ed?" O'Donnell wanted to know.

He and Micheals were in the living room of an evacuated Schroon Lake
house. O'Donnell had made it his new command post.

"Why are they hedging?" O'Donnell demanded impatiently. "The leech has
to be blown up quick. What are they fooling around for?"

"They're afraid of a chain reaction," Micheals told him. "A
concentration of hydrogen bombs might set one up in the Earth's crust or
in the atmosphere. It might do any of half a dozen things."

"Perhaps they'd like me to order a bayonet attack," O'Donnell said
contemptuously.

Micheals sighed and sat down in an armchair. He was convinced that the
whole method was wrong. The government scientists were being rushed into
a single line of inquiry. The pressure on them was so great that they
didn't have a chance to consider any other approach but force--and the
leech thrived on that.

Micheals was certain that there were times when fighting fire with fire
was not applicable.

Fire. Loki, god of fire. And of trickery. No, there was no answer there.
But Micheals' mind was in mythology now, retreating from the unbearable
present.

Allenson came in, followed by six other men.

"Well," Allenson said, "there's a damned good chance of splitting the
Earth wide open if you use the number of bombs our figures show you
need."

"You have to take chances in war," O'Donnell replied bluntly. "Shall I
go ahead?"

Micheals saw, suddenly, that O'Donnell didn't care if he did crack the
Earth. The red-faced general only knew that he was going to set off the
greatest explosion ever produced by the hand of Man.

"Not so fast," Allenson said. "I'll let the others speak for
themselves."

The general contained himself with difficulty. "Remember," he said,
"according to your own figures, the leech is growing at the rate of
twenty feet an hour."

"And speeding up," Allenson added. "But this isn't a decision to be made
in haste."

Micheals found his mind wandering again, to the lightning bolts of Zeus.
That was what they needed. Or the strength of Hercules.

Or--

He sat up suddenly. "Gentlemen, I believe I can offer you a possible
alternative, although it's a very dim one."

They stared at him.

"Have you ever heard of Antaeus?" he asked.

* * * * *

The more the leech ate, the faster it grew and the hungrier it became.
Although its birth was forgotten, it did remember a long way back. It
had eaten a planet in that