Graff had sent a globe at once to Africa, to order back his force operating there. It came in, crowding our camp. Near the north line of our barrage Graff built a small stone house. Within it the control globes were being erected. He would never let me or Zetta near it. The barrage throughout its entire circumference was strengthened. All our projectors were in use, triple-banked in some places. Graff had built a chemical laboratory in the camp. His scientists had for weeks been working in it, endeavoring to produce the Reet current on earth for a renewal of the storage tanks which had been brought from Xenephrene. I was now barred from this building; they were working in it on the Control-globe mechanisms. Above our camp a flying platform now constantly hovered at a ten-thousand foot altitude. It spread a thin, red barrage like a ceiling above us. Graff anticipated that he would be attacked more vigorously than ever before; he said so to me once, with his sardonic smile--and he had not forgotten that one aviator who had dropped a bomb upon us. By August 14 our force had returned from Africa, our lines about our base were strengthened, the Control-globes were erected in the little house, and everything was ready. About the camp, and at intervals five miles out to the barrage line, small projectors the size of a man's hand had been erected; wires in conduits ran from them back to the laboratory. There must have been fifty or more. On the afternoon of August 14 a current was turned into them. They hummed gently; when the twilight and night came, I saw them emitting a faint purple radiance. Within an hour it hung over the camp--over all the inside area of the barrage--like a purple haze. The haze I had seen in the air of Xenephrene. It was to protect us here, in our enclosed area, from the effects of this thing we were about to broadcast over the earth! A week from that night over Miami when we were defied--and now Graff was ready. An anxious week for me. A thousand times I had thought of a thousand vague plans of something desperate I might do. But what? I was more closely guarded than ever before. A very pseudo-liberty was all that was permitted me. Zetta, in a few snatches of talk I had alone with her, still seemed to think she might persuade Graff to stop. Futile hope! Her brave endeavors had from the first been futile. At last, she seemed convinced. A wariness of manner, an alert, calculating look whenever she was with Graff, came upon her. I can only guess now, what thoughts and plans were behind that grim, masklike little face. She said nothing of her thoughts to me; there seemed suddenly an added estrangement between us. During the evening of August 14, while I was watching the purple haze, Graff sought me. Zetta was near him. "We are ready, Peter. I thought that you and Zetta would like to see these little globes that are so powerful to triumph for us." "Walk out to the Control house?"