e should take your word for everything you told us? Tell me why.
You said yourself you never had any training. So you're guessing and
hoping. It would take a staff of two dozen highly specialized
technicians to even evaluate your idea, much less put it into action.
Hell, man, face it. What do you know about geology, chemistry, mining?
What do you know about anything?"

Arnold pointed a trembling finger at Banner. "Look, I told you that I
know rock. I know plenty of gardening, too. I gave you guys a chance to
say O.K. You still say no? Have it your way, but we'll do it my way."
Both Banner and Harcraft found themselves staring into the barrel of
the ship's only weapon.

Harcraft recovered from his astonishment quicker than Banner. "O.K.,
Bean Brain, have it your way." Quickly, casually he started for the
cabin door. Then, with such speed that Banner hardly saw the movement,
he chopped down viciously toward Arnold's wrist with the edge of his
hand.

Harcraft recovered consciousness a half hour later. "Don't try that
again, little boy," said Arnold with unconcealed hatred. "I'll give you
another thirty minutes to catch your breath. Then we all go to work."

It took ten days instead of seven. Under Arnold's close supervision,
they made the ship perform like a tractor, an air hammer, a foundation
borer and an angledozer.

Once, when they told him that some particular maneuver couldn't be
done, he took the controls himself, and came so close to killing them
all that Banner, out of sheer terror, took over and made it do the
things Arnold decreed necessary.

Finally it was finished. Two million tons of potato fertilizer, one
million tons of tractor fuel combined into a slimy pulp lay jammed into
the largest crevice on the asteroid. A few hours later they were a
thousand miles out in space.

"Now?" asked Banner.

"Now," said Arnold.

With the viewscreen at maximum magnification, they watched as the
asteroid blew itself into a thousand million pieces.

* * * * *

In the control cabin, a short week away from fleet contact, Banner was
still gloating over the movies. "Look at these. Before and After. How
many medals you think we can carry on our strong, manly chests?"

"I really couldn't care less," answered Harcraft. "While you've been
sitting there enriching your fantasy life, I've solved the mystery of
mysteries."

"Out with it."

"O.K. While our little friend has been l