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In less than half a second the opalescence was gone, the fort shuddered, and shrieked out of the planet's atmosphere, a mass of lux now, and susceptible to the moleculars. And everything that lived within that fort had died instantly and painlessly. The fleet which had been preparing to follow the leading fort was suddenly stopped; it halted indecisively.
The ship was suddenly in normal space; its screen up. The dog-fight had been ended. The terrestrial ships had been completely defeated. The Ancient Mariner's appearance was a signal for all the moleculars in sight. Ten huge ships, half a dozen small forts and now the unshielded Dome, joined in.
At present we have the mathematics of the artificial matter to carry on, and the math of the artificial gravity to develop. We gave the Sirians all we had on artificial matter and on moleculars. "They gave us all they had which wasn't much beyond the artificial gravity, and a lot of work. At any rate, let's go!" The Ancient Mariner stirred, and rose lightly from its place beside the city.
He could control the nature as to opacity or transparency to all vibrations that normal matter is opaque or transparent to. Light would pass, or not as he chose, but cosmics he could not stop nor would radio or moleculars be stopped by any present shield he could make.
Then the Thessian fleet found them. The coils were charged now, and they could have escaped, but Arcot had to work. The Thessians were attacked with moleculars, cosmics, and a great twin-ray. Arcot could not use his magnet, for it had been among those things severed from the control. He had two ray feeds, and the artificial matter.
It exploded with a terrific concussion as it hit the wall of the ray screen. Almost instantly a second one followed. The concussion was terrifically violent, the ground about was fused, and the ray screen was opened for a moment. Arcot threw all his moleculars on the screen, as Morey sent bomb after bomb at it. The coils supplied the energy, cracked the rock beneath.
All the Thessian ships above poured the full concentration of their moleculars into its tremendous bulk. A diffused glow of opalescence ran over every ship save the giant. The moleculars were being reflected from its sides, and their diffused energy attacked the very ships that were sending them! A fort moved up, and the deadly beam of destruction reached out, luminous even in space.
"We will not fight," muttered Morey happily as he saw Arcot shift in his seat. Arcot picked the moleculars. They reached out, touched the heavy relux of the fort, and it exploded into opalescence that was hazily white, the colors shifted so quickly. A screen sprang into being, and the ray was chopped off. The screen was a mass of darting flames as energies of stupendous magnitude clashed.
A molecular reached down from a Guard ship and the Guard ship crumbled suddenly as dozens of moleculars from the points hit it. "They know how to fight this kind of a war. That's their biggest advantage," muttered Arcot. Wade merely swore. "Ray screens, no moleculars!" snapped Arcot into the transmitter.
Its straining screen had been overworked and it failed. Arcot's magnetic beam went into action. The Thessian ray did not go out it flickered, dimmed, but was apparently as deadly as ever. "Shielded write off the magnet, Morey. That is one asset we lose." Arcot, protected in space, was thinking swiftly. Moleculars useless. They had to keep their own screens up.
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