"Y-y-you mean--?" They stared at him, refusing to credit the comprehension dawning in their minds. "What else?" Pritchard's cheeks twitched in amusement. "Hey, that's big!" said Sturgis softly. "Quite big," murmured the tall hunter. "And quite intelligent if it came for McManus." Their jaws dropped and their eyes protruded glassily. "On the other hand," went on Pritchard musingly, "it might not be as smart as the person who sent it." IV There was flame in the night, blinding flame, and raucous, screeching thunder. And a great round of gleaming metal rising shudderingly on a cone of dazzling, roaring light. Rising to teeter at last on the tips of long, sweeping fins, teeter and rock and walk a bit on those blades of tempered nickel-steel, until the swaying tower ceased to gyrate sickeningly across the stars, its motion settling into a quickening, shortening arc that died away into a tremble, a vibration, a stillness. Captain Savage took his gnarled and stubby fingers away from the firing manuals and sat down, drawing a sleeve across his sopping brows. "Nice work," said Pritchard. "One push and no correction blasts. Thy hand hath not lost its skill." The old man took a deep breath and grinned. "It's work for a younger man. Next time I'm going to let you do it. Or Sturgis." "There won't be a next time," said Pritchard flatly. The captain cocked a bright eye up at him. Pritchard gazed out a viewport. The horizon of Thisbe II lay like a worn hacksaw blade against the purple glow of Piramus, rising. "Set watches," he said briefly. "The rest of the company can turn to for six hours. Then Sturgis, Greene, Kemp and I are going off in the jets." "Fishing, I suppose?" said Savage with gentle irony. Pritchard smiled coldly and shook his head. "No. Witch-hunting." * * * * * Two plump silvery beetles screamed through the thin stratosphere high above the little planet. Behind them, dropping below the horizon, a needle stood gleaming in a black thumbprint. It was no longer possible to make out the smudge marring the _Apollo's_ alabaster flank, much less the team now hanging in buckets from eyebolts high in the nose, chipping away the cracked and carbonized glaze--cracked by last night's fall and carbonized by the hell-fires of the righting operation. In one beetle rode the wiry Sturgis and stocky Kemp. In the other, the rangy blond, Greene, handled the controls while Pritchard studied the face of Thisbe II rolling slowly under them. "Got any ideas yet as to what hit us last night?" said Greene. "Nope." After righting the ship, they'd turned on the floodlights, but neither then nor in the broad light of day was there any sign or trace of their visitor. A burial detail had laid McManus the traditional six feet into the crust of Thisbe II. The long red thing had flopped and tossed startlingly as they sank hooks into it and dragged it off into the grass.