He switched on the torch. A young dark-haired girl with clear brown
eyes and lovely features smiled back at him. She was beautiful.
He settled deeper in the seat. "Garth and the two I.P. men. Why didn't
they come back?"
She didn't reply to that. Savagely with a sudden frantic twist of the
wheel she maneuvered the tracto-car on a tangent toward the east bank
of the canal. Even as she did, a man-high ribbon of white irridescence
shot toward them. It was a spear-headed ellipse of blinding light with
a whipping comet-like tail.
"Refraction-protract," she cried. Under her skillful guidance the car
turned left, then right, to miss the oncoming beam by inches. The girl
uttered a sigh of relief. "That was too close for comfort," she said.
"Those refraction-protracts are disintegrating light rays stored up by
the Red Desert sands and released by sudden changes in temperature.
We'll have to watch ourselves."
They drove on in silence. Questions were surging through Jimmy's brain,
but he said nothing, waiting for the girl to explain.
"Would it surprise you very much if I told you the man behind all this
is Hamilton Garth?"