And as they fought with us, the dark stars on which they had come were being directed smoothly toward our suns, hooking onto a sun each with their great attraction-beams, and starting again to tow these suns out into the void. At this sight, Lacq Larus flashed an order to us. "Try above all to get down and cripple the propulsion-apparatus of those dark stars! If we don't, they'll get away with these suns too!" "They're getting away with them now!" groaned Jhul Din. "Curse them, if they were only living creatures instead of machines we might be able to beat them!" Already a third of our forces were gone, and at Lacq Larus' new order we spent our ships at an appalling rate to wing down and disable the dirigible dark stars. It was in vain. The flying-mechanisms kept always between us and the dark stars below. And steadily as the wild battle raged above them, those dark stars were dragging away their second capture of suns. One only did our forces manage to disable. There had been a break in the battle above it for a moment, and through that break two Patrol cruisers cometed down instantly and crashed deliberately into the controls of that world. At once that dark star slowed and drifted rudderless in space, circling aimlessly with the sun it had been towing away. The machines deserted it and darted on to help protect the other nineteen that were dragging their suns onward. We followed those nineteen dark stars and their prey fiercely out into space, never ceasing our attacks. Two-thirds of our force was annihilated before Lacq Larus gave over the attack. The machines had again had much the best of it and now outnumbered us by an even greater margin. His voice was heavy as he gave the order that signified our defeat. "All ships return toward the galaxy." We were silent as our remnant of ships returned. "It's no good," said Korus Kan finally. "The machines are stronger than we are, and though we'll fight them when they come again, they'll take our suns despite us." "We'll stop them somehow," Jhul Din asserted. "The Patrol has met a lot of enemies in its time and beaten them, and it will beat these cursed mindless things of metal." "I confess that I don't see how it can be done," I answered him. "We've met them twice now and each time they've defeated us." Lacq Larus' voice came to me shortly on the space-phone. "Dur Nal, land your ship on that disabled dark star," he said. "I want to examine it with you." * * * * * I gave the pilot the order and we detached ourselves from the rest of the fleet and headed toward the dark star. It still drifted aimlessly outside the galaxy's edge, it and the sun it had been towing away when crippled now circling each other. When we landed on it beside the ship of Lacq Larus and emerged in space-suits we found the dark-star's surface held only some wrecks of machines that had been shattered by our beams. No living or moving machine was left upon that world.