"What for?" asked Barney. "Nobody hates anybody any more." "Unless the birds who made this thing necessary return," said Jim soberly. His voice was ominous. "We know that only one race of Martians existed, and they were all amicable. I suspect an inimical race from outer space--" "Could be. Some of the boys are talking about an expedition to Centauri right now. We could have had a visitor from somewhere during the past." "If you define eternity as the time required for everything to happen once, I agree. In the past or in the future, we have or will be visited by a super race. It may have happened six thousand years ago." "Did you notice that the electric light is not quite in line with the axis of the tube?" asked Barney. "Don't turn it any closer," said Jim. "In fact, I'd turn it away before we hook it up again." "There she is. Completely out of line with the light. Now shall we try it again?" "Go ahead." Barney turned the BFO gingerly, and at sixty cycles the thing seemed quite sane. Nothing happened. "Shall I swing it around?" "I don't care for fires as a general rule," said Jim. "Especially in my own home. Turn it gently, and take care that you don't focus the tube full on that electric light." Barney moved the tube slightly, and then with a cessation of noise, the clock on the wall stopped abruptly. The accustomed ticking had not been noticed by either man, but the unaccustomed lack-of-ticking became evident at once. Barney shut off the BFO immediately and the two men sat down to a head-scratching session. "She's good for burning wallpaper, dimming electric lights, and stopping clocks," said Barney. "Any of which you could do without a warehouse full of cockeyed electrical equipment. Wonder if she'd stop anything more powerful than a clock." "I've got a quarter-horse motor here. Let's wind that up and try it." The motor was installed on a bench nearby, and the experiment was tried again. At sixty cycles the motor groaned to a stop, and the windings began to smolder. But at the same time the big tube began to exhibit the signs of strain. Meters raced up their scales once more, reached the stops and bent. Barney shut off the motor, but the strains did not stop in the tube. The apparent overload increased linearly and finally the lights went out all over the neighborhood once more. "Wonderful," said Barney through the darkness. "As a weapon, this thing is surpassed by everything above a fly swatter." "We might be able to cook a steak with it--if it would take the terrific overload," said Jim. "Or we could use it as an insect exterminator."