purrs, cackles, quacks, chirps, buzzes, and hisses of a myriad of
animals, that each molecule would have thought that it was being shoved
in a hundred thousand different directions at once if it had had a mind
to think with.

The noise wasn't deafening, but it was certainly all-pervasive.

Bart Stanton had reholstered his own weapon and half opened his lips to
speak when he heard another sound behind him.

Again he whirled, his guns in his hands--both of them this time--and his
forefingers only fractions of a millimeter from the point that would
fire the hair triggers.

But he did not fire.

The second man had merely shifted the weapons in his holsters and then
dropped his hands away.

The noise, which had been flooding the room over the speaker system,
died instantly.

Stanton shoved his guns back into place and rose from his crouch. "Real
cute," he said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting that one."

The man he was facing smiled back. "Well, Bart, perhaps we have proved
our point. What do you think, Colonel?" The last was addressed to the
third man, who was still standing quietly, looking worried and surprised
about the three spots on his jacket that had come from the special
harmless projectiles in Stanton's gun.

Colonel Mannheim was four inches shorter than Stanton's five-ten, and
was fifteen years older. But in spite of the differences, he would have
laughed if anyone had told him five minutes before that he couldn't
outdraw a man who was standing with his back turned.

His bright blue eyes, set deep beneath craggy brows in a tanned face,
looked speculatively at the younger man.

"Incredible," he said gently. "Absolutely incredible." Then he looked at
the other man, a lean civilian with mild blue eyes a shade lighter than
his own. "All right, Farnsworth; I'm convinced. You and your staff have
quite literally created a superman. Anyone who can stand in a
noise-filled room and hear a man draw a gun twenty feet behind him is
incredible enough. The fact that he could and did outdraw and outshoot
me after I had started--well, that's almost beyond comprehension."

He looked back at Bart Stanton. "What's your opinion? Do you think you
can handle the Nipe, Stanton?"

Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mind
considered the problem before arriving at a decision. Just how much
confidence should he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man with
tremendous confidence in his own abilities, b