And then Waterson announced that an associate of his, working in his laboratory, had developed a method for using a triple electrical field to direct the Dis ray, making possible a ray with a range of over sixty miles. This would be absolutely fatal to the spinning sphere system of the Sirians. The Sirians very evidently did not know how to project the Dis ray any further than twenty-five miles. The ability to stand off and hit them would break down the sphere of Dis rays very quickly. There was only one objection. The rays were very powerful, so powerful that they required triple power generators, but the special field of electrical force was the worst problem. The field could not be made sufficiently strong if a single layer of the force was used, but the invention of a method to back up the first with two other layers of equal voltage, thus getting nearly three times the effect without exceeding the capacity of the insulation, had made the new machine possible. This special field was produced by circularly moving cathode rays, or exceedingly high velocity electrons, and therefore could be produced only by atomic methods. This meant ten thousand times the amount of fuel a similarly powered material engine would have required, but material energy of course yields only wave motions of the transient or unstatic type, a type that cannot stand still. Atomic energy can yield static-waves as well as unstatic; the electron can stand still, and is a perfect example of the stationary wave. These limitations, in turn, meant that a tremendous weight of equipment was needed. And a corresponding great volume of space was required. In the end they had to use specially reinforced freighters to carry the great projectors, each of which could carry but two projectors. Due to their long range, however, the ships were at least self-protecting. There was not time to make and equip more than twenty-eight of these ships before the fleet was scheduled to start. They were completed ahead of time. Some of their trial trips more than fulfilled the best hopes of the inventor. Dr. William Carson, the physicist who developed it insisted that it was really Dr. Waterson's suggestions that made the thing possible. We had learned something of spatial warfare formations from the Sirians. Now we were to learn a bit of the strategy of spatial warfare. * * * * *