"So that's what represents two billion dollars," the senator said contemptuously. "That little sliver of metal." "The two billion dollar atomic bomb was even smaller," Jennings said quietly. * * * * * The senator took his eye away from the periscope briefly and looked at Jennings speculatively. "The story of where all that money went still hasn't been told," he said pointedly. "But the story of who got away with this two billion will be different." Colonel Jennings said nothing. The white hot rage mounting within him made it impossible for him to speak. The senator straightened up and walked back over to his chair. He waved a hand in the direction of Major Eddy. "What does that man do?" he asked, as if the major were not present, or was unable to comprehend. "Major Eddy," Jennings found control of his voice, "operates remote control." He was trying to reduce the vast complexity of the operation to the simplest possible language. "Beep, eight," the signal interrupted him. "He will guide the ship throughout its entire flight, just as if he were sitting in it." "Why isn't he sitting in it?" the senator asked. "That's what the test is for, Senator." Jennings felt his voice becoming icy. "We don't know if space will permit human life. We don't know what's out there." "Best way to find out is for a man to go out there and see," the senator commented shortly. "I want to find out something, I go look at it myself. I don't depend on charts and graphs, and folderol." The major did not even hunch his broad shoulders, a characteristic gesture, to show that he had heard, to show that he wished the senator was out there in untested space. "What about him? He's not even in uniform!" "Professor Stein maintains sight contact on the scope and transmits the IFF pulse." The senator's eyes flashed again beneath heavy brows. His lips indicated what he thought of professors and projects who used them. "What's IFF?" he asked. The colonel looked at him incredulously. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask where the man had been during the war. He decided he'd better not ask it. He might learn. "It stands for Identification--Friend or Foe, Senator. It's army jargon." "Beep, seven." _Seven minutes_, Jennings thought, _and here I am trying to explain the culmination of the entire science of all mankind to a lardbrain in simple kindergarten words_. Well, he'd wished there was something to break the tension of the last half hour, keep him occupied. He had it. "You mean the army wouldn't know, after the ship got up, whether it was ours or the enemy's?" the senator asked incredulously. "There are meteors in space, Senator," Jennings said carefully. "Radar contact is all we'll have out there. The IFF mechanism reconverts our beam to a predetermined pulse, and it bounces back to us in a different pattern. That's the only way we'd know if we were still on the ship, or have by chance fastened on to a meteor."