"We've seen enough!"  Tampon announced.  "We will assure The Emperor you are taking every precaution.  I've got one question, however.  How are you going to move those things around?"
     "The same way we move planetoids," the engineer answered, "surround them with gravity nullifiers, nullify the gravity on all sides except on the side in which direction you want the object to go.  Then interstellar gravity does the rest.  The size or the mass of the object is meaningless.  If you shut off all gravity effecting it except that in one direction, it's going to move in that direction."
     The Pulp engineers stared at each other.  They understood the principle but they knew the technology was beyond them.  "How will you process the material?" one of them asked.
     "Same way we harvested it," the engineer answered, "except on a smaller scale.  We can use a transport device in a null gravity field to remove as much as we want, make it into as small units as we want."
     "Well, come!"  the Ambassador instructed.  "We must get back.  The affairs of The Empire await."
     When they were on his ship he asked his engineers "What are they going to use that stuff for?"
     "Their anti-gravity units," one of the engineers answered, "work on a different principle from ours. Somehow they use a heavy mass to cancel the gravity of another mass.  We understand the theory.  It may take us hundreds of years to equal the technology.  They are so far ahead of us we are like children!"
     The Ambassador nodded.  He got home and for several months enjoyed life.  There was little to do.  His family was glad to have him home more.  One afternoon one of The Emperor's aides came in. 
     "We've lost contact with First Colony!"  he remarked.  "All transmissions just ceased!  We called a ship in the vicinity and lost contact with that!  The Emperor is concerned.  He wishes you to take a vessel and go out and see what is going on."
     "Well, certainly!" the Ambassador agreed.  "My crew is on leave.  It will take a couple of days to get them all gathered.  I could take an emergency crew, but I prefer my own people.  Tell The Emperor I will leave in two days unless he asks me to do otherwise."
     The aide quickly departed. He did not return so Tampon concluded The Emperor had agreed.  He got his crew together and went up to his ship.  They got underway, but had barely cleared the system when one of the ships appeared coming from the other direction.  "We're under attack!" it signaled, "They're coming right behind me!  We have a slight edge in speed and I was slowly able to pull away from it.  But there's hundreds of big ships coming!  We destroyed many of them, but they overran the colony.  No communications worked.  But they must all be dead."
     Tampon's ship turned around and got back to the capital.  Everything they had was put up.  A frantic call went out for everything in the vicinity to rally to them, then communications died. 
     "I don't understand it!"  the communications officer remarked, "we're transmitting but it's as if something is drawing up our transmissions, drawing them away as they're sent!"
     "I'm going down!"  the Ambassador snapped. "Are the transporters working?"
     "No, sir," an officer answered.  "You'll have to take a shuttle, sir.  They've died with the communications equipment."
     Tampon returned to the capital and informed The Emperor.  "Our ships are functional, but they can only communicate with lasers.  All other type of communication is useless.  They will put up as best a defense as they can, but if as many ships hit us as hit the colony they won't be able to stop landings."

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