"Nolan, better get down to the eyepiece. The Coms could send something up to blast us. I'll get the detectors out. You be ready! You're sure you can handle things?" "This is a little bit late to raise the question," said Nolan. "I think I can do it, though." He went down into the hold. He turned on the eyepiece. He saw the distinct, luminous disk which was Earth in the not-at-all-believable field of the impossible instrument. He saw points--not dots--of extremely vivid light. Obviously the size of a radioactive object did not determine the brightness of its report to the weapon from Planet Five of Fanuel Alpha. Something else controlled the brilliance. He saw the groupings of many dimensionless points of light. There were the patterns which meant the silos holding the monster atomic missiles of the West. He could distinguish them from the much more concentrated firing-points of the Com nations. The oceans had few or no bright points at all. There were only so many atomic-powered ocean-going vessels. Nolan could tell well enough which were the Western accumulations of radioactives for defense purposes, and which were the Com stores of warheads. His throat went dry as he realized the power in his hands. Neither he or anyone else could make one blade of grass grow, but he could turn the third planet of this sun into a desert and a dreariness like the third planet of another sun far, far away. The skipper came into the hold. He locked the entrance door behind him. "I got to the Coordinator," he said in a shaking voice. "I started enough trouble by reporting by scrambler. He talked to me. I showed him pictures. He's telling the Coms most of what I reported, saying that if they like they can try to blast us. If they try, and don't succeed, we can try to figure out what to do next." * * * * * The Com premiership was in some ways the equivalent of the office of Coordinator of the Western Defense Alliance. But the men who held the two posts were quite unlike and the amount of authority they could exercise was vastly different. The Com premier read, again, the newly arrived message from the Coordinator. The high officials he'd sent for came streaming into the room. Most of them had flimsies of the message in their hands. The Premier beamed at them.