asked. His voice was sneering.

Ray frowned, and said something about mass-appeal. "Pay no attention to
_that_," he continued. "Just listen to _me_. I'll tell you about our
civilization, and our science, and...."

His voice broke off as if he had been struck in the face. In a way, he
had; Garf had deliberately turned his back on the old fellow. The
Judge's bloodshot little eyes darted about as if he wanted to pick up
something heavy and hit Garf on the crest with it.

John Andrew's brain had finally resumed normal operations; he was
thinking slowly, but clearly. He examined the evidence with care. He
decided that Garf's superior attitude and powers boded no good; that if
the fishman once became slightly irritated he would sic the nonapus on
Ray and himself. (Probably, in fact, Garf would try to conquer the world
anyway; that was how it went in stories as corny as this situation.)
Farmer further decided that Ray was too egocentrically eccentric to be
trusted to get them out of this fix; he decided he'd have to do
something himself.

Having decided all this, Farmer went back over the territory to see if
he could find any flaws in it--or any other way out. It still made
sense, and he added a decision to get the boat back to shore as fast as
possible. He approached the engine.

As he did so, the engine melted into a solid, irregular lump of metal.
John Andrew gulped, and put out a tentative hand toward the fused mess.
It was not particularly warm--but it had melted.

Farmer looked at Garf again with fear and awe, and the fishman looked
back with cold amusement. But not for long. Garf turned to the Judge's
invention--and started to show some genuine interest for the first time
since he had showed up.

He stood over the thing, webbed hands on scaly hips, peering at it
intently. After a long silence, he knelt, and started feeling over the
machine with his webbed hands. Finally he placed his fingers on the
largest of the control switches--then changed his mind and gestured
imperatively to Judge Ray.

"You--the 'intelligent' one," he said. The quotes around 'intelligent'
were clear in his intonation. "Explain this to me. It's obviously what
reactivated the gate--but whoever made it did a screwball job. There are
all sorts of things that don't seem to belong, and even the parts that
should be there seem wrong, somehow...."

He paused. "Of course," he added, smugly, "I'm not a transportation
expert. If I were, I'd have