circumstances, and know he didn't do, why, that gives you some valuable hints as to his deficiencies. As we see it, we've got a fighting chance of spoiling his game. Certainly of spoiling it long enough to allow Earth several more years to get a fleet of ships like this into operation and give him plenty of trouble."

Suddenly Burl felt more cheerful. At the back of his mind there had been a carefully concealed point of cold terror—he remembered the clean efficiency of the Sun-tap station, the evidence of a science far beyond that of Earth. He pressed the point. "Just what do we really know?"

Haines leaned back and rubbed his hands together. "There were several things that gave their weaknesses away. When we put it all together, we decided that the enemy represents some sort of limited advanced force or scouting group of a civilization still too far away to count in the immediate future. We decided that the enemy isn't too aware of our present abilities—that his intelligence service is poor as far as modern Earth is concerned. We figure he won't be able to act with any speed to repair the damages we make."

"Tell them how we worked that out," said Ferrati, who had begun to grow again the short black beard that Burl remembered he had worn on his famous expeditions.

"Well," said Haines, drawing the word out to build up suspense, "did you know that the station in the Andes, the one you cracked open, was built at least thirty years ago? And never put into operation in all that time?"

Burl was surprised. "Why ... I hadn't thought of it—but it could have been. That valley was so isolated and deserted, probably nobody would ever have spotted it.

"Right," Haines added, "and our investigation team studied the remains, the foundations, the layout, and we're sure it's been there at least three decades. That's one clue.

"The second clue was the relative flimsiness of the walls. The builders hadn't expected us to be able to blow them up. They were some sort of quick construction—a plastic, strong, but not able to hold up against blasting powder, let alone real heavy bombs or A-bombs.

"Now why was that? And the third clue, why didn't they have a repair system available, or at least some sort of automatic antiaircraft defense?"

Burl looked at Ferrati. The latter was watching him shrewdly to see if he could figure it out.

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