with bubbles of
multipoly glistening out of holes in their hulls. A salvage ship,
especially, would carry an ample supply. A minor convenience in its use
is the fact that a detonator-cap set off at any part of it starts a wave
of disintegration which is too slow to be an explosion and cleans up the
mess made in its application.

"Naturally I've got it," said the skipper. "What do you want with it?"

Sergeant Madden told him. Painfully. Painstakingly.

"The tough part," said the skipper, "is making 'em go out an ejector
tube. But I've got fourteen good men. Give me two hours for the first
batch. We'll make up the second while you're placing them."

Sergeant Madden nodded.

The skipper went into the lock and closed the door behind him. After a
moment Patrolman Willis saw him wading through the incredibly delicate
and fragile gas-ice crystals. Then the _Aldeb_'s lock swallowed him.

* * * * *

The odd thing about the Huk business was the minute scale of the things
that happened, compared to the background in which they took place. The
squad ship, for example, lifted off Sirene VIII for the second time.
She'd been out once and come back for the second batch of multipoly
objects. Sirene VIII was not a giant planet, by any means, but it was a
respectable six thousand miles in diameter. The squad ship's sixty feet
of length was a mote so minute by comparison that no comparison was
possible.

She headed in toward the sun. She winked out of existence into
overdrive. She headed toward Sirene IV, in quadrature, where missile
rockets floated in orbit awaiting the coming of any enemy. The distance
to be traveled was roughly one and a half light-hours--some twelve
astronomical units of ninety-three million miles each.

The squad ship covered that distance in a negligible length of time. It
popped into normality about two hundred thousand miles out from the Huk
home-world. It seemed insolently to remain there. In a matter of seconds
it appeared at another place--a hundred fifty thousand miles out, but
off to one side. It seemed arrogantly to remain there, too--in a second
place at the same time. Then it appeared, with the arbitrary effect a
ship does give when coming out of overdrive, at a third place a hundred
seventy-five thousand miles from the planet. At a fourth place barely
eighty thousand miles short of collision with the Huk world. At a fifth
place. A sixth. Each time it appeared, it s