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.And all circumambient space was flooded with inconceivably lethalradiation; so intensely lethal that any being not adequately shielded from it died beforehe had time to realize that he was being burned.Gravitation, of course, was unaffected; and the rapid disappearance of theplanet's mass set up unbalanced forces of tremendous magnitude.The hot, dense,pseudo-liquid magma tended to erupt as the sphere of nothingness devoured so rapidlythe planet's substance, but not a particle of it could move.Instead, it vanished.Mountains fell, crashingly.Oceans poured.Earth-cracks appeared; miles wide, tens ofmiles deep, hundreds of miles long.The world heaved.shuddered.disintegrated.vanished.The shock attack upon Arisia itself, which in the Ed-dorian mind had beenmathematically certain to succeed, was over in approximately six minutes.Kinnison,Maitland, and LaForge, fuming at their stations, had done nothing at all.TheBoskonians had probably thrown everything they could; the probability was vanishinglysmall that that particular attack was to be or could be resumed.Nevertheless a host ofKinnison's task forces remained on guard and a detail of Arisians still scanned allnearby space."What shall I do next, Kit?" Camilla asked."Help Connie crack that screen?"Kit glanced at his youngest sister, who was stretched out flat, every musclerigidly tense in an extremity of effort."No," he decided."If she can't crack it alone, all four of us couldn't help hermuch.Besides, I don't believe she can break it.It's a mechanical, you know, poweredby atomic-motored generators.My guess is that it'll have to be solved, not cracked, andthe solution will take time.When she comes down off that peak, Kay, you might tell herso, and both of you start solving it.The rest of us have another job.The Boskonianmoppers-up are coming in force, and there isn't a chance that either we or the Arisianscan derive the counter-formula of that screen in less than a week.Therefore the rest ofthis battle will have to be fought out on conventional lines.We can do the most good, Ithink, by spotting the Boskonians into the big tank—our scouts aren't locating fivepercent of them—for the L2's to pass on to dad and the rest of the top brass so they canrun this battle the way it ought to be run.You'll do the spotting, Cam, of course; Kat andI will do the pushing.And if you thought that Tregonsee took you for a ride.! It'llwork, don't you think?" "Of course it'll work!"Thus, apparently as though by magic, red lights winked into being throughout athird of the volume of the immense tank; and the three master strategists, informed ofwhat was being done, heaved tremendous sighs of relief.They now had real control.They knew, not only the positions of their own task forces, but also, and exactly, theposition of every task-force of the enemy.More, by merely forming in his mind thedesire for the information, any one of the three could know, with no appreciable lapse oftime, the exact composition and the exact strength of any individual fleet, flotilla, orsquadron!Kit and his two sisters stood close-grouped, motionless; heads bent and almosttouching, arms interlocked.Kinnison perceived with surprise that Lenses, as big and asbright as Kit's own, flamed upon his daughters' wrists; a surprise which changed to aweas the very air around those three red-bronze-auburn heads began to thicken, topulsate, and to glow with that indefinable, indescribable polychromatic effulgence souniquely characteristic of the Lens of the Galactic Patrol.But there was work to do, andKinnison did it.Since the Z9M9Z was now working as not even the most optimistic of herplanners and designers had dared to hope, the war could now be fought strategically;that is, with the object of doing the enemy as much harm as possible with the irreducibleminimum of risk.It was not sporting.It was not clubby.There was nothing whatever ofchivalry.There was no thought whatever of giving the enemy a break.It wasmassacre—it was murder—it was war.It was not ship to ship.No, nor fleet to fleet.Instead, ten or twenty Patrol task-forces, under sure pilotage, dashed out to englobe at extreme range one fleet of theBoskonians.Then, before the opposing admiral could assemble a picture of what wasgoing on, his entire command became the center of impact of hundreds or eventhousands of super-atomic bombs, as well as the focus of an immensely greaternumber of scarcely less ravaging primary beams.Not a ship nor a scout nor a lifeboat ofthe englobed fleet escaped, ever.In fact, few indeed were the blobs, or even droplets,of hard alloy or of dureum which remained merely liquefied or which, later, were able tocondense.Fleet by fleet the Boskonians were blown out of the ether; one by one the redlights in the tank and in the reducer winked out.And finally the slaughter was done.Kit and his two now Lensless sisters unlaced themselves.Karen and Constancecame up for air, announcing that they knew how to work the problem Kit had handedthem, but that it would take time.Clarrissa, white and shaken by what she had drivenherself to do, looked and felt sick.So did Kinnison; nor had either of the other twocommanders derived any pleasure from the engagement.Tregonsee deplored it.Of allthe Lensed personnel, only Worsel had enjoyed himself.He liked to kill enemies, atclose range or far, and he could not understand or sympathize with squeamishness.Nadreck, of course, had neither liked nor disliked any part of the whole affair; to him hispart had been merely another task, to be performed with the smallest outlay of physicaland mental effort consistent with good workmanship."What next?" Kinnison asked then, of the group at large."I say the Ploorans.They're not like these poor devils were —they probably sent them in.They've got itcoming!""They certainly have!""Floor!""By all means Floor!""But how about Arisia here?" Maitland asked."Under control," Kinnison replied."We'll leave a heavy guard and a sparetank—the Arisians will do the rest."As soon as the tremendous fleet had shaken itself down into the course for Floor,all seven of the Kinnisons retired to a small dining room and ate a festive meal.Theydrank after-dinner coffee.Most of them smoked
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