One of these creatures raised his arm and there was a puff of steam. Then the vision flashed off, but not before the trained watcher had activated the crash mechanism. If the watcher had been closer in space to the station, the destruction would have come quicker. Unfortunately for him, the speed of light and radio impulses is limited, so that it was several minutes before the destruction impulse reached Planet I. A short while later, after the guiding beings had digested the news, preparations were made for a vessel to go sunward to investigate--and remove--the interference. * * * * * Burl twisted on his heel sharply as he whirled around to look at the flash of red. Boulton drew his hand weapon, aimed and fired. There was a jet of steam as the compressed air blasted the dart from the gun. The glowing globe was pierced, there was a small explosion, and then the globe and its pedestal vanished. "What was that?" cried Burl. Boulton holstered his gun. "A signal of some kind--a warning probably. My guess is that it was an alarm tipping off the remote control masters of this place that it was out of commission. Help me with the photo stuff; I think we'd better get out of here quick!" Without wasting more time, the two men snapped the scene as fast as the shutters would click. Then they picked up the cameras, grabbed their umbrellas and ran for the break in the wall. Just as they made their first flying leaps toward the shielded rocket plane, the globes within the Sun-tap station started to go off. One after another, like a chain reaction, they blew up, and within seconds the interior of the walled station was a turmoil of falling metals, beams, wires, and sharp transparent shards. Haines and Ferrati were ready for take-off and puffs of smoke were coming from the exhaust. Without bothering to take down the plastic Sun-shield, Burl and Boulton tumbled into the cabin. Before the door was even closed, Haines lifted the ship and headed for the dark depths of the canyon. The inside of the plane was perilously hot. The shield had been a temporary protection, but even the ground radiated heat like an oven. They had to seek the cold of the sunless canyon to allow some of the heat to escape. To have flown directly to the _Magellan_ without cooling the plane would have been disastrous. The _Magellan_ emerged from the cold side to meet them. From the heights of space, they saw that they would not need to bomb the mountain relayer masts--for the same alarm that had triggered the station had shattered them. After the _Magellan_ had scuttled back to the cold side, there was a council of war in the control room. Burl and Boulton described very carefully what had happened.