"Where I go, there goes my daughter also. And I note that there is already one woman of refinement and gentle breeding among you. I think--" said Dr. Kang--"I think it is not utterly unreasonable to expect my daughter will find herself surrounded by champions more than willing to assure her comfort and happiness." And this time it was a full smile he turned upon the suddenly embarrassed Lark O'Day. Gary Lane chuckled too. It appeared that the supposedly "impassive" Martian did not lack, among other things, a delightful sense of humor.... CHAPTER IX Speed Limit--186,000 MPS! Thus it was arranged. Dr. Kang Tsao and his daughter, beautiful Kang Pen-N'hi, moved kit and equipment aboard the _Liberty_ that very day. The events of the following week were days not so filled with adventure as with plain hard and dogged work. At Dr. Kang's own suggestion the _Liberty_ did not linger on Deimos until the installation of the new power shield should be complete. "This discovery," said the Martian scientist, "is remarkably simple. With what little equipment my daughter and I have brought aboard, and with such standard stores as may be found aboard your ship, we can make the craft impregnable. So let us waste no time, but get under way. We shall make the installation as we fly to Jupiter." And this they did, in plain sight of all the _Liberty's_ staff and crew. Despite which, few were able afterward to say what had been done, or why such minor alterations should make such a tremendous difference. Old Douglas Sebold, Chief Engineer of the _Liberty_, openly acknowledged his inability to grasp the force field's method of operation. "Come down here to the engine room, they did; the Martian man and his daughter. Fidgeted and fiddled around for a couple of hours without speaking nary a word to any of us except maybe a polite, 'Howjyedo? G'bye!' And when they left, what had they did? Hooked up a little hunk of wire here and a condenser there and a thingamajigger somewhere else, none of which looks like it ought to do nothing!" Lieutenant MacDonald made much the same plaint. "They opened the control banks and threw a few shunts across the relays. Then they ran one cable to the hypos. But so far as _I_ can see, what they did shouldn't make any great difference in the operation of the ship." He stared at Gary dubiously, "You don't think the old man's giving us the runaround, do you? Pretending to put out, when really all he's doing is stealing the secret of Earth's hypatomic?" Lark O'Day, from the neighboring plot desk, looked up, glowering darkly. "Mac," he advised, "if I thought you really meant that, I'd come over there and push your face so far down your throat you'd have a tapeworm's view of your own stomach. Anybody who cracks about Dr. Kang--"