"We know where their relay base is," he explained. "We'll strike that next! Then, capitalizing on the element of surprise, we'll continue to their World of Origin and destroy it outright. On the way back we'll probably knock out one or two other planets." He turned on a dumfounded Mittich. "The war--if there is to be one--will be short. We'll have only to return to the Tzarean Shoal and muster a fleet before we wipe out the rest of their civilization. And once again ours will be the glory of conquest--such as we have not experienced in, oh, how many millennia?" V Stewart woke up shouting the next morning. Perhaps the nightmare had been brought on by his previous day's experience with the telepuppets. For, in his dream, there had been the OC, again spitting out deadly fire that missed the targets only by inches before gouging great craters in the plain beyond. Suddenly the master robot vanished, taking all the lesser automatons with it. In the suspenseful stillness that followed, Stewart could only stare in bewilderment at Carol and Randall. Then it came--the blazing, naked light, together with the stentorian roaring that filled the sky and shook every rock. Terrified, he huddled with the other two, his eyes searching desperately for some place to hide. But as he spotted each gaping fissure, each yawning cave entrance that might offer concealment, it too vanished. Until they were left with only a smooth, featureless plain extending to infinity in all directions. Eventually the mighty ships--hundreds of them, it seemed--landed. And down debarkation ramps poured thousands of hideous Harpy-like forms, their gigantic claws magnified in his fancy until they were even larger than the bodies they supported and, by their sheer weight, made flight impossible. This vast army assembled before its ships in the center of the plain and started forward. But there was a blur of motion on the right and left extremities of Stewart's field of vision and he watched great, gauzy curtains draw together from opposite horizons, meeting directly in front of him. Like dazzling auroral streamers, they hung from a rod located so high in the stratosphere that it was lost in the blackness of space. Diaphanous though the drapes were, they appeared to be adequate, as if through some magical power, to hold back the horde of vicious Harpies on the other side. But even as Stewart shuddered with the thought of what would befall Randall, Carol and himself should the almost intangible barrier fail, the director charted forward and drew the curtains aside. Instantly, the monstrous creatures poured through. But in the next moment Randall was beside his bunk, shaking him awake and regarding him quizzically. * * * * * Dismayed over the continued evidence of a lurking, inexplicable fear, Stewart ate breakfast mostly in silence while he cast about for a reasonable interpretation of the nightmare.