Out in space at last, cruising idly with the acceleration set at a point bearable for the Martians, Westfall called the meeting to order and outlined the situation facing them. Brandon then handed around folios of papers, upon which the Venerians turned the invisible infra-red beams of the illuminators upon their helmets, thus flooding them with the "light" to which their retinas were most responsive. "Here's the data," Brandon began. "As you see from Sheet 1, we can already draw any amount of power we shall need from cosmic radiation alone...." "Perpetual motion--ridiculous!" snapped from the sending disk upon the helmet of the master of mechanism. "Not at all, Amonar," put in his fellow Venerian, "any more than a turbo-generator at the foot of a waterfall is perpetual motion. Those radiations originate we know not where, probably as a result of intra-atomic reactions. The fields of force of our hosts merely intercept these radiations, as a water-driven turbine intercepts the water. We merely use a portion of their energy before permitting them to go on, to we know not what end. Truly you have made a notable achievement in science, Tellurian friends, and we congratulate you upon its accomplishment. Please proceed." "Upon the following sheets are described the forces employed by the Jovians, as we shall call them until we find out who or what they really are. We will discuss these forces later. For each force we have already calculated a screen, and we have also calculated various other forces of our own, with which we hope to arm ourselves before we reach Ganymede. The problems facing us are complex, since there are some nine thousand forcebands of the order in which we are working, each differing from all the others as much as torque differs from tension, or as much as red differs from green. Therefore we have appealed to you for help, knowing that we could do but little alone. Alcantro and Fedanzo will supervise the construction of the generators of the various fields from these calculations. Dol Kenor will correlate power and electricity to and with the fields. Westfall and I will help work out the theoretical difficulties as they arise. Pyraz Amonar, who can devise and build a machine to perform any conceivable mechanical task, will help us all in the many mechanical difficulties we shall certainly encounter. Discussion of any point is now in order." * * * * *