Not more than a dozen of the globes remained when the commander of the fleet evidently discovered that his rays could not harm the strange craft from earth, and that his only chance for safety would be in flight. These remaining globes shot swiftly upward—so swiftly that it was difficult for the eye to note their progress, but the Luna was after them in an instant, and kept them well in range while her marksmen used the degravitors with deadly effect. Soon but one lone globe remained. It seemed to have an especially clever helmsman, who dodged hither and thither with such speed and in such unexpected ways that he had been able to elude the Luna’s gunners. He suddenly set out in a zig-zag course toward Copernicus, with the Luna in swift pursuit. A degravitor ray brought him down inside the crater just after he had crossed the rim and was ready to drop to safety. Bevans was unable to instantly check the forward flight of the Luna, and her momentum carried her ten miles past the crater rim and only a little over fifteen miles from the nearest central peak. Hundreds of powerful green rays instantly flashed up at the invader, and giant globes swarmed upward from the yawning mouths of mighty shafts, to attack. The globes were cut down by Roger’s marksmen almost as fast as they emerged, and the green rays did no damage. Then there suddenly flashed from the second peak of the central group, a mighty green ray so powerful it would easily have made a thousand of the smaller defensive rays. It was pointed straight upward at the earth hanging in the heavens above them, and the spot where it struck—apparently some five hundred miles in diameter, plainly showed as a great greenish-white area in the Pacific Ocean when, a moment later, the ray winked out. The operators evidently had stopped for a moment to note its effect—perhaps to send a radio message to earth demanding instant surrender or threatening annihilation. “Turn the degravitors on the peak of that mountain,” ordered Roger. “The globes can wait. We’ll get them later.” Before his instructions could be carried out it seemed that the ray operator had anticipated them, for the huge green ray flashed out once more, but this time it did not strike the earth. Instead, its powerful, deadly green light enveloped the Luna. Although the earth-craft was insulated against the cold of absolute zero, and was, in addition, protected by her aura of degravitor rays, she could not help feeling the tremendous power of the terrific deenergizing rays. In an instant her interior temperature, which had been kept comfortably warm at 70° Fahrenheit, dropped to the freezing point and rapidly went lower.