on pulled them toward each
other. As they got closer, the charges arced across, heating and fusing
the two ships. But they still had enough motion toward each other to
crash.

"They were wrecked by less than a tenth of an ounce of ions which were
projected to the ship and held there by an automatic field until the
ships got close enough to arc through it.

"We still haven't been able to analyze that trick field, though."

"Well, now that we've gotten things straightened out," Fuller said,
"let's go home! I'm anxious to leave! We're all ready to go, aren't we?"

Arcot nodded. "All except for one thing. The Supreme Three want to see
us. We've got a meeting with them in an hour, so put on your best Sunday
pants."

In the Council of Three, Arcot was officially invited to remain with
them. The fleet of molecular motion ships was nearing completion--the
first one was to roll off the assembly line the next day--but they
wanted Arcot, Wade, Morey, and Fuller to remain on Nansal.

"We have a large world here," the Scientist thought at them. "Thanks to
you people, we can at last call it our own. We offer you, in the name of
the people, your choice of any spot in this world. And we give
you--this!" The Scientist came forward. He had a disc-shaped plaque,
perhaps three inches in diameter, made of a deep ruby-red metal. In the
exact center was a green stone which seemed to shine of its own accord,
with a pale, clear, green light; it was transparent and highly
refractive. Around it, at the three points of a triangle, were three
similar, but smaller stones. Engraved lines ran from each of the stones
to the center, and other lines connected the outer three in a triangle.
The effect was as though one were looking down at the apex of a regular
tetrahedron.

There were characters in Nansalese at each point of the tetrahedron, and
other characters engraved in a circle around it.

Arcot turned it in his hand. On the back was a representation of the
Nansalian planetary system. The center was a pale yellow, highly-faceted
stone which represented the sun. Around this were the orbits of planets,
and each of the eleven planets was marked by a different colored stone.

The Scientist was holding in the palm of his hand another such disc,
slightly smaller. On it, there were three green stones, one slightly
larger than the others.

"This is my badge of office as Scientist of the Three. The stone marked
Science is here larger. Your plaque