For even at that moment, as we stared dumfounded toward the place where the cube-ship fleet had vanished, there had come from beneath and beside us hundreds upon hundreds of crimson bolts, bolts that flashed seemingly out of empty space annihilating scores, hundreds, of our bewildered ships, bolts from the cube-ships which we could not see, but which were circling about us now loosing their terrific shafts of death upon us! A battle to the death between two mighty fleets, one invisible, the other a plain target! Out in all directions our black beams were wildly whirling, but we could loose them only by chance, while our own ships, a perfect target to the invisible cubes about us, were flaring in annihilation in ever-increasing numbers! "That great projector-cube!" I shouted to Gor Han. "Our only chance is to get to it--destroy it!" I pointed down toward the spot of brilliant light beneath, which marked the position of the great cube that was projecting the vibrations that made our enemies invisible. But even as I did so a half hundred cruisers of our fleet had massed together, shooting downward in a great wedge, through a withering hail of crimson bolts, down through invisible cubes through which they crashed, down until an instant later the score remaining of them had crashed squarely into the spot of brilliant light below, meeting annihilation with it in that collision. But the light vanished as they crashed, leaving but wreckage of cube and cruisers, and at the same moment the mass of cube-ships beneath us had suddenly flashed into full view once more! * * * * * Our great fleet was gathering itself now for a last final rush downward through those opposing cube-ships toward the comet-control. I could hear the wild victorious shouts of Gor Han and Jurt Tul and the crew beneath loud in my ears, could see the pyramid's summit, the great control, close beneath, as I turned to the speech-instrument to shout the word that would send our fleet thundering down. But before ever my lips opened I had stiffened, stood motionless. For from the time-dial before me had come the low, metallic note of the passing hour, marking the end of the last moment in which the comet could have been turned aside! Marking the end for our universe, sounding in my stunned ears like a titanic knell of doom across the infinite for our galaxy! Nothing now in all the universe could turn the giant comet aside from that galaxy enough to save it! Motionless there, Gor Han and Jurt Tul and I heard echoing away that muted note that had struck for the galaxy's doom! "Lost!" Gor Han was saying it, strangely, slowly, uncomprehendingly. "We've lost!"