The scene everywhere was now a chaos of flashing colored lights. The girls who had escaped the black blast had wavered, gone higher. Their bombs were falling wide; the sea everywhere here was lashed into foam where the bombs were bursting. A chaos of light, sound and smell: mingled electrical hums, the pungent, acrid electronic odors, the hiss of the flares, the sharp crack of the exploding bombs. The girls for a moment withdrew, off to one side, very high up. They could not hit their marks; the black beams from the rafts, now spread purely for defense, rose cone-shaped, a cone extending widely over them to protect their swimmers. The bombs, those few that were accurately aimed, exploded in mid-air, as they struck the cone. A chaos of swift, simultaneous action was everywhere taking place. Our great projectors on the flying platforms opened fire, downward at the rafts. But now from shore a solid black beam suddenly came sweeping out. It caught one of our platforms. The birds fell. The platform, its insulation inadequate, shriveled on the colorless blast, and went down, a tangled mass of birds and struggling human figures. The beam swung. It caught another platform, and another. All six—the only six we had—were surprised by it, caught there, low over the channel, before they could escape. One by one they were crashing down into the water. The last one tried to dive; it was struck just as it neared the water level. This black beam from Talon’s shore projector was raking the channel from end to end. It seemed to have a range of several miles—a longer range than any of our weapons. It destroyed our six platforms, and then swung upward at our girls. But they were just beyond it. They wavered as they felt its effect, and then went higher and farther away. Talon’s white light flares were now continuous from shore. The scene was a dazzling glare of white, with alternating periods of blackness. The black beam, guided by the white flares, sought other victims. It swung on our boats, three of which were bombarding the shore, the other seven heading for Talon’s rafts. The three closest ones caught the black blast full. It burned through their insulating shields, as it had burned the platforms. One boat sank like a stone. Another up-ended; the third tried to retreat. But its animals evidently were caught at the water surface and destroyed. It lay there, its needle-beam wavering. Then it, also, was hit full by the black beam. It shriveled, disappeared. The water down there was gruesome with black struggling figures. The beam swung after our other seven boats. They were headed to attack the rafts. They felt the beam but they were farther away, and their side insulation withstood it. I roared orders at them, and by some miracle my voice got through. Alice answered me. “Head back!” I commanded. “Around the island. Into the east channel.”