I had planned on
navigating from notes I took on the trip back to the Earth, but it
wasn't necessary. They tried to keep me from finding out anything, but I
learned all about the compasses, built a few of them in their own shop,
and set one on Osnome. I had it, among other things, in my pocket when I
landed. In fact, the control of that explosive copper bullet is the only
thing they had that I wasn't able to get--and I'll get that on this
trip."

"What is that arenak armor they're wearing?"

"Arenak is a synthetic metal, almost perfectly transparent. It has
practically the same refractive index as air, therefore it is, to all
intents and purposes, invisible. It's about five hundred times as strong
as chrome-vanadium steel, and even when you've got it to the
yield-point, it doesn't break, but stretches out and snaps back, like
rubber, with the strength unimpaired. It's the most wonderful thing I
saw on the whole trip. They make complete suits of it. Of course they
aren't very comfortable, but since they are only a tenth of an inch they
can be worn."

"And a tenth of an inch of that stuff will stop a steel-nosed
machine-gun bullet?"

"Stop it! A tenth of an inch of arenak is harder to pierce than fifty
inches of our hardest, toughest armor steel. A sixteenth-inch
armor-piercing projectile couldn't get through it. It's hard to believe,
but nevertheless it's a fact. The only way to kill Seaton with a gun
would be to use one heavy enough so that the shock of the impact would
kill him--and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he had his armor anchored
with an attractor against that very contingency. Even if he hasn't, you
can imagine the chance of getting action against him with a gun of that
size."

"Yes, I've heard that he is fast."

"That doesn't tell half of it. You know that I'm handy with a gun
myself?"

"You're faster than I am, and that's saying something. You're chain
lightning."

"Well, Seaton is at least that much faster than I am. You've never seen
him work--I have. On that Osnomian dock he shot twice before I started,
and shot twice to my once from then on. I must have been shooting a
quarter of a second after he had his side all cleaned up. To make it
worse I missed once with my left hand--he didn't. There's absolutely no
use tackling Richard Seaton without an Osnomian ray-generator or
something better; but, as you know, Brookings always has been and always
will be a fool. He won't believe anything new