"They made the shield to keep things out," he said wearily. "Radiation, charged particles, neutrons--everything. The planet simply can't be reached, not even by matter-transmitters, when the shield is up. But by the same token nothing can leave the planet either. It can't even be spotted from space, because the light of the sun isn't reflected. It's deflected to a right-angled course. You might pick it up if it formed a right-angled triangle with you and the sun, or you might spot it in transit across the sun's disk. But that's all." "Yes." "The shield was a special job," said Kim. "For a special purpose. It was not a weapon. But there were all those planets that could be grabbed if only Ades were knocked out. So why shouldn't King Pharos sneak a force-field generator on to Ades? When the field went on, Ades would be invisible and unreachable from outside. And the outside would be unreachable from it. Space-ships couldn't get through the field. Matter-transmitters couldn't operate through it. If a few technicians were sneaked to Ades as supposed exiles and promised adequate reward, don't you think they'd hide out somewhere and turn on that field, and leave it on until the folk on Ades had starved or gone mad?" Horrified, Dona stared at him. She went pale. "Oh--horrible! The sky would be black--always! Never a glimmer of light. No stars. No moons. No sun. The plants would die and rot, and the people would grow bleached and pale, and finally they'd starve." "All but the little gang hidden away in a well-provisioned hide-out," said Kim grimly. "I think that's what's happened to Ades, or is happening. And this is the solar system where the little trick was worked out. I'd hoped simply to raid the generator and find out how it worked, which would be dangerous enough. Look!" He pointed to the projected image of the sun. There was a tiny dot against its surface. It was almost, it seemed, bathed in the tentacular arms of flaming gases flung up from the sun's surface. "There's the planet," said Kim. "At its closest to the sun! With the shield up, so that nothing can reach its surface. Nothing! And that includes space-ships such as this. And at that distance, Dona, the hard radiation from the sun would go right through the _Starshine_ and kill us in seconds before we could get within millions of miles of the planet. If there's any place in the Universe that's unapproachable, there it is. It may be anything up to three months before the shield goes down even for fractions of a second at a time. And my guess is that the people on Ades won't last that long. They've had days in which to grow hopeless already. Want to gamble?" Dona looked at him. He regarded her steadily. "Whatever you say, Kim." "Sixteen million lives on Ades, besides other aspects of the situation," said Kim. "The odds against us are probably about the same, sixteen million to one. That makes it a fair bet. We'll try."