In former days we would have found a world wrecked by panic. But this later generation had learned to trust in the powers of the ships they had, and there had been little of the terrible panic that would have affected the world of a generation ago. Then, too, they knew that with the demonstrated power of the long range Dis rays, they could safely convoy a fleet of the great passenger liners to safety. What helped also was the fact that the human mind cannot grasp the full significance of the fall into the sun. If you were told that the planet you were on was sinking toward the sun, you would be surprised, horrified, and would probably try to make a bargain-buy on real estate, while the other man sold his to get his money out. You would simply fail to comprehend the magnitude of the catastrophe. It has never happened, and never will, the mind says, and we unconsciously believe it. Your neighbor would joke about it to you. Of course many would leave, but most people would stay till the actual physical heat of the sun drove them off. We are constituted that way. But now the radio barrier was down, and news from the Martian scouts made men hesitate. The remaining cargo ships had settled on Mars and were even now pouring out their strange crews. But they were not building cargo ships. Every one of the worker machines were kept in action constructing duplicates of themselves as rapidly as possible. Already a great number of them had been made--over seven hundred of the machines it was estimated--and now these were engaged in similar work. The number grew in a steady geometrical series. But the scouts were driven away by the torpedo-ships. Then there was no news of the operations until nightfall permitted the scouts to creep up and install the usual floating vision machines. Then at last we understood the reason for this tremendous number of inoffensive worker machines. There was a great seething mass of metal around the workings now. Great blazing lights illuminated the scene as brightly as day. There was a great horde of shining metal machines working swiftly about the great plain. There seemed to be thousands of them now, and they were all busily at work on great machines--the torpedo-ship machines! There must have been nearly a thousand already completed and already the fleet that had escaped had been built up to many thousands by the rapidly working machines, and a steady stream of long glistening shapes rose--only to be lost in the darkness beyond. Steadily the great machines were being put together, and steadily the great fleet was being augmented.