"Not a chance," Seaton assured him positively. "This stuff I am using is on a tight beam, so tight that it is absolute proof against analysis or interference. It took the Norlaminians--and they're a race of real thinkers--over eight thousand years to go from the beams you and the Chlorans are using down to what I'm showing you. Therefore I'm not afraid that the opposition will pick it up in the next week or two. But we'd better get busy in a big way. Your most urgent need, I take it, is for something--anything--that will stop that surface of force before it reaches the skirt of your defensive dome and blocks your dissipators?" "Exactly!" "All right. We'll build you a four-way fourth-order projector to handle full materializations--four way to handle four attackers in case they get desperate and double their program. With it you will send working images of yourselves into the power rooms of the Chloran ships and clamp a short circuiting field across the secondaries of their converters. Of course they can bar you out with a zone of force if they detect you before you can kill the generators of their zones, but that will be just as good, as far as we're concerned--they can't do a thing as long as they're on, you know. Now put on the headset again and I'll give you the dope on the projector. Better get a recorder, too, as there'll be some stuff that you won't be able to carry in your head." The recorder was brought in and from Seaton's brain there flowed into it and into the mind of Radnor the fundamental concepts and complete equations and working details of the new instrument. Upon the Valeronian's face was first blank amazement, then dawning comprehension, and lastly sheer, wondering awe as, the plan completed, he removed the headset. He began a confused panegyric of thanks, but Seaton interrupted him briskly. "'Sall right, Radnor, you'd do the same thing for us if things were reversed. Humanity has got to stick together against all the vermin of all the universes. But, say, I'm getting a yen to see this mess all cleaned up, myself--think I'll stick around and help you build it. You're all in, clear to the neck, but you won't rest until the Chlorans are whipped--I can't blame you for that, I wouldn't either--and I'm fresh as a daisy. Let's go!" * * * * * In a few hours the complex machine was done. Radnor and Siblin were seated at two of the sets of controls, associate physicists at the others.