it up it'll take
time to make another and today's the day, you know."

"I'll take the blame."

"Mr. Harrison, you look kind of funny. Hadn't I better...."

Harrison was sketching a drawing on a piece of waste paper. He was
working in quick rough strokes, copying something from a book.

"They'll blame us both, Mr. Harrison. Anyway, it might hold up somebody
who's got a real idea...."

"_I_ have a real idea, Kirk. I'm going to draw it for you."

The metal worker noticed that the book Harrison was copying from was a
dictionary, a very old and battered one.

"Here, can you follow what I've drawn?"

The metal worker accepted it reluctantly, giving Harrison an odd, almost
patronizing look. "This is crazy."

"Kirk!"

"Look, Mr. Harrison. We worked a long time together. You...."

Harrison suddenly rose from the chair.

"This is our one chance of beating this thing, no matter how crazy it
seems. Will you do the job?"

"You believe you got something, eh," the other said. "You think you
have?"

"I have to have."

* * * * *

"Gentlemen," said the President of the Intersolar Council. "There is
very little to say. There can be no denying the fact that we have
exhausted our efforts at finding a satisfactory solution.

"The contents of this book of reports represents the greatest
concentration of expert reasoning perhaps ever applied to a single
problem.

"But alas, the problem remains--unsolved."

He paused to glance at his wristwatch.

"The aliens return in an hour. As you very well know there is one action
that remains for us. It is one we have held to this hour. It is one that
has always been present and one that we have been constantly urged to
use.

"Force, gentlemen. It is not insignificant. It lies at our command. It
represents the technology of the Intersolar alliance. I will entertain a
motion to use it."

There were no nay votes.

* * * * *

The alien arrived on schedule. The ship grew from a tiny bright speck in
the sky to full size. It settled to a graceful landing as before on the
strip and silently moved into the revetment.

Again it spoke in the voice of the frog, but the tone was, if anything,
less human this time.

"Earthmen, we have come for your solution."

At that instant a hundred gun crews stiffened and waited for a signal
behind their carefully camouflaged blast plates and inside dummy
buildings....

Harrison w