Before morning that fleet had reached two hundred thousand, and was now growing at the rate of twenty-five thousand an hour. Steadily this rate was increasing. The fleet was too large to be attacked by man's weakened fleet, for the delay in putting Venus back in its orbit had given the Sirians a chance to build up an invulnerable fleet. The added time of the trip to Mars meant a still greater fleet. Already their production-rate was far greater than Man's. Man could not hope to compete successfully. We were learning the meaning of quantity production. Had it been possible to attack them with the long range Dis rays it would have been tried, but the plan was hopeless. Before the fleet could reach them there would be 100,000,000 miles to go to reach them, and it would take approximately twenty hours, in which time, at the present rate of increase, the Sirian fleet would have reached a total of three million again. They would all concentrate their attack on the long range Dis ray ships. No Solarian ships could help without interfering with the action of the Dis ray ships, and they would need help, for each ship carried only two beams. More could not be carried. They would merely be held at bay, unable to attack their goal, useful only in breaking up the spinning sphere formation, but that could be prevented. The Solarians had learned that trick from the Sirians. The Sirians had succeeded in breaking up every spinning column formation by simply getting into the midst of it before it was formed completely. It required perfect coordination of several machines to do it, but it was always done. The long range Dis rays were excellent now in defending a city, but useless for attack because of the terrific weight of the apparatus. They could not attack the Sirian fleet. If they did the production machines would have been so built up by the time they reached the planet that any ordinary rate of destruction would be easily equaled by the production! Within three days it was decided that the Sirian fleet would be built up enough to attack. They would then attack our planets, no doubt. * * * * * A cabinet meeting was called at the Waterson laboratories on Earth. There Waterson first demonstrated the weapon that finally conquered in the terrific struggle. Before the members, on the Cabinet table, was a small portable material energy disintegrator, a machine that gave off its energy as light. There was a second machine at the other end of the table, a machine that occupied about two cubic feet of space, and on one side of it was a small switch and a dial; on the other was a familiar looking projector. Dr. Waterson spoke: