"He's radioactive, all right. Not much, but enough. But where does he get the radioactive material?"

"He uses ordinary matter," Four said. "He must have used up the few deposits of natural radioactives a long time ago."

"He uses ordinary substances on an atomic level?" Junior said unbelievingly.

Four nodded. "And that 'skin' of his--whatever it is he uses for skin--is more efficient in stopping particle emissions than several feet of lead."

Fred studied Fweep thoughtfully. "Maybe we could feed him enough enriched uranium from the pile to put him over the critical mass."

"And blow him up? I don't think it's possible, but even if it were, it might be a trifle more than disastrous for us." Four giggled at the thought.

Joyce glared at him furiously. "Four! Act your age! We've got to do something with him. It's preposterous that we should be detained here at the whim of a mere blob!"

"I don't figure it's a whim," Grampa said. "Circular gravity is what he's got to have for one reason or another, so he just naturally bends the space-time continuum around him--conscious or subconscious, I don't know. But protoplasm is always more efficient than machines, so the flivver won't move."

"I don't care why that thing does it," Joyce said icily. "I want it stopped, and the sooner the better. If it won't turn the gravity off, we'll just have to do away with it."

"How?" asked Four. "Fweep's skin is pretty close to impervious and you can't shoot him, stab him or poison him. He doesn't breathe, so you can't drown or strangle him. You can't imprison him; he 'eats' everything. And violence might be more dangerous to us than to him. Right now, Fweep is friendly, but suppose he got mad! He could lower his radioactive shield or he might increase the gravity by a few times. Either way, you'd feel rather uncomfortable, Grammy.""Don't call me 'Grammy!' Well, what are we going to do, just sit around and wait for that thing to die?"
"We'd have a long wait," Four observed. "Fweep is the only one of his kind on this planet."
"Well?"
"Probably he's immortal."
"And he doesn't reproduce?" Reba asked sympathetically.
"Probably not. If he doesn't die, there's no point in reproduction. Reproduction is nature's way of providing racial immortality to mortal creatures."
"But he must have some way of reproduction," Reba argued. "An egg or something. He couldn't just 

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