Underwood's physical body recovered slowly from the severe shock of the operation. He was immune to the pain of it, however, for having the abasic senses was like possessing another body. He could close all the normal channels of perception and exist with his consciousness operating only through the abasic senses.

While the fleet sped about the planet on its path of useless destruction, Underwood spent his hours practising the use of his new powers.

Gradually, he obtained an understanding of their properties and some of their functions. The tri-abasa was the sensory organ, located at the base of his brain, which could pick up distant, focusable sensations which any of his normal five senses could detect. They were controllable in their subjective effects, however, as he had found when going beyond the limits of the ship. Though he had been unaware of the interstellar cold, it had no subjective effect upon his body or his sensory apparatus.

The dor-abasa was the organ of communication, but it worked in combination with the tri-abasa in order to transmit and receive sensory effects. So it was that the two of them in combination could transmit not only ordinary communication, but could convey the actual sensations of heat, cold, light, sound.

And these same two organs were capable of dispensing swift and silent death.

How this happened was the greatest mystery Underwood had to solve. He experimented by hurling the powers upon an artificial nervous system rigged up from a network of wires. A strong electric field was definitely measured within the wires, but it had properties that were not within the physicists' prior experience. Regardless, Underwood continued with his practising and found that he could increase the strength of that field more each time. If necessary, a full understanding of how it destroyed nerve tissue could wait until they reach their objectives upon Earth.

The third organ, the seaa-abasa, was the strangest of all. Interconnected intimately with the other two through nerve channels, it nevertheless had no obvious functions. Jandro had referred to it as the receptacle of life. It appeared to be the belief of the Dragbora that everything representing the individual could be drawn into the seaa-abasa when death approached.

Eons ago, the art of artificially reconstructing new bodies into which the organ could be placed, a process constituting literal resurrection, had been lost, but the Dragbora lived in hope of recovering the forgotten knowledge. This was their explanation of the preservation of the seaa-abasa, each family possessing the vast collection of its ancestral organs back to the time of the expulsion from their parent world.

What basis in fact there was to this theory, the scientists did not know. Apparently, such resurrection had never been accomplished, yet with each death, the seaa-abasa was religiously removed and preserved.

Underwood felt like some ancient gladiator training for an arena battle, but never had any gladiator fought for such a prize. No one knew better than he that at the moment he faced Demarzule and challenged the Sirenian, he might face equal and perhaps superior powers of destruction, for Demarzule was old in experience.

There was a defense against it, and to this Underwood turned his attention, for it was difficult in function. The dor-abasa had the power to absorb and store the destructive energies. Underwood discovered it almost by accident when Mason's technicians set up equipment for duplicating the destructive force as nearly as possible. It was weak and wholly ineffective, but it acted upon the dor-abasa, and the organ absorbed it involuntarily.

He was absolutely confident that they had succeeded in finding the great weapon for which they had come. The ancient Dragboran-Sirenian culture had obviously possessed the force shell as a protection. Toshmere's words made that plain, but they had misunderstood the implications when he had said, "They have found a way through the barrier. Our men are falling one by one."

Trained in physical ways of thinking, they had overlooked any such possibility as the superior powers of the Dragboran abasa.

There was one other thing that worried Underwood, however, and that was the possibility of producing the effects of the abasic weapon by electronic means. Though the scientists were failing almost completely in their attempts to do that, he wondered if perhaps the Terrestrians under Demarzule might not succeed.

In the scientists' favor, however, was the fact that though he possessed a vast reservoir of scientific knowledge, Demarzule was still only the dictator, the politician. He was no scientist.

On the third day following the operation, Underwood was able to be up about the ship for a few moments, though by means of the abasic senses he had been actively supervising the work in the laboratory during the entire time.

He felt his powers growing almost hourly, and the vista of the new world of physical and mental powers into which he was coming was almost overwhelming. He sensed other new and untried properties of the organs, which he dared not experiment with yet. There would be time enough when they reached Earth.

An accurate watch had been kept on the battle fleet from Earth. Its wanton firing of the ancient cities was completed by the time Underwood was able to rise physically from his bed. The observer reported the ships were turning about and returning in the direction of the Lavoisier.

"We'd better get into space," said Underwood. "There's no reason for staying here longer, and I don't want them to burn away all our probes again if we can help it. They may try to send a surrender demand or something of the sort, but let's be in space where we can maneuver when they do it."

The Lavoisier lifted from the surface of the planet, its course set for Earth, more than ninety million light years away.

The force shell about it glistened in space like a new star, and through the probes the observers aboard saw the fleet swiftly shift its course in pursuit.

Underwood left the ship and let his senses rove through the space about the vessel. He remained like some omnipotent observer in space, while the shining bubble sped through the heavens. Behind it came the twenty mighty battleships, their acceleration high enough to overtake the Lavoisier. Impulsively, Underwood drifted toward the nearest and entered through the hull.

It was the giant flagship, Creagor. The Disciples who formed the fighting forces were like men reborn. There was none of the blasÉ, disillusioned attitude that had been prevalent upon Earth before the coming of Demarzule. Instead, there was a zealous, inspired attitude that frightened Underwood. It was a fanatic, desperate, unhealthy thing.

He tried to picture the nations of the Earth filled with such men driven by the same kind of unholy inspiration. It sickened him, for even if Demarzule were destroyed, the Earth would be no place where a sane man could find peace for decades to come. In death, Demarzule might become a martyr and live more strongly than ever in the minds of his followers.

As Underwood moved so strangely among his enemies, he heard occasional remarks concerning the Lavoisier and its scientists. Blasphemer and infidel were the mildest terms applied to them.

He came to the control room, where the Admiral was in conference with the Captain of the flagship.

"We have our orders, Captain Montrose," the Admiral was saying. "Destruction of the ship and all its occupants is to be complete."

"That supersedes the command to take prisoners, then?"

The Admiral nodded. "Orders will be dispatched to all vessels at once. We will make a combined attack with the new force shell disruptor."

Underwood froze at the words. Had Demarzule brought back with him some terrible means of penetrating the force shell and rendering it useless? That was absolutely the only defense the Lavoisier had. Her own Atom Stream projectors would be ineffective against the twenty encircling ships.

Underwood heard the orders given. Throughout the flagship an electric tension filled the air. It was the first time the weapon had been tried against an enemy, Underwood supposed. The crewmen were eager with a sickening lust to kill.

Underwood went swiftly through the ship, searching to locate the machines that would be turned upon the helpless laboratory ship. He still didn't quite believe that anything could break down the force shell. But when he saw the weapons, he knew that defeat had come for a civilization which had learned to depend upon the force shell for its protection.

He watched the crewmen at the complicated boards that controlled the input of power and the focusing of the radiators upon the distant target.

Underwood sped away to the distant Lavoisier to see what effect the onslaught was having. The force shell about the ship glowed with the faint, pinkish aura of the twenty beams that converged upon it.

As he came up there was no apparent effect, but all at once the glistening shell grew red in a spot as the force field weakened.

Then Underwood comprehended the means by which the disruptor worked. It did not penetrate the shell. That was an impossibility. But it unbalanced the forces that held the field in a shell and caused it to rotate. This, in turn, created a tremendous flow of energy through the generators aboard the Lavoisier and shortly would burn them out, leaving the ship the defenseless prey of the Atom Streams.

There was no time to enter the Lavoisier to warn them. Underwood returned with bodiless velocity to the Creagor.

There in the depths of the ship he found the Chief Operator who was directing those beams toward the Lavoisier. With all the power of his abasic organs, he hurled a devastating wave of energy into the man's nerve channels.

The result was shocking to one unaccustomed to killing. The man jerked upright before his panel, staggered uncertainly, and fell across the maze of switches.

There was no time for reaction within Underwood at his merciless first slaying. The complex machinery of the disruptor sputtered to a halt amid the clatter of relays.

Underwood moved into the next sector of the ship where the powerful Atom Stream projectors awaited their prey. He carefully extended the powers of the dor-abasa. It was almost as if he could feel his way along the nerve channels of the operator's mind into the depths of the brain. There he sent forth a sudden, wild command.

The operator unquestioningly spun the wheels that shifted the radiators. They came to rest upon the nearest ship of the fleet.

"Fire!" Underwood commanded.

The operator's fingers closed upon the switches. The Atom Stream lashed into space, tore open the vitals of the sister ship and flung the fragments out into space. Some crashed into other ships, battering them, throwing them off course.

For a moment after the catastrophe, the commanders of the fleet were stunned to inactivity, while confusion swept the ranks. The hysterical cries of the operator who had pulled the switches filled the room.

"I didn't do it!" he screamed. "Something made me—"

Some of the ships were still attacking the Lavoisier. Underwood didn't know how long they could hold out. He sped to the nearest ship where there was milder but no less disrupting confusion as news of the unexplained disaster filtered down to the lowest astro-man.

Underwood sought out the fire control chamber. He fingered his way along the nerve channels of the operator and swung the projectors around. This time the target was the mighty flagship.

The operator gasped with horror as the titanic hull came into view in his sights, yet with unerring accuracy his hands moved the radiators to center exactly on the target.

His fingers pressed the switches.

Soundlessly, the blossom of flame sprang into being where once had been the leviathan of space. Viewplates throughout the fleet suddenly blacked out in protection against that terrible overload. When they came on again, they showed the drifting, helpless hulk of the rear third of the ship.

The immediate objective had been accomplished. The disruptor beams vanished as the eighteen ships converged upon the black hulks to take off any possible survivors.

Underwood seized the moment and diffused his powers until he encompassed the fleet. He spoke and his voice found hearing in every man of those mighty ships.

"Men of Earth! You have sworn allegiance to Demarzule, the Sirenian, because of his might. Now you will swear allegiance to might that is great enough to wipe Demarzule from the face of civilization. I have killed your fellows right in your midst, and destroyed two of your mightiest ships—yet none of you have seen me. You know not how I come into your midst, nor how it is that every man of every ship can hear my voice at once.

"You have betrayed your kind to an alien who has destroyed worlds and ruined Galaxies. You are guilty of the highest treason to mankind. What is there that you can do to wipe out such infamy?

"You can join the forces that will wipe out the monster Demarzule! You can accept the leadership of greater might—or be destroyed. Choose!"

There was a moment of stunned quiet within the ships, then a bedlam that would not die for many minutes.

Underwood withdrew from the fleet and returned to the control room of the Lavoisier. There he found a chaos of despair. Mason had properly diagnosed the weapons the fleet had turned upon the ship.

Though his physical self lay in the sick bay yet, the members of the crew were becoming accustomed to his unexpected voice in their minds. Quickly he told them what he had done. When he finished, he said, "What damage did you suffer, if any, Mason?"

"Only two very doubtful generators left. We couldn't stand another blast like that. Where did they get such machines?"

"I don't know. It's possibly something Toshmere was on the edge of developing. Perhaps some of our own men have worked it out with clues given by Demarzule. There's no telling. The important thing now is that we've got a bear by the tail. For a moment we have the upper hand, but I'm not sure just what will happen when they pull themselves together again. If they don't accept my ultimatum, we may be in a spot."

"And if they do—what are we going to do with a whole fleet of fanatics and dupes?"

"We'll need every ally that we can get now. Undoubtedly word was flashed back to Earth of this disaster before I talked to them. Demarzule knows we're coming and is aware of the power I have. He'll undoubtedly send powerful interceptors to wipe us out. If we can gain control of these ships, we can throw them against his interceptors, and maybe sneak through the Terrestrian defenses. It doesn't matter what happens to every one of us—just so I can get close enough to Demarzule to tangle with him."

At that moment, Captain Dawson approached Mason. "Message from the fleet. They offer to surrender unconditionally."