The lights in Venus Equilateral brightened. The thousands of line-voltage meters went from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and forty volts, and the line-frequency struggled with the crystal-control and succeeded in making a ragged increase from sixty to sixty point one five cycles per second. The power-output meters on the transmitting equipment went up briefly, and in the few remaining battery-supply rooms, the overload and overcharge alarms clanged until the automatic adjusters justified the input against the constant load. One of the ten-kilowatt modulator tubes flashed over in the audio-room and was immediately cut from the operating circuit; the recording meters indicated that the tube had gone west forty-seven hours prior to its expiration date due to filament overload. A series of fluorescent lighting fixtures in a corridor of the Station that should have been dark because of the working hours of that section, flickered into life and woke several of the workers, and down in the laboratory, Wes Farrell swore because the fluctuating line had disrupted one of his experiments, giving him reason to doubt the result. He tore the thing down and began once more; seventy days work had been ruined. "Well," said Channing cockily, "is that the best you can do?" "You--!" "You forgot," reminded Channing, "that we have been working with solar power, too. In fact, we discovered the means to get it. Go ahead and shoot at us, Murdoch. You're just giving us more power." "Cease firing!" exploded Murdoch. "Oh don't!" cheered Don. "You forgot that those tubes, if aligned properly, will actually cause bending of the energy-beam. We've got load-terminal tubes pointing at you, and your power-beam is bending to enter them. You did well, though. You were running the whole Station with plenty to spare. We had to squirt some excess into space. Your beams aren't worth the glass that's in them!" "Stalemate, then," snarled Murdoch. "Now _you_ come and get _us_. We'll leave. But we'll be back. Meanwhile, we can have our way with the shipping. Pilot! Course for Mars! Start when ready!" * * * * * The _Black Widow_ turned and streaked from Venus Equilateral as Don Channing mopped his forehead. "Walt," he said, "that's once I was scared to death." "Me, too. Well, we got a respite. Now what?" "We start thinking." "Right. But of what?" "Ways and--Hello, Wes. What's the matter?" Farrell entered and said: "They broke up my job. I had to set it up again, and I'm temporarily free. Anything I can do to help?" "Can you dream up a space-gun?" Farrell laughed. "That's problematical. Energy guns are something strange. Their output can be trapped and used to good advantage. What you need is some sort of projectile, I think." "But what kind of projectile would do damage to a spaceship?"