its companions. Abruptly the pilot applied all his power to pull free. In vain. Gresth Gkae shook his head slowly, and raised the pilot's hands from the board. "Let them do as they will. I think they mean us no real harm, Thart Kralt. They can, we know, destroy us in an instant.
Then this race was more intelligent than he had believed. They had not had them before. Had he perhaps given them too much warning and information? There was a sudden, deeper note in the thrumming roar of the great ship. Eagerly Gresth Gkae watched and sighed in relief. The nearer of the three enemy ships was crumbling to dust. Now the other two were beginning to become blurred of outline.
A day or two later, the bombs were coming one each second and a half, for more ships had joined in the work on Phobos. Gresth Gkae saw the work was going nicely. He knew that now it was only a question of time before those magnetic shields would fail and then the whole fort would be powerless. Maybe it might be a good idea, when the forts were powerless to investigate instead of blowing them up.
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