Voices shouting.

I rushed into Rowena. She and Muta were there, standing with the hooded furs.

"Jackwhat is it? Listen!" Through the window bars the blackness outside was split ~.. .with light flares.

"JackJack Deani" I heard Dorrek's voice shouting on the ladder. Running footsteps up here in the upper tier. The ball's control rooms were being unsealed.

Dorrek burst in upon us; Rowena had barely time to hide the furs. Dorrek whirled on me.

"You stay here with Rowena. We move the ballnot safe here."

"Do what? Dorrek, wait" But he was gone. In the lower tier I could hear them sealing the outer door. The ball lifted, movednot far and again came to rest, in the middle of the encampment this time, resting on the rocky floor in the center of the valley-bowl. Outside the window we could see the confused glare of leaping, crossing ray beams.

The army of the Light Country had arrived to attack Dorrek in his mountain stronghold. The battle was bursting into an inferno around us I XIII FLIGHT TO BATTLE As TT LEFT the Hill City in the half-light of that noonday, the army of the Light Country consisted of two divisions: the forces on the ground and those in the air. Of the young men who marched on foot there were perhaps a thousand. It could have been more, but Grenfell decided against it.

Warfare is different in every age, and far more does it differ in one world from another. Grenfell was not officially in commandthat was given to a Light Country scientist, named Arton. But the Hill City officials looked to Grenfell as actual leader. A set of conditions wholly strange was involved: electrical warfare. A battle of crossing rays, of blasting, withering heat. A single technician at a projector could do the work of a thousand soldiers.

But Grenfell knew that no warefare, however supermodern, scientific, mechanical, will ever transcend the human factor.

The young men to go on foot were not primarily fighters, but their principal mission was to transport supplies: The food and water, the housing equipment for camping in the desert, the amttiunition, electronic storage battery renewers, a renewal supply of the small hand weapons used by the air force. They carried a score of giant beat-ray projectors mounted upon little wheeled carts. Fifty additional carts were used for the supplies. They were drawn by domesticated brues.

The thousand young men, commanded by Arton, were slow moving and needed supplies for their own maintenance.

The number would have been unnecessarily large, save that Grenfell greatly feared Dorrek's giant insects, trained for fighttag. It was likely that Dorrek, when attacked, might loose his brues over the desert with a few men guiding them to raid the vulnerable Hill City. This the ground army was prepared to oppose.

For defense, there was a black insulating fabrica thin flexible, cloth-like material, dead-black in color, woven of hairthin metallic thread. At a distance of thirty feet a man clothed in it could withstand the heat-rays for many seconds. Garments and hoods were made of it, and shields of various sizes. But, like all devices of war, it was only partially effective.

The Light County air forces were of three kinds. The individual flying girls, of whom there were some eight hundred. They could not fly properly in the insulated suits.

Some wore them, but most chose their filmy robes and carried six-foot flexible shields, folded for long distance flying, which could be opened in a moment. They wore belts with small ray projectors, knives and a variety of hand bombs to be thrown or dropped upon the enemy.

Tama was in command of these girls. There were eight divisions of about a hundred each. They flew in eight separate squads, each with its girl commander.

The second air division was that of the flying platforms, using from eight to thirty girls. The two largest carried ' a single giant projector each, which had an effective range of something like half a mile. Four Light Country men rode each of these platforms. Two others, carried four men with bombs. Three bore merely a single girl eachreserve platforms.

One platform carried Jimmy and Roc. Guy had been assigned with them, but, perhaps because of his dislike for Roc, he persuaded Grenfell against it. He and Toh rode a platform together. And there was the Flying Cube. It was loaded now with reserve armament: weapons shields, fabric suits, food, medical equipment. It had a giant heat projector mounted now at . a port on the D-Face deck, and the long-range Earth gun.

Grenfell rode in the Cube with his five associates. There were ten or fifteen Light Country men also now aboard the Cube, including four of the most skillful surgeons in the Hill City.

Grenfell decided to go in advance and start the attack; the men on the ground could arrive as a reserve force later.

Grenfell let the flying girls lead the way. He kept the Cube poised in the midst of them. They took it slowly, so that the girls would not be tired. Within a few minutes the queue of marching men upon the groundthe little swaying carts with harnessed insects slithering ahead of themall were left behind, out of sight beneath the horizon.

The metal desert lay ahead. After twenty miles the girls descended to rest. The Cube sailed cautiously ahead to make sure no enemy was in sight and then returned. The girls started again. Fantastic sightl They fluttered up, giant birds with vivid blue and crimson wings, flowing draperies, braided hair fastened to their sides, white limbs gracefully poised. They formed themselves into the eight squadrons, each with its leader, and followed by the flying platforms, winged swiftly off into the gathering twilight.

Jimmy, lying with his broken leg stiff in its splints, on his platform with Roc, gazed eagerly ahead. Two or three more stops and the mountains would come up over the forward horizon where it seemed a storm was gathering. Jimmy's mfad was busy with stffl half formed personal plans. GrenfeB had the big advantage over Dorrek m this coming battle.

But Dorrek had one advantage, which, to Jimmy, was likely to prove a great handicap to Grenfell's activities.

For Rowenaand I, Jack Deanwere prisoners. It seemed to Grenfell likely that we would be kept confined in the silver ball. Dorrek would reason that Grenfell, fearing to loll us, would thus hesitate to attack the ball, his greatest weapon.

It was a great handicap. Grenfell strode up and down the deck of the Cube that morning considering it, his shock of gray hair rumpled, his square-jawed face set in a frown, his shoulders hunched. Jimmy was lying in a deck chair regarding him.

"I don't know how to get them out of that sphere," murmured Grenfell. "We'll have to watch our chance when we get there." He was talking half to himself.

Jimmy called, "Oh, Doc, I'm thinking the same thing you are. Once we have them safe, you can feel free to blow that blamed ball to bits. I've got a plan; will you listen?"

"Of course."

"Well, we don't know yet what conditions we're liable to meet. But let us assume we take these savages by surprise. My idea is well have them penned in the mountains.

They'll be on the defensive, won't they? And the ball wffl be lying insidewell, what you'd call the enemy lines.

And it will be black night. Right?"

"Jimmy, I have no way of guessing what the conditions will be. But I know one condition I'm afraid ofwhat these girls may do when they get in contact with the enemy.

Eight hundred of themsupposed to be under my control.

But they won't be! How can I control them? I've no adequate means of communication with them during a battle.

A few flying platforms to take my orders!" Grenfell was vehement. "Your description of how those girls fought that giant insectthat brue thingin the Water City. Reckless! Never letup until they had it torn to shreds, and then collapsed into hysteria when it was over. If they get wild, if I can't control themthe whole eight hundred could kill themselves in half an hour."