It was Marlin's voice that shouted that swift order in the next instant, and then, even as the gigantic semi-circle of the Neptunian fleet was leaping through the void toward us, our four thousand and odd space-fliers, outnumbered almost by two to one by the cylinders massed ahead, had shifted like lightning from their great V-formation to one of a long double column once more, and no sooner had its squadrons taken that new formation than the column slanted slightly to allow the free use of their propulsion-rays. They were flashing forward now like an enormous spear cast toward the curving front of the giant Neptunian fleet! For it was Marlin's intention to meet that outnumbering mass of cylinders by splitting it with a column as we had done over Saturn to our enemies, and then engaging separately the parts of the disorganized mass. So that now, even as the great half-circle of the Neptunian cylinders whirled through the void to overwhelm us, we had formed that long, double column and were dashing straight at them! Holding the controls of our space-flier steady in that moment, I was aware for an instant of a sense of the utter strangeness of all the wild scene about me--of our space-flier's interior with Marlin and Randall and Whitely crouched in their chairs beside me, of the great column of polyhedron-like, gleaming, faceted space-fliers that came forward through the black gulf of star-sown space behind us, of the oncoming giant line of the Neptunian cylinders flashing toward us in turn, and of the immense green disk of mighty Neptune looming in the black vault behind them. All seemed for the moment the panorama of some strange nightmare stretched about me, but that momentary sensation that had gripped me so often in our wild rush through the solar system vanished in the next instant as stern reality loomed before us. There were the mighty curving line of gleaming Neptunian cylinders through which in the next split-second our great column must crash! I braced myself mentally for that vast crash that must almost inevitably mean death for the foremost of our space-fliers; I was aware as we drove upon the onrushing Neptunian line, that now unthinkable storms of deadly concentrated rays were raging from fleet to fleet; and then suddenly, at the very instant that we thought to crash into their great approaching line, that line opened swiftly before us to allow our great column to rush unharmed through it!