old man's hand and pumped it. "You win," he said. "You
old ... crackpot!" There was real affection in his voice.

"Then be off with you," said the Chief Engineer. "You've not a minute to
lose. Every man jack of you into the boat, including the Captain and the
Mates. I'll not have _my_ ship cluttered up with extra hands that might
cramp my style...." And turning, the old man made his way back to the
pile room, mumbling to himself.

Eyes wet, Gene gave the orders to abandon ship, and within thirty
minutes every living soul was aboard the lifeboat.

MacNamara had finished his work with the pile and was back in the
control room, waiting for the lifeboat to cast off. As it did so, he
waved, then turned to the controls.

As the lifeboat darted away on its chemical jet engines, they could see
the old man maneuvering the big ship so as to keep it ever between them
and the Cruiser. An hour later when they were within a hundred thousand
miles of Earth, MacNamara sent up a flare denoting surrender.

Tensely they watched the distant speck of light that was the ship with
MacNamara on it. Then, around its side came the Company Cruiser,
steering in toward it to make the capture. It was scarcely a thousand
miles from the disabled ship. Gradually it drew closer, then edged in.
Now it was only a few miles away, and at this distance, both specks
seemed to merge.

"They got him!" Maher said.

"Yah!" Schwenky boomed, disappointment in his voice. "Me, I should have
been the one to stay. I would slap them."

Suddenly, out in space, a bright flower grew. A flower of incandescent
light that blossomed with terrifying rapidity, until it seemed to engulf
all space in the area of the two ships. The familiar sphere of
brilliance that marked an exploding atom bomb hung there in the heavens
an instant, then it was gone. In its place was only a vast cloud of
smoke, the dust and scattered atoms that were all that remained of two
gigantic space ships.

"He detonated the pile!" said Gene, "He turned himself into an atom
bomb!"

"Yah!" said Schwenky, his voice strangely muted. "Yah!" Awkwardly he
turned and patted Ann's head as she began to sob.

* * * * *

"Is it not handsome?" asked Schwenky proudly, holding the front page of
the newspaper up for all to see. "I have my picture in the paper! Is it
not nice?"

Laughing, Ann kissed the big Swede right on the lips, and hugged him,
paper and all. "It's beautifu