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Under that awful impact, the screens and walls of the hexan spheres were exactly as effective as so many structures of the most tenuous vapor. The red glare of the vortex of those beams was lightened momentarily by a flash of brighter color, and through the foggy atmosphere there may have flamed briefly a drop or two of metal that was only liquefied.

Simultaneously four other eyes arose, one directed at each of the men and the other surveying his bonds and the room in which he was. Then the Vorkul spoke, but his whistling, hissing manner of speech so garbled the barking sounds of the hexan words he was attempting to utter, that Verna's slight knowledge of the language was of no use.

Many of its component units would go down, but it would go on and on and on until every hexan trace had disappeared or until the last Vorkulian heptagon had been annihilated. In one of the lowermost heptagons, one bearing the full brunt of the hexan armament, Kromodeor reared upright as his projector controls went dead beneath his hands.

A searing beam of energy drove them out of the vessel, then electro-magnetic waves burned every metallic object out of their possession. Burning rays herded them into the hexan sphere and into a small room, whose door clanged shut behind them. "Ah, two are humans of a strange breed!" a snarling voice barked from the wall, in the Callistonian language.

It was the work of only a few moments to drive the visiray projection to Europa, where Czuv, to the great relief of all, found that the hexans had not yet discovered either Wruszk or the Terrestrial workings. All Europan humanity, fully aware of the hexan investment, was exerting every possible precaution against discovery by the enemy.

Every deadly frequency and emanation known to the fiendish hexan intellect, backed by the full power of the city, was poured out against the invaders in sizzling shrieking bars, bands, and planes of frenzied incandescence. Nor was vibratory destruction alone. Armor-piercing projectiles of enormous size and weight were hurled diamond-hard, drill-headed projectiles which clung and bored upon impact.

As the heptagon lurched upward, the massive door of a lower projector locker clanged shut and Kromodeor collapsed in a corner, his consciousness blotted out. "Well, that certainly tears it! That's a ... I...." Stevens' ready vocabulary failed him and he turned to Brandon, who was still staring narrow-eyed into the plate, watching the destruction of the hexan city.

Weapons long since exhausted, he unwrapped his deadly coils from about a dead hexan and darted toward a storeroom, only to be cut off by a horde of enemies. Throwing himself down a vertical shaft, he flew toward a tiny projector-locker, in the lowermost part of one of the great star's points, the hexans in hot pursuit.

We can't make him receive a thought, and von Steiffel's afraid to use an anaesthetic. Now it's barely possible that he may understand hexan. I thought you wasted time learning any of it, but maybe you didn't see if you can make him understand that we're friends." The girl flinched and shrank back involuntarily, but forced herself to approach that awful head.

As you already know, it has been decided that we should not return to any of the minor planets, as to do so might invite a hexan attack upon our police fleet which is as yet unprepared. We are now heading for Uranus, in the hope that such a course will distract the attention of the hexans from Tellus, even though they probably already know that we are Tellurians.