"It is not a dribe and it does not work--it is a structure of pure matematics," said Urushkidan. "Anyway, te teory is beyond te comprehension of anybody but myself. Gibe me some coffee." "But you must have an idea how it would work in practice." "Oh, no doubt if I wanted to take te time I could debise someting. But I am engaged in debeloping a new teory of cosmic origins." Urushkidan slurped coffee into himself. "We've got to build it and escape." "I told you you are of neiter beauty nor importance. Why should I take time wit you?" "But look, if the Jovians capture you they'll force you to build it for them. They have ways. And then they'll overrun Mars along with all the other planets. The only thing that's held them back so far is the difficulty of interplanetary logistics. But when you have ships that can cross the orbit of Pluto in a matter of hours or minutes that isn't a problem any longer." "Tat would be unfortunate, yes. But I am in te midst of a bery new and important train of tought. It would be more unfortunate if tat were lost tan if a few ephemeral Jobians conquered te System. Tey wouldn't last a tousand years, but a genius like me is born once in a million." Dyann hefted her sword. "Do as Ray says," she advised. "You dare not hurt me," said Urushkidan with a smug expression, "or you will neber get away." He went over to the desk and began investigating the drawers again. "Where do tey keep teir tobacco? I cannot work witout my pipe." "Jovians," said Ray glumly, "don't smoke. They consider it a degenerate habit." "What?" The Martian's howl rattled the coffeepot on the hotplate. "No tobacco?" "Only your own supply, back in Ganymede City, and I daresay the Jovians have confiscated and destroyed it by now. That puts the nearest cigar store somewhere in the Asteroid Belt." "Oh, no! Te new cosmology ruined by tobacco shortage." Urushkidan stood thinking a moment, then came to a sudden decision. "Tere is no help for it. If te nearest tobacco is millions of miles away we must build te faster-tan-light engine at once." * * * * * Ray made no attempt to follow the Martian's long-winded equations in detail. What he was interested in was making use of them, and he proceeded with slashing approximations that brought screams of almost physical agony from Urushkidan. Essentially, though, he recognized that the scientist's achievement lay in making what seemed to be a final correlation of relativity and wave mechanics, something which even the Goldfarb-Olson formulas had not fully reached.