"Guess we'll have to dump them in the limousine," he remarked to Shelton. "Drive them to the nearest town and turn them over to the authorities."
"Yes. Then they can come back for the bodies of the other two." Shelton grimaced as he contemplated the sprawled figures.
"Why, I'll go ahead with my original plans, of course." The scientist looked surprised.
"Dad!" Lina turned beseeching eyes on Eddie and his heart performed amazingly as he looked into their depths.
"And why not?" asked her father dolefully. "They'll insure the peace of the world. They'll--"
"Listen, Mr. Shelton," Eddie interrupted. "If you'll think a little you'll realize that they'll do no such thing. Has any new and terrible engine of destruction ever accomplished that result? No--the enemy always finds a way of combating the new weapon and of devising another still more terrible. You've discovered a marvelous thing, but its value is quite problematical."
"How can they ever combat a thing they cannot see?"
"Easily. Why, I could devise a teleview attachment in two days that would make them visible. Photo-electric cells are capable of detecting ultra-violet light as you well know. Radium glows under its rays. Why not coat a teleview screen with some radio-active material?"
Shelton frowned thoughtfully. "You're right. Vail," he said, after a moment of silence; "absolutely right. It was only a dream."
With dragging feet he walked to the transmitter, his expression grim in the realization of failure. He started the motor-generator with a gesture of finality.
"What are you going to do?" Eddie asked fearfully.
"Watch me! At least I can demonstrate another phase of the basic principle I have discovered."
"Don't!" Cadorna wailed. "For God's sake, don't blink 'em out!"
Shelton was talking rapidly as he manipulated the controls. Instead of building up the wave motion to the frequency of invisible light he was reducing it. Past the other end of the spectrum and into the infra-red. The heat ray! Both monsters were changing color as he marched them through the door and into the open. But now they glowed with a visible red that rapidly intensified to the dazzling whiteness of intense heat. Cadorna babbled in superstitious terror. Then, in an instant, both mechanisms were reduced to shapeless blobs of molten metal. Lina clapped her hands gleefully.