Something was happening on the television screen ... something terrifying. Craven's ship seemed to retreat suddenly for millions of miles ... and as suddenly the _Invincible_ appeared on the screen. For a single flashing instant, the view held; then it was gone in blank grayness. For seconds nothing happened on the screen, unnerving seconds while the two men held their breath. The screen's grayness fled and they looked into the control room of the _Interplanetarian_. Craven was hunched in a chair, intent upon a series of controls. Behind him and to one side stood Stutsman, a heat pistol dangled from his hand, his face twisted into a sneer of triumph. There was no sign of Chambers. "You damn fool," Craven was snapping at Stutsman. "You're cheating us out of the only chance we ever had of getting home." * * * * * "Shut up," snarled Stutsman, the pistol jerking in his hand. "Have you got that apparatus on full power?" "It's been on full power for minutes now," said Craven. "It must be eating holes straight through Manning's ship." "See you keep it that way. I really don't need you any more, anyhow. I've watched and I know all the tricks. I could carry on this battle single-handed." Craven did not reply, merely hunched closer over the controls, eyes watching flickering dials. Greg jogged Russ's elbow. "That must be the apparatus over there, in the corner of the room. That triangular affair. A condenser of some sort. That stuff they're throwing at us must be super-saturated force fields and they'd need a space-field condenser for that." Russ nodded. "We'll take care of that." His fingers moved swiftly and a transport beam whipped out, riding the television beam. Bands of force wrapped around the triangular machine and wrenched viciously. In the screen the apparatus disappeared ... simply was gone. It now lay within the _Invincible's_ control room, jerked there by the tele-transport. The flood of dazzling light reaching out from the _Interplanetarian_ snapped off and the little green ameba things were gone. The shrill whistle of escaping air stopped as the eaten screens clamped down again, sealing in the atmosphere despite the holes bored through the metal plates. In the television screen, Craven leaped from his chair, was staring with Stutsman at the place where the concentrator had stood. The machine had been ripped from a welded base and jagged, bright, torn metal gleamed in the control room lights. Snapped cables and broken busbars lay piled about the room. "What happened?" Stutsman was screaming. They heard Craven laugh at the terror in the other's voice. "Manning just walked in and grabbed it away from us." "But he couldn't! We had the screen up! He couldn't get through!" Craven shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know how he did it, but he did. Probably he could clean out the whole place if he wanted to." "That's a good idea," said Russ, judiciously.