ger hasn't been established yet, as far
as Stanton knew. At a meeting one day, he had simply become more and more
incomprehensible, and then, without any warning, he had leaped out, killed
three of the men with his bare hands, and gone out the window.

And that had been the end of any diplomatic relations between humanity and
the Nipe.

Since that time, he'd been on a rampage of robbery and murder. He was as
callously indifferent to human life and property as a human being might be
with the life and property of a cockroach.

There have been human criminals whose actions could be described in the
same way, but the Nipe had a few touches that few human criminals would
have thought of and almost none would have had the capacity to execute.

If, for instance, the Nipe had time to spare, his victims would be an
annoying problem in identification when found, for there would be nothing
left but well-gnawed bones. And "time to spare," in this case meant twenty
or thirty minutes. The Nipe had, if nothing else, a very efficient
digestive tract. He ate like a shrew.

And the Nipe never, under any circumstances, used any weapon but the
weapons Nature had given him--hands-or-feet, or claws or teeth. Never did
he use a knife or gun or even a club.

* * * * *

Almost as an afterthought, one realized that the loot which the Nipe stole
was seemingly unpredictable. Money, as such, he apparently had no use for.
He had taken gold, silver, and platinum, but one raid for each of these
elements had evidently been enough, except for silver, which had required
three raids over a period of four years. Since then, he hadn't touched
silver again.

He hadn't tried yet for any of the radioactives except radium. He'd taken
a full ounce of that in five raids, but hadn't attempted to get his hands
on uranium, thorium, plutonium, or any of the other elements normally
associated with atomic energy. Nor had he tried to steal any of the fusion
materials; the heavy isotopes of hydrogen or any of the lithium isotopes.
Beryllium had been taken, but whether there was any significance in the
thefts or not, no one knew.

[Illustration]

There was a pattern in the thefts, nonetheless. They had begun small and
increased. Scientific and technical instruments--oscilloscopes, X-ray
generators, radar equipment, maser sets, dynostatic crystals, thermolight
resonators, and so on--were stolen complete or gutted for various parts.