"It would take far too long to tell you anything in words," the ancient scientist replied placidly. "In the laboratory, however, I can and will inform you fully in a few minutes concerning everything that has happened." Utter stranger himself to deception in any form, as was his whole race, Rovol was easily and completely deceived by the consummate acting, both physical and mental, of DuQuesne and Loring. Therefore, as soon as the three had donned the headsets of the wonderfully efficient Norlaminian educator, Rovol gave to the Terrestrial adventurers without reserve his every mental image and his every stored fact concerning Seaton and his supposedly ill-fated last voyage. Even more clearly than as if he himself had seen them all happen, DuQuesne beheld and understood Seaton's visit to Norlamin, the story of the Fenachrone peril, the building of the fifth-order projector, the demolition of Fenor's space fleet, the revenge-purposed flight of Ravindau the scientist, and the complete volatilization of the Fenachrone planet. He saw Seaton's gigantic space cruiser _Skylark Three_ come into being and, uranium-driven, speed out into the awesome void of intergalactic space in pursuit of the last survivors of the Fenachrone race. He watched the mighty _Three_ overtake the fleeing vessel, and understood every detail of the epic engagement that ensued, clear to its cataclysmic end. He watched the victorious battleship speed on and on, deeper and deeper into the intergalactic void, until she began to approach the limiting range of even the stupendous fifty-order projector by means of which he knew the watching had been done. Then, at the tantalizing limit of visibility, something began to happen; something at the very incomprehensibility of which DuQuesne strained both mind and eye, exactly as had Rovol when it had taken place so long before. The immense bulk of the _Skylark_ disappeared behind zone after impenetrable zone of force, and it became increasingly evident that from behind those supposedly impervious and impregnable shields Seaton was waging a terrific battle against some unknown opponent, some foe invisible even to fifth-order vision. For nothing was visible--nothing, that is, save the released energies which, leaping through level after level, reached at last even to the visible spectrum. Yet forces of such unthinkable magnitude were warring there that space itself was being deformed visibly, moment by moment. For a long time the space strains grew more and more intense, then they disappeared instantly. Simultaneously the _Skylark's_ screens of force went down and she was for an instant starkly visible before she exploded into a vast ball of appallingly radiant, flaming vapor. * * * * *