The Fenachrone ship, a thousand feet long and more than a hundred feet in diameter, was tearing through space toward a brilliant blue-white star. Her crew were at battle stations, her navigating officers peering intently into the operating visiplates, all oblivious to the fact that a stranger stood in their very midst.
"Well, here's the first one, gang," said Seaton, "I hate like sin to do this--it's altogether too much like pushing baby chickens into a creek to suit me, but it's a dirty job that's got to be done."
As one man, Orlon and the other remaining Norlaminians leaped out of the projector and floated to the ground below.
"I expected that," remarked Seaton. "They can't even think of a thing like this without getting the blue willies--I don't blame them much, at that. How about you, Carfon? You can be excused if you like."
"I want to watch those forces at work. I do not enjoy destruction, but like you, I can make myself endure it."
Dunark, the fierce and bloodthirsty Osnomian prince, leaped to his feet, his eyes flashing.
"That's one thing I never could get about you, Dick!" he exclaimed in English. "How a man with your brains can be so soft--so sloppily sentimental, gets clear past me. You remind me of a bowl of mush--you wade around in slush clear to your ears. Faugh! It's their lives or ours! Tell me what button to push and I'll be only too glad to push it. I wanted to blow up Urvania and you wouldn't let me; I haven't killed an enemy for ages, and that's my trade. Cut out the sob-sister act and for Cat's sake, let's get busy!"
"'At-a-boy, Dunark! That's tellin' 'im! But it's all right with me--I'll be glad to let you do it. When I say 'shoot' throw in that plunger there--number sixty-three."
Seaton manipulated controls until two electrodes of force were clamped in place, one at either end of the huge power-bar of the enemy vessel; adjusted rheostats and forces to send a disintegrating current through that massive copper cylinder, and gave the word. Dunark threw in the switch with a vicious thrust, as though it were an actual sword which he was thrusting through the vitals of one of the awesome crew, and the very Universe exploded around them--exploded into one mad, searing coruscation of blinding, dazzling light as the gigantic cylinder of copper resolved itself instantaneously into the pure energy from which its metal originally had come into being.