Then Glayne leaped. With one flailing fist he caught the Delban guard on his bony jaw and with the other he snatched the cold-beam gun from his limp fingers. Whirling, he played it among the stupefied guards. Then old Graysen exploded into action, seizing Selzi-Narfid and hurling him bodily at Bro-Doral who was in the act of bringing up his Cardy gun. Three of the guards had collapsed and another was crumpling on his knees under Glayne's cold-beam. The other two had crouched back in the shadows of the entrance portal, trying to bring their weapons to bear upon Glayne. Graysen whirled and lunged at them, smashing one down with a single blow. The last guard on his feet, surprised and dismayed by this attack from the rear, fled to the portal and tried to dilate it. But he was too late and sagged in a heap under Glayne's hand weapon. Scooping up two of the Cardy guns which had fallen to the balcony floor, Glayne shouted: "Pick up an energy gun, Graysen. Cut down the power drain machinery." Graysen reached for an energy gun in the holster of one of the paralyzed guards. He never even saw Gort Bro-Doral scramble to his feet and fire point blank. His head disappeared as the Delban's beam struck full force. Glayne fired back wildly but he was off balance and missed. Before he could collect himself to fire again, Bro-Doral had fled to another stage and darted through the dilation. Glayne whirled toward the Delbans. Selzi-Narfid had a broken neck and was obviously dead. The guards were all unconscious and would remain so for a long time. Glayne turned back to the Jewel which cast its chill, gold light steadily through the interstices of the surrounding girders. Calmly he leveled the Cardy gun and fired at it. As if it were so much water, the deadly little energy beam washed off the Tane Jewel and fused with the beralloy supports. It was as he had expected. Given several hours, the little hand weapon might have made an impression on the incredibly tough beralloy but Glayne had no time to lose. As he had seen before, the power drain machinery which hung in clusters from the big beams and transmitted the energy through the heavy busbars looked to be the most fragile. Glayne wondered what would happen if he fired into them. There was only one way to find out. The muscles of his jaw hardened as he depressed the firing stud on the Cardy. Nothing happened. He let the beam of his energy gun play up and down the clusters of power drains, fusing them into slag. Now the thin, invisible rays of power which the drains extracted from the Jewel no longer existed since they had no place to go. But nothing happened. Then it occurred to him that nothing would happen in the Jewel Chamber itself. It needed no power for lights--the Jewel provided all the light needed. Heartened, Glayne blasted at every drain in reach, following the balcony around the Chamber.