"You see what this means, don't you?" Videnski asked, eying me through a cloud of blue cigarette smoke. "Sure," I whispered. "It means that McGuire will go right on accelerating until I tell him to stop, and I can't tell him that until my larynx heals--if it ever does." "If it takes a week or two, which is likely," Vivian said, "we'll be saying good-by to the Solar System." "By the time this heals," I said, "we'll be so far out we won't be able to come back. At that distance, the amount of sunlight McGuire will be able to pick up will be negligible, and the atomic fuel will be gone." Nobody bothered to suggest that we call for help. McGuire had the communications system under control, too. "One of us," I said, "had better think of something." * * * * * In the next several hours, every one of us thought of something, one way or another. Not that it did much good, because none of the ideas were worth much, directly. Indirectly, they told us plenty about what _not_ to try. When Brentwood finally came out from under the effects of the pythantin, even he started thinking furiously about some way out of our predicament. We kept him locked in the bedroom for obvious reasons, but he had just as much stake in getting us back in control of McGuire as we did. After all, there's no law against industrial espionage, and we couldn't prove any charge of sabotage. Even a charge of attempted kidnapping or attempted larceny would be almost impossible to make stand up in court. With a good lawyer, he could get out from under an assault and battery charge. He'd lose his job with Viking, of course, but that was better than losing his life. His failure to deliver McGuire to Baedecker Metals & Mining might lose him some of the money he'd been promised, but he was prepared for that, too. I knew he was a Baedecker agent, even if he didn't, because I knew who Borodin worked for. Meanwhile, five brains were trying frantically to think of some way of convincing McGuire that he should obey my orders. First, I tried reasoning with him. "McGuire, do you understand what it is that generates the human voice?" "Yes, sir. A flow of slightly compressed air from the lungs causes vibration of the vocal cords, and this sound is modified by the lips, tongue, and teeth." "Very well. Now, you see Mr. Oak, do you not?" "Yes, sir." "And you see that this voice is being generated by Mr. Oak?" "I cannot tell that, sir. I have no way of sensing the operation of Mr. Oak's vocal equipment." "But you can tell that this voice is coming from Mr. Oak?" "Yes, sir." "Then it must be Mr. Oak's voice." "That does not coincide with the facts, sir, therefore the logic is faulty. A comparison of the present voice with the voice of Mr. Oak shows too few points of similarity for identification."