Into the Second Galaxy the scarcely diminished armada of the Patrol hurtled--to Jarnevon's solar system--around it. Once again the crimson sheathing of civilization's messengers almost disappeared in blinding coruscance as the outlying fortresses unleashed their mighty weapons; once again a few ships, subjected to such concentrations of force as to overload their equipment, were lost; but this conflict, although savage in its intensity, was brief. Nothing mobile _could_ endure for long the utterly hellish energies of the primaries, and soon the armored planetoids, too, ceased to be. [Illustration: _Some ships, attacked on every hand, watched meters climb, strain against stopping--and saw huge converters, hopelessly overloaded, vanish in gouts of atomic flame._] "Maneuver fifty-nine--hipe!" and Grand Fleet closed in upon somber Jarnevon itself. "Sixty!" It rolled in space, forming an immense cylinder; the doomed planet the midpoint of its axis. "Sixty-one!" Tractors and pressors leaped out, from ship to ship and from ship to shore. The Patrol did not know whether or not the scientists of the Eich could render their planet inertialess, but now it made no difference. Planet and fleet were for the time being one rigid system. "Sixty-two--blast!" And against the world-girdling battlements of Jarnevon there flamed out in all their appalling might the dreadful beams against which the defensive webs of battleships and of mobile citadels alike had been so pitifully inadequate. But these which they were attacking now were not the limited installations of a mobile structure. The Eich had at their command all the resources of a galaxy. Their generators and conductors could be of any desired number and size. Hence Eichmil, in view of prior happenings, had strengthened the defenses of his planet to a point which certain of his fellows derided as being beyond the bounds of sanity or reason. * * * * * Now those unthinkably powerful screens were being tested to the utmost. Bolt after bolt of quasi-solid lightning struck against them, spitting mile-long sparks in baffled fury as they raged to ground. Plain and incased in Q-type helices they came; biting, tearing, gouging. Often and often, under the thrust of half a dozen at once, local failures appeared; but these were only momentary, and not even the newly devised shells of the projectors could stand the load long enough to penetrate effectively Boskone's indescribably capable defenses. Nor were the enemies' offensive weapons less capable.