It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great relief
came to us--an apprehension fallen away. We had anticipated this
moment for so long, dreaded it. I think all our men felt it. A shout
went up:
"Harmless!"
It was not that. But our building withstood it better than I had
feared. It was a flash from a large electronic projector mounted on
the deck of the brigand ship. It stabbed up from the shadows across
the valley at the foot of the opposite crater wall, a beam of vaguely
fluorescent light. Simultaneously the searchlight vanished.
The stream of electrons caught the front face of our main building in
a six foot circle. It held a few seconds, vanished, then stabbed
again, and still again. Three bolts. A total, I suppose, of nine or
ten seconds.
I was standing with Grantline at a front window. We had rigged an
oblong of insulated fabric like a curtain; we stood peering, holding
the curtain cautiously aside. The ray struck some twenty feet away
from us.
"Harmless!" The men shouted it with derision.