"And to your world must go our thanks for saving of our lives, and more important, our ship," replied Arcot. "For the ship represents a thing of enormous value to this entire star-system." "I see--understand--your--thoughts that you wish to learn more of this weapon we use. You understand that it is a question among us as to whether it is undefeatable, uncontrollable or just un-understandable. We have had fair success with it. It is not a weapon, was not developed as such; it was an experiment in the line of electric-waves. How it works, what it is, what happens--we do not know. "But men who can create so marvelous a ship as this of yours, capable of destroying a ship of the Thessians with their own weapons must certainly be able to understand any machine we may make--and you have power?" he finished eagerly. "Practically infinite power. I will throw into any power line you suggest, all the direct current you wish." Arcot's thoughts were pure reflection, but the Talsonian brightened at once. "I feared it might be alternating--but we can handle direct current. All our transmission is done at high voltage direct current. What potential do you generate? Will we have to install changers?" "We generate D.C. at any voltage up to fifty million, any power up to that needed to lift ten trillion men through their own height in this time a second." The power represented approximately twenty trillion horsepower. The Talsonian's face went blank with amazement as he looked at the ship. "In that tiny thing you generate such power?" he asked in amazement. "In that tiny ship we generate more than one million times that power," Arcot said. "Our power troubles are over," declared the military man emphatically. "Our troubles are not over," replied a civilian who had joined the party, with equal emphasis. "As a matter of fact, they are worse than ever. More tantalizing. What he says means that we have a tremendous power source, but it is in one spot. How are you going to transmit the power? We can't possibly move any power anywhere near that amount. We couldn't touch it to our lines without having them all go up in one instantaneous blaze of glory. "We cannot drain such a lake of power through our tiny power pipes of silver." "This man is Stel Felso Theu," said Tho Stan Drel. "The greatest of our scientists, the man who has invented this weapon which alone seems to offer us hope. And I am afraid he is right. See, there is the University. For the power requirements of their laboratories, a heavy power line has been installed, and it was hoped that you could carry leads into it." His face showed evident despair greater than ever. "We can always feed some power into the lines. Let us see just what hope there is. I think that it would be wiser to investigate the power lines at once," suggested Morey.