As though an invisible mantle of veins were spread above the radio city, the lightnings sprayed away, following the veins, grounding in showers of tiny sparks on the plains below. They made eerie traceries of light over the city as the guns spouted lightning again and again. The glassite dome was bathed in a white, luminescent glow from the nets of meshed zigzags in the air above it, that ran in streaks of jagged white fire all around the city. And always the lightnings grounded on the plains. The city lay untouched. Kortha chuckled. He laughed aloud. He bellowed his mirth, slapping a thigh with his big hand, yelping, "A million _kofuls_ to see Guantra's face I'd give right now. He must be swallowing his tongue in rage. I'll bet he's hopping. He doesn't know what I've done. He thinks I'm a magician!" "A lot of other people think the same thing," said Ilse dryly. "Including myself. And those engineers! They'll be sweating their curiosity, now that they see how your diagrams are working. They pestered me with questions, but I couldn't answer them." "Summon them," grinned Kortha. When they stood silent before him, he laughed them into smiles. One of them echoed his laughter, and then they all were bellowing. Kortha said when they were wiping tears of delight from their eyes, "Lightning follows a pattern through the air, doesn't it? It follows beams of ionized air that are everywhere. Those ionized air beams flow down to Ruuzol, too. The only way to stop lightning from hitting us was to form other ionized air currents that lead it away from us." A man with beaming face shouted, "Ultraviolet rays ionize air!" "All we needed to do was set the batteries of radiators up in such a sequence that the lightning followed the ionized air beams they created. We made our own air currents and naturally the lightning had to follow them. It couldn't get past them!" The cheer that rang in the room dropped to a hush as the screen glowed with Guantra's snarling face. "You've won this round, Kortha. But I'm bringing the fleet here. We'll see if you can work magic against belching guns. However, your evil genius can plan, it can't work miracles all the time. You--you imp of Zut's black brother, you!" Kortha laughed in his face. The screen went dead. The engineers went dead, too, until Kortha sent his booming laugh out at them, shouting, "Let him bring his fleet. It's the showdown fight we want. Let him come to us. I've an ace up my sleeve that I haven't played yet. Why, if Earth and Venus were to send their space fleets here with Guantra, we'd still win!" The men did not believe that, but they shuffled their feet, uncertain. It is hard to doubt a man who has just performed a miracle that your own eyes have seen. There is always that lurking thought that he might pull another, too. Ilse said, "We have no guns on Ruuzol." "This whole city is a gun," said Kortha, and laughed again.