Underwood froze at the words. Had Demarzule brought back with him some terrible means of penetrating the force shell and rendering it useless? That was absolutely the only defense the _Lavoisier_ had. Her own Atom Stream projectors would be ineffective against the twenty encircling ships. Underwood heard the orders given. Throughout the flagship an electric tension filled the air. It was the first time the weapon had been tried against an enemy, Underwood supposed. The crewmen were eager with a sickening lust to kill. Underwood went swiftly through the ship, searching to locate the machines that would be turned upon the helpless laboratory ship. He still didn't quite believe that anything could break down the force shell. But when he saw the weapons, he knew that defeat had come for a civilization which had learned to depend upon the force shell for its protection. * * * * * He watched the crewmen at the complicated boards that controlled the input of power and the focusing of the radiators upon the distant target. Underwood sped away to the distant _Lavoisier_ to see what effect the onslaught was having. The force shell about the ship glowed with the faint, pinkish aura of the twenty beams that converged upon it. As he came up there was no apparent effect, but all at once the glistening shell grew red in a spot as the force field weakened. Then Underwood comprehended the means by which the disruptor worked. It did not penetrate the shell. That was an impossibility. But it unbalanced the forces that held the field in a shell and caused it to rotate. This, in turn, created a tremendous flow of energy through the generators aboard the _Lavoisier_ and shortly would burn them out, leaving the ship the defenseless prey of the Atom Streams. There was no time to enter the _Lavoisier_ to warn them. Underwood returned with bodiless velocity to the _Creagor_. There in the depths of the ship he found the Chief Operator who was directing those beams toward the _Lavoisier_. With all the power of his _abasic_ organs, he hurled a devastating wave of energy into the man's nerve channels. The result was shocking to one unaccustomed to killing. The man jerked upright before his panel, staggered uncertainly, and fell across the maze of switches. There was no time for reaction within Underwood at his merciless first slaying. The complex machinery of the disruptor sputtered to a halt amid the clatter of relays. Underwood moved into the next sector of the ship where the powerful Atom Stream projectors awaited their prey. He carefully extended the powers of the _dor-abasa_. It was almost as if he could feel his way along the nerve channels of the operator's mind into the depths of the brain. There he sent forth a sudden, wild command. The operator unquestioningly spun the wheels that shifted the radiators. They came to rest upon the nearest ship of the fleet. "Fire!" Underwood commanded.