"You talk of power, Earthman?" Kyrsis raged shrilly. "You brag of your Federation's broadcast system? Then look at this, and know what power really means! We have tapped a source of energy so great it makes all others puny--a source your science left untouched, though it lies within your solar system! But we have harnessed that force. We have concentrated it into great controlled magnetic fields that we can shift at will, so strong they pull the very meteors from their courses and hurl them to the place that we desire them!" Shane rocked, and shock was suddenly written on his lean, hard face. Wordless, he stared into the screen. "And there is more, _Gar_ Shane--much more!" the woman cried. Swiftly, she stepped to the screen and twirled the dials. "There was a plan we drew for such a time as this--a plan to smash barbarian worlds to dust and ashes. We'll hurl the meteor swarms down on their cities, clouds of them so huge they'll cut through any atmospheric layer." She whirled. "Here, see your homeland, Earth! It will be the first to go! Already, the field is concentrating, forming--drawing in the meteor clouds out of the void--" The viewer on the long-range screen was clearing. And there was Earth, Shane's native planet, a great, green-glowing arc in the lower corner. A lone space ship was rising in the foreground, speeding out into the void. But already, about it, were meteor clusters ... gathering swarms that grew with every passing minute. "You see, _Gar_ Shane? The people of your Earth are doomed!" the silver woman jeered in paranoiac frenzy. "There is no hope, no way to save them! The other planets, too, will go, till at last there is no one left but we of Gadar. Then we shall migrate out of this dark star, into your worlds, where life is not yet spent and faded. My people's strength will rise anew--" * * * * * Bleakly, Shane stared into the screen, through a moment that lasted all eternity. Then, in one explosive motion, he snatched the space-phones from their rack. His voice crackled out into the void: "_Chonyas_ ... _Chonyas_ ... Shane, your _gar_, is calling--" And taut-drawn _Chonya_ words came back: "We stand by for your orders--" "I want a ship," Shane answered tightly, "a single fast _Chonya_ ship, equipped with Abaquist repellers, to try to break through the meteor swarm and come down to Gadar to me on the fleet alarm beam." "We come, _Gar_ Shane--" Even with the words, a slim, sleek craft was breaking from the milling fleet, swerving through the sky in a monstrous arc. Then it was coming round again--striking its course, plunging down on Gadar. Straight into the blazing meteor swarm it sped, and even on the screen Shane could see it tossing--careening, staggering, lurching with shock. And then it was through the swarm and out again. Its hull was ripped, its hatches battered, but still it plummeted down towards Gadar.