As if guided by a single mind, the ships turned slowly in the black sky as their navigators and lookouts spotted and set a course for the luminous bubble that marked the force shell hiding the _Lavoisier_. To the crewmen watching from within, it was a fearful sight to witness the sudden plunging flight of those twenty mighty ships. Simultaneously, a score of fearful Atom Streams were turned upon the bubble, apparently not in the futile hope of burning through the protection, but to destroy the minute sensory probes and prevent the ship from navigating away from the planet. In spatial combat, where the ship was free to wheel and turn and defend itself, it would not have been so easy to destroy the probes. But with the ship motionless upon the surface of the planet, the streams of incomprehensible fire washed over every square millimeter of the surface of the shell, probing, destroying and setting off the multitude of relays within the _Lavoisier_, closing the hairlike openings in the shell as the probes were burned away. Mason moved away as one after another of the segments on his plates went dead until there was no vision whatever of the outside world. He turned to the others and motioned toward the dead plates. "This is it." The spell that fell upon them was broken minutes later by Illia's abrupt voice on the interphone. "The operation is finished." _CHAPTER SIXTEEN_ Consciousness came to Underwood as if he were responding to the persistent voice of some unseen speaker. It called him out of the depths of eternal existence into the realm of conflict and reality. Curiously, it sounded like Jandro. He opened his eyes. Illia was there, her face white and strained. But as he looked at her, her blue eyes glistened and she bent down. "Del! Oh, Del--!" Terry, Phyfe, Mason and Akers were standing near the bed, watching with anxious faces. Pain was beginning to show itself in burning streamers, but he managed a quick smile to those about him. "Looks like we made it all right," he said. "I wonder what I can do with these gadgets now. Think they'll work, Illia?" She raised up, brisk and businesslike once more. "You aren't going to find out for a while. I intend to knock you out for a good, cold twenty-four hours. Give me your arm." She reached for a hypo needle on the table beside the bed. It was like stumbling around in the dark at first, trying to run from an unseen pursuer. But all at once, Underwood knew he didn't need to run at all. The hypo was blocking the sensory equipment in other parts of his body, but it couldn't affect the _abasic_ organs if he didn't want it to. He stopped running and watched the ordinary faculties of his body give way while he stood aside in complete immunity. It was as if he could step outside and look at himself. And, suddenly, that was what he was doing! * * * * *