"That's the only principle a practical man can work on. Know when you're licked. Get all the facts, analyze all the data, and then act on the logical conclusion, no matter how much you may hate to. It was clear to me that you must have drawn a pat flush that would top my straight, so I simply decided not to waste any more money." "Thank you, Mr. Jasperson. I appreciate the gift." "It was no gift. You had me beat." "Did I? Only if you had all the facts, only if you analyzed all the data, and only if you reached the correct conclusion. Perhaps you ought to see what I held." Deliberately he turned over his hand and spread the cards. Jasperson jumped to his feet in a rage. "But that's a handful of junk! Not even a pair! You held a bust, and I had you beat!" "Certainly. But you didn't know it. Without all the facts, you acted on a faulty conclusion." Breathing noisily, his plump face flushed, Jasperson smashed his fist into his pile of chips and scattered them to the floor. "A pure bluff! I hate bluffing!" "Then you miss a great deal of fun in life," said Larrabee calmly. "I find it dull just to analyze data and then bet on a sure thing. I like a little excitement." Slowly the financier sank back into his chair. He gulped in a large breath of air and tried to steady himself, a sickly smile around his mouth. "Excuse me, Professor. But you took me by surprise." Hands trembling, he began to shuffle the deck. There was a knock at the door, and a crewman entered. "What is it, Stacey?" said Captain Evans. "Chief Wyman is waiting to see you in your quarters, sir." With a sigh of relief, the Captain turned in his few chips. "Time for me to quit, anyway." His face still red, Jasperson looked up hopefully. "Shall I come with you? Any way I can be of use?" "No thank you, Burl. I'll leave you to your little game." * * * * * In the Captain's quarters, Chief Wyman was pacing the floor. "Sir!" he burst out. "This is it! We've hit the Thakura Ripples!" "Impossible, Wyman! It's too soon. What's happened?" "You told me to report as soon as we ran across anything suspicious, sir. Well, look what our screen has been picking up." He handed over a plastic record tape, perforated by minute notches which outlined an unsystematic, jagged line of peaks and hollows. "We've been getting this stuff all evening." "Doesn't seem to mean anything. It doesn't show any sort of pattern." "No, sir, and it may not mean anything, but it's different from what we've been getting up till now. And then another thing. It's probably not serious, but the number ten Pile has started to heat." "Begun to heat? What's wrong with Pile Ten? One of your men been getting careless?" "I'm positive not, sir. I have complete confidence in all of them." Captain Evans studied the record tape, a worried frown on his forehead. "It's just possible, I suppose, that the Ripples--Is Pile Ten heating fast?"