"Tons of glyco-scarzite, Lance! Unleashed, without warning, from miles above! Thirty of these torpedoes, each a hundred feet long, dropping down on the very heart of the Slav invasion! Killing, blowing to bits, rather, every living thing, every fortification, every tree, every tank, every gun, every flame thrower, every plane in a radius of hundreds of miles!" "God!" came from Lance's numb lips. "God!" "_But_"--and the colonel held up a straight forefinger--"these torpedoes must be guided from the place they raid!" Into the silence Lance whispered: "And that--that is Hay's job?" "That," Douglas confirmed levelly, "is Hay's job--and yours." * * * * * Their eyes met; held. And then Lance's clean young face smiled. "Thank God, sir," he cried, "that I'm to help strike the blow that'll free our country!" Colonel Douglas answered his smile with a smile. "Lance," he said, "it's because Washington has put this job into Hay's and your hands that I know--_I know_--it will succeed." "It will!" Douglas lowered his voice again. "This is why those flying torpedoes must be guided from the Slav's innermost base. "In the first place, they fly too high for an accompanying plane to guide them. In the second, the power that releases them to hurtle downwards must come from the enemy base itself, to permit of no possible error. This must not fail!" "But," put in Lance, "how do the torpedoes fly? What motivates them?" "A closely guarded secret, of course," he was told. "I merely possess a slight comprehension of it. I know that it is an adaptation of that discovery of Professor Singe, two years ago--cosmic attraction. Eventually, perhaps, it will permit interplanetary travel. This use of it is simply the beginning. But it is to America's everlasting glory that a scientist of hers developed it. "You know how a sliver of wood is propelled by the ripples of a pond? Vibrations of the water, really. Well, evidently there are somewhat similar vibrations in the ether, cosmic force. Each one of these flying torpedoes contains a highly expensive, intricate mechanism which transforms this invisible vibration-power into material propulsion. The mechanism is adjusted to propel the torpedo at such an altitude in such a direction. We possess no means of setting the machines to _stop_ at a certain place and so tumble earthwards. That's where you and Hay come in. "Hay is now, with forged documents, passing himself off as a regular Slav pilot. He speaks the tongue. Two nights from now, you, Lance, keep a rendezvous with Hay at an isolated ranch in the Lake Tahoe country--the Sola Ranch, where we staged that big fight a few months back." * * * * * Lance nodded.