swallowed. At five-million-mile
intervals, in a circle fifty million miles across with the Huk world as
its center, objects floated in space. Patrolman Willis knew about them,
because he and Sergeant Madden had put them there immediately after the
missile rockets ceased to explode. He knew what they were, and his spine
crawled at the thought of what would happen if the Huks found out. But
the distant objects were at the limit of certain range for detection
devices. The planet's instruments could just barely pick them up. They
subtended so small a fraction of a thousandth of a second of arc that no
information could be had about them.

But they acted like a monstrous space fleet, ready to pour down
war-headed missiles in such numbers as to smother the planet in atomic
flame. Patrolman Willis could not imagine admitting that such a supposed
fleet needed another fleet to help it. A military man, bluffing as
Sergeant Madden bluffed, would not have dared offer any terms less
onerous than abject surrender. But Sergeant Madden was a cop. It was not
his purpose to make anybody surrender. His job was, ultimately, to make
them behave.

The Huks conferred. The conference was lengthy. The interpreter turned
to Sergeant Madden and spoke with vast dignity and caginess:

"When do you r-require an answer?"

"We don't," grunted Sergeant Madden. "When you make up your minds, send
a ship to Varenga III. We'll give you the information we've got. That's
whether you fight with us or independent. You'll fight, once you meet
these characters! We don't worry about that! Just ... we can do better
together." Then he said: "Have you got the co-ordinates for Varenga? I
don't know what you call it in your language."

"We have them," said the interpreter, still suspiciously.

"Right!" said Sergeant Madden. "That's all. We came here to tell you
this. Let us know when you make up your minds. Now we'll go back."

He turned as if to trudge back to the squad ship. And this, of course,
was the moment when the difference between a military and a cop mind was
greatest. A military man, with the defenses of the planet smashed--or
exhausted--and an apparent overwhelming force behind him, would have
tried to get the _Cerberus_ and its company turned over to him either by
implied or explicit threats. Sergeant Madden did not mention them. But
he had made it necessary for the Huks to do something.

They'd been shocked to numbness by the discovery that human