On the other hand, the Arpalones were madly, suicidally determined to break through that vortex wall, to get into the "eye," to wreak all possible damage there. Group after group after group of five jet-fighters each came driving in; and, occasionally, the combined blasts of all five made enough of opening in the wall so that the center fighter could get through. Once inside, each pilot stood his little, stubby-winged craft squarely on her tail, opened his projectors to absolute maximum of power and of spread, and climbed straight up the spout until he was shot down. And the Arpalones were winning the battle. Larger and larger gaps were being opened in the vortex wall; gaps which it became increasingly difficult for the Dilipics to fill. More and more Arpalone fighters were getting inside. They were lasting longer and doing more damage all the time. The tube was growing narrower and narrower. All four Galaxians perceived all this in seconds. Garlock weighed out and detonated a terrific matter-conversion bomb in the exact center of one of the largest vessels of the attacking fleet. It had no effect. Then a larger one. Then another, still heavier. Finally, at over a hundred megatons equivalent, he did get results--of a sort. The invaders' guns, ammunition, and missiles were blown out of the ship and scattered outward for miles in all directions; but the structure of the Dilipic ship itself was not harmed. Belle had been studying, analyzing, probing the things that were coming down through that hellish tube. "Clee!" She drove a thought. "Cut out the monkey-business with those damn firecrackers of yours and look here--pure, solid force, like ball lightning or our Op field, but entirely different--see if you can analyze the stuff!" "Alive?" Garlock asked, as he drove a probe into one of the things--they were furiously-radiating spheres some seven feet in diameter--and began to tune to it. "I don't know--don't think so--if they are, they're a form of life that no sane human being could even imagine!" "Let's see what they actually do," Garlock suggested, still trying to tune in with the thing, whatever it was, and still following it down. This particular force-ball happened to hit the top of a six-story building. It was not going very fast--fifteen or twenty miles an hour--but when it struck the roof it did not even slow down. Without any effort at all, apparently, it continued downward through the concrete and steel and glass of the building; and everything in its path became monstrously, sickeningly, revoltingly changed. "I simply can't stand any more of this," Lola gasped. "If you don't mind, I'm going to my room, set all the Gunther blocks it has, and bury my head under a pillow." "Go ahead, Brownie," James said. "This is too tough for _anybody_ to watch. I'd do the same, except I've got to run these cameras." Lola disappeared. * * *