Here they hovered for a second to turn rightside up and then the flight formed into a pattern and began to land, coming down slowly. Before they were halfway down, Dusty saw results. In the telescope were moving dots scouring the landscape. And along highways that led from town and city were boys on bicycles and a few in cars driven by parents. Across the fields they went, peering under trees and behind bushes, scouring the cornfields and the farms and stamping through woodsy sections like swarming ants. But then as the flight landed in a neat pattern in a bald field, the barytrine detector hissed once and gave up, smoke curling out of the cabinet. "Close," said the operator. But Dusty, with a yell, was at the airlock. For across the field a thousand yards away was a faint bluish haze that shimmered iridescent in the sunlight. He pawed at the door as it swung open ponderously, then he looked around wildly for something to use. His eyes fell upon a small cabinet. Scyth had placed that fluted-barrelled thing back in the airlock after he burned Dusty's antenna off. Dusty tore a cabinet open and grabbed one of the fluted-barrelled things from a clip. Then he jumped to the ground and raced across the field. "Dusty!" roared Gant Nerley. "That's dangerous. You can't--" Gant let his voice trail away as Dusty plunged into the blue haze, fingering the trigger-button at the top of the pistol grip. The searing beam lashed out and slashed at the air as Dusty's heels caught the ground in a braking slide. Then the knifing beam slashed down across the metal case and into the ground before it. Curls of smoke arose and the ground sizzled. He cross-slashed and cut another ribbon out of the air and the barytrine generator, then cut down again. There was a hiss and a sputter and the blue haze ceased--there was a blinding flash and a flat bark of something exploding violently. Dusty felt a wave of almost-intolerable heat, his closed eyes were seared by a flare of brightness, and the explosion hurled him backwards on his spine. He turned and scrambled back, stumbling over the rough ground, blinded. At that moment four members of the Junior Space Patrol came through a small thicket of trees. "Gee," said their Group Leader. "Gee--the Commander found it first!" * * * * * They stood on a small reviewing stand, Dusty Britton and the Group Command that had come through the thicket of trees in time to steer their blinded Commander away from the flaring barytrine generator. Dusty's face and hands were a super-sunburned red, and his eyes were still puffy but open enough to see. From a sheet of paper he read: