"Good." Dane tried to look even more solemn than before. "Captain, this is the kind of emergency that's for your eyes alone. I wouldn't want to expose anyone else to it till you've passed judgment." He stepped aside as he spoke. After a moment's uncertainty and nervous shifting from foot to foot, Captain Helstrom in his turn swung aboard and uneasily stepped down into the carrier's passenger compartment. As he did so, Nelva Guthrie moaned. The captain tripped over his own feet getting to one side. Eyes seeming to protrude even more than usual, he peered down at the prostrate girl, then turned to Dane. "What--what is it? What's the matter?" Dane shrugged. "A little fainting spell. She'll be all right in a few minutes. But this"--a brief pause while he held out the package containing the yat-stick ... "is something else again." Captain Helstrom eyed the package fearfully. "What's in it?" Dane returned the bundle to its place tight-clamped beneath his arm before answering. Then, quite deliberately and with an almost academic manner, he asked, "Captain, do you know what a proton grenade is?" "A proton grenade--!" The captain's jaw dropped, lengthening his face so that he looked more like a horse than ever. "Not those things they tried out against the Kalquoi once, you don't mean? Not the ones that could tear a whole ship apart from just a little hand-bomb?" He backed away with little teetering steps as he spoke, halting only when he bumped against the wall of the carrier's cabin. "That's right," Dane nodded. "Have you ever seen one?" And then, shoving forward the yat-stick package and stripping away the outer layer of plastic till the T's crossbar was revealed: "See, here's the trigger-release mechanism--" "Please, mister!" Helstrom croaked, bony hands spread as he tried to push Dane back. "Please, I don't want to see nothing. Nothing!" "Well, if you don't want to...." Scowling irritably, as if disappointed, Dane wadded the plastic back over the end of the yat-stick. "You know who I am, captain?" "N-no." "Clark Dane, that's what they call me. Security's after me." The captain's eyes bugged even further, and his Adam's apple moved up and down. He didn't speak. Dane went on: "They thought they had me, down on Mars. I got away, though. Dug this"--he patted his bundle grimly--"out of a Security arsenal to bring with me." The horse-face worked. The coarse grey hair appeared close to standing on end. Dane scowled more ferociously than ever--as much to keep from laughing himself as to impress the captain. There was something so intrinsically absurd about the whole situation that he knew that one misstep would carry him over into gails of wild, hysterical mirth. "Captain," he clipped tightly, "how'd you like to have me blow up this ship?"