Bluntnose had not dared risk it. From the tower came Lea and San, dragging apparatus. The projector! They had been successful. The guards in the street were shouting triumphantly. A turmoil was around us. I stood at the foot of the tower steps; I saw Lea fling herself impulsively into Alan's waiting arms. The tower, with San, sped safely away. But my heart was cold. Whatever the outcome here a fairyland of happiness for me was gone--the lost what-might-have-been for Nanette, and me. CHAPTER XXI THE EYE OF DOOM "Why, Ed! With this thing we can rock the city--bring death--" "Death! Yes. But, Alan--" "Death to them all! To Turber! If we can catch his aero before he can get to it we can kill them all!" "But, Alan!" I was trying to say. "What about Nanette?" He echoed: "Nanette?" Here was a tangible death for her in this weapon Lea had brought. Death for Nanette as well as destruction of the Turberites which was being planned here now. We would see it; we, indeed, might very well be chosen to accomplish it. And we stared wordlessly at each other and knew that it was inevitable. It was about 1 A.M. of the night of June 13-14, 2445 A.D. Momentous night of history! Culmination of the Battle of Great New York! We sat, Alan and I, in a corner of one of the rooms of the Hudson Machine Shops, watching Lea with the corps of engineers who had been summoned to assemble her weapon. These electronic experts recognized it; not in its working form, but in its principle. An electronic beam, with the harmless aspect of a spreading searchlight ray. Like most scientific devices of importance, its practical working mechanism was complicated, with a basic scientific principle of the utmost simplicity. It carried--this harmless-looking beam of light--vibrations both etheric and atmospheric. They were communicable--as are all vibrations. Harmless of aspect, this bronzed projector! I would have said, with a casual glance, that it was a searchlight of my own time. I have seen many like it. But it had a focussing grid of wires across its face instead of a lens. Wires of a metal no one could name. A focussing and firing mechanism; and insulated wires leading to a cylindrical tank, long as a man--the battery, in which was stored some unnamable electronic force. Alan and I examined the apparatus as Lea showed how it should be assembled. Within the projector was an elaborate mechanism of tiny disks and thin metallic tongues, which in operation would whirl and vibrate. There were condensing coils; and bulbs of vacuum with laceworks of filament--lights to cast the beam. I saw that the light would pass through an intricate magnifying system of prisms--condensed finally to a focal point where a whirling mirror-disk cast it loose through the projecting grid of wires. * * * * *