Em was saying to my wife, "He was beside himself. There wasn't a thing he could do. I had to get him away from there and I thought you wouldn't mind if we flew over here and stayed with you till they've decided what to do." I walked over and said, "Hello, Guy. What's the matter?" He raised his head and then stood and shook hands. "It's a mess. The whole project will be ruined and we don't dare go near it." "What happened?" "Just as we set it off--" "Set what off?" "The rocket." "Rocket?" Guy groaned. "The _Venus_ rocket! Rocket Harold!" My wife interjected. "I was telling Guy we didn't know a thing about it because they haven't delivered our paper in weeks. I've complained--" I waved her to silence. "Go on," I demanded of Guy. "Just as I pushed the button and the hatch was closing, a flock of owls circled the ship. They started flying through the hatch and somehow they jammed it open." Em said to my wife, "There must have been a hundred of them. They kept coming and coming and flying into that hatch. Then they began dumping out all the recording instruments. The men tried to run a motor-driven ladder up to the ship and those owls hit the driver on the head and knocked him out with some kind of instrument." Guy turned his grief-stricken face to me. "Then the hatch closed and we don't dare go near the ship. It was supposed to fire in five minutes, but it hasn't. Those damned owls could have...." There was a glare in the east. We all turned and saw a brief streak of gilt pencil its way up the black velvet beyond the mountains. "That's it!" Guy shouted. "That's the ship!" Then he moaned. "A total loss." I grabbed him by the shoulders. "You mean it won't make it to Venus?" He jerked away in misery. "Sure, it will make it. The automatic controls can't be tampered with. But the rocket is on its way without any recording instruments or TV aboard. Just a load of owls." My son laughed. "Owls! My dad can tell you a thing or two." I silenced him with a scowl. He shut up, then danced off across the terrace. "Man, man! This is the biggest! The most--the greatest--the end!" * * * * * The phone was ringing. As I went to the box on the terrace, I grabbed my boy's arm. "Don't you breathe a word." He giggled. "The joke is on you, Pop. Why should I say anything? I'll just grin once in a while." "Now you cut that out." He held onto my arm and walked toward the phone box with me, half convulsed. "Wait till men land on Venus and find Venusians with a legend about their Great White Father in California. That's when I'll tell." The phone call was from a screaming psychotic who wanted Guy. I stood near Guy while he listened to the excited voice over the wire. Presently Guy said, "No, no. The automatic controls will correct for the delay in firing. It isn't that. It's just that there aren't any instruments.... What? What just happened? Calm down. I can't understand you."