They had projectors of the Disciplinary Circuit field, which would paralyze any man they struck with sufficient intensity. But that was all--for the good and sufficient reason that such fields could be tested upon grimly resolute volunteers and adjusted to the utmost of efficiency. On the prison world of Ades, to which criminals were sent from all over the Galaxy, there was no legal murder. Killing fighting-beams could not be calibrated. There were no available victims. The detectors picked up a single considerable mass. Electron telescopes focussed upon it. Kim's lips tensed. He saw a giant war-craft, squat and ungainly--with no air-resistance in space there is no point in streamlining a space-ship--and with the look of a mass of crammed generators of deadly beams. It turned slowly in its flight. It was not one space-ship, but two--two giant ships grappled together. It turned further and there was a shimmering, unsubstantial tiny shape clutched to one.... "The dickens!" said Kim bitterly. He called into the space-phones; "Kim Rendell speaking! Don't attack! Those ships aren't driving, they're falling! They'll smash on Khiv Five and we can't do anything about it. Keep at least fifty miles away!" A wheezing voice said furiously from the communicator. "They tricked me! I went for 'em, and the transmitter-drive went on. I'll get 'em this time!" Kim barked at the Mayor of Steadheim, even as in the field of the electron telescope he saw a tiny mote of a space-ship charge valorously at the monsters. It plunged toward them--and vanished. Dona spoke breathlessly. "But what happened, Kim?" "This," said Kim bitterly, "is the end of the battle we fought with one of those ships a week ago. We put out a decoy and that ship grappled it. A Disciplinary Circuit generator went on and paralyzed its crew. "You remember that we went up to it and you went on board. I turned off its generator from a distance and held the crew paralyzed with beams from the _Starshine_. There was another ship coming when you got off and we got away to the other side of beyond." "Yes, but--" "We vanished," said Kim. "The other enemy ship came up. Its skipper must have decided to go on board the first for a conference, or perhaps to inspect the decoy. It grappled to the first--and the magnetic surge turned on the disciplinary field again in the gadget in the decoy! "Every man in both ships were paralyzed all over again! Both ships were drifting with power off! They've been falling toward Khiv Five! Every man of both crews must be dead by now, but the field's still on and it will stay on! They'll crash!" "But can't we do anything?" demanded Dona anxiously. "I know you want a ship." "It would be handy to have those beams modified so we could paralyze a planet from a distance," said Kim grimly, "but these ships are gone." "I could go on board again," said Dona.