The commander glared. "I weary of this. You probably are not worth the trouble, after all. I might as well blast you out now as later. You know that I can, of course, as well as I do." "Do I?" Kinnison did sneer, this time. "Act your age, pal. As I told that fool Harkleroy, this ain't the first planet I ever sat down on, and it won't be the last. And don't call no maulers," as the Boskonian officer's hand moved almost imperceptibly toward a row of buttons. "If you do, _I_ start blasting as soon as we spot one on our plates--and they're full out right now." "_You_ would start blasting?" The zwilnik's surprise--almost amazement--was plain, but the hand stopped its motion. "Yeah--me. Them heaps of scrap metal you got up there don't bother me a bit, but maulers I can't handle, and I ain't afraid to tell you so because you probably know it already. I can't stop you from calling 'em, if you want to, but bend both ears to this--I can outrun 'em, and I'll guarantee that you personally won't be alive to see me run. Why? Because your ship will be the first one I'll whiff on the way out. And if the rest of your heaps stick around long enough to try to stop me, I'll whiff twenty-five or thirty more of them before your maulers can get close enough so that I'll have to flit. Now, if your brains are made out of the same kind of thick, blue mud that Harkleroy's was, start something!" This was an impasse. Kinnison knew what he wanted the other to do, but he could not give him a suggestion, or even a hint, without tipping his hand. The officer, quite evidently, was in a quandary. He did not want to open fire upon this tremendous, this fabulous ship. Even if he could destroy it, such a course would be unthinkable--unless, indeed, the very act of destruction would brand as false rumor the tales of invincibility and invulnerability which had heralded its coming, and thus would operate in his favor at the court-martial so sure to be called. He was very much afraid, however, that those rumors were not false--a view which was supported very strongly both by Thyron's undisguised contempt for the Boskonian warships threatening him and by his equally frank declaration of his intention to avoid engagement with craft of really superior force. Finally, however, the Boskonian perceived one thing that did not quite fit. * * * * * "If you are as good as you claim to be, why aren't you doing a flit right now?" Mendonai asked, smoothly. "If you could get away, I should think that you'd be doing it. We've got stuff, you know, that's both heavy and fast."