difference than _that_ between us. How
close can you count seconds?"

"Plus or minus five per cent, sir."

"Close enough. Your first job will be to build some kind of a
brute-force, belt-or-gear thing to act as a clock. You will really work.
Any more insubordination or any malingering at all and I'll put you into
a lifecraft and launch you into space, where you can make your own laws
and be monarch of all you survey. Dismissed! Now--flit!"

* * * * *

Newman flitted--fast--and Barbara, turning to her husband, opened her
mouth to speak and shut it. No, he would have killed the man; he would
have _had_ to. He still might have to. Wherefore she said instead:
"Why'd you let him keep his pistol? The ... the _slime_! And after you
actually saved his life, too!"

"With some people what's past doesn't count. The other was just a
gesture. Psychology. It'll slow him down, I think. Besides, he'd have
another one as soon as we get back into the _Procyon_."

"But you can lock up _all_ their guns, can't you?" Bernice asked.

"I'm afraid not. How about the other three, Herc?"

"With thanks to you, Barbara, for the word; slime. If Lopresto is a
financier, I'm an angel, with wings and halo complete. Gangsters;
hoodlums; racketeers; you'd have to open every can of concentrate aboard
to find all their spare artillery."

"Check. The first thing to do is----"

"One word first," Bernice put in. "I want to thank you, First Off--no,
not First Officer, but I could hardly----"

"Sure you can. I'm 'Babe' to us all, and you're 'Bun'. As to the other,
forget it. You and I, Herc, will go over and----"

"And I," Adams put in, definitely. "I must photograph everything, before
it is touched; therefore I must be the first on board. I must do some
autopsies and also----"

"Of course. You're right," Deston said. "And if I haven't said it
before, I'm tremendously glad to have a Big Brain along ... oh, excuse
that crack, please, Dr. Adams. It slipped out on me."

Adams laughed. "In context, I regard that as the highest compliment I
have ever received. To you youngsters my advanced age of fifty-two
represents senility. Nevertheless, you men need not 'Doctor' me. Either
'Adams' or 'Andy' will do very nicely. As for you two young women----"

"I'm going to call you 'Uncle Andy'," Barbara said, with a grin. "Now,
Uncle Andy, you being a Big Brain--the term being used in its most
complimentary sense--and the way yo