Hilton looked from Falken's uncowed, snarling face to Sheila. The
blaster slipped suddenly from his fingers. He covered his face with his
hands and was silent, shivering.
Falken said, with curious gentleness, "That proves it. You've got to
have faith in a thing, to kill or die for it."
Hilton whispered, "Sheila!" She smiled and kissed him, and Falken
looked steadfastly away, wiping the blood out of his eyes.
Hilton grasped suddenly at the helmet of his vac-suit. He talked,
rapidly, as he worked.
"The Sun-child creates with the force of its mind. It understands
telekinesis, the control of the basic electrical force of the universe
by thought, just as the wise men of our earth understood it. The men
who walked on the water, and moved mountains, and healed the sick.
"We can only attack it through its mind. We'll try to weaken its
thought-force, destroy anything it sends against us."
His fingers flashed between the helmet radio and the repair kit which
is a part of every vac suit, using wires, spare parts, tools.
"There," said Hilton, after a long time. "Now yours."
Falken gave him his helmet. "Won't the Sun-child know what we're
doing?" he asked, rather harshly.
Hilton shook his fair head. "It's weak now. It won't think about us
until it has fed. Perhaps two hours more."
"Can you read its thoughts?" demanded Falken sourly.
"A very little," said Hilton, and Sheila laughed, quietly.
Hilton worked feverishly. Falken watched his deft fingers weaving a
bewildering web of wires between the three helmets, watched him shift
and change, tune and adjust. He watched the sun-child throb and sparkle
as the strength of the Sun sank into it. He watched Sheila Moore,
staring at Hilton with eyes of brilliant green.
He never knew how much time passed. Only that the Sun-child gave a
little rippling sigh of light and floated down. The fissure closed
above it. Sheila caught her breath, sharp between her teeth.
Hilton rose. He said rapidly.
"I've done the best I can. It's crude, but the batteries are strong.
The helmets will pick up and amplify the energy-impulses of our brains.
We'll broadcast a single negative impulse, opposed to every desire the
Sun-thing has.
"Stay close together, because if the wires are broken between the
helmets we lose power, and it's going to take all the strength we have
to beat that creature."
Falken put on his helmet. Little copper discs, cut from the sheet in
the repair kit and soldered to wires with Hilton's blaster, fitted to
his temples. Through the vision ports he could see the web of wires
that ran from the three helmets through a maze of spare grids and a
condenser, and then into the slender shaft of a crude directional
antenna.