d not be maintained. This would, of course, result in an
explosion; the nature and consequences of which this Carlowitz was wont
to dwell upon in ghoulishly mathematical glee. Neither school, however,
could prove its point--or, rather, each school proved its point, by
means of unimpeachable mathematics--and each hated and derided the
other, loudly and heatedly.

And now Cloud, as he studied through his almost opaque defenses that
indescribably ravening fireball, that esuriently rapacious monstrosity
which might very well have come from the deepest pit of the hottest hell
of mythology, felt strongly inclined to agree with Carlowitz. It didn't
seem possible that anything _could_ get any worse than that without
exploding. And such an explosion, he felt sure, would certainly blow
everything for miles around into the smitheriest kind of smithereens.

The activity of the vortex stayed high, 'way too high. The tiny control
room of the flitter grew hotter and hotter. His skin burned and his eyes
ached worse. He touched a communicator stud and spoke.

"Phil? Better get me three more bombs. Like these, except up around...."

"I don't check you. If you do that, it's apt to drop to a minimum and
stay there," the Lensman reminded him. "It's completely unpredictable,
you know."

"It may, at that ... so I'll have to forget the five percent margin and
hit it on the nose or not at all. Order me up two more, then--one at
half of what I've got here, the other double it," and he reeled off the
figures for the charge and the casing of the explosive. "You might break
out a jar of burn-dressing, too. Some fairly hot stuff is leaking
through."

"We'll do that. Come down, fast!"

Cloud landed. He stripped to the skin and the observer smeared his every
square inch of epidermis with the thick, gooey stuff that was not only a
highly efficient screen against radiation, but also a sovereign remedy
for new radiation burns. He exchanged his goggles for a thicker, darker,
heavier pair. The two bombs arrived and were substituted for two of the
original load.

"I thought of something while I was up there," Cloud informed the
observers then. "Twenty kilograms of duodec is nobody's firecracker, but
it may be the least of what's going to go off. Have you got any idea of
what's going to become of the energy inside that vortex when I blow it
out?"

"Can't say that I have." The Lensman frowned in thought. "No data."

"Neither have I. But I'd say th