"It may, at that ... so I'll have to forget the five percent margin and hit it on the nose or not at all. Order me up two more, then--one at half of what I've got here, the other double it," and he reeled off the figures for the charge and the casing of the explosive. "You might break out a jar of burn-dressing, too. Some fairly hot stuff is leaking through." "We'll do that. Come down, fast!" Cloud landed. He stripped to the skin and the observer smeared his every square inch of epidermis with the thick, gooey stuff that was not only a highly efficient screen against radiation, but also a sovereign remedy for new radiation burns. He exchanged his goggles for a thicker, darker, heavier pair. The two bombs arrived and were substituted for two of the original load. "I thought of something while I was up there," Cloud informed the observers then. "Twenty kilograms of duodec is nobody's firecracker, but it may be the least of what's going to go off. Have you got any idea of what's going to become of the energy inside that vortex when I blow it out?" "Can't say that I have." The Lensman frowned in thought. "No data." "Neither have I. But I'd say that you better go back to the new station--the one you were going to move to if it kept on getting worse." "But the instruments...." the Lensman was thinking, not of the instruments themselves, which were valueless in comparison with life, but of the records those instruments would make. Those records were priceless. "I'll have everything on the tapes in the flitter," Cloud reminded. "But suppose...." "That the flitter stops one, too--or doesn't stop it, rather? In that case, your back station won't be there, either, so it won't make any difference." How mistaken Cloud was! "QX," the Chief decided. "We'll leave when you do--just in case." * * * * * Again in air, Cloud found that the activity, while still high, was not too high, but that it was fluctuating too rapidly. He could not get even five seconds of trustworthy prediction, to say nothing of ten. So he waited, as close as he dared remain to that horrible center of disintegration.