Everything on or near the planet had of course been destroyed instantly, and even the fastest battleship, farthest removed from the disintegrating world, was overwhelmed without the slightest possibility of escape. For to human eyes, staring however attentively into ordinary visiplates, these had practically no warning at all, since the wave-front of atomic disruption was propagated with the velocity of light and therefore followed very closely indeed behind the narrow fringe of visible light which heralded its coming. Even if one of the dazed commanders had known the meaning of the coruscant blaze of brilliance which was the immediate forerunner of destruction, he would have been helpless to avert it, for no hands of flesh and blood, human or Fenachrone, could possibly have thrown switches rapidly enough to have escaped from the advancing wave-front of disruption; and at the touch of that frightful wave every atom of substance, alike of vessel, contents, and hellish crew, became resolved into its component electrons and added its contribution of energy to the stupendous cosmic catastrophe. * * * * * Even before his foot had left the floor in free motion, however, DuQuesne realized exactly what had happened. His keen eyes saw the flash of blinding incandescence announcing a world's ending and sent to his keen brain a picture; and in the instant of perception that brain had analyzed that picture and understood its every implication and connotation. Therefore he only grinned sardonically at the phenomena which left the slower-minded Loring dazed and breathless. He continued to grin as the battleship hurtled onward through the void at a pace beside which that of any ether-borne wave, even that of such a Titanic disturbance as the atomic explosion of an entire planet, was the veriest crawl. At last, however, Loring comprehended what had happened. "Oh, it exploded, huh?" he ejaculated. "It most certainly did." The scientist's grin grew diabolical. "My statements to them came true, even though I did not have anything to do with their fruition. However, these events prove that caution is all right in its place--it pays big dividends at times. I'm very glad, of course, that the Fenachrone have been definitely taken out of the picture." Utterly callous, DuQuesne neither felt nor expressed the slightest sign of pity for the race of beings so suddenly snuffed out of existence. "Their removal at this time will undoubtedly save me a lot of trouble later on," he added, "but the whole thing certainly gives me furiously to think, as the French say. It was done with a sensitized atomic copper bomb, of course; but I should like very much to know who did it, and why; and, above all, how they were able to make the approach."