ter. "_So you
tripped over your own albedo!_"

Through the dying echoes of his own laughter, Jason caught Lonnie's
harsh whisper. "You haven't got me, copper!"

* * * * *

The black line marking the opening in the grid suit disappeared. The
barely-discernible limb-shapes dropped, one hand-end again fumbling at
the rheostat in the palm of the other.

"I'll get him, Chief!" Holland was in action, his disarmer snapping down
into aim.

"No!" Jason roared. "Holland, don't!"

Too late. Under the pressure of Holland's finger, the disarmer's
invisible ion-stream tightened to the thread-thin lethal intensity,
leaped out against the suit's grid. Then the disarmer was luminous even
in the dazzle; even through the flesh of Holland's fist. Holland
screamed and squirmed and dropped. Part of him--the part that wasn't
burned away--reached the floor.

The stench of carbonized flesh scoured Jason's nostrils. Stupidly, he
stared down at the headless, shoulderless, armless torso; black ...
sooty ... against the snowy gleam of the floor; conscious of the
sidelong, round-about approach of the different-white figure. He'd
failed again. Lonnie, in that damned suit, was impervious.

Slowly, he raised his eyes from the thing on the floor to the thing
approaching. One consolation, he himself wouldn't go on living after
this. With grim frustration, he raised his arm in a final, fruitless
gesture and hurled the useless disarmer at the shape of Lonnie.

It halted, dead, in mid-air, a yard away from the shape-thing. Dropped
straight down, clanging against the floor.

A quiver as of mirth appeared to shake the different-whiteness. It
stooped. One hand-end fumbled at the palmed rheostat, then dropped to
pick up the disarmer. Fumbled again at the rheostat while the figure
straightened up to point the glistening projector at Jason's belly.

The dark opening in the hood appeared again.

Lonnie's voice chortled, "Told you I'd use whatever you tried to smear
you with. Goodbye, Jasey ..."

The dark line was gone. The disarmer, turned to lethal potential,
settled in the shape's hand-end and began to spout. Jason went stiff.
Every muscle of his body clenching to withstand obliteration.

He waited for it. Tight ... except his eyes that, in spite of
themselves, opened.

Caught within the field, the full power of the disarmer poured itself
into the suit. The suit's capacity absorbed it. Almost. Then turned the
co