Corbin shook his head grayly. "You don't understand the psychology of panic, Doctor. Law is dependent upon power. When power fails the mob rules. By this time tomorrow government will have begun to break down. Civilization as we know it will disintegrate within a matter of days." I had known that all along, of course, but all of a sudden the real enormity of what was happening hit me like a boot in the stomach. There sat Doc Maxey, one of the most brilliant physicists in the world--stumped. Beside him drooped Three-star General Corbin, high commander of Allied Military, and he was as helpless as a corner newsboy. A top-flight crew of research technicians stood around in the living room like so many cigar-store dummies, looking at each other blankly while the world skidded to ruin on a slippery cosmic banana peel. Dora came over and put an arm across my shoulders. As suddenly as I had got scared I got mad. It wasn't just the idea of the world going bust that burned me. This was a personal business that threatened Dora and me and our friends and all the millions and millions of people we had never even seen. Here was the lot of us headed A-over-T straight back to the stone ages. A few days more and people we had known and loved would be hunting each other through the streets with clubs, driven to murder and worse because a crew of greedy alien fire-worms had a taste for atomic fission. It was a hopeless affair and I knew it. But down inside me a nagging little ghost of an idea kept whispering that we must have overlooked _something_, that somewhere there must be a loophole these high-voltage intellects had missed. Sometimes, I told myself, theorists can be as dumb as ordinary people. Sometimes they just can't see the trees for the woods. "Look," I said. "We're missing a bet somewhere. We built the Di-tube in the beginning to...." Doc gave me a pitying look. "Will you keep your infantile inspirations to yourself, Gerald? I'm trying to think." I turned to Three-star Corbin, getting eager because the idea had just nudged me again. It wasn't clear yet--but it was there, begging to be recognized like a half-remembered name that trembles on the tip of your tongue. "Will you listen, General? There's a chance that...." The general gave me a poisonous glare. "Can't you see that I'm planning a course of action? Shut up or I'll have you thrown out!" I jumped up, knocking over my coffee, and walked out. Dora came outside after me and caught my arm. "Jerry! What are you going to do?" "I'm going down to the lab," I said. "Maybe I'm nuts but I think we've still got a chance to beat this infernal thing." The sun came up round and rosy while we walked down to the lab and I felt my scalp prickle when I saw the no-colored shaft of the Blazers' Di-tube rising against it like a black finger of doom.