remains as the editor of that
magazine's evolved and redesigned successor, _Analog_.

_THE
ULTIMATE
WEAPON_

by
JOHN W. CAMPBELL

ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036

THE ULTIMATE WEAPON

Copyright, 1936, by John W. Campbell

Originally published as a serial in _Amazing Stories_ under the title of
_Uncertainty_.

All Rights Reserved

_Cover by Gerald McConnell_

Printed in U.S.A.

Transcriber's Note:

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note. Subscript
characters are shown within {braces}. The mathematical symbol pi is
shown as [pi].

[Illustration]

I

Patrol Cruiser "IP-T 247" circling out toward Pluto on leisurely
inspection tour to visit the outpost miners there, was in no hurry at
all as she loafed along. Her six-man crew was taking it very easy, and
easy meant two-man watches, and low speed, to watch for the instrument
panel and attend ship into the bargain.

She was about thirty million miles off Pluto, just beginning to get in
touch with some of the larger mining stations out there, when Buck
Kendall's turn at the controls came along. Buck Kendall was one of
life's little jokes. When Nature made him, she was absentminded. Buck
stood six feet two in his stocking feet, with his usual slight stoop in
operation. When he forgot, and stood up straight, he loomed about two
inches higher. He had the body and muscles of a dock navvy, which Nature
started out to make. Then she forgot and added something of the same
stuff she put in Sir Francis Drake. Maybe that made Old Nature nervous,
and she started adding different things. At any rate, Kendall, as
finally turned out, had a brain that put him in the first rank of
scientists--when he felt like it--the general constitution of an ostrich
and a flair for gambling.

The present position was due to such a gamble. An IP man, a friend of
his, had made the mistake of betting him a thousand dollars he wouldn't
get beyond a Captain's bars in the Patrol. Kendall had liked the idea
anyway, and adding a bit of a bet to it made it irresistible. So, being
a very particular kind of a fool, the glorious kind which old Nature
turns out now and then, he left a five million dollar e