The cruiser faltered in flight and the scanners almost passed ahead of it. It faltered momentarily--that was during the time that the projector seemed to gather its energy. As the pounce came, something inside of the cruiser exploded very slowly. It expanded the cruiser slightly here and there; a plate blew off; five or six of the greenhouses shattered in puffs of mild fire; and then the cruiser staggered and continued on at a lower velocity. "Send out the word," called Lane. "General coverage. That was the first shock." Laboratories marked the time all over Terra. It would take hours for the shock--if any--to reach the antipodes. What Lane was more interested in was the report from Cal Tech, only a few hundred miles away. "Linzete, you were right," said Lane. "It'll take time, and we'll need it. But--Hey! Fellows! Get the high-power stage rigged and see what can be done about increasing the sharpness of the sawtooth generator." The period of waiting was filled with activity. The reports started to come in: "Cal Tech reports very mild shock." "Washington indicated almost zero--just a trace." "O.K., we can stand it," said Lane. "How's the target?" "Circling Terra. Radius seven light-sec. Velocity fifty-three MPS." The projector was ready when the drone returned. Again the projector gathered itself together, and the pounce was quite visible. Beneath them, the ground shook violently, and the projector and its mighty platforms rattled in the bearings, held as they were by tractors to the core of Terra. In the celestial sphere, the cruiser faltered again, and then exploded in a wild blast of sheer flame, white and violent. The radiating gases expanded, passed out of the scope of the scanner, and then the scanner fell away from the scene and roamed aimlessly across the sky, showing a mad whirling pattern of uninteresting stars. "What happened?" asked Linzete. "Main target blew up completely. Nothing massive to focus on, so the finders and scanners just roam at will. That's it, Stellor." "Wait until we get the seismographic reports," cautioned the Martian. "Maybe we can blast a ship to bits at two million miles, but so what if California slides into the San Jacinto fault?" "Well, there'll be no more attempts until the returns are all in from the labs," said Lane. "I'm taking no more chances." He turned to Linzete. "You'll want the plans, of course?"