unconfined gunpowder after it was planted in the path of the Soviet
moon-cats and set off. The Soviet vehicles are on their way back to
their base now."

After a moment's hesitation, he went on: "Senator, in spite of our
political differences, I want to say that I appreciate a man who can put
his country's welfare ahead of his political ambitions."

"Thank you, Mr. President. That is a compliment I appreciate and accept.
But I want you to know that the notion of decoying them away with an
inflammable plastic replica was not my idea; it was Matt Fisher's."

"Oh? My compliments to Mr. Fisher." He smiled then. It was obviously
forced, but, just as obviously, there was sincerity behind it. "I hope
the best team wins. But if it does not, I am secure in the knowledge
that the second best team is quite competent."

Firmly repressing a desire to say, _I am sorry that I don't feel any
such security myself_, Cannon merely said: "Thank you again, Mr.
President."

When the connection was cut, Cannon grinned at Matthew Fisher. "That's
it. We've saved a ship. It can be repaired where it is without a fleet
of Soviet moon-cats prowling around and interfering. And we've scotched
any attempts at propagandizing that the Soviets may have had in mind."
He chuckled. "I'd like to have seen their faces when that thing started
to burn in a vacuum. And I'd like to see the reports that are being
flashed back and forth between Moscow and Soviet Moon Base One."

"I wasn't so much worried about the loss of the disabled ship as the
_way_ we'd lose it," Matthew Fisher said.

"The Soviets getting it?" Cannon asked. "We didn't have to worry about
that. You heard him say that Thayer was going to destroy it."

"That's exactly what I meant," said Fisher. "_How_ were we going to
destroy it? TNT or dynamite or Radex-3 would have still left enough
behind for a good Soviet team to make some kind of sense out of it--some
kind of hint would be there, unless an awful lot of it were used. A
fission or a thermonuclear bomb would have vaporized it, but that would
have been a violation of the East-West Agreement. We'd be flatly in the
wrong."

Senator Cannon walked over to the sideboard and poured Scotch into two
glasses. "The way it stands now, the ship will at least be able to limp
out of there before anyone in Moscow can figure out what happened and
transmit orders back to Luna." He walked back with the glasses and
handed one to Fisher. "Let's have a dr