There in front of her, just outside the deadlight through which she was gazing, and silhouetted against the shining disk of the asteroid, was that terrible weapon, the generator of the disintegrating ray. In a few minutes, it would be hurling its mysterious beam across the void of space. She would be present, and would see what happened. Already, the Ring was reverberating with the noise of the machinery for generating the electric current that fed the coils of the inductor. Both dynamos were running at full-speed, and the scream of the radio-turbines filled the air. Through the din, she heard Bennie's voice--"Clear for action!" Burke brushed past her and took his post at the switchboard beside the deadlight, from which the motors that swung the inductor on its trunnions were operated. She clutched the rail in front of her, with her eyes fixed on the black cylinder of metal that hung, pivoted on its skeleton supporting-frame, not five yards from her face. Womanlike, she wanted to put her fingers in her ears, but she was afraid to let go of the rail. "All ready!" called Bennie. "Get your aim, Burke!" Burke immediately closed the switch that started the elevating motor, and slowly the huge cylinder turned on its trunnions like a siege-mortar. In the control-room, Atterbury stood at the great copper switch, the closing of which would throw the full force of the current into the coils and liberate the ray. The moment had at last arrived for the electrocution of Medusa--the crucial moment of their journey! In spite of their seeming nonchalance, there was not one of the four but felt his pulses quicken at the realization that on the result of the movement of Atterbury's right hand depended the continuance of human life upon the earth. They looked at one another mutely. Then Bennie smiled a curious, hesitating smile, and turned from the window through which he was watching the asteroid. "You may fire when ready, Gridley!" he shouted. Framed in the doorway of the control-room, Rhoda saw Atterbury throw over the switch, and heard the hum of the alternating current in the coils of the inductor. For a minute--two minutes--nothing happened; then the outer shell of the inductor turned a dull red, glowed brighter, and rose to white heat. They observed no ray; yet even then the ray was traveling out into the abyss of space. They had seen but the "smoke of the discharge." A sudden flash of light burst like a bomb a little to one side of the asteroid. "Low and to the left!" yelled Bennie. "But we caught a meteorite! It passed through the ray and exploded." "Gives me the direction," nodded Burke. "R-3." He pressed a small button, closed a second switch, and the cylinder outside swung slowly on its vertical axis. Almost instantly, a misty splash of yellow fire appeared upon the dark side of the asteroid and shot off into space. "Hit!" cried Bennie. "Hold it, Burke; hold it! Rhoda, don't miss that!"