ir in the room were so besieged by the beat of drums, the blare of
trumpets, the crackle of lightning, the rumble of heavy machinery, the
squawks and shrieks of horns and whistles, the rustle of autumn leaves,
the machine-gun snap of popping popcorn, the clink and jingle of falling
coins, and the yelps, bellows, howls, roars, snarls, grunts, bleats, moos,
purrs, cackles, quacks, chirps, buzzes, and hisses of a myriad of animals,
that each molecule would have thought that it was being shoved in a
hundred thousand different directions at once if it had had a mind to
think with.

The noise wasn't deafening, but it was certainly all-pervasive.

Bart Stanton had reholstered his own weapon and half opened his lips to
speak when he heard another sound behind him.

Again he whirled his guns in hand--both of them this time--and his
forefingers only fractions of a millimeter from the point that would fire
the hair triggers.

But he did not fire.

The second man had merely shifted the weapons in his holsters and then
dropped his hands away.

The noise, which had been flooding into the room over the speaker system,
died instantly.

Stanton shoved his guns back into place and rose from his crouch. "Real
cute," he said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting that one."

The man he was facing smiled back. "Well, Bart, maybe we've proved our
point. What do you think, Colonel?" The last was addressed to the third
man, who was still standing quietly, looking worried and surprised about
the three spots on his jacket that had come from the special harmless
projectiles in Stanton's gun.

Colonel Mannheim was four inches shorter than Stanton's five-ten, and was
fifteen years older. But, in spite of the differences, he would have
laughed at anyone who had told him, five minutes before, that he couldn't
outdraw a man who was standing with his back turned.

His bright blue eyes, set deep beneath craggy brows in a tanned face,
looked speculatively at the younger man. "Incredible," he said gently.
"Absolutely incredible." Then he looked at the other man, a lean civilian
with mild blue eyes a shade lighter than his own. "All right, Dr.
Farnsworth, I'm convinced. You and your staff have quite literally created
a superman. Anyone who can stand in a noise-filled room and hear a man
draw a gun twenty feet behind him is incredible enough. The fact that he
could and did outdraw and outshoot me after I had started ... well, that's
almost beyond compre